STUDENTS ASKED TO BACK APRIL 26 STRIKE
The newly organized "National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union," whose headquarters are in New York, has endorsed the April 26 student strike against the war in Vietnam and is appealing to "all students throughout the Third World to join the black students of the United States" in the projected action.
"This is an act of solidarity
against the racist oppression of Black
America, racist United States aggression
against the Vietnamese people, and the
violation of the right to self-determina-
tion of the peoples of Asia, Africa and
Latin America," the organization declared
in a statement to the press February 22.
Report from the Underground
THE GUATEMALAN GUERRILLAS HOLD THEIR OWN
{The interview below was granted by José Dones L., a member of the Guatemalan Movimiento Revolucionario 13 de Noviembre, to Leonardo Michel, a Latin- American correspondent of World Outlook. The MR-13, headed by Yon Sosa, is fighting side by side in Guatemala with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios, another guerrilla formation headed by Cesar Montes.
[The text has been translated by
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Question: How would you characterize the major features of Guatemalan political life in the past year?
Answer: The new terror promoted by the military (with the wholehearted support of the Yankee ambassador and the innumerable imperialist organizations operating in the country) quickly reached proportions as yet unheard of -- even in the worst days under Peralta Azurdia.
Mushrooming ultraright secret organizations -- linked, of course, to the military and, in particular, to the police -- introduced new forms of white terror. The "White Hand," the NOA [Nueva Organizacion Anticomunista -- New Anticommunist Organization], CADEG [Consejo Anticomunista de Guatemala -- the Anticommunist Council of Guatemala], RAYO (Resistencia Anticomunista y Organizada -- Organized Anticommunist Resistance], CRAG [Consejo Revolucionario Anticomunista Guatemalteco -- Guatemalan Anticommunist Revolutionary Council], etc., sprang up.
All these organizations are operating in Guatemala City and in other urban centers. Any activist or ordinary citizen considered by them to be a "Communist," who falls into their hands, is murdered after their customary tortures.
These groups are made up of notorious reactionary figures, policemen (above all the judicial policemen, who are the most murderous, cruel and bestial), military officers, etc.
It is common knowledge that they receive considerable support from the minister of defense, Rafael Arreaga Bosques, and from the director of the National Police, Francisco Sosa Avila. The imperialist agency AID [Agency for International Development] also supplies arms to these groups. The OAS [Organisation de l'Armée Secréte] terror against the Algerian people will give you an idea of the rightist onslaught which has been unleashed in Guatemala.
In a recent joint publication of the two guerrilla movements, a list was given of the financial angels of these groups. As the vanguard of the Guatemalan people, the armed revolutionary movement has pledged soon to carry out sentences of death against these persons.
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On November 7, 1966, a repression against the peasant population also began. Vast military movements were directed chiefly against the western part of the country where the social base of the guerrillas is the most extensive and where Comandante Yon Sosa is active. Rangers trained by Yankee military advisers, helicopters, and all sorts of men and matériel needed for antiguerrilla warfare were thrown against the rebels.
The government had utilized the preceding months of relative calm to carefully prepare the plans for its counteroffensive. The guerrillas withdrew before the attack, as they do in such cases. Despite this retreat, however, major leaders of the MR-13 were killed. It must be remembered that eleven national leaders of the MR-13 were included in the mass murder of twenty leaders in early 1965. Among them were Francisco Amado Fernandez; Fernando Arce Berehens; the Mexicans, David Aguilar Mora and Eunice de Aguilar; the comandante's cousin, Iris Yon Cerna; Carlos Barillas; Luis Licona; the two Martinez brothers and others besides.
The authoritative and experienced national leaders were lost, with the notable exception of Yon Sosa. The movement was virtually beheaded. A national leadership had to be recreated at the same time that the enemy pressed their furious »ffensive with its mounting cost in lives.
The list of those who perished and were murdered in the fighting in the mountains is a long one. I will mention only the peasant chairmen of the committees of Los Planes and Patzun, who were murdered in February 1967: Domingo Flores, Victor Ramirez, Mariano Ruiz, René Barrios, José Cerros, Chepe Beltran and the two women, Mirtala and Dina.
As the military went into action,
the cowardice and impotence of President Méndez Montenegro increased; he did not command, he was the puppet of the military. As always happens in these cases, the extremist military officers plotted a coup d'état, in which the head of the air force was involved. This time it failed but a future military coup is not excluded, above all if they come to need him less and less.
