W O REPORT FROM THE UNDERGROUND:
RLD
Che’s Name O U r LO O K _Resounds in Bolivia
a lab or press service Vol.5, No.41 December 15, 1967
The Massacre
at Dai-Lai
Testimony at the Hearings
on U.S. War Crimes
THE EVIDENCE
50¢
THE EVIDENCE
THE EVIDENCE
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THE DAI-LAI MASSACRE
Testimony at the Hearings on U.S. War Crimes
(The International War Crimes Tribunal, which met at Roskilde, near Copenhagen, from November 20 to December 1, found the U.S. government guilty of conmitting a series of war crimes, including genocide. The evidence on which the verdict was based was voluminous, the result of the work of a number of teams headed by competent investigators which visited the areas under American attack.
{A sample of the reports presented to the tribunal is provided by the following testimony offered by Gérard Chaliand, a well-known French intellectual. ]
* * *
I arrived in the province of Thai- Binh on the third of November 1967 in connection with an enquiry which I carried out on the peasantry of the Tonkinian Delta. The bombing of Dai-Lai had taken place on the day before, and at my request the local authorities conducted me to the locality, forty hours after the bombing, on the dawn of the fourth of November.
It must be pointed out that the province of Thai-Binh, in relation to the country as a whole, is a zone comparatively seldom bombed -- to the extent that the objectives which could be classified as strategic are extremely few. In fact the province is exclusively agricultural, and its geography, uniformly flat and fairly sparsely wooded, could not favour dispersion.
Nevertheless, the American air forces have attacked the province 230 times from 1965 to the end of 1966, and, again according to the local authorities, 491 times in 1967, up to the end of the month of October. Its capital, which was bombed in 1966, is almost totally destroyed, as I was able to confirm. The dikes, which are of vital importance in the Delta, to the extent that they are a protection against flooding and a safeguard against drought, have been attacked forty times, while one-third of all the bombing has, to a greater or lesser extent, affected the civilian population.
I was not given the figure for the total number of victims, this being classified under military secrets, but they quoted, among other things, the bombing of the hamlet Phong-Man in May 1966, which resulted in fifty deaths, and that of the secondary school of the village of Thuy-Dan in October 1966 which caused thirty deaths.
For my part, I will add that during the five weeks which I spent in North Vietnam, from the sixth of October to the tenth of November, and not to speak of the bombings over Hanoi, Dai-Lai is the third village bombing that I have been able personally to confirm. The first was at the village of Tuy-Hoy, Gia-Vien district, bombed on the eighth of October. I went there on the ninth of October, together with the French journalist Olivier Todd. The bombing, effected at night, at 0.30 hours, produced seven deaths and eight wounded. There was nothing in the vicinity of the village, not for several kilometers around, that could be taken for a strategic objective, not even an Anti-Aircraft Defence. The second was at the village of Kim-Dai, Thanh-Bai district, situated on route No. 22, where on the twenty-sixth of October, there came several waves of aircraft which destroyed about twenty concrete buildings including a pharmacy and a nursery. I arrived in the village on the twentyninth of October. The bombing had caused seventeen deaths and twenty-two injured.
I should like to point out that I have only traveled north of the twentieth parallel, mainly in the Red River Delta, which is by no means the most frequently bombed district.
Thus the case of Dai-Lai is not an isolated incident. There is no strategic objective of any kind near the village of Dai-Lai. It is situated between two arms of water, at about one kilometer from the provincial road, five kilometers from the nearest bridge, in a flat countryside of canals, rice fields and ponds. I did not see a single Anti-Aircraft Defence Unit in the area.
There were two American airplanes. It was very light. It could not be argued that there had been a technical fault, that the bombs had been dumped in order to lighten a damaged plane which was trying to avoid coming down in Vietnamese territory. We visited the village in the early hours of the morning. In some places the ashes were still hot. Men and women were busy clearing away the debris. The planes had released chains of incendiary and explosive bombs. The witnesses agreed that they had heard about fifteen explosions. That was at 13 hours on the second of November. There were fifty-one deaths and thirty-nine wounded. There were 255 inhabitants in the village of Dai-Lai. Out of a total of forty-one homes, thirtyfour families had their houses razed to the ground or destroyed. We could count on one hand the number of houses left standing.
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Men were weeping quietly. A young woman squatted, supported by two elderly women, and wailed loudly. Another woman was weeping as she swept debris from the floor of a house which was no longer there. She burst into sobs as we went past, saying: "He couldn't escape because of the heat, and I could see his arms reach out of the flames!"
