Venezuela's Struggle for Freedom (The Question of Guerrilla Warfare)

VENEZUELA'S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM

The Question of Guerrilla Warfare

[This is a continuation of the interview held by a representative of the Venezuelan Committee of the Fourth International with Commandante Elias Manuitt in the mountains of Falcon. See World Outlook June 26 and July 3 for previous installments. ]

Q: Why does the FALN maintain that the line of armed atruggle in Venezuela is the line of victory? What are the perspectives for the revolutionary war in Venezue a?

At I think that the first question has already been answered, That is to say, the only means whereby our people can win liberation is with weapons in hand, The perspectives I see are tied in with what we have seen develop up to now, Today we have four guerrilla fronts in the country, totally stabilized. They have repelled all of the enemy's attacks successfully. ... . . The most recent specific ease of action with the enemy was the case of Trujillo [state] where the enemy deployed 2,500 men in the infamous and unsuccessful "Operation Tenaza," They tried to intimidate the valiant, heroic guerrillas operating in Trujillo and they came down gloomy’ and defeated, They had issued all kinds of publicity about how they were going to wipe out.the guerrillas in Trujillo in five or six days. They established encampments in Bocono, They ~ raised a fuss and then suddenly became silent. The press became silent, This was due simply to the fact that they came down defeated and realized that they could not defeat the guerrilla front in Trujillo, The same thing happened in Lara [state]. . . and in Falcon > » « « They utilized every conceivable method, They utilized all

the experience acquired in South Vietnam, in fighting heroic South. Vietnam which is struggling for liberation and which it. will obtain _in spite of the North Americans, in spite of the lackey ‘they have there, They used all that experience, and all that experience failed them, .

They approached the peasants with an outstretched hand, offering them medicine, cigarettes, food, constructing houses for them with corrugated iron roofs, showing affection for the children, telling them, . “We love you very much." And it turns out that they achieved nothing!

. ‘They approached the peasants the way the Spaniards approached the’ Indians here, with trinkets and glass beads, exchanging. glass: beads for gold and such, and now they come here exchanging these — things for iron, for petroleum, for everything we have, So they go up to the peasants with medicine, they extract their bad teeth, they tell: them the little boy looks cute, they show affection for the ohil~ dren, and they build houses for them with corrugated iron roofs; all this, as if they were the best people on earth,

Now the peasants, naturally, are surprised at this. ‘They wonder about: all this. sudden love. . . . They see the guerrillas in the mountains and they say, "Well then." And they realize that this love was due to the guerrilias,’ When there were no guerrillas, well, nothing, Their teeth rotted, they died of hunger, malaria, eta. Now they are eating, they receive everything and they realize -- beoause our peasant is intelligent -- that this is demagogy, that they don't want the guerrilla movement to grow and therefore they are trying to buy them off, .

Our peasants, however, aren't for sale, So what happened? Since they know that those really responsible for the magnamity of the North Americans and the lackey government here are the guerrillas; that is, our: presence here, they use the medicines, they have their bad teeth extracted, take the food, the cigarettes -- imported Lucky Strike cigarettes. . . The peasant women take these gifts and they bring them to us and offer them to us and tell us all that is . going on,.: And we have told them to continue to take them because. it is > theirs; 1% belongs to the people of Venezuela.

~The énemy ‘realizes that these methods fail.” They have seen that our peasants are not to be bought off, that our peasants turn to the guerrillas in the mountains, seeing * people fighting for them, completely for. them, giving their lives for them. And that the government did not worry about them until the guerrillas appeared, So these people dontt fall into the trap and don't sell out,

Then what happens? Now they utilize other methods, Now, instead of coming with the little presents and so on, they bring a machete, They whip them, They torture them. There was even a case

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where they hung a peasant by his testicles in the midst of the village to attempt to frighten the unfrightenable, because these people cannot be intimidated, our people are valiant, our people fight. ..., One man, in the presence of the entire village, in the presence of the rest of the inhabitants of the villege, was hung by his testicles, so as to instill fear in all the people of the village and so that he would be overcome by fear, And then, after torturing him savagely, they used him as a guide. And that peasant, knowing well where we were, led them to another place. Not even by means of force ‘could they use him, In other words, then, all these methods failed them, All the methods they brought from South Vietnam failed them,

igi that mean that the Venezuelan peasants are with the guerrillas?

