Aftermath of a Coup

In La Paz the victory over tyranny was being consolidated. Students and teachers, ordinary citizens, tin barons and tin miners alike supported the efforts of the revolutionary Junta. TIME Correspondent Frank Norris traveled up from Buenos Aires with returning exiles to report the scene:

Under the Joseph Urban sky of this 2 1/2-mile-high city, the lampposts are gaily decorated with huge red, green and yellow rosettes with strings of light bulbs between. These were put up to celebrate Bolivia's Independence Day. The ornaments are in grotesque contrast with the spirit of the city.

Today the citizenry thronged the Plaza Murillo, not to gape at the bullet-shattered facade of the Presidential Palace--nor even to stare at the Junta members working inside the smashed windows of the second floor--but to attend High Mass at the Cathedral next door. La Paz is bewildered and aghast at the violence of the last weekend. There has been an immense religious revival. At last Friday's Mass for the dead of both sides, the Plaza was absolutely packed. Even the men knelt to the Host, a rare phenomenon in Spanish America.

Grade-school kids have been directing street traffic, two or three to a kiosk, with more safety and celerity than anyone remembered. Today the workers' unions took over so the kids could go home and get some sleep. The university students, who operate in spontaneous, well-disciplined cadres of ten, haven't had much sleep either. There were over 1,300 of them (many are now dead), and they still hold themselves responsible for law and order.

Four students were on duty across from the small, grey Ruskin-Gothic Peruvian Embassy. They knew that it was giving asylum to ex-Mayor Juan Luis Gutierrez Granier, in whose municipality, it was said, students were tortured and killed last week. A swell-looking kid of 19 had an old Mauser rifle with a sling made of heavy twine. He had on two overcoats and a north woods peaked wool cap. How long was he going to stand there? Until Gutierrez came out. He thought there would be a try that night. It was cold as hell, but even the rifleman's three assistants, armed with staves, looked determined.

At week's end exiled factions of both right and left were still trooping back from abroad. The staff of urbane, British-mannered tin baron Carlos Victor Aramayo came up from Argentina. Jose Antonio Arze, head of the strong P.I.R. (Leftist Revolutionary Party) arrived from Santiago. Somewhere between their two groups, Bolivians might find representative government. Promised the Junta: "We will call elections and then turn over our power to a government chosen by the people."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.