Alberto Natusch Busch (May 23, 1933, in Beni,

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

– November 23, 1994, in Santa Cruz,

) was a

n general who served briefly as the ''de facto'' 55th

president of Bolivia The president of Bolivia (), officially known as the president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (), is head of state and head of government of Bolivia and the captain general of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. According to the Bolivian C ...

in 1979.

Background and earlier career

Alberto Natusch Busch and General Terrazas

Natusch is of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

and French descent, and nephew of former

President of Bolivia The president of Bolivia (), officially known as the president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (), is head of state and head of government of Bolivia and the captain general of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. According to the Bolivian C ...

Germán Busch Víctor Germán Busch Becerra (23 March 1903 – 23 August 1939) was a Bolivian military officer and statesman who served as the 36th president of Bolivia from 1937 until his death in 1939. Prior to his presidency, he served as the Chief of t ...

and the grandson of Pablo Busch, he was a career military officer who in the late 1970s rose to the rank of Colonel in the

Bolivian Army The Bolivian Army () is the land force branch of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. Figures on the size and composition of the Bolivian army vary considerably, with little official data available. It is estimated that the army has between 26,000 and 6 ...

. He was for many years a trusted member of the cabinet of the military dictator Hugo Banzer.

President of Bolivia following military coup

On November 1, 1979, Colonel Natusch executed a bloody

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

against the constitutional government of Dr.

Wálter Guevara Wálter Guevara Arze (March 11, 1912 in Ayopaya Province, Cochabamba Department, Bolivia – June 20, 1996 in La Paz, Bolivia) was a Bolivian statesman, cabinet minister, writer, and diplomat, who served as the 54th president of Bolivia on an ...

, which had been constituted by Congress just three months earlier and charged with guiding the country to elections in 1980. The stated reasons for the ''golpe'' were the alleged desire of President Guevara to extend his term beyond that established by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

in order to enact long-term measures designed to stave off a growing economic crisis. Far more likely, it was a traditional right-wing coup staged by officers who had served in the long dictatorship of General Hugo Banzer (1971–78) and who had much to lose by an ongoing congressional investigation of alleged criminal and economic misdeeds committed during the "Banzerato." In any case, the population resisted the Natusch coup rather heroically, led by a nationwide labor strike called by the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) of

Juan Lechín Juan Lechín Oquendo (18 May 1914 – 27 August 2001) was a trade union, labor-union leader and head of the Federación Sindical de Trabajadores Mineros de Bolivia, Federation of Bolivian Mine Workers (FSTMB) from 1944 to 1987 and the Central Ob ...

Failure of coup after 16 days

In the end, Natusch was able to occupy the

Palacio Quemado The Bolivian Palace of Government, better known as (, ''Burnt Palace''), was the official residence of the President of Bolivia from 1853 to 2018 and again briefly from 2019 to 2020. It is located in downtown La Paz on Plaza Murillo, next to ...

for only sixteen days, after which he was forced to give up his quixotic struggle. The only face-saving concession he extracted from Congress was the promise that former president Guevara not be allowed to resume his duties. This condition was accepted and a new provisional president was found in the leader of the lower congressional house (the House of Deputies), Mrs.

Lidia Gueiler Lidia Gueiler Tejada (28 August 1921 – 9 May 2011) was a Bolivians, Bolivian politician who served as the 56th president of Bolivia on an interim basis from 1979 to 1980. She was Bolivia's first female Head of State, and the second female hea ...

. Almost universally reviled for the bloodshed he unleashed in the name of his personal ambitions, Colonel Natusch withdrew from public life. In 1981, he led a military revolt against the regime of

Luis García Meza Tejada Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

, while failing to overthrow the regime, led to the resignation of Garcia Meza and his replacement by Celso Torrelio.

Retirement and death

Retired from the military, Natusch died in Santa Cruz on November 23, 1994, at the age of 61.

References

Bibliography