Hugo Banzer[a] Suárez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo ˈβanseɾ ˈswaɾes]; 10 May 1926 – 5 May 2002) was a Bolivian politician and military officer who served as the 51st president of Bolivia.

Banzer rose to power via a coup d'état against socialist president Juan José Torres and repressed labor leaders, clergymen, indigenous people, and students during his 1971–1978 dictatorship.

After Banzer's removal via a coup led by Juan Pereda, he remained an influential figure in Bolivian politics and would run for election to the presidency via the ballot box on several occasions, eventually succeeding in 1997 via a narrow plurality of 22.26% of the popular vote.

[citation needed] Banzer was promoted to colonel in 1961, and appointed three years later to head the Ministry of Education and Culture in the government of General René Barrientos, a personal friend.

[citation needed] In 1970, President Juan José Torres was leading the country in a leftist direction, arousing the ire and mistrust of conservative anti-communist circles in Bolivia and, crucially, in the Nixon administration.

Conversely, President Juan José Torres was forced to take refuge in Buenos Aires, Argentina where five years later he was kidnapped and assassinated by right-wing death squads associated with the Videla government and with the acquiescence of Banzer.

Banzer received the political support of the center-right Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) of former president Víctor Paz Estenssoro and the conservative Falange Socialista Boliviana of Mario Gutiérrez, considered to be the two largest parties in the country.

Frustrated by the political divisions and protests that characterized the Torres and Ovando years, and, traditionally an enemy of dissent and freedom of speech, Banzer banned all the left-leaning parties, suspended the powerful Central Obrera Boliviana, and closed the nation's universities.

At that point, Banzer dispensed with all pretenses and banned all political activity, exiled all major leaders (Paz Estenssoro included), and proceeded to rule henceforth solely with military support.

Human rights groups claim that during Banzer's 1971–1978 tenure (known as the Banzerato) several thousand Bolivians sought asylum in foreign countries, 3,000 political opponents were arrested, 200 were killed, and many more were tortured.

Two other leaders with sufficient stature to potentially eclipse the dictator were murdered under suspicious circumstances while in exile: General Joanquin Zenteno Anaya and former president Juan José Torres, both in 1976.

Klaus Barbie, former head of the Gestapo de Lyon, was integrated into the special services in order to "renew" repression techniques and received Bolivian nationality.

The Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet offered a narrow outlet just north of the port of Arica, on the border with Peru, on lands that had previously belonged to that country.

Since the Bolivian constitution did not at the time allow a sitting president to immediately succeed himself, Banzer initially endorsed General Juan Pereda as the regime's candidate.

It was assumed that Pereda would be elected with government "help" at the polls, rule for four years, and then allow Banzer to return as constitutional president once he had time to polish up his image and transition to civilian politics.

Upon leaving office, Banzer formed the ADN party (Acción Democrática Nacionalista), a large organization that attracted most conservative groups under his leadership.

Indeed, Banzer's party claimed authorship of some of the most prominent neoliberal economic reforms instituted by Paz to curb galloping hyperinflation, repress the influence of labor unions, and generally reduce government control of the economy.

Banzer finished second in the 1989 elections closely behind the MNR's Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and ahead of the centre-left Revolutionary Left Movement's Jaime Paz Zamora.

Banzer died of lung cancer at a medical clinic in Santa Cruz de la Sierra on 5 May 2002, aged 75, five days before he would have turned 76 and around two months before his original presidential term ended.