Lydia Gueiler

Lydia Gueiler Tejada (Cochabamba, August 28, 1921-La Paz, May 9, 2011) was a Bolivian accountant and politician. She served as president of the Republic of Bolivia from 1979 to 1980, becoming the first woman to preside over Bolivia and the second woman in the history of Latin America to assume the presidency of a country, after María Estela Martínez de Perón acceded to the presidency. of Argentina on July 1, 1974. He stood out for his fight for political and social causes, defense of peace and equality of the sexes. Upon her death, she was dismissed as one of the icons of the recovery of the rule of law.

Personal life

Her father was the Swiss-German Moisés Gueiler, who died two years after Lidia's birth. Her mother, Raquel Tejada Albornoz, had forbidden her to cry as a child because she said that "crying in Bolivia is a kind of a national sport that should begin to be eliminated." Lidia Gueiler was one of the few women who at that time studied at the American Institute in her hometown and obtained the title of general accountant. From her youth, she dedicated herself especially to sports, standing out in tennis.During the Chaco War, she dedicated herself for a time to writing letters for women who did not know how to write and who had relatives on the battlefield.

At the age of 19, she married Captain Mareirian Pérez-Ramírez, a Paraguayan officer who ended up being imprisoned in Cañada Strongest during the Chaco War. When the war with Paraguay ended, she went to live with her husband in Asunción, where María Teresa, her only daughter, was born. “I have only one daughter. Since she was in school, she stayed in boarding. Since I was already separated from her father, I left her internal and dedicated myself fully to her politics and she is the one who suffered the consequences of it ». Her marriage to the Paraguayan officer did not last and Lidia returned to Bolivia in the early 1940s.

Gueiler was the first cousin of American actress Raquel Welch (née Raquel Tejada).

Political career

Back in Bolivia, he settled in La Paz and in mid-1942 he began working at the Central Bank of Bolivia.

Starting in 1948, when Lidia was 27 years old, she was a member of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) where she helped organize the so-called groups of honor, Emenrist cells that would later act during the Bolivian Revolution of November 9. April 1952.

In April 1951, during the government of Mamerto Urriolagoitia, she participated in a hunger strike at the Palace of Justice in La Paz, together with 27 other women affiliated with the MNR, to demand the release of fellow prisoners and exiles, in addition to the return of Víctor Paz Estenssoro, head of the MNR who was in exile in Buenos Aires.

He participated in the 1952 revolution assisting the wounded, but he also had to distribute weapons to the revolutionaries.

In 1953, she was accused of conspiring to kill President Víctor Paz Estenssoro. After this accusation, she was appointed secretary of the Bolivian Consulate General in Hamburg and later a civil attaché at the diplomatic mission in Bonn, where she was finally appointed ambassador.

In 1963 she was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Party of the Nationalist Left (PRIN). In 1978 she joined the Left Revolutionary Front, returning to the MNR the following year, when she was elected deputy for the department of La Paz, and on that occasion she was president of the Chamber of Deputies.

In 1957, on behalf of the then Bolivian government, she attended the Meeting of Technicians and Leaders of the Women's Labor Offices, which took place in Mexico.

She was a deputy in the legislatures 1956-1960 and 1960-1964. In 1963 she joined the Revolutionary Party of the Nationalist Left (PRIN) founded by Juan Lechín; She was a member of it until the 1970s, when she returned to her party of origin, the MNR. She ended up being exiled to the city of Santiago de Chile during the government of General Barrientos Ortuño.

On November 1, 1979, General Alberto Natusch Busch overthrew the interim government of Walter Guevara Arze in a bloody coup. In reaction, a popular uprising led by the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) took place, which in turn generated widespread violent repression, including the Todos Santos Massacre, where the police and the army murdered more than 100 people and made "disappear » (that is, they imprisoned and tortured to death) 30 more. Fifteen days later (on November 16, 1979), popular resistance forced Natusch Busch to return power to Congress, which elected Gueiler as interim constitutional president of the Republic, until the elections of June 29 of the following year (1980)..

On June 7, 1980, a colonel from the presidential escort regiment Waldo Ballivián, named Estrada, attempted to assassinate Lidia Gueiler at the presidential residence. Colonel Estrada was intoxicated and tried to break down the door of the president's bedroom with rifle butts. An aide to the head of state prevented the soldier from killing Gueiler.

A week before the elections, there was a right-wing terrorist attack that blew up the plane in which several leaders of the leftist Democratic and Popular Unity (UDP) were traveling on an electoral campaign. Contrary to what was expected by the coup sectors, the attack increased the popularity of the leftist leader, Hernán Siles (ex-MNR) in the elections. On July 17, 1980, the democratic process was interrupted once again, when Lidia Gueiler was overthrown and exiled by Luis García Meza in a new bloody coup d'état with the participation and support of the Argentine Armed Forces (who were perpetrating a bloody dictatorship civic-military (1976-1983), to prevent the assumption of Hernán Siles.

After her departure from the presidency, she served as ambassador to Colombia, during the presidency of Hernán Siles. She was elected Senator representing Cochabamba, by the MIR New Majority movement, and ambassador again, this time in Venezuela, between 1990 and 1993, when she retired from public service.

Women's rights

Lidia Gueiler stood out in her career in the defense of democracy and the participation of women. She was a leader of women's organizations in Bolivia and represented the country before the Inter-American Commission of Women.

She published Women and the Revolution (1960), as well as her autobiography My Passion as a Leader (2000). She was responsible for the institution of October 11 as Bolivian Women's Day, in homage to the writer Adela Zamudio (1854-1928).

One of the great wishes of Lidia Gueiler in the XX century, was to consolidate the leading role in the future of women in the history of Bolivia. However, it would not be until November 2019, almost 40 years after her mandate, that Bolivia would have the second female president in its history, after the interim assumption of Jeanine Añez.

Death

Retired from political activity, Lidia Gueiler died on May 9, 2011 in the city of La Paz at the age of 89 from a cardiorespiratory arrest. The then president of Bolivia, Evo Morales Ayma, and the then, vice president, Álvaro García Linera, attended his wake. Evo Morales declared that he was moved by the death of former President Gueiler, whom he described as a "fighter for the democratic rights of Bolivians"; Pedro Montes, executive secretary of the Central Obrera Boliviana, mourned the death of the former president and expressed his condolences to his family for the irreparable loss of a "woman in struggle."

Awards and Honors

He received more than twenty distinctions, including the Los Andes condor and the Andrés Bello award.