Celso Torrelio [SEP] position held
Celso Torrelio
Celso Torrelio Villa (3 June 1933 – 23 April 1999) was a military general, a member of the Junta of Commanders of the Armed Forces (1981), and de facto President of Bolivia between September 1981 and August 1982.
A native of Padilla, department of Chuquisaca, Torrelio joined the Bolivian Army and rose to the rank of general. He served as the notorious dictator Luis García Meza's Minister of Interior after the departure, forced by Washington, of the equally-infamous Colonel Luis Arce
trafficking.
The García Meza government's drug trafficking activities led to the complete isolation of the regime. In contrast to his position regarding the other military dictatorships in Latin America, the new conservative U.S. President Ronald Reagan kept his distance, as the regime's unsavory links to criminal circles became more public. Eventually, the international outcry was sufficiently strong to force García Meza's resignation on 3 August 1981. He was succeeded by a less tainted but equally repressive general, Celso Torrelio.
The Bolivian military would sustain itself in