Luis García Meza facts for kids

Luis García Meza
Quick facts for kids
57th President of Bolivia
In office 17 July 1980 – 4 August 1981
Vice President	Vacant
Preceded by	Lidia Gueiler (interim)
Succeeded by	Celso Torrelio
Personal details
Born	Luis García Meza Tejada (1929-08-08)8 August 1929 La Paz, Bolivia
Died	29 April 2018(2018-04-29) (aged 88) La Paz, Bolivia
Spouses	Eldy Caballero Olma Cabrera
Children	3
Parents	Luis García Meza Crespo Alicia Tejada
Relatives	José Luis Tejada Sorzano (uncle) Lidia Gueiler (cousin)
Education	Military College of the Army
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Bolivia
Branch/service	Bolivian Army
Years of service	1952–1981
Rank	General

Luis García Meza Tejada (8 August 1929 – 29 April 2018) was a Bolivian general who served as the de facto 57th president of Bolivia from 1980 to 1981. He was a dictator convicted of human rights violations and leader of a violent coup. A native of La Paz, he was a career military officer who rose to the rank of general during the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer (1971–78).

Prelude to dictatorship

García Meza graduated from the military academy in 1952, and served as its commander from 1963 to 1964. He then rose to division commander in the late 1970s.

He became leader of the right-wing faction of the military of Bolivia most disenchanted with the return to civilian rule. Many of the officers involved had been part of the Hugo Banzer dictatorship and disliked the investigation of economic and human right abuses by the new Bolivian congress. Moreover, they tended to regard the decline in popularity of the Carter administration in the United States as an indicator that soon a Republican administration would replace it—one more amenable to the kind of pro-US, more hardline anti-communist dictatorship they wanted to reinstall in Bolivia.

Coup d'état

1980 Bolivian coup d'état
Date 17 July 1980 Location Bolivia Status Lidia Gueiler overthrown
Belligerents
Bolivian government Supported by:  Soviet Union  United States	Bolivian Armed Forces Supported by:  Argentina  Brazil  Chile  Peru
Commanders and leaders
Lidia Gueiler Tejada	Luis García Meza Tejada

This group pressured President Lidia Gueiler (his cousin) to install General García Meza as Commander of the Army. Within months, the Junta of Commanders headed by García Meza forced a violent coup d'état on 17 July 1980. When portions of the citizenry resisted, as they had done in the failed putsch of November 1979, it resulted in dozens of deaths.

Dictatorship, 1980-81

Of rightwing ultra-conservative anti-communist persuasion, García Meza endeavored to bring a Pinochet-style dictatorship that was intended to last 20 years. He immediately outlawed all political parties, exiled opposition leaders, repressed trade unions and muzzled the press. He was backed by former SS officer and Nazi German war criminal Klaus Barbie and Italian neofascist Stefano Delle Chiaie. Further collaboration came from other European neofascists, most notoriously Spanish Ernesto Milá Rodríguez.

The García Meza regime, while brief (its original form ended in 1981), became internationally known for its extreme brutality. The population was repressed in the same ways as under the Banzer dictatorship. In January 1981, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs named the García Meza regime, "Latin America's most errant violator of human rights after Guatemala and El Salvador." Some 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed by the Bolivian Army and security forces in only 13 months. The administration's chief repressor was the Minister of Interior, Colonel Luis Arce, who cautioned that all Bolivians who opposed the new order should "walk around with their written will under their arms."

Exile and jail

García Meza left the country but was tried and convicted in absentia for the serious human rights violations committed by his regime. In 1995, he was extradited to Bolivia from Brazil and was given a 30-year prison sentence, in the same penitentiary where he once kept his enemies. His main collaborator, Colonel Arce, was extradited to the United States, where he served a prison sentence.

Death

García Meza died in La Paz on April 29, 2018, of a heart attack at the age of 88.

See also

In Spanish: Luis García Meza para niños

• Cabinet of Luis García Meza
• Roberto Suárez Goméz