We pick up our series on the political history of Bolivia in 1943 with the government of Major Gualberto Villarroel López, which ended in violence and his assassination a few years later. The country continued to have coup after coup. In 1967, Che Guevara tried to start a revolution in the country, which ended up with his execution by the CIA.

Outrage at Che’s execution lead to a leftist coup in Bolivia under General Juan José Torres – but that was overthrown when Henry Kissinger urged the CIA to “crank up an operation, post-haste.” This resulted a new right-wing military coup, lead by Colonel Hugo Banzer. Torres was arrested, tortured and executed as part of Operation Condor, the U.S.-supported campaign of political repression by South American right-wing dictators, and which ran during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and the Reagan administrations, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people.

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