Bolivian Communist party announced May 23 that it would join in the boycott of the May 31 elections decided on by the Partido Revolucionario Izquierda Nacionalista headed by Juan Lechin, This leaves Bolivia with only one party on the ballot, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionaria which is backing dictatorial-minded Paz Estenssoro for president,
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‘MOHAMED HARBI DEFINES TASKS IN. ALGERIA
Mohamed Harbi, editor of Révolution Africain and one of the members of the delegation that accompanied Ben Bella in the Algerian president!s recent trip to the Soviet Union and various-East-European countries, granted an,interview to the Czechoslovak weekly literary magazine Litterarni Noviny while he was in Prague, The text of this interesting interview was released May 22 and summar-~ ized in the May 23 issue of Alger Républicain from which we have translated the Fol towing:
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"The importance of the recent: congress of the Front de Libération Nationale lies above all in the fact that it at last gave to. the party a program and a leadership.
"The program of the FLN is based throughout on the prindiple of ‘gelf-management, determining the points of view on which are established the relations between the party and the unions on the one hand and the popular masses on the other,
"By basing itself on the aspects uniting all the forces in the country, Algeria was able to create a new situation and’ demonstrate without ambiguity .the road which its government wishes to — take, A decisive role was played in this by the decrees on selfmanagement and nationalization."
_ The tasks faced by the new Central ‘Comnittee, Harbi said, include the following:
. (1) To improve the party structure and expel exploiting elements from it,
(2) Yo assure the organization of elections at all lévels, since up to now members of the party bodies have either been appointed or co-opted,
(3) To register property acquired .since 1954 (something that is very important because many people constantly speak about the Revolution without having had anything to do with it). It should be added concerning this that the financial reform has already made possible the creation of a certain social geography by obtaining, for example, data on the Algerian commercial bourgeoisic, who in arather brief period, accumulated large sums of money. :
(4) The Central Committee of the National Liberation Front must introduce a socialist maximum according to which members of the party working in the apparatus of the party and the state do not receive salaries that would lift them above the mass of workers,
(5) During the coming year the Central Committee of the FLN _
must seek to attract to the party workers and poor peasants to improve the social structure of the party.
“the whole “organization of the Algerian economy is based on the system of self-management which likewise represents the best road for resolving the problem of accumulation and consumption," Harbi continued, “That is why self-management and planning were linked together," “ees , -
"The main task in thé économic domain at present is consider-~ ed to be the consolidation of the socialist sector, There are big possibilities, especially for the development of heavy industry,"
In regard to unemployment, Harbi declared that the problem still remains grave. Some 1,200,000 persons lack jobs in Algeria, This was caused partially by the shift in population away from the countryside,
"Algeria still maintains commercial relations with France," Harbi said, "but is trying to diversify commercial exchanges abroad as much as * possible, especially through trade with the socialist countries."
ta new, without doubt rather advantageous agreement... was reached with france on the. delivery of wine.
"As can be seen, the French understand at present the neces+ sity of adjusting to a certain degree to the new situation. It is notorious that today we are already far from the Evian agreement. But it is beyond doubt that the fundamental denominator in relations with France must be the consolidation of Algerian economic indepen-= dence, Without that Algeria will have neither socialism nor anything else, .
"With regard to oil production, Algeria is seeking right now first of all to increase its share -in the profits obtained | in this field,
In addition to this, Algeria already has direot shares in certain companies and has decided. to construct a pipe line that was originally scheduled by these companies.
"The Algerian state has likewise built an oil refinery itself and, in accordance with an agreement with the USSR, will open.a petroleum institute to train 2,000 engineers and 10, 000 skilled workers,
"In general, it can be said that the active participation of Algeria in the development of oil is already evident at all stages of the process, and of the transport and sale of oil."
Mohamed Harbi said that in foreign policy, “Algeria consis-
tently supports all the national liberation movements,
-"The Algerians are aware that imperialism is not indifferent to the construction of socialism in Algeria and that is why, even from the point..of view of Algerian interests, it is necessary. to oontinually shake up the outlying positions held by imperialism,
"Tt is symbolical that immediately after the congress of the FLN, President Ahmed. Ben Bella visited precisely the socialist sountries. These relations are all the more important for Algeria since the socialist countries did not put any strings on the friendliest relations and, above all, did not demand that Algeria maintain relations only with then, in addition to. that, you can learn the most in the socialist countries,
"The participation. of Algeria in all the struggles now taking place in the world is a matter of principle.
"That is why Algeria, together with the socialist countries, has always supported revolutionary Cuba.
"algeria is participating in three unification movements: the Maghrobian, Arab, and Pan-African.
"in our opinion, these are not at all contradictory movements because we are convinced that unity can never be achieved except through joint agreement, which must be both political, economic and ideological and which must be based on a consistent anti-imperialist attitude,
"The struggle against feudalism and all its after-effeots in this way represents the first step toward this unity."
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