second Domini- | can Republic!" This was the theme of broadcasts from the radio stations of the Bolivian miners beginning May 16.
The charge followed the exiling of former Vice-President Juan Lechin Oquendo, an influential political figure among the miners, The ruling Military Junta forced Lechfn aboard a plane May 15 and sent him to Asuncién where he was met by representatives of the Paraguayan dictatorship.
Interior Minister Oscar Quiroga said that Lechfn had been exiled because of “present social tension." He alleged that Lechin was connected with "a vast subversive plot of international character planned and financed for several months by internationally known Communist leaders."
As “evidence,” Quiroga said Lechin was maintaining "a perman-~ ent link with Italian Communist leader Signor Luigi Longo" in a scheme to turn Bolivia into "a new focal point for violence and extermination in the Southern Hemisphere."
Bolivian trade-union leaders ridiculed these charges, They accused the American ambassador and the secret services of the United States with having persuaded the Military Junta to exile Lechfn,.
In protest, the unions ordered a general strike to begin thé following day, Monday May 17, and scheduled demonstrations in La Paz.
Despite the short notice, some 7,000 demonstrators, including workers and students, turned out in response to the call.
The Military Junta, which has been ruling Bolivia since a popular uprising ousted PAZ Estenssoro last November, apparently decided to drop its mask of pseudo-leftism and ordered the demonstration to be put down by force. Police went into action, Nineteen were wounded and one killed.
In the mine centers, where the strike paralyzed everything, indignation was reported to be rising swiftly. In certain places the miners were taking hostages, including engineers and administrators. The miners! radio called on the armed union militia to remain vigilant.
The Military Junta then decided to crack down on the unions. Following the demonstration, it decreed a "state of siege,” meaning the suspension of all constitutional guarantees and the institution of a naked military dictatorship.
In a still more direct attack, the Junta decreed the "suspension" of all leaders of Bolivia's trade unions and called for new trade-union elections in forty days.
A tense situation thus reigned in the Andean republic as the military heirs of Paz Estenssoro sought to consolidate their grip by giving the Bolivian workers a "whiff of grapeshot."
MAY DAY MBSSAGE OF BOLIVIAN POR
[The following is a translation of the May Day message issued by the POR (Partido Obrero Revolucionario -- Revolutionary Workers party, Bolivian section of the Fourth International), It is of exceptional interest because of its anticipation of the political crisis that was to flare up in Bolivia only fifteen days after the document was issued, |
Comrade Proletarians and Peasants:
Workers of -Bolivia:
The International Day of the Workers is being celebrated in 1965 under circumstances that are fateful for the destiny of the working class and the whole nation.
We are commemorating the epic of the martyrs of the proletariat who died in Chicago, at a time when our country, economically and politically, is in a state of total collapse as a result of the infamous ten-years of MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario | government and its continuators in military uniform, while the bourgeoisie, the reformists and the Christian Democrats argue among them selves, unable to provide any solution whatsoever to the national problems of the masses,
This crisis of the decomposing capitalist regime is being thrust onto the workers. The ruling classes and international finance capital are unloading the burden of their misdeeds onto the shoulders of the workers and peasants, that is, the people.
The government of the military heel has had the audacity to deny any increase in wages. The income of the workers is not rising, but prices are -- and in runaway fashion. The people are condemned to eat only two or three times a week and malnutrition, with its wake of illnesses, is a scourge in the humble homes of the proletariat.
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The handing over of Bolivia to Yankee imperialism, carried out by the Paz Estenssoro regime, has been brought to completion by the Military Junta. All the assets of the Bolivian economy, the. sources of wealth like gold, oil and minerals have been plundered, Ore bodies like Mutun and Matilde have been handed over to the imperialist companies as well as rich: pickings from the nationalized mines. The chairman of Comibol [Corporacién Minera de Bolivia, which is in charge of the nationalized mining industry], Colonel Lechin, holds that Comibol should be discontinued, thus preparing for denationalization of the mines.
But North American imperialism demands even more drastic measures to refasten its chains of oppression. It has refused to finance the third phase of the so-called Triangular Plan-until ‘the mines are “put in order" in accordance with its conditions. This "order" signifies the use of force and violence against the workers and military occupation of industrial centers and workers areas, as occurred in the oil strike, the suppression of trade-union liberties and the open repression of revolutionary Marxist political .tenden-= cles. In short, imperialism demands the application of an ‘ultra rightist policy, of fascist pattern, as is being applied in Brazil. The Military Junta has been given the mission of consolidating its government either through fraudulent elections or by establishing an actual dictatorship. | ;
In this way, imperialism and its military agents are trying to convert our country into another Puerto Rico, or.to repeat. qhe bloody experience of the Congo or of Vietnam. In their anxiety tec save themselves and to cover up the rottenness of capitalist society, they cannot respond in any other way to the problems of the country ° and the needs of the masses,
There Is No Salvation for Capitalism
When imperialism and the Military Junta rejéct the workers petitions, when they respond to social conflicts by mobilizing the army, when in place of jobs and bread they offer brutal repression, they demonstrate the historic bankruptcy of their regime and their absolute political impotence. They are manifestly undergoing their death agony. There is no -possible salvation for capitalism: Gen= eral Barrientos! verbal gymnastics cannot save the regime of exploitation and misery.
The workers and all the people are living today through the richest experience in the irretrievable and spectacular breakdown of reformist bourgeois politics. The whole structure of capitalist society is cracking and threatens to collapse. Five months ago the Military Junta took over power in order to save the imperialist positions and to contain the insurrection of the masses. In such a short time, this instrument is already worn out and is crumpling without having defeated the masses; and imperialism is desperately
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seeking an alternative. But the efforts of the gang of reactionaries and their bourgeois and petty-bourgeois political parties will prove to be in vain. The breakdown of the present social and econ» omic order cannot be counteracted despite the activity of the opportunists, "Christian Democrats," and "nationalist revolutionaries" who have served as a brake on the masses for the past twelve years, and despite the political corpses, resurrected with injections of