BOLIVIANS ANSWER REPRESSION BY CALLING FOR GUERRILLAS .
A new test of. strength has been taking place in Bolivia between the miners and the ruling military junta, Action centered around the Siglo XX-Catavi mining area.. In an attempt to crush the miners! move-~ ment. headed by trade unionists now in the underground,” the- “Junta. ordered assaults by government troops and announced September 22 that the mines would be closed down "indefinitely." (Colonel Juan Lechfn Suarez announced the following day, however, that they would Probably be reopened September 24,
Violent battles occurred between the troops and the. miners, with some thirty reported killed and hundreds wounded. The press headlined the news: that three policemen, held hostage by the miners, had. been hurled down mine shafts to their deaths. However, Agence France. Press reported September 24 that all three had reappeared from inside the mine without having. been injured.
As a new repressive.measure, the junta singled out groups of miners suspected of being ringleaders and ordered. them deported to. isolated regions of the country. ‘
Thus the course that began last. May has continued along the indicated lines. The military junta could not "purge" the labor movement of its best known leaders and "reorganize" the mines (through massive layoffs and substantial wage cuts) and at the same time continue to play the game of “restoring democracy" after the downfall of Paz Estenssoro. A direct conflict with the miners was inevitable, The first round occurred last May. The second-round, bloodier than the first, came four months later, The junta utilized the intervening period to hit at the labor movement through arrests, deportations and assassinations with the obvious aim of liquidating the most important leaders and cadres.
.The murder of César ‘Lora, a Trotskyist leader of the Siglo XX. miners [see World Outlook September 17], was the most tragic episode of this repression. The killing of César Lora was followed by blows against other militants just before the most recent armed conflict at Siglo XX-Catavi.
On September 4, Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso, secretary of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario, the Bolivian Trotskyist.organization, was arrested while on the way from La Paz to Oruro. He was held incommunicado.
Lucha Obrera, the official newspaper of the POR, immediately raised the alarm a bout the very real’ possibility that Moscoso might. be placed before one of the junta's firing squads without so much as a mock trial. Students and teachers immediately organized a mass demonstration, marching in front of police headquarters and shouting that. Moscoso be freed at once. The miners likewise registered strong
protests.
The junta and its police finally backed down in face of this pressure and Moscoso was released a few days after his arrest.
Lucha Obrera also reported the arrest of another revolutionist, Paulino Joaniquina. It was not known where the police were holding him,
Paulino Joaniquina was secretary of the miners' union at San José (Oruro). In November of last year, while General Barrientos was in San José, Joaniquina gave a courageous speech, voicing the demands of the miners and stating that they would never give up their arms as had been demanded by the junta. Last May he headed his comrades in their struggle against the junta and after they were defeated he went into the underground.
A number of revolutionists have been arrested, according to Lucha Obrera, and are being held under barbarous conditions, “In the foul, rat-infested cells of the police department, a number of revolutionary fighters are being treated in inhuman fashion. ‘Among them are Enrique Valenzuela, Prudencio Meneses and Silvio Torrez, arrested for having taken the floor at a meeting where they voiced the interests of the miners. These militants are maintaining a courageous attitude in face of the butchers who beat them. Gaston Murillo and Guzman were arrested on the accusation of having fomented the students to struggle. The two university students were seriously injured under torture by the police. Two members of the POR, Marquez and Omonte, were arrested while distributing publications of the party. They were also subjected to torture, particularly Marquez who suffered a number of injuries." -
The junta hopes to consolidate its dictatorial regime by severe repression such as that visited on the miners at Siglo XX-Catavi, But things could go contrary to the calculations of Barrientos and his crew. The very harshness of the repression and the direct attack on the standard of living, which was already at an_utterly miserable level, can provoke new explosions. Even the poverty-stricken layers of the petty bourgeoisie in the towns are hostile to the regime as are the peasants who see the former wealthy landholders lifting their heads under the junta.
Recent reports would seem to indicate, in addition, that the struggle in Bolivia may extend into a new field. Some of the mili-— tants who have been blacklisted by the junta and forced to flee seem to be resorting to guerrilla struggle. In September the first issue of a small publication called Pueblo en Armas [The People in Arms], which lists itself as "Organo del Comando Nacional Guerrillero" [Organ of the National Guerrilla Command], was circulated in La Paz. It included some militant declarations,
One of them, under the title "Salvemos a Bolivia del Desastre con las Armas en la Mano" [Arms in Hand, Let Us Save Bolivia from
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Disaster], read as follows:
"Qur country is today undergoing the worst period in its history. We are practically an occupied country.
"To open the country to Yankee colonization, the military have had to destroy the unions, trample law underfoot, murder leaders of the-workers., And to inorease the profits of the companies, they have had to reduce wages and salaries. Bolivia today is a big concentration camp where insecurity and hunger reign.
"Bolivians! Let's rise against this macabre situation. Let's save Bolivia from perishing as a sovereign and independent nation, Let's defend freedom and democratic rights.
