Juan Jose Torres (5 March 1920-2 June 1976) was President of Bolivia from 7 October 1970 to 21 August 1971, succeeding Alfredo Ovando and preceding Hugo Banzer. He was murdered during the "Dirty War".
Biography[]
Juan Jose Torres was born on 5 March 1920 in Cochabamba, Bolivia to a family of mestizos descended from Aimaras. In 1964 he served as military attache to Brazil and from 1965 to 1966 was ambassador to Uruguay, and in September 1969 President Alfredo Ovando appointed him as his commander-in-chief. Known to be a man of the people, Torres was a leftist and overthrew Ovando's right-wing government, replacing the conservative dictatorship with socialism. However, the right-wingers saw him as leading the country to communism and the left-wingers saw him as becoming a military ruler; on 21 August 1971 General Hugo Banzer overthrew Torres, who went into exile in Argentina. On 2 June 1976 Torres was kidnapped and assassinated by death squads loyal to the Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla as a part of Operation Condor.