Emilio Sfeir

Emilio Sfeir (born December 25, 1898 in Kleiat, Keserwan, Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire; died June 24, 1970 in Cochabamba, Bolivia) was a Lebanese-Bolivian entrepreneur and a hero of Bolivian counter-intelligence during the Chaco War against Paraguay. 
 
 Sfeir was a younger brother of the Most Reverend Pietro Sfair|de, the Maronite Catholic Titular Archbishop of Nisibis and a Council Father at the Second Vatican Council. 
== Family ==
Sfeir's birth name was Emmanuel Emile Sfeir. When he emigrated to South America, he became known as Manuel Emilio Sfeir. Sfeir's father was Georges Sfeir and his mother was Philoumene Sfeir. The names of some of his siblings were Salim, Boutros Javad, Chaia, Maria, Racquel, Antoun and Isaie. He was educated in Lebanon at two Catholic schools run by French missionary priests--St. Gergoes School in Kleiat, Keserwan District (a school originally founded by family ancestor Abi-Dagher Sfeir) and St. Joseph School in Cornet Chahwan, Matn District. Although he never completed high school or attended university, Sfeir was an avid reader of newspapers and encyclopedias and a strong believer in education and technology. He made sure that his children learned touch type writing, and he was one of the first in Bolivia to own a motorcycle. 
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 who earned a Masters degree in business from the University of Iowa in 1950; she was the first Bolivian woman to receive a scholarship from the Institute of International Education (the predecessor to the 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, known as “el Gran Sandy”, famous for his summertime appearances at the Festival de Vina del Mar in Chile, was Sfeir's grand nephew. Sfeir was born and raised in the Maronite Catholic church. During his lifetime, however, there was no Maronite Catholic church in Bolivia. Thus, he raised his own children in the Roman Catholic church, counting as a friend the Bishop of the City of La Paz, Most Reverend Abel Isidoro Antezana y Rojas. 
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 New York in 1907 and where the primary language of instruction was English. Two of his daughters earned masters degrees from universities in the United States.
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 secretary of energy, petroleum executive and football-soccer promoter 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 the summer of 1913, when he was 14 years old, Sfeir traveled by sea from Beirut, Ottoman Empire to Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his older sister, acting as her chaperone. An additional reason his family sent him on the voyage may have been to avoid his forcible military Conscription in the Ottoman Empire. "In July 1909 military service was made compulsory for all Ottoman subjects." Recruitment age was between ages 15 and 30. Sfeir's sister 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. In this way, Sfeir was spared from the Great Famine of Mount Lebanon of 1915-1918, during which crucible approximately 50% of the population of Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (mostly Maronite Christian) perished. The traumatic separation from his mother, plus the death of his older sister during childbirth when he was in his mid twenties, left life-long psychological scars, including a debilitating addiction to compulsive gambling. Sfeir lost several small fortunes at the gaming table, plunging his family into precarious financial conditions.
==Entrepreneurial Ventures==
Sfeir's first job in South America was translating World War One news cables from Europe from French into Spanish (he had received a French education in Lebanon). Beginning in 1915 and through the 1920s, Sfeir worked with his brother-in-law Cassab at his textile factory in the City of Cochabamba.
From 1928 through 1934, Sfeir established himself in Jujuy, Argentina, as a merchant in silver items and vicuña quilts and skins. 
In the late 1930s, Sfeir owned a lamb leather tanning factory in the City of Oruro.
In the 1940s, Sfeir owned a transportation business in the City of La Paz. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sfeir was engaged in import-export actitivies and assisted in the expansion of the textile factory Fabrica Said in the City of La Paz. Sfeir was a congenial extrovert. He could often be found at the Club de La Paz social club having coffee and discussing current events with acquaintances or at the Club Árabe, where he was sought out by fellow members to write Arabic language letters to relatives back home in the old country. Kemel Nemtala, founder of San Jorge Imports, was a friend and business associate.
==Service to Country: Capture of the Paraguayan Master Spy Juan Valori==
During the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, Sfeir masterminded the planning and execution of the abduction in February 1934, on Argentine territory, of Juan Valori, the Paraguayan master spy operating in the Bolivia/Argentina border region, the main staging ground for the Bolivian forces sent into combat. 
 
 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, accessible only by foot trails. At the time, Bolivia had recently pegged its national currency to the gold standard, following the recommendations of the Kemmerer Commission. As a result of the financial strain caused by the Chaco War, the Bolivian Central Bank was running low on gold reserves. Sfeir’s expedition was successful in bringing back to La Paz a mule train loaded with a significant amount of gold bullion. However, Sfeir also fell sick with malaria.
== Political Activity: Gunrunner for MNR; imprisonment and escape from Island of the Moon on Lake Titicaca==
On August 9, 1949, the same day of his oldest son Jorge's wedding, 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. In September 1949, they escaped together from the island prison, after bribing a guard and commandering a motorboat, eventually crossing the Peruvian border on foot, with the Bolivian police in hot pursuit, and obtaining political asylum in Juli, Peru. Following the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952, Hernan Siles Zuazo served as vice president of Bolivia from 1952-1956 and president of Bolivia from 1956-1960. Sfeir's grand nephew Alejandro Hangano Cassab, the future comedian el "Gran Sandy", served as a motorcycle bodyguard to Hernan Siles Zuazo during his presidential term.
==Personal quotes==
* "A man who knows two languages is worth two men." (quoting a French proverb)
* "Gane y gaste!" (Earn a lot [of money], and spend a lot!)
* "Participation in politics is beneficial, but it is best to participate indirectly, behind the scenes."
* "The [only] inheritance I shall leave you is your education and your brains."
Category:1898 births
Category:1970 deaths
Category:Gold standard
Category:Immigration
Category:People from Keserwan District
Category:Lebanese people