REPRESSION AT BOLIVIA'S TIN MINES
[In the latter part of September, a violent struggle flared up between Bolivian government forces and the miners. This was. reported in the October 1 World Outlook, along with news about the ‘formation of guerrilla forces there. Since then we have received additional information indicating the extent of the battles. The following account is a translation of the lead article in the September 22 issue of El Diario, the biggest daily in La Paz. The news~ paper, it should be added, is conservative in its politics, ]
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At Catavi and Siglo XX, the climate of violence unleashed Saturday evening is still in evidence. Already the lamentable results include more than thirty dead and around one hundred wounded, many of them very seriously as a result of the bloody events.
Catavi, Llallagua, Siglo XX, Uncfa and Huairapata have been
converted into a big battlefield in which two unequal factions are engaged in a sterile and fratricidal struggle.
The agitation began as a consequence of the arrest of various underground workers carried out by the National Guard and the DIC [Direccién Investigacién Criminal -- Bolivia's secret political police], following special instructions from the Military Junta. The miners held a meeting Saturday evening which degenerated into a violent demonstration that was beaten back by the special security forces after a prolonged combat lasting almost all night.
The killing of two mine workers and the arrest of many others angered the underground workers still more. All day Sunday they discussed organizational plans on how to meet the police action.
On Monday morning, some of the extremist agitators appeared in the plaza in Llallagua where they shouted for the release of their comrades, The group was soon strengthened by the families of the prisoners and the many wounded who had fallen Saturday night.
At first the members of the National Guard and the Public Security defended themselves by using tear gas, but soon had to resort to their firearms again, causing fresh casualties,
The miners! action, more energetic than that of the carabin-= eros, tipped things in their favor to such a point that they took the headquarters of the National Guard and the DIC; and their occupants had to flee, : Three agents of the DIC were not lucky enough to escape and were captured by the enraged miners. They dragged them inside the mine and locked them up in a "stope," their final fate not being known.
[The imperialist press reported that three police agents had been executed by being thrown down a deep shaft. However, all three were released after a couple of days, -- Editor. ]
After the first shots, the soldiers of the regiment known: as the "Rangerts,' who held various positions in the region, assembled to receive instructions from their superiors. Meanwhile, fighting between the miners and the police broke out again in the streets of Llallagua, becoming general in a wide zone.
The first wounded began to fall close to the main plaza in Llallagua, among them Captain Miguel Rubfn de Celis. The work of the volunteer stretcher-bearers was very difficult. A priest of Siglo XX parish participated in this, carrying out wounded at the height of the combat,
While this was going on at Llallagua, the people at Catavi, who had remained at their posts, working until around noon, decided
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to join in the struggle. Some youth got together to go to Llallagua by way of the Huairapata zone, where they pitched in to fight the soldiers of the Ranger's regiment, using dynamite which they had brought expressly for this.
Upon receiving the news in La Paz of the conflicts, the head of the army general staff, Colonel Marcos Vdsquez, immediately took a plane for Uncfa where he took command of operations,
It is necessary to note that during their actions, the miners brought out various firearms which they had hidden, but their ammunition consisted in the most part of dynamite used for its purely psychological effect. The miners who were armed or who had taken arms away from the DIC agents were responsible for eight of the ten casualties among members of the National Guard,
It was two ofclock on Monday afternoon when the Ranger's assault regiment decided to go into action. Most of the contingent at the Miraflores barracks at Uncfa moved into battle and the few who were left occupied themselves with standing off a student demonstration.
The soldiers moved through the narrow streets of the mining district of Llallagua until they completely dominated it and they then continued advancing in the direction of Catavi. They ran into the heaviest resistance at Huairapata where groups of miners had been posted with firearms and dynamite.
The combat was a hard one. The miners lost ground as their ammunition ran out until, finally, they had to flee in the direction of the camp. The officers in command of the Ranger's could not control their troops who, from then on, committed a series of atrocities against innocent people who had nothing to do with the battle. The soldiers advanced in a flagrant way against the huts of the miners, kicking in the doors and machinegunning them. Entire families fell in this, like the Pomares and the Cruz's, including babies.
