VENEZUELAN GUERRILLA FIGHTERS REJECT CP POLICY
By Guillermo Bonilla
The Mexican: weekly magazine Sucesos recently published [December 10, 17, 24, 31, 1966, and January 7, 1967] a series of articles on the background, present status and program of the revolutionary guerrillas-in Venezuela. The articles are based on a lengthy interview which the editor of Sucesos, Mario Menéndez Rodriguez held with the bop guerrilla leaders in their hideouts in the mountains of Iracara in the state of alcon
One of the main points of interest in the series is that the Communist party of Venezuela is charged with betraying, blackmailing and sabotaging the guerrilla struggle. The Communist party leaders are pictured as having supported the formation of guerrilla fronts initially, not as part of a program of actual revolutionary warfare , but asa card to be played in the Venezuelan political arena. Their aim, it is held, was to utilize the guerrillas to harass the army and frighten the oligarchy,. blackmailing them into granting political concessions and getting into position fora military coup d'état that would carry the CP into power..
According to Menéndez,, in the initial phase the guerrillas were to follow orders given..by the..CP bureaucrats in Caracas. Orders came from the city for an attack at such and such.a place at such and such a date. Likewise from the city came the orders for a ceasefire and the suspension of harrying actions. . :
This’ type of strategy was ineffective and bound to fail; and guerrilla leaders like Comandante Douglas Bravo, who rebelled against it, were deprived of economic supplies, their communications and. publicity about their activities cut off, and they . were..even accused of being traitors to the revolution, adventurers and provocateurs. For three whole years, says the reporter, the guerrilla fighters of the José Leonardo Chirinos. front, led by Douglas Bravo, were not. supplied with shoes, clothing, food, weapons or medical assistance while vhey underwent constant harassment as the army sought. .to-encircle them. a
‘Meanwhile, top leaders of the Communist party of Venezuela like Machado, Pompeyo Marquez, Jesis Farias and others, who had been imprisoned, reached an understanding with the.Venezuelan government under which they would be released in exchange for stopping the guerrilla war and dismantling the various fronts. The rationale offered for this course was that conditions for guerrilla warfare were ‘absent in. Venezuela and that. the correct policy was to build a mass. party within the legal framework.
The only member of the Central Committee who did not capitulate, who kept alive the. idea of armed revolution, was Douglas Bravo. He decided to come down out of the mountains to Caracas to talk to the students and workers and try to reorganize a network of information, publicity and supplies for the guerrillas, who had been cut off from.outside help.
According to the account, when the CP leaders heard that Bravo was in Caracas, they immediately launched a “search and destroy" operation. During the ten months he remained in the city, Douglas Bravo was under constant danger of being caught either by the police or by agents of the CP. But they never found him; and once his mission was accomplished, Bravo returned to the mountains where he is now operating as _top commander of the Venezuelan guerrillas.
~“He was later joined by Iuben Petkoff, who landed.on the coast: of Falc6én with a group of heavily armed guerrilleros from the -island of Margarita. The landing was discovered by government forces the same day it was made and they immediately opened an attack. Despite troops and bombers, after an epic march of many days, hungry, exhausted, and sick, the Petkoff group managed to join the main force under Comandante Bravo.
Since then, things have been different in Venezuela. Bravo and Petkoff lead a large, well armed and.experienced guerrilla front in the state of Falcén;. and: coordinate their activities with those of -other minor fronts in different parts of’ Venegiels.
During November and December, 1966, guerrilla activity rose to such a degree both in the mountains and in Caracas itself, that the Leoni government, which had previously boasted of crushing the guerrilla movement, felt forced to declare a state of siege and close the National University.
‘The pro-Moscow leaders of the Communist party, of Venezuela are said to be furious, as are their Mexican counterparts. Epithets are. thrown at Bravo, such as “undisci-
plined," "traitor," "liar," "provocateur" and’ so on...”
However, Douglas Bravo is supported in Havana. Comandante Manuit Comero, who is president of the forces headed by Bravo, the FALN-FLN [Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacién Nacional and the Frente de Liberacién Nacional], is in Cuba on a mission of information and organization.
And it is clear that the entire problem of the fossilized, bureaucratic leaderships of the Communist parties of Latin America, who are discredited in the eyes: of the masses, will have to be placed on the agenda for a thoroughgoing discussion. ‘