Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Bolivia enters the Chaco War against Paraguay over a border dispute for control of the
potentially huge deposits of oil eyed by rival foreign oil companies.
1935-38
A ceasefire in the Chaco War is negotiated in 1935, at which time Paraguay controls
much of the region. A 1938 truce awards Paraguay three-quarters of the Chaco.
1942
Hundreds of trade-union laborers are shot down by government troops at a Catavi tin-
mining complex while striking for better wages and conditions. The fight for labor
rights is on.
1952
A military coup provokes a popular armed revolt by the miners, known as the April
Revolution. After heavy fighting the military is defeated and Víctor Paz Estenssoro
takes power.
1964
After trying and failing for 12 years to raise the standard of living, the MNR's popular-
ity wanes, and Víctor Paz Estenssoro's government is finally forced out by a military
junta.
1967
Argentine revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, having failed to foment a peasant re-
volt in Bolivia, is exe- cuted by a US-backed military squad in the hamlet of La
Higuera.
1975
Operation Condor, a clandestine program to subvert commun- ist movements and sup-
port right-wing governments in South America, gets its blackwater beginnings. Some
attribute 60,000 deaths to Condor.
1978
