[Deathwatch] Hugo Banzer, Former Bolivia President, 75

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Hugo Banzer, Bolivia's dictator turned democrat, dead at 75 
Sun May 5, 3:12 PM ET 
By VANESSA ARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer 

LA PAZ, Bolivia - Former President Hugo Banzer, a one-time dictator who
led Bolivia to democracy and helped wipe out cocaine production, died
of a heart attack Sunday. He was 75.
  
The two-time president, who was forced by cancer to resign from office
last August, is likely to be remembered both fondly and with distaste.

Supporters say he did more to strengthen Bolivian democracy than any of
his predecessors and his efforts to sharply reducing coca cultivation
won him praise in Washington. Critics, however, contend the former
dictator never lost his authoritarian streak, continuing to abuse human
rights and failing to help the Andean nation's poor, Indian majority
even as an elected leader.

"Hugo Banzer was the leader of the Nationalist Democratic Action party,
but he ended up being much more than that," a teary-eyed Jorge Quiroga,
Bolivia's president, said. "He ended up being an example for all
Bolivians, and for democracy in all of the country."

Quiroga's government declared 30 days of mourning, and ordered the city
of Santa Cruz, Banzer's home, to shut down for his funeral Monday.

A political survivor, the U.S.-trained soldier overcame 13 coup
attempts while he was dictator from 1971-78, leading a regime accused
of widespread human rights abuses.

After the era of Latin American dictatorships ended, he reinvented
himself as a democrat, running in every election in the 1980s and
1990s, before finally winning the presidency in 1997.

Banzer died Sunday morning surrounded by his family in Santa Cruz, a
tropical city in eastern Bolivia, after waking up in pain around
midnight, said his doctor, Freddy Terrazas.

A cigarette smoker, Banzer was diagnosed in July 2001 by doctors at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington with lung cancer that had
spread to his liver. He underwent chemotherapy treatments in
Washington.

The cancer forced him to resign as president on Aug. 6, 2001, a year
before his term ended. In an emotional ceremony, Banzer handed over the
presidential medallion and sash to Quiroga, then vice president, on
Bolivia's Independence Day.

"If you note some emotion in me, it is not from weakness nor fear of
anything," Banzer had said, his hands shaking and voice quivering, "but
rather because of the immense love I have for Bolivia."

In February, doctors announced that the cancer had spread to his brain
and throughout his body.

Banzer was born May 10, 1926, in Concepcion, a sleepy ranching town in
Santa Cruz province. Bound for a career in the military, he went to the
Bolivian Army Military High School in La Paz, graduating as a cavalry
lieutenant.

His lengthy relationship with the United States began when he was sent
to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas in Panama. He received more
U.S. training at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1960. After commanding the 4th
Cavalry Regiment in Bolivia for several years he was sent to Washington
as a military attache.

In 1964, Banzer was appointed minister of education and in 1969, he
became director of the military academy, a prestigious post he held
until dismissed in January 1971 by leftist president, Gen. Juan Jose
Torres.

The conservative Banzer began to rally other officers against Torres,
seizing the La Paz military headquarters in a failed coup that got him
exiled to Argentina. In August 1971, Banzer sneaked back into Bolivia
to lead a coup that ousted Torres, naming himself president.

Banzer's military rule ushered in violent repression of opponents.
Censors clamped down on the media, and in 1974 Banzer prohibited all
political activity.

Widely accepted figures say that during Banzer's 1971-78 tenure, 19,000
people sought asylum in foreign countries, 15,000 were arrested and at
least 200 were killed for political reasons.

Banzer was overthrown in 1978, but he helped establish his democratic
credentials in 1985 when he placed first in a presidential election but
with less than 50 percent. Rather than seize office, he stepped aside
and allowed Congress to constitutionally elect Victor Paz Estenssoro as
president.

In 1997, Banzer came in first again, and this time was democratically
voted into the presidency by Congress.

Though many praised Banzer for embracing democracy in his second term
as president, his past still haunted him.

Evidence presented in 1999 linked his previous regime to the notorious
Plan Condor, which allegedly involved joint operations among South
American military dictatorships in the 1970s aimed at kidnapping,
torturing and assassinating leftists and dissidents in Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Under Banzer's U.S.-backed Dignity Plan, the army in recent years wiped
out 106,000 acres of coca in the Chapare, once one of the world's
largest illegal coca-growing areas.

His commitment to taking Bolivia out of the South American
cocaine-circuit by 2002 won him unwavering support from some —
particularly the U.S. government — but others criticized the plan for
damaging the economy and leading to human rights abuses.