Galo Plaza
Galo Plaza Lasso ( born February 17, 1906 in New York City; † January 28, 1987 in Quito ) was an Ecuadorian diplomat and politician. He was President of Ecuador from 1948 to 1952 and from 1968 to 1975 Secretary General of the Organization of American States.
Plaza was in New York ( in the Marlton House in Greenwich Village ) was born in 1906 while his father, General Leonidas Plaza Gutiérrez, who had been President of Ecuador from 1901 to 1905, there was in exile. Galo Plazas mother Abelina Lasso was also from Ecuador. From 1912 to 1916 Plaza Gutiérrez was again President of Ecuador.
Plaza Lasso made in Quito graduated from high school and then studied agriculture at the University of Maryland, Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and finally international law at the School of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in the U.S.. The end of his studies coincided with the Great Depression (1929 ), so that Plaza, contrary to his original plans returned to Ecuador.
There he began his political career as a councilor of the capital Quito in a period of great political instability in his country. In 1938 he was Minister of Defense under President Aurelio Mosquera Narvaez. In the Ecuadorian capital he founded in 1940 the bilingual (Spanish - English) high school Colegio Interamericano de Quito. From 1944 to 1946 he was the Ecuadorian ambassador to the U.S. during the second presidential Velasco Ibarra. He signed for his country in 1945, the Charter of the United Nations. After that, he was a member of the Senate of Ecuador.
After 1947 Velasco was overthrown and the selected transition to Julio Arosemena Tola President Carlos elections for 1948 invited tenders, Plaza stepped in to these for the Liberal Party and was elected by a narrow margin of about 3800 votes ahead of Manuel Elicio Flor ( PCE). On September 1, 1948, he took office. His presidency was marked by economic progress and especially by a rapid rise of agricultural exports. This included the strong increase in the cultivation and export of bananas, for which Ecuador is known worldwide today. Plaza as a trained farmer and owners of haciendas actively supported the modernization of Ecuadorian agriculture. He was the first president since José Luis Tamayo (1920-1924), whose term of office has been terminated normally.
During his presidency, the city of Ambato was shaken by an earthquake on August 5, 1949 which claimed about 8,000 lives and caused a lot of damage in the provinces of Tungurahua and Cotopaxi. Especially Ambato and the small towns and Pelileo Pillaro suffered extensive damage. With the government planning for the reconstruction Plaza commissioned the architect Sixto Durán Ballén.
After the end of his presidency, he served as United Nations mediators in conflicts in Lebanon ( 1958), Congo (1960 ) and Cyprus ( 1964-1965 ) worked. In 1960, he ran again in the Ecuadorian presidential election, but lost Velasco Ibarra. He was held in 1968 Secretary General of the Organization of American States and held this office until 1975.
Moreover Plaza was for many years President of the Ecuadorian established in 1942 Holstein - Friesian Breeders Association and as such had held a significant position in the agricultural policy, particularly in the setting of milk prices. The coming of his mother's family Hacienda lasso in Cotopaxi province is known for its high-quality dairy products and as Hacienda hotel today.