Debray would be tried in mid-August. It will now be mid-September at the earliest according to French and British correspondence.
One French reporter offered the opinion that the authorities "were trying to discourage the numerous observers and foreign journalists who have already waited several weeks" (Le Monde, August 22, 1967).
Another reason is suggested by the nature of the prosecution as it is developing. The military now intends to try Debray along with five other alleged menmbers of the guerrilla force in the Nancahuazi region.
According to two British observers covering the trial, two of the additional defendants “are deserters from the guerrillas and pawns of the Army. The others are men expelled from the combat zone for physical deficiencies by the guerrillas themselves."
[The full text of this British report, printed in the London Observer August 27, gives a vivid account of the background of the Debray case and will be published in a future issue of World Qutlook. ]
As if to verify this premonition one of the two "deserters," Vincente Rocabado, declared August 25 that he had seen Debray "carry arms to the guerrilla encampment in Nancahuazt."
Meanwhile, at a press conference in Camiri where he is being tried, Debray told reporters August 16 that he had been tortured for the first two days of his capture. Debray reasserted that he had been asked to go to Bolivia to interview Che Guevara and that he had spent nearly a month with hin.
A DEATH IN
{The following article, written by Armando Rojas Arevala, appeared in the July 24 issue of Novedades, a Mexico City daily.
(It is of interest in indicating the living conditions among the poor in the capital of Mexico. The translation is by World Outlook. ]
A hundred or so foul and hungry rats devoured a 45-day-old baby boy yesterday while its mother wandered through the streets of the city begging people for money to help her get food for her baby and its little brothers.
The tragedy occurred within a hut made of stones, adobe and pieces of cardboard at Divisién del Norte 102, Colonia del Bosque.
Because her three children were crying for something to eat, the washerwoman, Carmen Flores Morales, 35, went out to get some money. She returned an hour later.
It was about 5 p.m. when Carmen reached her hovel with some seven pesos {U.S.$.60). SUNNY MEXICO
As she neared, she heard. the sobbing of her children and she ran, fearing something bad had happened.
With a horrible shock she saw that her baby had been devoured by the hungry rats which had come out of a drain pipe, while her two other sons -- Inocencio Flores, 5, and Jesis, 3 -- sobbed in a corner, panic~stricken.
The mother picked up a stick which she used to bar the door and fell furiously on the rats, which fled. She shouted for help from the neighbors but by the time they arrived the baby had died. The repellent animals had eaten away half its face and its stomach.
Carmen picked up the body of her son and brought it in her arms to the police station in Villa Obregon to ask them to help her so she could give the pody a Christian burial.
The agent of the Ministerio Piblico sent the body to the Servicio Médico Forense and the authorities there decided to bury it in a common grave.
The washerwoman was almost out of her mind from the tragedy and the doctors at the Xoco hospital had to give her sedatives.