BARRIENTOS
REVEALS ANOTHER "SUBVERSIVE" PLOT
General René Barrientos is not finding it easy to consolidate his dictatorial junta. Besides the opposition of the workers and the peasantry, he is continually beset by the most diabolical plots.
In the latest one, if we are to believe the general, former president Paz Estenssoro. and former vice-president Juan Lechfn Oquendo, both of whom were exiled by Barrientos, have "hatched a vast subversive plan" with the aim of "overthrowing the present authorities."
Estenssoro and Lechfn are bitter political foes and have been for some time. But no matter; Barrientos revealed July 15 that the two had put their heads together. And Colonel Oscar Quiroga Teran, minister of the interior, issued an official statement confirming the revelations made by Barrientos:
"baz Estenssoro himself conceived a plan to overthrow the military junta. The ex-president as well as Federico Fortuny and Augusto Cuadros Sanchez signed a check for $30,000 payable in a Swiss bank, This money was intended for political exiles who. received an order to utilize it for attempts at subversion."
The skill of the conspirators is something to marvel at! Estenssoro, who is in Paraguay, opens up a joint bank account in Switzerland that requires two signatures plus his own to validate a check for $30,000 to finance "attempts" at subversion in Bolivia!
Perhaps the strangest bit, however, is the failure of Quiroga to report on what finally happened in the last plot uncovered by his department. This was reported to the press only last May [see World Outlook May 28]. In that plot Luigi Longo, the head of the Italian Communist party, allegedly wrote three letters in a strange cryptogram -- to which he attached his' signature -=- giving instructions on how to use $25,000 which he sent to Lechin for "subversive" purposes in Bolivia,
The "Communist" plot in Bolivia is getting thicker and thicker...
ECUADOR