Rene Barrientos Ortuno

René Emilio Barrientos Ortuño (Tarata, Cochabamba, May 30, 1919-Arque, Cochabamba, April 27, 1969) was a Bolivian military and politician, the 47th president of Bolivia.

Biography

He did his primary studies in his hometown and then entered the convent of Tarata, but he left there soon since his personal tastes did not coincide with the monk's habit.

In 1938, at the age of 19, after a discussion with the principal of the convent, he decided to leave it with the idea of dedicating himself to a military career, traveling to the city of La Paz to enter the Military College of the Army, from where he returned as a second lieutenant in 1943. Later he also studied at the "Boquerón" Military Aviation School (currently called the Military Aviation College). In 1945 he studied as a pilot in the United States.

During the government of President Mamerto Urriolagoitia Harriague, he participated in the civil war of 1949 in favor of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), for which he was discharged from the Bolivian Armed Forces.

Three years later, in 1952, he was reinstated with the rank of captain. When the Bolivian Air Force (FAB) was created as a new branch of the Bolivian army in 1957, when he was already a general, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Bolivian Air Force.

He was elected Vice President of Bolivia accompanying President Víctor Paz Estenssoro in his third government, a position he took office on August 6, 1964. In the national strike from October 29 to 31, he was personally in charge of repressing the workers and miners, and three days later, on November 4, 1964, he staged a coup, betraying his own president.

Barrientos during a public event in La Paz.

He was appointed president of the Military Junta (1964-1965), the following year (1965) he had to accept a co-president, Alfredo Ovando Candía. In 1966, Barrientos was elected constitutional president. He led a government of economic development. He favored the peasants and faced off against the workers and miners. In 1967 he promulgated a new Political Constitution of the State, which was in force for 42 years, until 2009, when it was changed to the new Political Constitution of the State during the first government of President Evo Morales Ayma.

Che Guevara's Guerillas

On November 7, 1966, the guerrillas led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In March 1967, almost half a year after his arrival, Che and his group had their first clash with the Bolivian army at Ñancahuazú in the department of Santa Cruz. René Barrientos and the Chief of Staff, Alfredo Ovando Candia, devoted all their resources to crushing Commander "Che" Guevara. Contrary to what he expected, Guevara did not receive the help of the Bolivian peasantry; on the contrary, they gave full support to Barrientos.

Guevara noted in his "Diario de Bolivia", in this regard:

"The peasant base remains undeveloped although it seems that through planned terror, we will achieve the neutrality of the more, and the support will come later."

Ernesto Guevara, in his writings and speeches of 1967, Volume 3, Diario de Bolivia, p. 115.

In April 1967, Regis Debray was captured; in October the last surviving guerrillas fell, were captured or fled dispersed; "Che" wounded in combat, was shot hours later at the La Higuera school on October 9, 1967.

Human Rights

During his government, Barrientos appointed the Nazi war criminal from World War II Klaus Barbie, who called himself in Bolivia, Klaus Altmann, president of the State Shipping Society (Transmaritime), which at the time had a single boat, and which according to confidential information, was engaged in the illegal international arms trade. Barbie was also appointed by Barrientos as an advisor to the Bolivian Intelligence Services. The number of victims during his dictatorship was particularly high. According to Amnesty International, between 1966 and 1968 alone, several murders were carried out by death squads. Also including the so-called San Juan Massacre of 1967 in which members of the Bolivian Army attacked the population of the mining centers of Catavi and Siglo XX.

Death

Tomb of Barrientos in the General Cemetery of Cochabamba

Barrientos, called “The General of the People”, had broad popular peasant support; However, little is what he did during his term ^{[ citation needed ]} , as he dedicated himself more to politics and traveling weekly to all districts of the country, especially in the Cochabamba department. Barrientos was one of the few presidents of Bolivia who traveled almost the entire country.^{[citation required]}

Precisely on one of those trips, which took him away from the seat of government, he was assassinated by Faustino Ricotoro on behalf of Ovando Candia.^{[citation required]} The day April 27, 1969 Barrientos had visited the town of Arque and when his helicopter, called Holofernes was taking flight to return to the city of Cochabamba, it hit some telegraph cables, causing the helicopter to fall to the ground. and catching fire immediately. Barrientos died in the accident along with his aide-de-camp and the pilot. To date, the rumor that it was an accident has not been cleared up, since another version affirmed that the fall of the helicopter had been caused intentionally.

Immediately after Barrientos's death, his vice president Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas took over the presidency of Bolivia. The funeral of René Barrientos was one of the largest and most tremendous in the country, since all the people, from the peasantry to the middle class attended his funeral, perhaps very comparable and similar to the funeral that occurred 104 years earlier with former President Manuel Isidoro Belzu in 1865.^{[citation needed]}