Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 25 May 1973
Bolivia: blowback
The revelation that Colonel Selich's death was not accidental has unexpectedly turned it into President Banzer's most serious crisis yet.
The apparently convenient death of the extreme right-wing Colonel Andres Selich Chop blew up in President Hugo Banzer's face last week, and brought him face to face with the most serious crisis since he came to power 21 months ago. So far from being an accident, through falling downstairs while handcuffed in police custody, it turned out that Selich was in fact beaten to death by his interrogators from the ministry of the interior. There is nothing unusual about this in Bolivia, as a macabre confession by the interrogators revealed (they only wanted to make him talk, they said, and had no intention of doing him serious injury, far less killing him, for which they humbly apologized).
What is unusual is that this fate should have overtaken a former minister of the interior, and a tough right-winger at that. But what is unprecedented is that the 'accident' cover-up should have failed, and that the current interior minister, Alfredo Arce Carpio, should have revealed the truth in an astonishingly frank admission. One possible answer could lie in the difficulty of preventing leaks from medical sources after last-minute first aid attempts to save Selich.
The immediate beneficiaries of the Selich affaire were the Falange Socialista Boliviana (FSB), which has been trying to force the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), its partners in the ruling Frente Popular Nacionalista (FPN) out of the government. Selich's death coincided with the brutal massacre of falangistas by MNR peasant militias in 1958 at Terebinto, and this helped to stoke FSB emotions. They succeeded in securing Arce's resignation, though so far little else.
Banzer has in fact been showing a proper sense of priorities by spending most of his time soothing the outrage of army officers, who have the power to make or break him. Selich may not have been a popular officer, but he was a colonel and former commander of the crack Rangers regiment, and his squalid death at the hands of mere interrogators was an insult to military honour. They were somewhat appeased by the appointment of two army officers to important posts -- Colonel Walter Castro as interior minister, and Colonel Raul Tejerina as police chief. The police were upset by having an army man put in command of them, but the MNR, who objected to his predecessor's pro-Falange sentiments, were pleased.
Another blow to the government came with a demand by ex-President Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, chairman of the commission for justice and peace, a Catholic lay body for the defence of human rights, for a full enquiry. Siles Salinas has little political following, but a rare reputation for honesty.But his demand, which undoubtedly had strong popular support, appears to have been temporarily satisfied with the appointment of a commission of enquiry presided over by archbishop Jorge Manrique of La Paz -- itself an unusual move for a prelate.
Banzer may have been helped by the left-wing supporters of ex-President Juan Jose Torres, in exile in Santiago, who seized the opportunity to attack his regime. By pointing to the 'red threat' next door, Banzer seems to have persuaded the armed forces to swallow their outrage and continue their support for his FPN coalition. All the same, he was certainly wise to cancel his planned trip to Buenos Aires, where he was to have attended the inauguration of President Campora.
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