Plot or Ploy?

Plotting against the government has long been a national sport in Bolivia. And denouncing subversive plots--real or imagined--is the government's favorite way of knocking off political enemies. Last week Air Force General Rene Barrientos, 45, head of the military junta that ousted President Victor Paz Estenssoro last November, was suddenly crying plot as if he had invented the game. Barrientos' troops rounded up 26 of the ex-President's supporters and disarmed the 2,000-man national police. The cops, fumed Barrientos, while calling for reorganization of the force, were at the center of an insidious anti-government plot.

Guns & Burs. Was it on the level? Barrientos offered no convincing evidence of imminent revolution. But there could be no question about the loyalties of the national police. Paz Estenssoro created the police as his private political militia and as a counterweight to the military. Only Paz's abrupt departure prevented a bitter showdown between the police and the regular army; ever since, Paz's boys in green have ached to avenge him. This month when the army turned up two caches of machine guns, rifles and ammunition buried under police barracks in La Paz, Barrientos decided to rid himself once and for all of both the cops and a score of other pro-Paz cockleburs.

Even if Barrientos really had something to fear in the way of a coup, there was also plenty of political ploy in his reaction. His junta is expected to call presidential elections in another six to nine months, and Barrientos is running hard for the top job. Widely popular within the military and among the peasants, he spends almost as much time on the stump as he does behind his desk. Nothing suits him so much as jumping behind the controls of an air force DC-3 and flying off to some remote pocket of the Andean country to shake hands and slap backs.

Guarantees & Incentive. His recently organized party, the Popular Christian Movement, is small; but Barrientos has won support from the Christian Democrats, Social Christians and the right-wing Falange. He preaches anti-Communism and friendship for the U.S.--just as Paz did. But he decries what he calls Paz's "corruption" and "police-state control." Says his Minister of Economy: "What we want is a mixed economy with guarantees and incentives for private enterprise, and the government as promoter and regulator, as it is in the U.S."

For a starter, Barrientos is drafting a major reform of the country's vital tin-mining industry that will break the government's twelve-year monopoly on tin-ore exporting and create a free market to encourage more small-and medium-sized operators.

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