A: They are with the guerrillas, The peasants are with the guerrillas and each day more join our ranks, and we have peasants incorporated in the guerrillas throughout the whole country, with the weapons they have asked us for. . . Sometimes we lack arms to give the peasants, because what they want is to struggle direotly along with us,

Q: Well, we were going to ask you about the antiguerrilla measures, but you have practically covered tise.

A: Yes, the antiguerrilla campaigns. Yes, they said we were assassins, that we were criminals, and as it turns out, it's precisely the opposite. They are the assassins and criminals. The U.S. lackey, Bepanoourt once said that the guerrillas were like arroz oon pollo [rice and chicken] but without the ollo, that they lacked the BS o, that is, the peasants. But as it turns out, what we have most

is pollot

The mere fact, ‘then, that armed men exist and survive in the mountains means that we have pollo, that we have the pollo that this lackey denies, Because if we didn't t, then, what he says would be true, The guerrillas need the support of the peasants to survive, The mere faot that the guerrillas survive means that there is support from the peasantry, If it were different, they would no longer exist,

Q: What can you tell us about the sieges that the government has tried to carry out against the guerrilla strongholds?

A: The enemy has already attempted various sieges against us. They have even bombed us. They have used light artillery against us, and maybe medium artillery, They have also used recoilless oannon,. 60 and 81 m.m. mortars. They have used all the old weapons and the new weapons that the Americans have given them, Well, all their weapons come. from the United States. And up to now, they have gained nothing, :

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If we draw a balance sheet of the enemy's losses and our.own, we note that they are in bad shape, Each day we learn more; and. if before, in a combat, one enemy fell, we now have the means so that. one. plus a little more falls. So ail this shows the progress of our struggle, Even: the propaganda about my having turned myself in was to try ‘to sow demoralization among the people. But the people didn'!t believe those lies. They didn't believe it because they know. that. the men up in these mountains are not moved by ambition and that we are ready for any. sacrifice, We will only come down dead or on our feet to celebrate: with: the people the triumph of the war of national liberation, as I said'on another occasion,

Another thing they say is that we are assassins, What a liel When we took.the village of Pueblo Nuevo, what did we do? We aoted as guerrillas. should act, We disarmed the prefect and the policemen. We didnit..touch them at all because we do not use cheap, dirty, _ criminal-methods, We-simply overcame the police, The following. day we called a meeting in the village plaza, -We. bought goods in the village stores, merchandise, etc., to.take up into the mountains, | No one wansed to accept a cent from us because they know we are broke, Naturally, right then we had the money to pay for all the merchandise,” ‘but no one’ wanted to ‘accept any money, “So “they gave. us. all the things. -

The following day the prefect made some declarations to.a reporter from.EBl Nacional [daily newspaper of highest circulation in the country]. AIT he did was praise the guerrillas, saying that they had arrived.:there, that they had sung,. that they had held a meeting, that they had behaved very well, etc. Naturally, this prefect made his deolarations to the press because he had not been briefed by the governor, The newspaper man, arrived before Governor. Saher. eee

Qi Comandante, why aren't. the sabotage. and other actions against the enemy being carried. out with the. intensity of past years?

A: Well, at no.time can.we say that actions of this kind ceased. We have simply passed to another stage of the war and we have drawn up a balance sheet of all the actions, some positive, others which, as revolutionaries, wé. have to recognize as negative, There have been some cases of, improvisation, In others, in some, — overestimation; in others, underestimation of the enemy. In some actions, then, instead of obtaining the backing and approval of the masses, they haven't taken it very well. As genuine revolutionaries, we have reoognized these errors. And also as revolutionaries we are correoting them, co - The 1ull at .no time ‘meant paralysis. of these actions. Now, .. with greater audacity, with greater organization and co-ordination, © we shall begin these actions again on a national scale. We shall stress, above all, rural action without.:-this signifying that urban action will cease. We will pursue a. political. objective in each of

these actions. We will consider first the objective we seek, Then we shall proceed with the action, well co-ordinated, without haste, without preoipitousness of any kind, without falling for enemy provocation, Beoause we are not in a hurry, They are in a hurry to destroy us, because they can already detect in us the signs of viotory. We are not in a hurry, because we are sure, completely sure that we will triumph without unnecessary sacrifices,