To sum up: the year 1967 in Guatemala was characterized by the struggle rising to a higher level. In face of the mass terror unleashed by the most extreme counterrevolutionary forces and veiled by the "constitutional" dictatorship of Julio César Méndez Montenegro, the counteroffensive of the people is beginning to take the form of an authentic people's war. We are rapidly moving toward a crisis which in the next few months will be decisive for the political life of our country -- the outbreak of civil war and a concurrent intervention by the Yankee marines. We are approaching our objective of creating a second, third Vietnan.
Q: What_influence has the recent OLAS conference had on the Guatemalan guerrilla movement:
A: As is well known, the MR-13 was the target of an unjustified attack by Comandante Fidel Castro in January 1966 in his closing speech at the Tricontinental conference. Fidel's unjust attitude (which was rectified little by little), coupled with’ the hard blows our movement suffered at the same time due to the repression, plunged us into an exceedingly harsh and difficult situation. Only the determination of the ranks to continue the fight, the tremendous integrity and fortitude of Comandante Yon Sosa, and the clarity of our revolutionary socialist principles and program enabled us to climb back up out of the deep abyss into which we had fallen.
At the beginning, in an impromptu fashion and later in a premeditated way, we restored our contacts with the FAR {Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios -- Revolutionary Armed Forces]. It was the FAR, it must be said honestly, who took the initiative of moving toward a reunification of the two revolutionary organizations, which have functioned separately since late 1964.
One of the principal sources of division was in our conception of the Guatemalan revolution. We maintained, basing ourselves on the Declaration of Sierra de las Minas, that we had inevitably to set a socialist objective if we wanted to give the armed movement the momentum to carry it to victory. The FAR compafieros, however, who were then led by Comandante Turcios, espoused the tra- -177-
ditional conception of the Guatemalan left and of the Latin-American left in general -- struggle for a nationaldemocratic revolution.
Afterwards, other factors deepened the split. We cannot deny that at times a divisive tendency and certain sectarian and opportunistic attitudes on both sides succeeded in producing a dangerous rivalry which could only benefit imperialist and national reaction by dividing our forces and social support as well as confusing the Guatemalan people who saw us struggling fiercely for leadership over then.
The last major point of dispute was over the past presidential and congressional elections. While the FAR favored participating in the elections, we were in favor of abstention and, if we did participate, for voting for a principled socialist program. Although history has shown how correct our attitude was, it has also shown the eminent-— ly honest, revolutionary attitude of the FAR. While it has committed errors (as we have also), it has learned by experience, the great teacher.
Today, the socialist progran, which before was a factor of contention between us, perhaps the most important, is so no longer. OLAS has raised the banner of socialism over the entire continent -- this banner for which the heroic Comandante Che Guevara died in Bolivia and which, moreover, is his legacy, whose heirs we are, as Régis Debray said. When Che wrote in his letter to the Tricontinental that the Latin-American revolution would be “either a socialist revolution or a caricature of revolution" he made it clear that our struggles and tactics must be aimed at the achievement of anticapitalist objectives, a worker-peasantstudent front, structural changes and, finally, a workers and peasants government.
Formal contacts between the two movenents began while Comandante Turcios was still alive. First a patrol from the Edgar Ibarra front paid a visit to the Alejandro de Leén front, where Yon Sosa was based. Later Turcios sent Comandante Yon Sosa an invitation to take part ina meeting to discuss the political situation in the country. Unfortunately, Comandante Turcios' premature death, as well as being a severe blow to the revolutionary movement, prevented this historic meeting. But his policy of unity with the MR-143 continued to be advocated by his successor César Montes.
In a meeting two months ago between the two comandantes of the two movements, these steps took a concrete form. It was resolved there to create a United Front of Concerted Action [Frente Unico
de la Accién Organizada], which is to be operative wherever guerrilla groups belonging to both organizations are found.
Our common socialist program, the need to coordinate action in the armed struggle and to respond to the offensive of the white terrorists by revolutionary war point the way to a forthcoming and advantageous reunification.
Q: Could you give me a-_rough idea of the extent of imperialist military intervention in Guatemala?
A: It is known that there are military "experts" and advisers in the Guatemalan army. But up till now this aid has been primarily material. AID [Agency for International Development] is the means used to finance the credits for purchases of military equipment, not only for the army but for the anti-Communist terrorist organizations.
Q: How many victims has the white terror claimed?
A: I can say for sure that no one knows exactly, not even the butchers themselves. The victims of the white terror turn up decapitated. It is very difficult to identify all of them. Men and women turn up dead one morning along the coast of Conosa, in Antigua, in Chiquimula, in the department of Izabal -- large numbers of bodies turn up every day. Many of the victims' bodies come to light very far from