Most of the peasants of the cooperative were already in the fields at 13 hours [1 p.m.] that day for the harvest of the tenth month. In the village some peasants were shelling the paddy on the threshing floor. When the planes were heard, everyone went down into the trenches or into individual hotes. From the first explosion the children went into the holes dug inside the buildings. Some buildings exploded under the bombs. Fire enveloped the thatched roofs of others. Fire spread throughout the village, making rescue difficult. However the militia was able to save some people. In the holes were found charred bodies, burst open by the heat. Some mangled bodies were beyond identification. Out of a total of fifty-one victims, thirty-nine were under the age of fifteen.
Bui Thi Tinh, 22 years, the vicepresident of the Administrative Committee of the Commune, who conducted the work of identification and placing the bodies in coffins, related to me:
"I was one kilometer away from the village. From the single hole I occupied, I saw two planes, one flying lower than the other. The one flying low dropped its bombs first. It was after the meal, there were already workers in the fields; others were preparing to leave. The old people and children were taking their siesta. I could count sixteen bombs exploding in a chain..Huge flames shot up to the tree tops. They dropped the bombs and left. It all happened very quickly. Then the militia rushed forward and the people came with buckets, ropes and shovels. They tried to put the fire out -- they fetched water from the pools and formed a chain. They made a passage right through the fire to get to the trenches. Some of them used shovels to dig people out of cavedin trenches. A blast of wind stirred up the flames. Some rescuers were burnt to death. A co-worker from a neighbouring village, called Them, came to the rescue and was able, by himself, to save seven injured victims: he ran to and fro carry~ ing them on his back. The family of a coworker called Roan had four children down in the trench of their house. Halfway there Roan was torn into four pieces by bomb explosions, as he ran to save his children.
"I ran forward with two other girls. I had some gauze bandages in my bag and some cotton wool which I passed out to friends, and on the way we saw a body buried under a pile of straw. We hastened to drag it out and then we realized that all there was of it was the two legs. The upper part of the body had been scattered about elsewhere. There was a lot of flame and very thick smoke. You could not see five yards in front of you. It was very hot. There were a great many of us, and we were falling over each other in the attempt to rescue people. There was blood and corpses on the threshing floor. Meanwhile they carried bodies on stretchers. I had lost my sandals and my feet were burning, so hot was the earth near the fire. As soon as the bombing was over, the families ran in from the fields; some of them were shouting and weeping as the flames rose high into the air, and they were there trying to put the fire out. Roan's wife tried to jump into the flames to save her children. She had just seen her husband blown to bits before her very eyes. When we tried to restrain her she tore her clothes like a madwoman; she fell upon me and cried, 'Take me into the fire.' I said to her: ‘If you love me then you must come with me.' Then she said: 'Why do you want me to come, and whom will I live with, they are all dead.' And she repeated: 'Who, who am I going to live with?' And she tried to jump into the fire again, and I said: 'You are going to live with us,' and they led her away.
"I saw the five children of the Ru family, all killed in the same trench along with their mother; they were among the first to be pulled out. The Nguu family: the husband and wife were in the field; they have one child left who was not in the village, the other four are dead: three in the trench and the eldest -- they only found his trunk and his left leg. Just beside there was a family of four -- the husband and wife were out in the field, the two children are dead. The entire family of the co-worker Khoi was killed -- he was out in the field alone; his two children, his wife who was eight months pregnant; his mother's corpse was flung up into the branches of a jacquier tree and the blood trickled down the trunk to the roots of the tree.
"When we got the fire out, I stayed to direct the work of putting the bodies in coffins. The state gave four metres of cloth per coffin. It was 2:30 when we began to collect the bodies. I saw sights which turned my stomach: there were burnt bodies which were nothing but skin stretched over bones and entrails running out of burst bellies. They no longer had a human shape. We collected parts of bodies, arms, legs; sometimes we could make out that it was a woman because there were tufts of hair. While I registered the names of the dead, others wrote their names or presumed age in chalk on little placards to be placed on the graves. There were bodies which could not be iden-
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tified, but they estimated the age by the size of the foot, and wrote ‘Child, five or ten years old, no name' on the coffin.
"I saw, among these shreds, a heap of flesh which they reckoned to be a 15year-old girl, because of the cluster of hair and her neck. It was horrible to see, in the midst of this mass of flesh, a thigh still plump and brown. There were bodies of children that looked like stunted dogs."