Our actions have been carried out with real ardor, with revo~lutionary fervor, but.some were carried out hastily, with the sad consequence that we lost valiant combatants, But all this has been changed and corrected, practically. The lull served for preparing ourselves, for tuning up the revolutionary machine, and we will return with greater audacity, including propaganda. Before, we had ‘many things of a propagandistic nature only. Now we are going to tie propaganda with action, The days of the Anzoategui [this refers to the FALN hijacking of the Venezuelan Navigation Line ship on the high seas and taking it to Brazil] and of Di Stefano [the kidnapping of soccer player Di Stefano] are over. ... ,

Q: Does the FALN have proof of the intervention of the Pentagon and the U,S,State Department in Venezuela's revolutionary war?

A: Yes, of course we have, But we aren't jumping around desperately, like Betancourt is doing, taking it before the OAS [Organization of American States] like he is-doing over the alleged landing of Cuban arms on our coast, which is totally false, They have raised a fuss. From there they are taking off to organize a new invasion of Cuba,

We have clear-cut proofs of the flagrant intervention of the United States in the revolutionary war in our country, but we are not at all. surprised, because we are combatting them, .that is, imperjalism, so we aren't surprised that they attack us. ...... 2. un.

They are intervening in the economy, They are carrying away all our riches, And with this intervention they are simply protecting the product of their robbery, their shameless robbery. ‘So there has been intervention, They have advised, and in other instances directed military actions against all our fronts.

‘This has been done by the North American military mission, It is they who are organizing antiguerrilla courses. And they have even gone up to the front lines, They have directed the bombardments, as they did in the concrete example of the zone near Huque © here in Falcon state. They dropped bombs, They directed the cam~ paign to attempt to win the peasants, using medicines, food, cigarettes, trying to buy off the peasants,

If we state the flat truth, the National Armed Forces =~ and this is something which, unfortunately, is unknown to its lower

ranks «- are under the orders of the United States, of the Penta- BONs « « «

We have been convinced ever since wo-dogtaea vo Sin iain

for our people that we would confront this materially powerful enemy. But from the moral point of view this enemy is not worth a cent.

3: What has been the role of Venezuelan women in this war. of liberation? . A: One of the most valuable “things in the Venezuelan struggle, as in the struggles of all the peoples of the world, is the women, . In the case of our first War of Independence, we had Luisa Cfoeres de Arismendi and many other women. One of the things that has influenced and encouraged our peaple is the presence of women in this struggle. They have made a grand, incomparable contribution. Beoause, besides the sacrifice and suffering that has always been theirs, women are the most exploited humans. They have been exploited not only by imperialism, | they have been exploited in their own homes, by their own 1 husbands, most of them. -

The women are. sharing - ‘with the men all the suffering and sacrifice that this war entails. The presence of women in this revo~ lutionary war is something that should fill all. the women of the world with pride, to know :that they are welt represented in the struggle for. liberation.

‘Concerning international aspeots, I want to say to all tho women inthe world who read this interview that they have been very well represented in this heroic Venezuela and in these glorious mountains, and that in urban and rural actions the Venezuelan women have given their quota .of. blood, and on the streets, each day, they give a still greater quota of sacrifice, We feel truly proud of a Conchita, of a Trina, of an Epifania, of the new heroines of this war; that is, the heroines of ‘this Second: War of National Independence,

We also know that in Vietnam and in all the Latin American countries, in Africa, and in all the countries of the world that are trying to win liberation, the presence of women is something very significant; it is something which is morally positive, which attracts and an example which should be followed by many wavering mene

I am not going to establish discrimination here between women and men. No, sir, we are all struggling, but the women have really struggled, The concept about their being a weaker aex, that's not true. They. are not weak, We-have seen cases here in the mountains where if a man carried twenty kilos, a woman would carry forty, That is to say, in. almost all aspects women provide excellent. examples comparable to any MAN a

Feminine solidarity could be realized through an international campaign among women to help the struggle that the Venezuelan people have begun for liberation. It could deal with freeing politioal prisoners, stopping the crimes and the torture, the atrocities to which Venezuelan revolutionaries are submitted. oo

It could include help of an economic nature, because we aren!t going to deny that we need money. There are many weapons whigh we seize from the enemy, but we can't get them all from the enemy, We_. need money to buy them, and we have no money. That's because this struggle is being carried forward by the Venezuelans themselves. ° «8 Thus, naturally, we need that solidarity.

