GUERRILLA ACTIVITY, STRIKE THREAT, IN COLOMBIA
According to a January 9 dispatch from Bogotd, which was carried on the wires of Agence France Presse, guerrilla forces in Colombia have succeeded in linking up with the Venezuelan FALN: [Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacién Nacional], which are conducting guerrilla fighting in a. number. of areas, including regions bordering Colombia,
- on January .7, said the dispatoh, 45 men "in green uniforms, black berets and red arm bands. bearing. the initials of the National Liberation Army" occupied a village in the province of Sentander, 150 kilometers from the Venezuelan frontier, - Most of the inhabitants of Simacota, along with the police | detachment, had gone to a larger neighboring village where an open market was being held. After killing a police sergeant and two of his assistants, the guerrilla fighters easily took the village.
- They searched twenty houses, taking what they needed, ‘after that they "exhorted the villagers to armed revolt." When-a contingent of the regular army arrived, fighting broke out, Two of the regulars were killed by the guerrilla fighters before they retreated into the mountains.
Meanwhile tension was rising in the main centers of Colombia. A special correspondent of the New York Times reported January 15 that President Guillermo Leon Valencia was "struggling with what both observers and participants consider the gravest economic and political crisis he has yet faced. 2 8
His immediate problem was “to "avert" a general strike called for January 25, The strike was scheduled in protest against "a newsales tax and the rapid rise of prices that followed it."
The President was holding meetings with his cabinet and with labor leaders and had called.a meeting of governors of departments "to discuss measures to hold down prices,” ~ i The Confederation of ‘Colombian Labor was reported to have agreed to several compromise measures but it remained to be seen whether the government's frantic efforts to head off the strike would succeed.
‘
u
Book -