Here are some extracts:
Tran Thi Sai, peasant woman, 238 years old, relates:
"At that moment I was on my way to the field for the harvest. I was with some friends. When I heard the planes, I went down into a single hole to shelter, and right after the bombing ran towards my house to see what had happened. As I approached the village, I could see that the whole village was in flames. Then I threw off my bucket yoke to get there more quickly. My second child, a boy, was able to escape out of the fire. His little brother of five followed him but he could not run fast enough and was burnt in the yard. And my mother fled carrying my youngest child, twelve months, but they were burnt alive at the door. My 10-year-old daughter was out watching the cooperative's buffalo, and she I still have now. My husband was the head of a group of workers -- he was in the village at the threshing floor of the cooperative. He was pulling the stone roller to husk the rice. At the time of the bombing he stayed outside the shelter till the last minute, to get the others back in, and he was killed. The bomb explosions opened his head.
"I began to scream and cry, while other members of the cooperative jumped into the fire to save their relatives. Then I wanted to jump into the fire too and save my mother and my children, but I was held back.
"They led me away to where I could not look on, and then they carried away the bodies of my relatives.
"I have lost my mother along with the baby she was carrying in her arms, my 5-year-old child and my husband. Now there are only three of us left, my two children and myself."
Bui Van Nguu, peasant, 46 years old, relates:
"At that moment I was at home making brooms for the cooperative. Over in my kitchen there was a grinding mortar. There my two daughters were pounding meal and their two little brothers were with them, having fun. My wife had left ny
little girl of eighteen months asleep in
the hammock at home and had gone to the
pound to wash clothes.
"When my wife saw the planes coming
she ran towards the house, but on the way
there she was knocked down by the blast
of a bomb. Meanwhile a bomb exploded in
the kitchen, burying our three children.
The house also collapsed and caught fire.
The roof fell on me, and the baby in the
hammock began to cry. I got up and went
and took her. Then I came through the
fire with my daughter. In the yard I saw
my wife stretched out on the ground, half-
buried by the ruins of the wall. She called
out to me. I placed the baby in the hole
to go and help her. When I came towards
her, she tried to get up. Her clothes were
all torn and her face was bleeding. I
handed the baby to her for her to carry
it away, and I ran to try and pull my
children out.
"I rummaged in the debris looking
for my children. I found mangled limbs,
shreds of flesh; I only found three bodies
by collecting fragments and a leg. I
couldn't find the body of my big girl. It
was only yesterday that I found her body
-- it had been thrown into a garden seven
yards away. Her body was buried under a
pile of ashes, and it is thanks to the
people who came to clear the debris that
I found her. At first I thought it was
someone else, but I looked and realised
that it was really her ear -- she was
thirteen years old."
Hoang Ban, peasant, 44 years old,
relates:
"I was on the way to the harvest
along with some other workers. I heard
planes and I looked but did not see any-
thing. And suddenly I heard explosions
and saw our village in flames. We were
one kilometer away from the village. We
ran and when we arrived the fire had
spread all around the village.
"I saw my sister-in-law also com-
ing from the fields carrying in her arms
her two-year-old child, its head burst
open. She called to me to come and help
her children. My house is 300 yards from
my brother's. I had not yet reached my
own home and I hastened to my brother's
house. The house had not been burnt, it
had exploded, and both the roof and the
walls had gone. I ran to the house's
trench, under the bed; and over the hole
was a cover. At the edge of the hole there
lay half of the body of a little girl of
two, my niece. I took the half of the
body and placed it out in the yard and
came back to search in the hole. I pulled
out one of my nieces, 10 years old, with
her head burst open by the fragments of
the cover. One of her arms was broken and
her whole body was blackened. And again I
carried the body out into the yard, and
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then I called for help. Then the militia and other people came and they brought out another little girl of eight, also with her head burst open because of the cover. This one had a broken leg. Afterwards, they dug out of this hole two more little girls both five years old, my nieces from next door who had come to play.
"They were not injured but suffocated. Six children are dead. As for my brother, only remains of him were found. In the kitchen they found his two arms; his two legs were caught on the bamboo wall; they also found his ribs, but not his head.
"Only his wife is left; it is as though she were insane. She is at my home at present. She screams and cries and no one can speak to her."
I would like to add that I was able to visit the five seriously wounded victims in the province hospital. The others received attention at the district or commune level. The Dai-Lai massacre -for how else can one describe this bombing -- was also recorded, on the fifth of November 1967, by Sven Oste, a Swedish journalist from Dagens Nyheter, a liberal daily newspaper of Stockholm, and by Antonello Trombadori, an Italian journalist, special representative of Unita.
I thank you for your attention.
