BOLIVIA .
"Virtual civil war," was. the succinct label Col. Oscar Quiroga, spokesman of Bolivia's military junta, put on the situation there May 24. "Growing insurrection," was the phrase used by United Press International in a La Paz dispatch the same day.
General René Barrientos Ortuno appeared to have staked his regime. on the deployment of the armed forces against the entire union movement in Bolivia and especially its main bulwark, the organized miners. The would-be strong man ordered the armed forces to occupy or encircle the principal’ mining centers. In some places they were reported to have succeeded in seizing certain mines. In others the miners were said to have put up a successful resistance, using the armed militia to defend their positions.
Guerrilla warfare loomed as armed miners in some areas moved toward mountain retreats.
Barrientos demanded “unconditional surrender" from the min-= ers and used planes to strafe and bomb their positions. Casualties were reported to be high. 7
On May 25 a truce was reached between the military junta and the miners. It included the withdrawal of the armed forces from the mining areas by May 29. In return the workers were to. end their general strike May 26, The truce was negotiated by Gen. Alfredo | Ovando Candia, another member of the junta, But it was not elear what his motives were, oo
According to foreign diplomats in La Paz the truce may be just a tactical move on the part of the junta to gain time. "There were other indications, however," said Henry Raymont, special cor= respondent of the New York Times, "to suggest that the army had been forced to yield in the face of yesterday's sudden insurrection in the capital's industrial section."
.The efforts of the military junta to work the same "Communist plot" angle used by the Johnson administration in Santo Domingo were intensified, After "discovering" a vast international conspiracy allegedly involving Juan Lechfin Oquendo and requiring his exile Lsee page 6 for. details], the junta carried out a raid on Communist party headquarters. in La-Pazg. . They: padlocked the place and claimed. that they had discovered "documents" proving that the Communists were involved in a “conspiracy to assassinate" Barrientos...
. .fhe military junta was reported May 26 to be pleading with the State Department to sell "arms" to them: This could escalate later into a plea to send U.S.Marines to mop'up Bolivia the way. they mopped up the Dominican Republic.
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