Bolivian pesos, which is nevertheless below the basic minimum and barely compensates for the decline of real wages that has occurred during the pait three years of wage freeze. Repressive escalation Faced with this situation, the dictatorship of the fascist gorillas resorted to violence. In the early hours of June 9 the dictatorship, which had tried to assert its authority and popular support, lost its head and decreed a state of siege. The mining districts of Catavi, Siglo XX, Huanuni, Colquiri, Corocoro, Quechisla, and San José were ordered occupied by the military. Leaders of the miners union were seized, as were university students in Sucre, Cochabamba, Oruro, and La Paz. The heroic districts of Catavi-Siglo XX launched a workers counteroffensive. They avoided an armed clash with the army occupiers, whose first objective was to silence the workers radio stations, but at the same time they declared a strike. The workers walked out. The trade-union leaders took refuge in the mines, with their thousands of meters of tunnels, and from these bastions they directed the resistance, which was waged around the following demands:
1) Immediate withdrawal of all military forces from the mining districts.
2) Release of all leoders of the mineworkers union, other workers leaders, and students who had been de-
tained.
3) Return of the miners radio stations, especially Voz del Minero, 21 de Diciembre, and Radiomesoras Pio XII. Guarantees that these stations could function.
4) Wage and salary increases for the mineworkers.
5) Immediate extradition of those responsible for the murder of ex-president J. Torres. The leaders of the mineworkers union who had not been arrested reconstituted the leadership, and on June 13 they approved a resolution calling for generalizing the strike to all nationalized mines and all sectors affiliated to the miners federation. Huanuni, Quechisla, Potos, San Jose, Colquiri, and other smaller mines in the nationalized mine system immediately went on strike. The mining cooperatives joined in. Seven of the country's nine universities declared indefinite general strikes in support of the miners. The most militant factories also went on strike for periods of twenty-four or fortyeight hours. Banzer had not expected such an energetic workers and people's response, In desperation he concentrated all his forces on breaking up the strikers in the mines. The nationalized mines were declared military zones and their inhabitants, the miners, were subjected to the Military Penal Code. The dictatorship threatened to invade the mines with "armed peasants" and a number of supposed peasant organizations were ordered to issue communiqués and resolutions calling for this. A genocidal crime In an attempt to prevent the trade-union leaders who had taken refuge in the mines from continuing to direct the resistance, army soldiers were posted at the mine entrances to prevent any persons or supplies from entering. Electrified wire fences were strung up and the water and air supplies were cut off. The miners responded with greater firmness. Then, in an attempt to defeat the civilian population of the two districts, which is estimated at 50, 000 including the miners and their families, the dictatorship surrounded the food warehouses (Pulperfas) and cut off the electricity and drinking water in all mining camps. This was an unprecedented crime, of a genocidal type.
The inhabitants of the mining camps - miners, women, children, and old people - were thus condemned to hunger and disease, without recourse to hygiene and medicine. This crime must be denounced by the whole civilized world. The revolutionary organizations throughout the world must raise their voices to condemn and denounce it before all international bodies. Commissions must be prepared to go to Bolivia to support the miners in struggle. In its attempts to divide and break the resistance of the miners, the military dictatorship decreed a wage increase (called a "rationalization) that amounts to 2230 percent and claimed to open a "dialogue" with the rank and file miners. After making this claim, and after the military occupation of Catavi, Banzer visited this district. But he was rejected by the miners, After this experience he refrained from going to Siglo XX and Huanuni. it is urgent to organize a campaign to denounce the conditions under which bolivia lives The struggle of the Bolivian people is a difficult one. But Bolivia is the country in Latin America in which the recomposition of the workers movement and the left has advanced furthest since the fascist military coup in 1970. The situation in Bolivia must continue to occupy an important place in the concerns of the revolutionary organizations and masses of the world, It is urgent to organize a campaign to denounce the conditions under which Bolivia lives; the struggle of Bolivia's proletariat, especially the miners, and students must be supported. World solidarity can prevent the isolation of the mining centers surrounded by the army. World solidarity must prevent the isolation of the Bolivian masses in struggle. Huanuni, June 15, 1976
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