THE BERKELEY STUDENT VOTE -- ANOTHER VICTORY FOR THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
Radicals swept the elections for student government at the University of California at Berkeley, held November 29- December 1. The radical candidates for the student senate were all participants in the massive antidraft protests in Oakland during October, who had been disciplined by the university administration.
The elections provided a measure of the depth of antiwar sentiment among students in the United States, who are disfranchised from regular elections because of their age.
"Voice," the radical political party on the Berkeley campus, put up eleven candidates for the ten openings on the student senate: nine of the slate had been placed on disciplinary probation; two others, Peter Camejo and Reese Erlich, headed the slate as the suspended students.
The Voice slate would have won all ten positions except for an electoral provision guaranteeing minority representation to candidates from other parties polling more than ten percent of the vote.
Six seats went to the Voice ticket. The voting was by weighted ballots, and it was urged that Camejo and Erlich be the first and second choices, since the harshest disciplinary action had been taken against then.
Camejo, a well-known Trotskyist and spokesman for the Socialist Workers party, came in first. An article from Berkeley in the December 11 Militant said that "members of the election committee unofficially reported [Camejo's vote] to be the highest vote total in the history of student elections here."
It is expected that the university administration will attempt to prevent the elected Voice student senators from taking office on the ground that they are under disciplinary action.
The 27,000 students at the Berkeley campus have long been pace setters in the American student radical movement. The results of this election indicate that a clear majority are consciously opposed to the war in Vietnam and are ready to cast their votes for candidates who are avowed revolutionary socialists if they articulate these antiwar sentiments or are victimized for participating in antiwar actions.
While Berkeley is in advance of many other campuses in the United States, the same process is taking place across the country. The students as a whole are only the most visible indicators of a radicalization, developing over the issue of the war in Vietnam, that reaches deep into the American masses.
Antiwar sentiment is deepest among students and black people, but it penetrates a considerable and increasing section of the white working class.
The overt signs of the process include the teach-ins, rallies and demonstrations; the massive outpourings on April 15 and October 21; the plunge in Johnson's popularity; and the recent election in San Francisco where the vote on a referendum on the war registered 30 percent for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, with 18 percent abstaining and 52 percent opposed to immediate withdrawal but not necessarily in favor of the war.
At each stage the student movement has appeared as a harbinger of deeper motion among the masses. The Berkeley student election is another straw in the wind.
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USLA JUSTICE COMMITTEE LAUNCHES "NEEDIEST" CAMPAIGN FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS
The United States Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners (USLA Justice Committee) has launched a drive to raise funds for "Christmas and after" for the political prisoners in Peru and Mexico.
Under the headline "The New York Times Neediest Appeal Won't Help Them for Christmas.....Will You?" a letter is going out this week in the New York area. At the same time, supporters of the conmmittee are arranging fund-raising parties for the holiday season and collections are being taken up at various meetings.
One such collection will be made at Horace Mann Hall, Teachers College, Columbia University, on the evening of December 11, where Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society, Columbia University Young Socialist Alliance, the North American Congress on Latin Anerica (NACLA), and the USLA Justice Committee are jointly sponsoring a meeting to hear Ralph Schoenman speak.
As a member of a board of enquiry set up by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Schoenman went to Bolivia to investigate the violations of civil liberties and human rights committed by the Barrientos regime in the case of Régis Debray. Schoenman will tell what happened and how he came to be arrested by agents of the regime and put on a plane bound for the U.S.
The letter asking for funds for the prisoners reads in part: "Somewhere in Peru two children are waiting for their father to come home....He was taken away to jail when they were very small -taken away because he tried to help people get land and enough to eat....His name is Hugo Blanco and...he is still revered....it is important for his morale, and the morale of those still struggling, that he not be forgotten...there are no CARE or Red Cross packages sent out to Hugo Blanco and his companions."
The letter continues with "Case 2," the Mexican political prisoners..."granted their 'Christmas present' by the authorities. They will be allowed to stay together in one section of the jail, separated from the rest of the prison population. This is a significant victory for Victor Rico Galan, Adolfo Gilly, Rail Ugalde, and the dozens of young students, workers, and professionals pulled into prison in the wave of hysteria that has swept Mexico for over two years. But it does not affect their material condition in the prison or improve the lot of many of their families. For this aid, for the holidays and after, they can turn only to the people...who are opposed to witch-hunts everywhere...."
The choice of the Mexican and Peruvian prisoners for this particular appeal was made because conditions are favorable for assuring that the money will reach then.