The action of the "Ranger's," in the military phase known as "exploitation of victory," was interminable. After breaking into almost all the homes, they took prisoners. These mounted into the hundreds although a little later, when it proved to be impossible to get so many people into the Miraflores barracks, they were reduced to approximately one hundred.
Meanwhile the mine hospital at Catavi was busy taking care of the casualties of the bloody struggle. The equipment of the big modern hospital proved inadequate to take care of the victims from both sides. The doctors had to conduct a series of emergency opera tions, including amputations in some cases. Drugs ran low at a cere tain point and it was necessary to send to Huanuni for more,
The morgue of the hospital, located three hundred meters to
the south, was packed with bodies, according to the stretcher-bearers, The bodies of the victims were removed by their weeping families and all that were left were the bodies of some of the carabineros whom nobody came to claim.
During the action at Huairapata, military planes, including T-6's and Mustang F-51's went into action, their 50-caliber machine~ guns causing many casualties. The wounds caused by these planes were the most difficult to take care of due to the size of the bullets.
The Comibol radio station at Catavi was cut off by the miners so that it made it difficult to call for help at the most difficult moments, or at least to avoid the attack by the planes of the Air Force.
Afraid that the miners would again go into action during the night, the Ranger soldiers retreated to their barracks, leaving the populations at Siglo XX and Llallagua without a guard. A group of soldiers from the army and the police stayed in Catavi. They were sufficient to block the miners from moving into action.
The agitators of the miners showed up again at the plaza in Llallagua yesterday morning and seized the installations of the National Guard, of Public Security and the town hall,
Lieutenant Reynaldo. Barrancos, of the National Guard, was caught by surprise in his room at the Hotel Llallagua by a group of angry miners who beat him unconscious. He was taken to the hospital at Catavi with most of his ribs broken and a fractured skull.
While they held the plaza at Llallagua, the miners went to work destroying the public buildings, dynamiting them and then setting them on fire.
Meanwhile the Ranger soldiers at the Miraflores barracks took their prisoners in four "Caimanes" trucks to be sent by plane to La Paz. At the Uncfa airstrip they waited for four 0-47 planes of Lloyd Aéro Boliviano, Yacimientos Petrolfferos, the Corporacién Boliviana de Fomento, and Transportes Aéros Militares. A little before ten in the morning, two of the planes brought in soldiers from the "Braun 8 de Caballeria" regiment in Santa Cruz. They had fighting equipment although they were in khaki uniform.
The prisoners were put into the planes while their families, a hundred meters away, wept disconsolately. They had hurried on foot for almost ten kilometers to beg for the release of their sons and husbands.
The four planes could not carry all the prisoners, among whom were more than thirty adolescents. These were sent back to the barracks at Miraflores to wait for the next flights.
The Braun regiment, which had arrived from Santa Cruz, was given the mission of retaking the Llallagua plaza. They advanced against it in a cautious, slow way, due mainly to the fact that the soldiers from the east were beginning to feel the effects of the altitude and the cold.
By noon yesterday, the Santa Cruz soldiers succeeded in dislodging the rebels from the Llallagua plaza, taking over the des~ troyed buildings where they temporarily installed themselves. Various soldiers of the regiments had to be given medical attention due to the effects of the elevation.
While the Braun soldiers were cleaning their guns, sticks of dynamite were exploded on the neighboring hills. The soldiers replied by firing in all directions.
From the alleys of Llallagua, angry miners insulted the soldiers, provoking a new battle. This ended with more dead and wounded, It has not been possible to determine how many.
The violence continued during the night as the miners brought in abundant supplies of dynamite and home-made "molotov" cocktails to throw at their adversaries,
When the reporters of El Diario were returning to La Paz, soldiers of the maintenance center of the army held up our car to search it. They were looking for "two deserters from the Ranger's" who left Llallagua in civilian clothes,
Funeral services for the victims at Catavi are being held this morning at the cemetery in the Marfa Barzola camp. Fresh violence is feared,