What we don't need is the solidarity expressed by one man, the Ambassador of Poland to the United Nations, Mr. Bohan Lewandowsky, The solidarity of this man is actually harmful to our struggle. It was the opposite of solidarity on his-part when, upon his arrival in our country. to be present at the inauguration of Dr. Raul Leoni as’ president, he offered bare-faced, dirty, cheap praise of this govern-~ ment, He even cited Venezuelan faemocraocy, ' democracy in quotation marks, as a worthy example which should be imitated by other countries of the world, Words like these from the mouth of a Communist, -frankly, are unencouraging, to say the least.

This. man, upon his arrival at Maiquetta [international airport] made some declarations to El Nacional in which he praised the government, That, frankly, is negative, it damages our cause, although not much, but it does damage it, because the people, the exploited, humbie masses who are being’ jailed, murdered in the streets, hear from. the mouth of a Communist that this is an ideal democracy... They say, "What is this? Is this democracy? This is the demoorasy. of the socialist countries? Then it is a lie,"

And it turns out this man isn't speaking for his people, for

his government or for anyone; he is speaking for himself, This is clear if the statements in the press are true. If not, well, I ask this gentleman to forgive me,

Pseudosolidarity of this kind we can do without. In faot we reject it energetically, because we aren't tongue-tied and we say the truth to everyone that needs to hear it, running all the risks....

Oonoretely, I wrote him a letter that, unfortunately, never got to his hands, I would like to take advantage of your presence here to read you that letter so that it reaches him personally or publicly, either way, but I would like this letter to reach him,

[ror full text of letter see World Outlook June 26.]

Q: ‘What importance do you concede to ‘international solidarit} with “Venozuela? Along what lines can a campaign of international solidarivy with the Venezuelan revolution be forged?

A: Solidarity not only with Venezuela, but with all the Latin-American countries and what's more, with all the countries that are struggling to win liberation,. ig something fundamental, something indispensable to be able to break the chains that tie us to imperialism,

It is necessary, even obligatory, that all those nations that have won liberation offer solidarity so that the others, by means of their solidarity, attain their independence, Not only the governments but all the peoples of the world. If the governments do not collaborate ~~ naturally an enemy government is not going to collaborate, a capitalist government, an imperialist government, is not going to co-operate with the Venezuelan revolution ~-- but the governments of all the socialist countries, if they abide strictly with the principles of proletarian internationalism, are completely obligated to solidarize themselves with the struggle of all the oppressed peoples of the world,

And the oppressed peoples of the world are obligated to cooperate with those countries that have progressed along the road of their war of liberation, because this, aside from the solidarity that should logically” exist between sister” Gountries with the same anguish, the same misery, the same suffering, is something that is to the best interests of all the peoples of the world, because the more countries that are liberated in the world, the nearer the victory of the world revolution -- that day when we can really speak about a free world, without quotation marks, the world the North Amerioans only talk about,

We do need and ask for the solidarity of all the peoples of the world, I know we can count on that solidarity, and I want to take this opportunity to send greetings to each combatant who with pen, gun, or in some other way, is giving his or her quota of saorifice, of revolutionary dignity to the world revolution, which shall triumph, cost what it may, cost what it may most of all to Yankee imperialism,

I send greetings to all the peoples of the world that are struggling for their freedom, and most of all, to the heroic, valiant and determined people of South Vietnam, who are hitting the North Americans with stronger punches each day. The trouble with these imperialists is that they do not learn, They want the same thing to happen to them here as is happening in South Vietnam. It will happen,

Greetings to all the peoples who, arms in hand, are trying to win freedom. And a greeting also to all those revolutionaries who in a peaceful, but ineffective, way seek liberation for their people, We support them and agree that they should try to obtain the triumph of the revolution with the minimum sacrifice of the invaluable lives of the sons of the people, But we are sure that they will finally join us in the extensive mountain range of the Andes where arms in

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hand we are seeking the real liberation of Latin America,

Greetings also to the peoples under imperialist regimes who directly experience the same abuses committed against the Venezuelan people. And greetings to those heroic Negroes in North America, because I think that the ones suffering the most abuse in the world are the North American Negroes. Thank goodness they are awakening. Sooner or later they will triumph,

[The end, ]

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