News of the Christmas appeal has already gotten out, and contributions are coming in. A young woman worker in Boston has pledged $25 a month for Hugo Blanco, and with her first payment she sent a note saying "...in order to support his family, Hugo Blanco must paint postcards. It is a shame that this man's knowledge of the guerrilla movement cannot be utilized -- that is, written down and published....You can expect my check on the 16th or 17th of every month."
Officers of the USLA Justice Conmmittee are Dave Dellinger and Paul Sweezy, cochairmen; and John Gerassi, vicechairman. Donations for the prisoners should be sent to the USLA Justice Committee, P.O.Box 2303, New York, N Y. 10001.
FORTHCOMING COLLECTION OF GUEVARA'S WRITINGS
Merit Publishers announced Decenber 6 that Che Guevara Speaks, a 159-page collection of speeches, statements, interviews and letters by the heroic revolutionary leader will be published in two weeks.
The collection begins with an interview granted to two journalists from China, shortly after the victory in Cuba, and ends with Guevara's famous message in which he called for "two, three, many Vietnams."
The topics include the Cuban revolution, problems of revolutionary ideology, guerrilla warfare, economic planning, imperialism, the colonial revolution, selection of revolutionary cadres, the "Alliance for Progress," trade and other relations between industrialized and underdeveloped nations, and the transformation of man under socialisn.
The book costs $4.50 in cloth and $1.95 paperback. The address is Merit Publishers, 873 Broadway, New York 10003.
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ANOTHER WITCH-HUNT CASE IN MEXICO
By Ricardo Ochoa Mexico City The daily newspapers published contradictory versions December 2 of the declarations made by the "conspirators" in the new case of fourteen political opponents of the regime, who were secretly arrested, tortured to wring "confessions" from them, and then presented to the public by the police November 29 as "criminals."
Not even El Dia, which ordinarily publishes the declarations made by those arrested under similar circumstances, reported the text of their statements. Since they have been denied counsel up to this point, in accordance with the practice of the regime in repressing political opponents, it is necessary to go by what the newspapers claim the defendants said when they stood up for arraignment.
The declarations were made before the third district judge handli criminal matters, Attorney Jaime Martinez Montes de Oca. "All the arrested," said El Dia, "except the lawyer, Juan Ortega Arenas, denied their previous declarations made before the juridical adviser of the Secret Service and the agent of the Public Ministry of the Attorney General's Office, contending that these were forced by physical and mental coercion. Nevertheless, some of them -- Gerardo Pelaez, Antonio Gershenson, Salvador Lozano Garcia, and Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez -- ratified part of their declarations before the third district judge."
"As for Ortega Arenas, who was named as the intellectual sponsor in creating the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores [Mexican Workers party]," continued El Dia, "he reaffirmed his previous declarations in the sense that he never organized any political party, nor did he belong to any grouping of this kind."
Antonio Gershenson, a nuclear physicist, denied the charge of robbery, but admitted, according to El Dia, that he was the "intellectual and material" sponsor of the bomb placed in the Bolivian embassy last October 13, which exploded later in police headquarters.
He admitted being a leader of the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores, the objective of which, according to El Dia's account, is "to heighten the economic and political potential of the workers."
He denied having gone to Campeche and Guerrero "to organize political groups."
He stated that he had been beaten and coerced while being "questioned." A pistol was aimed at him by his inquisitors.
La Prensa reported that Gershenson made the following declaration on "the bomb" placed in the Bolivian embassy: "The explosives put together were simple firecrackers that had no destructive power and could only let off smoke and noise." They were placed in the embassy as a symbol of protest over the murder of Ernesto Che Guevara. He told how he met Ortega Arenas and how relations were broken off between them a year ago; and he denied that Ortega had anything to do with the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores.
Salvador Lozano Garcia said that the "confessions" he made were wrung from hin by "physical and mental coercion." He repudiated part of what he had said but "admitted having participated in meetings protesting the death of Ernesto Guevara and of having spoken at them, although he claimed that he did not remember what he had said there."
He denied the charges of robbery, making bombs, participating in the assault against Aleman's statue at the university or the one against the Bolivian embassy, etc. He admitted the "crime" of studying under Gershenson about the construction of home-made bombs but said he had never made one. As for the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores, he admitted being a leader of it and of having proselytized for it.
Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez admitted menbership in the same party and of havin proselytized for it. According to El Dia she denies stating that Juan Ortega Arenas was a member. (La Prensa claims the opposite, declaring she admitted saying he was a member.) In the confrontation with Ortega Arenas she said that she had never met him although she knew about hin.
