Alfredo Ovando Candía
Encyclopedia
Alfredo Ovando Candía was a Bolivia
n president and dictator (1964-66 and 1969-70), general
and political figure.
against Paraguay
. Originally rather apolitical, he was chosen (among others) to lead the reconstituted Armed Forces of Bolivia in the aftermath of the 1952 Revolution that installed in power the reformist Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
party, better known as the MNR. Ovando lived through the relative deprivation, reduced budgets, and loss of prestige of the defeated Bolivian army during the early years of MNR rule. By the early 1960s, President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
came to rely more heavily on the military in the face of growing political divisions among the governing elites. Equally as important in this rebirth was the considerable pressure exerted by the United States to modernize and equip the troops for a decidedly more political role: that of fighting possible Cuba-styled Communist insurgencies.
, toppled Paz from power. They ruled together in a Junta (sometimes called "The Co-Presidency) until January of 1966, when Barrientos resigned in order to register himself as a candidate. At that point Ovando became sole President, leading the country to the elections from which the popular Barrientos emerged victorious. With the new president having taken the oath of office in August, 1966, Ovando returned to his post as Commander of the Bolivian Air Forces.
The worries proved unnecessary, for Barrientos perished in a tragic helicopter crash on April 27, 1969. His Vice-President, a little-known Christian-Democrat politician named Luis Adolfo Siles
, was sworn as President soon thereafter, in accordance to the Constitution. Siles' poor relations with Ovando led Siles to support the candidacy of the popular Mayor of La Paz, Armando Escobar, as the true successor of the now constantly eulogized Barrientos, threatening to spoil the carefully laid plans of Ovando. Furthermore, Ovando had been undergoing a political metamorphosis, and had come to conclude that he had to move to the Left in order to be acceptable as President in the ideologically super-charged atmosphere of the late 1960s. The changes he planned to institute could be difficult to enact in the presence of a potentially hostile Congress. For these reasons, Ovando decided not to wait for the elections (which no one could guarantee he could win, with the popular Escobar as candidate) and on September 26, 1969, he executed a coup d'état that overthrew Siles.
and Panama's Omar Torrijos.
Ovando's populist stance surprised many conservative members of the Bolivian military and failed to fully satisfy the increasingly more belligerent forces of the Left, especially the workers and students. Worse, the military (in whose name he served) had become polarized, with some sectors supporting the President and even calling for a further leftward turn (General Juan José Torres
) and others criticizing Ovando and urging a more conservative, anti-Communist, and pro U.S. stance (General Rogelio Miranda
). In June 1970, a new Marxist guerrilla emerged in the lowlands near La Paz, this time constituted mostly by Bolivian university students aligned with the outlawed Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army, or ELN). The new guerrilla outbreak was easily controlled, but Ovando's response had been rather vacillating and timid. He offered a generous safe haven to guerrillas who gave up the fight, for example, in contrast to Barrientos' call for "heads on spikes" in 1967. The forces of the right had had enough.
took place via a junta of commanders of the Bolivian Military
. However, the polarized forces of the military were evenly split. Much blood was shed on the streets of various major cities, with garrisons fighting each other on behalf of one camp or the other. Eventually, President Ovando sought asylum in a foreign embassy, believing all hope was lost. But the leftist military forces re-asserted themselves under the combative leadership of General Juan José Torres
, and eventually triumphed. Embarrassed by his quick abandonment of the fight, and worn out by 13 grueling months in office, Ovando agreed to leave the presidency in the hands of his friend, General Torres. The latter was sworn in and rewarded Ovando with the Bolivian ambassadorship in Spain
. Ovando remained in Madrid
until 1978, when he returned to Bolivia. In his latter years, he supported the progressive UDP
alliance of former President Hernán Siles
, but otherwise never participated in active politics again. He died in La Paz on January 4, 1982.
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
n president and dictator (1964-66 and 1969-70), general
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
and political figure.
