Catavi Massacre and MNR repression

The United States's problem of combating "subversion" had come to the fore in 1943, when Bolivian mine owners called on government troops to suppress striking tin miners, killing hundreds of them in the "Catavi massacre." There was no US reaction until the nationalist, anti-oligarchic, pro-labor National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) deposed the dictatorship a year later. The US denounced the new regime as "pro-fascist" (on flimsy pretexts) and as opposed to "Anglo-Yankee imperialism" (accurately, in this case), demanded that all MNR members be excluded from positions of power, and quickly secured its overthrow in favor of a military government. A State Department memo identified one decisive theme: the mine owners, it observed, are afraid of the MNR's "announced intention to interest itself in the betterment of the workers, fearing this can only be done at the expense of the mining interests."

Year 501