Draft:Emilio Sfeir

Emilio Sfeir (born December 25, 1898 in Kleiat, Keserwan, Mount Lebanon, Ottoman Empire; died June 24, 1970 in [[Cochabamba}], [Bolivia]]) was a Bolivian entrepreneur and a hero of Bolivian counter-intelligence during the Chaco War against Paraguay. Sfeir was a younger brother of Pietro Sfair, the Lebanese Maronite Catholic Titular Archbishop of Nisibis and a Council Father at the Second Vatican Council.

Family

Sfeir's birth name was Emanuele Emile Sfeir. Sfeir's father was Georges Sfeir and his mother was Philomene Sfeir. The names of some of his siblings were Salim, Boutros, Chaia, Maria, Racquel, and Antoun. He was educated in Lebanon at a Catholic school run by French missionary priests. A cousin was Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.

Sfeir married Maria Cabero in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 1923. She was the granddaughter of Salvador Cabero Rollano, one of the founders of the first general hospital in Cochabamba (Hospital Viedma). She was also the grandniece of the Bishop of Cochabamba Angel Maria Zeballos. Emilio and Maria had five children: Jorge, Jose, Blanca Filomena, Nelly Esther (Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez), and Yolanda. Daughter Blanca Filomena was an economist with a Masters degree from the University of Iowa; she was the first Bolivian woman to receive a Fulbright Scholarship. Daughter Nelly Esther (Nelly Sfeir Gonzalez) was a suffragete and lawyer in Bolivia and an academic librarian, bibliographer and journal editor in the United States. The comedian Alejandro Hangano Cassab (“el Gran Sandy”), famous for his summertime appearances at the Festival de Vina del Mar in Chile, was Sfeir's nephew.

As a result of his life experiences and his talent for learning languages, Sfeir learned to speak, read and write, with native fluency, Arabic, French and Spanish. In addition, he gained a proficiency in Quechua sufficient to recite poetry in this language. And, although he was a confirmed Francophile and admirer of General Charles DeGaulle, Sfeir concluded in young adulthood that English would be the dominant world language in the lives of his children. Therefore, he enrolled his children at the American Institute (“Amerinst”) in La Paz, a school founded by Methodist missionaries from Illinois and where the primary language of instruction was English.

Sfeir has 17 grandchildren, of which only three currently reside in Bolivia. The rest live in the United States. Approximately one half (eight) of Sfeir’s grandchildren made careers in the medical profession—seven are physicians and one is a nurse. Bolivian petroleum executive and football entrepreneur Mauricio Gonzalez Sfeir is a grandson. Swiss-Lebanese banker Salim Sfeir may be the grandson of Sfeir's older brother.

Journey to South America: from Mount Lebanon to the Andes

In July 1914, when he was 16 years old, Sfeir traveled by sea from Beirut, Ottoman Empire to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his older sister, acting as her chaperone. She was traveling to South America to be reunited with her husband Mr. Cassab, who had established a textile factory in Cochabamba, Bolivia. World War One broke out in August 1914, and Sfeir never booked a return passage to his home in Lebanon. The traumatic separation from his mother left life-long psychological scars, including a debilitating addiction to compulsive gambling.

Entrepreneurial Ventures

Beginning in 1915 and through the 1920s, Sfeir worked with his brother-in-law Cassab at his textile factory in the City of Cochabamba. In the early 1930s, Sfeir established himself in Jujuy, Argentina, as a merchant in silver items and alpaca fur. In the late 1930s, Sfeir owned a leather tanning factory in the City of Oruro. In the 1940s, Sfeir owned a transportation business in the City of La Paz.

Service to Country

During the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, Sfeir masterminded the planning and execution of the capture in February 1934, on Argentine territory, of Juan Valori, the most important Paraguayan spy. This was one of the most celebrated Bolivian counterintelligence successes of the entire Chaco War. As a result of this success, Sfeir became friends with the son of the Bolivian president Daniel Salamanca. A further result was that Sfeir was asked by President Salamanca in 1934 to lead an expedition of the Bolivian Central Bank to prospect for gold in Teoponte, a tropical region north of the capital city of La Paz. Sfeir’s expedition was successful in bringing back to La Paz a significant amount of gold bullion. However, Sfeir also fell sick with malaria.

Political Activity

In 1948, Sfeir was arrested and charged with being a gun runner and conspiring to overthrow the government on behalf of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) political party. After being initially imprisoned and beaten up at the San Pedro prison in La Paz, he was transferred to the island prison of Isla de la Luna (Coati) on Lake Titicaca. There he met and befriended Hernan Siles Zuazo, one of the senior leaders of the MNR party and a future vice president and two-time president of Bolivia. Together they escaped from the island prison, eventually reaching the Peruvian border and obtaining political asylum in Juli, Peru. Hernan Siles Zuazo served as vice president of Bolivia from 1952-1956 and president of Bolivia from 1956-1960.