The Bolivian coup of last July violently interrupted a two-and-a-half-year experiment in democracy that was showing heartening signs of success. Indeed, following twelve years of military rule, democracy had begun to reopen the developing society's doors to some new possibilities for social change – possibilities that were brutalized by the military's seizure of power.

The new regime soon gained international notoreity as news leaked out of cocaine smuggling by top junta members; of the Argentine military's technical and material assistance to the coup; and the unprecedented, for Bolivia, scale of human rights violations and repression accompanying the military takeover. Despite Bolivia's reputation as a chronically coup-ridden country, it has become apparent that, in many ways, this coup is different.