REVOLT IN BOLIVIA.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20476, 30 November 1934, Page 1

REVOLT IN BOLIVIA.

President Arrested on Gran ] Chaco Front. CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received November 30, 11.30 a.m.) LA PAZ (Bolivia), November 29. President Salamanca resigned to-day, less than twenty-four hours after VicePresident Sorzano had announced that he was assuming the direction of public affairs. WASHINGTON, November 28. A sudden overturn of the Bolivian Government was disclosed to-day through advices received here that Dr Daniel Salamanca, the President, had been arrested by troops on the Gran Chaco warfront, apparently as part of a carefully-planed coup d’etat. The Vice-President, Senor Jose Luis, Tejada Sorzano, was reported to have seized control of the capital, La Paz. A censorship was clamped down in La Paz and the advices, which were brief, are not confirmed. Dr Salamanca apparently was seized when he travelled to the Chaco front in an effort to replace the Commander-in-Chief of the Bolivian Army, who recently suffered reverses. The President-elect, Senor Tamayo, President Salamanca’s two daughters and the Minister for War are also reported to have been arrested. By a Constitution of 1880 the President of Bolivia is elected for four years by direct popular vote. A revolution in June, 1930, drove President Hernando Siles into exile and the regime of a military junta under General Blanco Galindo brought about a reorganisation of the administrative services. At an election on January 5, 1931, Dr Salamanca was elected President on a Union ticket and a Liberal Congress was chosen, which on September 15 approved of constitutional reforms providing for decentralisation of government, habeas corpus and autonomy for the judiciary. Bolivian finances have been hard hit by the disastrous decline in world consumption of tin, Bolivia’s principal wealth and export; and recently the nation suffered a severe reverse in the war with Paraguay in the Gran Chaco.