The other defendants made similar declarations, according to El Dia, certifying some of the declarations wrung from them by the police (such as being members of the PMT) and denying other accusations. "They were unanimous in affirming that the police used physical and mental coercion in wringing statements from them."
La Prensa reported some details that were omitted from the account offered by El Dia. It said this about Fabio Erazo Barbosa: "This fellow [the reference is to the victim] claimed that at police headquarters they stripped him naked and applied shocks to his genitals
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with an electrical device. According to him, they wanted him to declare that he was guilty of holding up two bank cars and the Longoria bank. [Three sensational holdups which the Mexican police, so efficient in cooking up cases of "subversion and plots," have not been able to solve in the year since they occurred. ] Fabio Erazo denounced a secretary of the court, not wanting the declarations imputed to him read, and said:
"'For the first time I am being informed of things I did not do. It is true that I organized the demonstration of last July 26; that I participated in the university demonstration and strike last year; that I joined the Organizacién Civica Guerrerense [Guerrero Civic Organization]; that I was a member of the Liga Comunista Espartaco [Communist Spartacist League]; that I participated in the movement of Othén Salazar [leader of the schoolteachers of the Federal District in 1958-60], in the Movimiento Independiente Revolucionario Estudiantil [in reality the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria Estudiantil -- Left Revolutionary Student Movement]; that I received magazines and pamphlets from Conmunist China; that Juan Ortega Arenas is one of our leaders; that I made a trip to Cuba to attend the meeting of OLAS [Organization of Latin-American Solidarity], but none of this is a crime.
"'The same procedures as the police used are being followed here,' exclaimed the defendant. 'The whole thing is a farce. The police came to my home and took the little I had, including ny books and magazines. In my declaration the names of persons that had nothing to do with this appear.
"'T ask,' he continued, 'if belonging to a student group and supporting sectors suffering misery and political oppression is a crime. It is the police who are committing crimes, the police who arbitrarily kidnap a person. I don't believe I am jailed; it is the whole people who are jailed in the most frightful misery. un
The press quoted Vicente Cruz Ortiz as denying that he placed a bomb in the automobile of an agent of the Public Ministry.
Miguel Alberto Reyna was reported to have declared that he had nothing whatever to do with any aspect of the case.
Francisco Luna Leal reportedly said he had a bad headache which prevented him from speaking.
Seven of the defendants, said La Prensa, “said nothing important." Despite La Prensa's way of dismissing what they said, they may spend years in prison -even before the courts finally bring in a verdict.
As can be judged from this résumé, the new case could scarcely be more grotesque. It is another link in the chain of repression being wound around the revolutionary groups. People are accused of making "trips with political aims," with "proselytizing" for their groups and their ideas. In short they are accused of what are considered to be "crimes" only by the most reactionary dictatorships.
Does this mean that the Mexican government has lost its sense of balance? On the contrary. The very same day that these new victims of his government were brought before the judge, President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz addressed the nation from the city of Puebla as part of the observances of his third year in office. (The presidential term in Mexico is for six years.)
The highest spokesman of the Mexican government could not have been more gloomy in delivering his message. All the journalists described the president as very worried, speaking in a grave tone that hid nothing of his concern.
The closing words of his speech bore out the impression of the journalists: "I am in the deepest need of help from all Mexicans in order to be able to continue serving the country with some possibility of success in the very difficult and anguished years we are undergoing.
As the head of government, he knows better than anyone the grave problems facing the Mexican exploiters on a national scale. He understands how deepgoing is the tendency among the masses to bring forward movements against the economic and political privileges which the Mexican state guarantees to the bourgeosie, and therefore how dangerous even the smallest consciously revolutionary force is in such an explosive atmosphere.
U.S. PROWESS IN NORTH VIETNAM
At the hearings in Copenhagen on U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, it was reported that one village of 500 inhabitants had in recent months received an average of 8 bombs for each person and 4 artillery shells for every square meter. In 19 months in this region, 27,000 homes were burned, 3,360,000 iters of grain were destroyed, and 25,500 hectares of crops were levelled by the U.S. forces.
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MEXICAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE APPEALS FOR PROTEST ACTIONS
Mexico City
[The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico issued the followi statement to the press November 30. xk *
Yesterday, scarcely four months after a similar case, the press announced that the police had arrested a group of fourteen "terrorists." These included ten students, three workers end a lawyer.
The federal attorney general's office filed the following charges against them before the third district judge of the Federal District:
(1) The dynamiting and destruction of the statue of the former president of the republic, Miguel Aleman, at the University City in June, 1966.
