Ecuador: Twice Foiled

It started innocuously enough when Air Force General Frank Vargas Pazos, 51, chief of Ecuador's joint armed forces command, complained that he had not been informed of a practice alert at the Defense Ministry in Quito. The impetuous Vargas, who is nicknamed "Loco," quickly found himself in a quarrel with the Defense Minister, General Luis Piñeiros Rivera, and the army chief, General Manuel Maria Albuja. Shots were heard inside the ministry. Piñeiros promptly fired Vargas, who in turn charged Piñeiros with accepting a kickback in the purchase of a plane for the national airline. Vargas also alleged that Albuja had diverted defense funds in order to build a private house.

After ordering three jet fighters under his command to buzz the capital, Vargas flew to an air base in his home province of Manabí, some 150 miles to the southwest, and began a five-day rebellion. "Better to die like a man than live like a coward," he declared. The show of air power, however, suggested to some Ecuadorans that Vargas intended to launch a military coup in their country of 8.2 million people, which has been under civilian rule since 1979.

President León Febres Cordero ordered the renegade officer to surrender, then went on television to deliver an ultimatum: either Vargas surrender or government troops would move in. The President later sent a personal secretary to negotiate with Vargas. While the three-hour meeting was in progress, the Defense Ministry announced that Piñeiros and Albuja had resigned.

An ecstatic Vargas promptly flew to the port city of Guayaquil. Said he: "I am at your orders, Mr. President." The general was placed in custody and then held at the Mariscal Sucre Air Base outside the capital. The government, meanwhile, was vague about whether Piñeiros and Albuja had actually left their posts. That prompted sympathetic officers at the air base to free Vargas, who declared that he had been double-crossed by the President. Thus began a second rebellion. Vargas threatened to march on the presidential palace. Before a cheering audience of 600 supporters outside the air base, he boasted, "I am going to fight against this tyrant."

Febres Cordero responded by declaring a national state of emergency. Officials closed the Quito airport and ordered four local radio stations off the air. On Friday, elite government troops led by tanks stormed the air base. Air force troops loyal to Vargas were overwhelmed in a brief but fierce midday battle. The cost: four dead and nine wounded. Some 400 rebels were rounded up and confined to an army compound. "Loco" Vargas, his private rebellion quashed once and for all, was again taken into custody and imprisoned at an unnamed army base.