The Same Scissors

Down the steep cobbled streets of La Paz, coca-chewing Indians trotted under huge packs of bundled alpaca hides. In the market sun, Indian women in outlandish derby hats and bright-colored skirts haggled over little piles of shelled corn. It was winter, the good time in the Andes. The Indians (who comprise two-thirds of all Bolivians) were not even aware that political storms threatened the peace of La Paz.

But among Bolivia's propertied rulers, the one-in-ten who have a vote, there was crisis. The uneasy coalition of "national unity" that President Enrique Hertzog set up as an aftermath to last year's lamppost revolution had nearly collapsed.

Conservatives, long weary of seeing a Marxist preside over the Chamber of Deputies, had worked up the strength to oust Jose Antonio Arze, the green-eyed ex-Williams College professor who is also boss of the Left Revolutionary Party (P.I.R.). That very evening, when the President entertained the Cabinet and others at dinner, the two P.I.R. ministers chilled the turkey by handing in their resignations. Next day Foreign Minister Luis Fernando Guachalla, whom Hertzog nosed out of the presidency last January, by only 279 votes, also called it quits.

Hastily Hertzog summoned his Conservatives, told them that busting his coalition would be the best way of bringing the totalitarian followers of the late Dictator Gualberto Villarroel to power. That did the trick. He reformed his Government of national unity in time for Guachalla, again Foreign Minister, to go to Rio for Bolivia. But he still had not found a place for Arze.

Last week President and onetime Physician Hertzog was calmly prescribing for the colds of palace callers. The barefooted Indians still swarmed unconcerned past the palace windows. Cracked Juan Pacheco, a cholo fruit vendor: "I know nothing about this mess, but all politicians are cut with the same scissors. They would give their necks to stay in power--and maybe they will."

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