(2) Damaging a truck belonging to the Mexican army by use of explosives on July 3 of this year at a place near La Union, Guerrero.
(3) Setting a bomb in the Bolivian embassy in Mexico City last October 13 which exploded while it was being examined at police headquarters, causing serious injuries to the bomb experts handling it.
(4) Various robberies of commercial and educational establishments.
(5) Damaging an automobile belonging to an agent of the public ministry of the delegation of Azcapotzalco through the use of an explosive device.
(6) "...numerous other assaults and robberies which will be the object of subsequent investigation."
In addition to all this, the political character of the new case of fourteen defendants is indicated in the faqllowing: "The activities of the fourteen persons...were designed to achieve certain aims against the [government] institutions through various organizations, among others those denominated the Partido Mexicano de Trabajadores [Mexican Workers Party] and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria Estudiantil [Revolutionary Left Student Movement]."
The Committee for the Defense of the Political Prisoners in Mexico demands that the basis for these charges be genuinely examined. In view of the experience in the previous case of fourteen, arrested last July, it is to be feared that the "confessions," which the police
claim the defendants made, were wrung
from them through the worst torture.
The committee demands respect for
the constitutional rights of all the vic-
tims of such methods and stresses the
political nature of the new case.
The defendants are: the lawyer,
Juan Ortega Arenas; the students, Mario
Rechi Montiel, Luis Enrique Gerardo del
Toro y Najera, Francisco Luna Leal, En-
rique Condes Lara, Max Arturo Lopez Her-
nandez, Antonio Gershenson Tafelov (al-
ready kmown as a nuclear physicist),
Fabio Erazo Barbosa Cano, Gerardo Pelaez
Ramos, Salvador Lozano Garcia, and Gloria
Yolanda Ortiz Sanchez; and the workers
Alberto Reyna de la Cruz, Vicente Ortiz
Cruz, and Justino Juarez "Martinez.
With these additions, the politi-
cal prisoners in Lecumberri penitentiary
now number fifty-six. There are eight
political prisoners in the women's jail.
Outside the Federal District,
where it is more difficult to determine
the exact number, hundreds of political
prisoners are suffering the interminable
delays with which all cases of revolu-
tionary political opponents of the regime
are handled.
As in the case of the repressions
that occurred last year (Adolfo Gilly,
the Argentine journalist and his four
comrades belonging to the Partido Obrero
Revolucionario, and Victor Rico Galan,
Rail Ugalde, Rolf Meiners, Isaias Rojas,
Gilberto Balam and other members and
leaders of the Movimiento Revolucionario
del Pueblo [Revolutionary Movement of the
People]) and the repressions last July
(Adan Nieto, José Luis Calva Téllez,
Daniel Camejo and others), international
protests are important to help throw the
light of publicity on the repressive
course being followed by the Mexican gov-
ernment, which is so little known abroad.
The importance of such protests is
all the greater in view of Mexico's repu-
tation for being an "exception" in Latin
America, of being a country where demo-
cratic rights are really respected and
democracy rules.
Let them guarantee the new prison-
ers the right to a fair trial. Let the
authorities release at once all those who
have been imprisoned in retaliation for
their political opposition to the regime.
In Europe, and especially in the
United States, such actions can prove to
be of considerable efficacy because of
the repercussions they can have in Mexico.
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The committee asks all groups, individuals and prominent figures to lodge protests with the executive and judicial authorities of Mexico in whatever form they deem most suitable.
Freedom for the political prison-
ers in Mexico!
Respect for the democratic rights
provided for in the constitution!
Stop the repression!
WYCLIFFE TSOTSI WINS CONTINUED POLITICAL ASYLUM IN ZAMBIA
New York
The Alexander Defense Committee was informed December 1 that Wycliffe Tsotsi, vice-president of the Unity Movement of South Africa, has been granted permission to remain in Zambia until he can find refuge elsewhere. The Zambian government rescinded its deportation proceedings against Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi following an international campaign protesting the deportation order.
Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi have lived in Zambia since their escape from the South African police in January, 1967. On October 30 the Zambian government informed them that their residence permits would not be renewed and that they would be deported from Zambia on November 14 if they had not left the country by then. No reasons were given for the deportation proceedings. The action appeared completely arbitrary, especially since Zambia has long been a haven for political refugees from the apartheid tyranny; indeed, all the anti-apartheid organizations, including the Unity Movement of South Africa, maintain offices-—in~exile in Lusaka.
