Bolivia, 1950 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
During July 1950 the conservative government of Bolivian President Mamerto Urriolagoitia suppressed a further series of rebellions, the latest in a chain of revolts the regime crushed through the sexenio as the outlawed MNR and radicalized labor pressed against it. The government had spent the first half of 1950 rolling from crisis to crisis: a state of siege declared in January after uncovering an MNR plot, communist and MNR risings put down in February and March, the banning of the Communist Party in April, and the deadly La Paz general strike clashes of 18 to 19 May. The July rebellions of 6 to 22 July were beaten in the same way, leaving Urriolagoitia in office.
His hard line held the oligarchic order together only until the May 1951 election, when the MNR's electoral victory drove him to hand power to a military junta rather than concede, the self-coup known as the Mamertazo.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
14507221950
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Mamerto Urriolagoitia survived the July rebellions unharmed and remained in office until his May 1951 self-coup handover.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Powell and Thyne
New York Times
Washington Post
Chicago Tribune
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →