BANZER SUAREZ, HUGO

born July 10, 1926, Santa Cruz, Bolivia byname El Petiso (Spanish: The Short One) soldier, politician and president of Bolivia, 197178. Bnzer was educated at the Bolivian Army Military College and in two United States Army training schools. He served as minister of education from 1964 to 1966 in the cabinet of Pres. Ren Barrientos and as military attach in Washington from 1967 until 1969, when he returned to Bolivia to head the Military College. In successive governmental changes between right- and left-wing officers, the conservative Bnzer helped Gen. Rogelio Miranda overthrow Pres. Alfredo Ovando in September 1970; Bnzer himself overthrew the leftist Gen. Juan Jos Torres on Aug. 22, 1971. Bnzer encouraged of foreign investment, but his restrictive policies regarding union activity and constitutional liberties led to opposition from labour leaders, clergymen, peasants, and students. All opposition was severely repressed. In 1974 he survived two coup attempts and also suppressed a peasant uprising. Banzer declined to run for president in the 1978 elections, which were won by Gen. Juan Pereda Asbn amid universal charges of vote fraud (50,000 more votes were cast than there were registered voters). Pereda himself requested a new election, but before it could take place, he staged a coup, forcing Bnzer to resign on July 21, 1978. Exiled by Pereda to Argentina, Bnzer returned in 1979 and entered the presidential elections in both that year and 1985. In 1985 he won in the popular vote but lost in the subsequent run-off vote in the country's Congress.