Early years
Ovando started his long military career in the early 1930s, when he served in the Chaco WarChaco War
The Chaco War was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over control of the northern part of the Gran Chaco region of South America, which was incorrectly thought to be rich in oil. It is also referred to as La Guerra de la Sed in literary circles for being fought in the semi-arid Chaco...
against Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
. Originally rather apolitical, he was chosen (among others) to lead the reconstituted Armed Forces of Bolivia in the aftermath of the 1952 Revolution that installed in power the reformist Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
Revolutionary Nationalist Movement
The Revolutionary Nationalist Movement is a Bolivian political party, perhaps the most important in the country during the 20th century. At the legislative elections in 2002, the party won, in an alliance with the Free Bolivia Movement, 26.9% of the popular vote and 36 out of 130 seats in the...
party, better known as the MNR. Ovando lived through the relative deprivation, reduced budgets, and loss of prestige of the defeated Bolivian army during the early years of MNR rule. By the early 1960s, President Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Víctor Paz Estenssoro
Ángel Víctor Paz Estenssoro was a politician and president of Bolivia. He ran for president 8 times , winning in 1951, 1960, 1964, and 1985....
came to rely more heavily on the military in the face of growing political divisions among the governing elites. Equally as important in this rebirth was the considerable pressure exerted by the United States to modernize and equip the troops for a decidedly more political role: that of fighting possible Cuba-styled Communist insurgencies.
The 1964 coup d'état and the co-presidency
When Paz Estenssoro amended the Constitution in 1964 in order to allow himself to run for re-election (a largely frowned-upon move in the largely personalistic world of Bolivian politics), General Ovando, along with the Vice-President and former head of the Air Force René BarrientosRené Barrientos
René Barrientos Ortuño was a Bolivian politician who served as his country's Vice President in 1964 and as its President from 1964 to 1969....
, toppled Paz from power. They ruled together in a Junta (sometimes called "The Co-Presidency) until January of 1966, when Barrientos resigned in order to register himself as a candidate. At that point Ovando became sole President, leading the country to the elections from which the popular Barrientos emerged victorious. With the new president having taken the oath of office in August, 1966, Ovando returned to his post as Commander of the Bolivian Air Forces.
Armed forces commander and president-in-waiting, 1966-69
Uncharismatic but tenacious, Ovando was bidding his time, counting on the fact that he would be the logical choice to run for elections once Barrientos' term ended in 1970, perhaps with some electoral "help" from the outgoing administration. Soon, major differences emerged between Ovando and the president, however, especially in regard to the massacre of miners at Siglo XX in June of 1967, and the so-called Arguedas Affair of 1968. In early 1967, a guerrilla force had been discovered to be operating in the rural Bolivian southwest under the leadership of the Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. While the insurgency was eventually put down by Bolivian military troops (with various disputed degrees of American help) and Guevara was captured and executed in October of 1967, the event fostered a major spin-off scandal that eruped in 1968. That year, Barrientos' trusted friend and Minister of Interior, Antonio Arguedas, disappeared with the captured diary of Che Guevara, which soon surfaced in, of all places, Havana. From abroad, Arguedas confessed himself to have been all along a clandestine Marxist supporter, and denounced Barrientos and many of his aides as being on the CIA's payroll. This event embarrassed Barrientos since it reflected poorly on his choices, and prompted Ovando to distance himself from the president with an eye to the projected 1970 elections.The worries proved unnecessary, for Barrientos perished in a tragic helicopter crash on April 27, 1969. His Vice-President, a little-known Christian-Democrat politician named Luis Adolfo Siles
Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas
Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas was the Constitutional President of Bolivia for a period of five months between April and September 1969.-Background and early life:...
, was sworn as President soon thereafter, in accordance to the Constitution. Siles' poor relations with Ovando led Siles to support the candidacy of the popular Mayor of La Paz, Armando Escobar, as the true successor of the now constantly eulogized Barrientos, threatening to spoil the carefully laid plans of Ovando. Furthermore, Ovando had been undergoing a political metamorphosis, and had come to conclude that he had to move to the Left in order to be acceptable as President in the ideologically super-charged atmosphere of the late 1960s. The changes he planned to institute could be difficult to enact in the presence of a potentially hostile Congress. For these reasons, Ovando decided not to wait for the elections (which no one could guarantee he could win, with the popular Escobar as candidate) and on September 26, 1969, he executed a coup d'état that overthrew Siles.