"Bolivians!
"The National Guerrilla Command has arisen to carry on this struggle. Today it calls. on all Bolivians to organize themselves into armed squads in order to struggle face to face against the assassins}! The time has come for armed action.
"We Bolivians prefer TO DIE RATHER THAN LIVE AS SLAVES! Long live the workers' and people's guerrilla fighters!"
[Nuestra patria vive hoy los peores dias de su’historia. Practicamente somos un pafs ocupado.
{Para abrir el. pafs a la colonizacién yanqui, los militares han tenido que destruir los sindicatos, pisotear las leyes, asesinar dirigentes obreros. Y para aumentar la ganancia de las empresas han tenido que rebajar salarios y sueldos,. Bolivia es ahora un gran campo de concentracién donde impera la inseguridad y el hambre.
[itBolivianos! Levantémonos contra esta macdbra situacién, Salvemos a Bolivia de perecer como nacién soberana e independiente. Salvemos al pueblo de morir de hambre. Defendamos las libertades y derechos democrdticos.
[}Bolivianos!
[Para esta lucha ha nacido el Comando Nacional Guerrillero, que hoy llama a todos los bolivianos a organizarse en piquetes armados para dar la lucha frontal contra los masacradores! Ha llegado la hora de la accién armada, oo,
[Los bolivianos preferimos MORIR ANTES QUE ESCLAVOS VIVIR! {Vivan las Guerrillas obreras y populares} ]
In another statement, entitled “Guerrilla Warfare is the Prolongation of the Mass Struggle" [La Guerrilla Es la Prolongacién de la Lucha de Masas], the first number of Pueblo en Armas declared:
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tarmed struggle, including guerrilla war, has been imposed on us by the way the military junta has acted. If we are taking up arms, it is because all legal roads for struggle have been closed. The military junta has broken the juridical framework and placed itself outside the law. The example of the miners, who trusted in deals and dialogues is a fresh one. Delegates and signers of petitions are imprisoned, The same thing has occurred in the cities. No one can offer criticism without danger of being sent to Puerto Rico for socalled brain-washing.
"The legal struggle and mobilization of the masses ran into violence. and repression. The military junta has compelled us to resort to armed struggle, which is nothing more than the continuation of the mass struggle, but by other, more adequate means.
"This does not mean that union struggles and leadership of the workers! movement must be given up. Not at all, That form of struggle continues; but in face of the regime's brutality, it is complemented with armed action and guerrilla warfare. A close relation exists between them, or to put it better, armed action and the mass struggle are two facets of the general struggle for the national and social liberation of Bolivia.
"To accomplish this, it is necessary in every mine, factory, shop, field, to organize Union Defense Committees made up of the most audacious and courageous members. We want to throw out the military; not to replace them with another dictatorship, but to organize a popular government of workers, peasants and revolutionary men. Long live the guerrilla fighters! Down with the military boot!
"Tet's struggle to make Bolivia a free and prosperous country that brings happiness to its children}
“Bolivians!
"Letts save the country from Yankee colonization and the people from persecution and hunger!"
[La lucha armada, y dentro de ella, la guerra de guerrillas, nos had sido impuesta por la conducta de la Junta Militar. Si tomamos las armas, eS porque se han cerrado todos los caminos legales de lucha. La Junta Militar a roto el ordenamiento jurfdico y se ha colocado fuera de la ley. Estd fresco el ejemplo de los mineros, que confiaron en tratativas y didlogos. Delegados y firmantes de peticiones estan presos. En las ciudades la misma cosa. Nadie puede criticar sin peligro de ser confinado a Puerto Rico, al llamado lavado cerebral.
[La lucha legal y la movilizacién de masas chocan con la violencia y la repressién. La Junta Militar nos obliga a pasar a la lucha armada, que es nada mds que la continuacién de la lucha de masas, pero por otros medios m&s adecuados.
[Esto no ‘quiere decir que hay que abandonar la lucha sindical
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y la direccién del movimiento obrero. Nada de eso. Esta forma de lucha continiia, pero ante la brutalidad del régimen, se complemente con la accién armada y la guerrilla. Existe una relacién fntima entre ambas, o mds bien, si se quiere, la.accidén armada y la lucha de masas, son dos facetas de la lucha general por la liberacién nacional y social de Bolivia.
[Por eso, en cada mina, fdbrica, taller, campo, hay que organizar Comités de Defensa Sindical, integrados con los: mds audaces y valientes. Queremos echar abajo a los militares, pero no para reemplazarlos por otra dictadura, sino para organizar un gobierno popular, de obreros, campesinos y hombres revolucionarios. {!Vivan las guerrillast Aba jo la Bota!
[Luchamas para hacer de Bolivia una patria libre y prdéspera que de felicidad a sus. hijos!
[tBolivianos!
- [Salvemos a la patria de la colonizacion yanqui y al pueblo de la persecusién y el hambre!]
UNITY MOVEMENT