BOLIVIAN WORKERS RESIST COUNTERREVOLUTION
LA PAZ, May 30 -- The military government: has gained a battle, but it is far from having won the war.
We are facing a most reactionary government which is going all out in its.effort to destroy the trade-union organizations and revolutionary Marxist parties.
The strike action taken.in protest over the exiling of Juan Lechin, which also had the aim of gaining a wage increase and defending trade-union rights, was met by the. military junta with a declaration of war.
The workers districts in La Paz and other cities were occupied militarily in an unequal armed struggle. Then came the bombing of the Continental radio station owned by the Federacién de Traba jadores Fabriles. They took the main buildings and factories of La Paz. Many workers were killed or wounded. The army employed modern equipment, including mortars, bazookas, pursuit planes and bombers.
They then invaded the mining centers. The Milluni district, seventy-five kilometers from La Paz, which has a population of some 5,000, was defended by 500 armed men supported by hundreds of peasants who were called in but who had no arms. The invaders numbered 5,000 fully equipped troops,
The air force machine-gunned the mine camp in advance and bombed the strongholds of the mine workers. The infantry and motor. ized units followed un in a ferocious butchery. With the defeat, sectors of the armed workers retreated to the nearest mountain, the 6, 000-meter~-high [19, 685 feet], snow-covered Huayna Potosf. A plane was brought down by rifle fire.
Milluni fell into the hands of the military and a brutal repression was begun. Among those killed were Trotskyists. Some Trotskyists escaped. Others were jailed.
At the same time, the army attacked the mining district of Kami. Again the air force began with its butchery to be followed up by the army; and Kami fell.
The mining district of the South, with its center at Telamayu and Atocha was likewise attacked. Atocha is.a few kilometers from. Tupiza on the Argentine frontier where the international railway goes through. The battle lasted all day but the army was defeated, seventy prisoners falling into the hands of the workers. The army called for reinforcements.
The reply in La Paz to these eriminal attacks “launched by the
military was the formation of armed squads.. In the El Alto district where the international airport and the military air base are located, fighting occurred on May 23, the day after the battle at Milluni. Armed workers' and people's groups fought the army forces, Planes moved in again to machine-gun and bomb these districts, a
From El Alto the struggle moved into the populous areas of La Paz, the fighting continuing through May 24 and May 25. Every night since then squads of workers have fought with the army. ™
In the districts of Munaypata, Villa Victoria, Alto Lima, Nueva Potosf, Achachicala, which constitute the city's proletarian. belt, the army has not been able to entrench itself and every house is a kind of barricade, Sharpshooters are to be found throughout these districts. The difference in armament and supplies of ammunition places the armed militia at a disadvantage.
In this situation of open civil war, of partial military victories by the government, the University students and teachers intervened in order to mediate and gain a truce. Differences appeared at this moment between the army under the command of Ovando Gandia and the military junta headed by Barrientos. Ovando agreed to the truce on certain conditions, among them being that the army was not to enter the main mining centers like Colquiri, Huanuni, and the. South sector where they were repulsed, and Catavi and Siglo XX, But these centers are encircled and there is resistance among the generals to withdrawing.
As a result of the truce, the COB [Central Obrera Boliviana] suspended the strike and on May 27 began normalizing activities in the plants and mines. Nevertheless, fighting is continuing in the cities with a tendency toward guerrilla war and acts of sabotage. The population, the factory workers and miners are moving spontaneously in this direction.
-The government blames all this on what it calls an_“international Communist rebellion” involving Juan Lechfn's PRIN [Partido Revolucionario de Izquierda Nacionalista], the POR [Partido Obrero . Revolucionario] and the PCB [Partido Comunista Boliviana]. But in reality it is the result of a military provocation and preventive attack. .The seizure and exiling of Lechfn, the bombing of the workers! radio stations, and the arrest of other trade-union leaders were inspired by the United States as were the grave events in Santo Domingo. These provocations ended in the bloody happenings. The workers entered into conflict without adequate organization and preparation.
The country is now in a state of war, under military rule. The Supreme Court has been converted by decree into a tribunal of Military Justice. Trials are conducted in accordance with the military penal code.
a | ~To
The mines have been declared military zones under the command of military chiefs, although they have not yet succeeded in taking over. To accomplish this, the army will have to battle its way into the mines. -In the name of rehabilitating the mines, wages have been slashed, mass firings have been initiated, and hiring of selected personnel under worse conditions has been ordered. The trade-union leaders have been ordered out of office by the government.
All these measures have been rejected by the mine workers. Workers assemblies have backed their leaders in open-defiance of the government.
In the factories the leaders have likewise been backed. At SAID, the biggest textile plant, the leaders were given a unanimous vote of confidence in a general assembly. This included three who were exiled to Paraguay by the government. Similar actions have. been taken in the other plants.
On the surface, things again