LLERAS
RESTREPO MAKES CYNICAL BID TO BREZHNEV-KOSYGIN
In an article from Bogot& April 23 Juan de Onis, special correspondent of the New York Times reports that the Carlos Lleras Restrepo government "is seeking to engage the Soviet Union as an ally against Cuban-backed guerrillas who are active in Colombia."
According to de Onis, the president of Colombia "has told Soviet negotiators who have come here to discuss a trade treaty that one of the conditions for good economic relations is that Conmmunists under Moscow's influence refrain from subversive activities in Colombia."
A "high Government official" told the Times correspondent that the Soviet choice was clear.
"Either the Russians keep the Communist party here out of the support apparatus for the guerrillas or we don't recognize good faith in a trade agreement.
De Onis notes that two weeks before he left for the Punta del Este conference, Lleras "had about 100 Communist activists jailed, including Gilberto Vieyra, secretary general of the Communist party, and other prominent members of its Central Committee."
Upon returning from the conference "Mr. Lleras ordered the release of all Communists except a few who will be held for trial by military courts on charges of directly aiding the guerrillas."
De Onis explains that Lleras wanted first to show that he was prepared to use the authoritarian powers he holds under the "state of siege" imposed on the country. Having done this, he is "now playing a diplomatic card to see whether the extreme left can be divided into a ‘legal' peaceful opposition, such as the Communist party of Italy, and the ‘extrenists.'"
As yet, says the Times correspondent, there “has been no clear Soviet response..." Nevertheless it was noted that all the newspapers in Bogot& carried advertisements of a Spanish-language edition of the Soviet foreign trade magazine Vneshnaya Torgovlya.
De Onis also observed that the Russians "have already agreed to buy 5,000 tons of coffee, worth $3,500,000 or 1 per cent of Colombia's exports. In the glutted world market, it is coffee that probably would not be sold otherwise. More ambitious plans in the early talks include Soviet supply of industrial equipment and expanded Colombian agricultural exports."
The brazen cynicism of the moves made by Lleras shows with what contempt the Latin-American oligarchies regard the current heads of the Soviet Union.
The contempt is well deserved, for politicians like Lleras are simply drawing obvious conclusions from the Venezuelan CP's open repudiation of the line of armed struggle and the persistent refusal of the Kremlin to meet the escalation of U.S. aggression in Vietnam.
WORLD'S LARGEST CITY