WITCH~HUNT VICTIMS IN BOLIVIA FACE DEATH IN JUNGLE CAMPS
[The following report was issued in Buenos Aires by Irene Mizrahi, former director of Monthly Review in Latin America.]
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Since January 18 of this year, 23 Bolivian political prisoners have been condemned to a slow, cruel and inexorable death in the areas where they have been confined by the government of General René Barrientos. Some friends in Bolivia wrote to Monthly Review (Argentina) to report this monstrous crime and to ask for our collaboration in breaking through the conspiracy of silence.
Those arrested belong to various political parties with a long background of struggle in the militant Bolivian unions. That is why they have been condenned to a living hell where sickness and hunger can finish them off.
The places where they have been sent are military outposts in a jungle zone often in the midst of swamps infested with crocodiles and piranas. The nearest villages are 120 to 200 kilometers away, separated from the camps by dense jungle, the best barbed wire to prevent escapes. To venture out of these places means certain death for whoever tries it..A military plane comes once a week to relieve the garrison, who get out of there as rapidly as possible in view of the fact that these zones inspire a justifiable fear of the infectious diseases that are present.
In the "best" place of confinement, Ixiamas, there is a village of 300 half-savage inhabitants whose only source of income is hunting jaguars. Food consists exclusively of bananas and at times, with luck, of bats to be found in churches still standing from the days of a Jesuit settlement.
The houses, flimsy structures of adobe and straw; are ideal nesting places for tarantulas and snakes which take their toll among the political prisoners. There is an insect the sting of which produces a suppuration that can cause death within 48 hours. The air swarms with mosquitoes, gnats and horseflies that prevent any kind of activities in the open air, including the basic necessities. The Bolivian government sends no medicines or food whatsoever to counteract these terrible scourges and debilitation from undernourishment.
It should be added that since the government sends the prisoners neither clothing nor shoes, nor anything with which to repair what they have on, nor lets them have anything else, they are soon half naked, suffering without defense from the terrible storms that occur.
After such a long time without hearing from them, since they are held strictly incommunicado, nobody knows how many of the political prisoners are still alive. It is reported that two of them were put in isolation in-a state of coma and that others feel the situation is hopeless. That is why there is no time to lose.
Statements asking for their release should be obtained from unions, political parties, intellectuals and anyone who does not believe that human rights are only empty rhetoric.
Letters should be sent to the Ministro de Gobierno Antonio Arguedas, and to the President of the Republic General René Barrientos, La Paz, Bolivia.
Letters should also be sent to the newspapers in La Paz [Presencia, El _Diario and El Pueblo].
Energetic demands for an end to the inhuman treatment of the prisoners and for giving them food, medical care and hygienic quarters should be made inmediately. It is possible that many have died but international solidarity may save the lives of the rest.
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The list of prisoners, as reported in World Outlook March 24 is as follows:
Zan6én Barrientos Manani
Sinforese Cabrera
Iuis Canipa
Orlando Capriles
Alejandro Carvajal
_Nuflo Chavez Ortiz
Carlos Daza L.
Jorge Echazi Alvarado
Filimon Escobar
Gabriel Guzmadn I.
Alberto Jara Daza
Guillermo Lora
Miguel Lora
Carrasco Marin
Edwin Moller
José Palacios
Victor Reynaga
Eulogio Sanchez T.
Oscar Sangines
Victor Sosa
Amadeo Vargas
Felipe Villanueva
Oscar Zamora
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