The 1969-70 Ovando dictatorship
Ovando's short (13 month) dictatorship was difficult and marked by political violence. Upon taking office, he declared himself in favor of fundamental changes aimed at enhancing the deplorable living conditions of the vast majority of Bolivians. To this end, he nationalized the Bolivian operations of the U.S.-based Gulf Oil Corporation and called on known leftist intellectuals to become part of his cabinet. Ovando also announced his political adherence to the principles espoused by other so-called "leftist military" regimes then in vogue in Latin America, foremost of which were the regimes of Peru's Juan VelascoJuan Velasco Alvarado
Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado was a left-leaning Peruvian General who ruled Peru from 1968 to 1975 under the title of "President of the Revolutionary Government."- Early life :...
and Panama's Omar Torrijos.
Ovando's populist stance surprised many conservative members of the Bolivian military and failed to fully satisfy the increasingly more belligerent forces of the Left, especially the workers and students. Worse, the military (in whose name he served) had become polarized, with some sectors supporting the President and even calling for a further leftward turn (General Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres González was a Bolivian socialist politician and military leader. He served as President of Bolivia from October 7, 1970 to August 21, 1971. He was popularly known as "J.J."...
) and others criticizing Ovando and urging a more conservative, anti-Communist, and pro U.S. stance (General Rogelio Miranda
Rogelio Miranda
Rogelio Miranda Valdivia was a Bolivian general. He was also Bolivia Ambassador to the United Kingdom .In 1970, Miranda lead a military coup against president Ovando, subsequently declaring himself as president over the junta that he was planning on installing...
). In June 1970, a new Marxist guerrilla emerged in the lowlands near La Paz, this time constituted mostly by Bolivian university students aligned with the outlawed Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army, or ELN). The new guerrilla outbreak was easily controlled, but Ovando's response had been rather vacillating and timid. He offered a generous safe haven to guerrillas who gave up the fight, for example, in contrast to Barrientos' call for "heads on spikes" in 1967. The forces of the right had had enough.
The October 1970 coup and retirement
On October 6, 1970, an anti-government coup d'étatCoup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
took place via a junta of commanders of the Bolivian Military
Junta of Commanders of the Armed Forces 1970 (Bolivia)
The Junta of Commanders of the Armed Forces was a military junta which ruled Bolivia from October 6, 1970 through October 7, 1970 and consisted of Efraín Guachalla Ibáñez, Fernando Sattori Ribera, Alberto Albarracín Crespo...
. However, the polarized forces of the military were evenly split. Much blood was shed on the streets of various major cities, with garrisons fighting each other on behalf of one camp or the other. Eventually, President Ovando sought asylum in a foreign embassy, believing all hope was lost. But the leftist military forces re-asserted themselves under the combative leadership of General Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres
Juan José Torres González was a Bolivian socialist politician and military leader. He served as President of Bolivia from October 7, 1970 to August 21, 1971. He was popularly known as "J.J."...
, and eventually triumphed. Embarrassed by his quick abandonment of the fight, and worn out by 13 grueling months in office, Ovando agreed to leave the presidency in the hands of his friend, General Torres. The latter was sworn in and rewarded Ovando with the Bolivian ambassadorship in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Ovando remained in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
until 1978, when he returned to Bolivia. In his latter years, he supported the progressive UDP
Unidad Democratica y Popular
The Democratic and Popular Union was a Bolivian umbrella political party uniting various smaller left-wing parties...
alliance of former President Hernán Siles
Hernán Siles Zuazo
Hernán Siles Zuazo was a politician from Bolivia. He served as his country's constitutionally elected president twice, from 1956 to 1960 and again from 1982 to 1985....
, but otherwise never participated in active politics again. He died in La Paz on January 4, 1982.
Sources
- Mesa José de; Gisbert, Teresa; and Carlos D. Mesa, "Historia De Bolivia," 5th edition., pp. 641-655.
- Prado Salmon, Gral. Gary. "Poder y Fuerzas Armadas, 1949-1982."