BREAK WITH PAZ ESTENSSORO
The national congress of the MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolu- -cionario], which opened in La Paz January 18, registered the parting of the ways between President Victor Paz Estenssoro and Vice-President Juan Lechin, Cerrespondents of the bourgeois press listed as. principal cause of the break Lechfin's announcement that he would be -presiden~ tial candidate in the coming elections. The response of Paz was to expel his rival. The causes of the break, however, go deeper than that.
“In a long report to the congress, Paz dwelt on his policies of the past years and affirmed that he would continue his present alliance with U.S. imperialism and his course of so-called “economic: stabilization" at the expense of the workers and peasants, Order and. stability, according to Paz, are the necessary conditions for economic improvement, being linked. to North American aid and foreign invest- “ments,
The left wing of the MNR refused to participate in the congress, Just before it met they circulated a scorching criticism of the policies followed by Paz. The document was signed by Lechin, Flores, Morales Guillen, Camberos, Zuazo Cuenca and other leading figures of. the MNR, They gave the following as their reasons for refusing in advance to abide by the decisions of the congress?
(a) Failure to hold elections in ‘the departmental and “apecial staffs, a prerequisite to convening a congress;
"(b) Failure to guarantee the democratic rights of the rank. and . file in the party, and. discriminatory actions by the government.andleadership in favor of the ruling camarilla; .
"(oe) Nonrecognition of regularly elected party delegates andirregularities in replacing them by functionaries of the government, the leadership and the top hierarchy of the state apparatus and the. police;
"(d) Violations of the party statutes and arbitrary application of these statutes .by decreasing rank-and-file representation; . "(e) Rigging of the congress by blackmail, slander, bribes and intimidation;
"(f) Underestimation of the national problems and lack of will to find a rational solution of the crisis facing the country and the destitution of the people:
"(g) Finally, continual use of methods of violence and corvor by.
the. government against the party ranks and the Bolivian people and _ systematic violation of the constitutional rights and guarantees of © citizens," |
The document scored "the contradiction that exists between the
appalling poverty of the country and the opulence of the government bureaucracy, who live in the best of worlds and pretend that there is no crisis in. Bolivia and even that the cost of living has dropped... In reality, the national industrialists, broad commercial sectors -~ compelled to make their purchases in a single market -= the employees, workers, teachers, professionals, artisans and peasants suffer from the calamitous consequences of the antinational economic policy of the . government. . . There are no possibilities for improvement for anyone except the ruling bureaucracy."
During January there were other > symptomatic indications of the widening differences in the MNR. A group of militants, including some that are very well known in Bolivia, circulated a "call to the popular forces of the MNR for the formation of a large and powerful front: of national liberation,"
The: leaflet advances the: following points as a proposed platform:
"(4) The Bolivian revolution is anti-imperialist, anbifeudal. and an integral part of the national Latin-American revolution;
nee) ‘Support the monopoly of the national market by the YPFB [the state-owned oil company] and revision of the oil code, _ "(3) Defend the nationalization of the mines and demarid the com= plete ‘reorganization of the COMIBOL [Corporacién Minera de Bolivia, the management of the nationalized mining industry]; -
"(4) Struggle for the installation of smelters in Bolivian territory as an unpostponable necessity to. complete the economic cycle of our mining industry;
"(5) Complete the agrarian reform on the socio- ~economic lével by organizing the agrarian economy to achieve national self-sufficiency; - “"(6) Democratize the armed forces by giving them a clear popular, anti-imperialist and antifeudal consciousness;
wT) Struggle for the equality of women and men in the exercise of their rights as citizens juridically, politically, economically and socially,
"(g). Defend trade-union rights and workers control, struggle against the division of the workers movement and move toward the gradual application of workers self-management in the nationalized industry; ; (9) Democratize the internal life of the party on the basis of a correct revolutionary ideological line with maintenance of the right of tendencies within the framework of this line,"
Unrest is quite high in Bolivia. Recently a group calling them selves the Committee for Anti-imperialist Struggle were arrested in La Paz. ,Aged from 16 to 20, they were accused of trying to blow up the
~18=_
Venezuelan and Argentine embassies and the home of General Barrientos,
In La Paz explosives were placed in the offices of the newspaper La Nacién, The automobile belonging to President Paz was blown up;
At Cochabamba telegraph and military installations were dynamited.
BIG