While efforts to find a country to accept the Tsotsis continued, the Unity Movement appealed to foes of the South African police state to send messages to President Kaunda urging the rescinding of the deportation order. As messages poured in from organizations and individuals throughout the world, the Zambian government first extended the Tsotsis' residence permit to November 21 and finally granted an indefinite stay of the deportation order.
The messages to President Kaunda stressed the importance of Zambia as a haven for political exiles from South Africa, and pointed out that the deportation of the Tsotsis could only weaken the whole movement for African independence and strengthen the racist and reactionary forces on the continent.
Wycliffe Tsotsihas fought against apartheid in the ranks of the Unity Movement since 1935. He was a leading organizer among the peasants and nonwhite teachers until the South African government forced him to resign his post as principal of a high school in 1945. He
then devoted himself to the study of law,
and, as an attorney, represented hun-
dreds of people who fell victim to the
increasingly repressive laws of the South
African police state.
Growing demands by political op-
ponents of the state for Mr. Tsotsi's
legal services and his organizing work
among the peasants drew increasingly
hostile attention from the government.
Threatened with imminent arrest by the
South African police for attending a
forbidden meeting, Mr. Tsotsi fled to
the British protectorate of Basutoland
in 1960. From Basutoland Mr. Tsotsi made
frequent secret trips to South Africa
where he continued his organizing work
among the peasants. On one such occasion
he was arrested and detained in solitary
confinement for eighty-two days. In
Basutoland, Mr. Tsotsi also acted as
attorney in practically all the cases
involving Pan Africanist Congress men-
bers and other political refugees whom
the South African government sought to
have returned to South Africa or who
were victimized by the Basutoland govern-
ment.
In 1966 Basutoland became the
formally independent state of Lesotho
and immediately came under South African
domination. As a consequence, Mr. Tsotsi
met with increasing difficulty in his
political work, and in December 1966 he
was ordered deported from Lesotho on the
ground that his presence was “inimical
to the peace, order and good government"
of that country. Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi were
seized by the Lesotho police who turned
them over to the South African police at
the border post.
At this point, Mr. and Mrs. Tsotsi
made their escape. With the South African
police in pursuit, they finally made their
way to Zambia.
Among the many prominent Americans
who responded to the campaign launched by
the Alexander Defense Committee of the
United States and sent messages to Presi-
dent Kaunda asking that he intervene to
prevent the expulsion of the Tsotsis,
were: John Henrik Clarke, associate edi-
tor of Freedomways; Michigan Congressman
John Conyers, Jr.; Ossie Davis; Dave
Dellinger, chairman of the National Mobi-
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lization Committee to End the War in Vietnam; Professor John Gerassi; Charles P. Howard, president of the Howard News Service; Carl Haessler, managing editor, Federated Press; Professor B.E.Garskof; Dr. Edgar Keemer; Floyd McKissick, national director of CORE; Carl Oglesby, past president of Students for a Democratic Society and cochairman of the Alexander Defense Committee; Fabu Sabura;
Report from the Underground
Paul Sweezy, coeditor of Monthly Review;
Richard B. Tussey, president, Local 285,
Agricultural and Allied Workers; G. Men-
nen Williams, past assistant secretary
of state for African affairs; William
Worthy, foreign correspondent for the
Baltimore Afro-American; and civil-
liberties and civil-rights attorneys
Max Dean, Bernard Feiger, Ernest Goodman
and Conrad lynn.
CHE'S NAME RESOUNDS IN BOLIVIA
[The following interview was granted by a member of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (Revolutionary Workers party) to a journalist on a visit to Bolivia early in November. It was made public in Montevideo on November 22.
(The translation is by World Outlook. ]
* * *
Question: Have any actions been carried out in Bolivia in tribute to Che since his death?
Answer: Actions have occurred in almost all the universities -- La Paz, Oruro, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Potosi... symbolic acts, demonstrations, etc. A very interesting tribute was paid to Che in Tarija where he was listed among the Liberators of the Americas.
The students of the School of Medicine in La Paz took over the Nueva América radio station, one of the most popular in the country, for ten minutes, and shouted "Long live Che" and "Long live the National Liberation Army." The international press tried to discount this by presenting it as a student "prank."
In the mines, meetings have been held where solidarity with the guerrillas was voted for; but, as can be understood, the military occupation of the mines pre- Gents public demonstrations in tribute to ne.
Q: Have the guerrillas been defeated in Bolivia?
A: No. Naturally the death of Che and many of his comrades constitutes a stiff blow, but it does not mean annihilation as Barrientos claims. A few days ago, when it was being publicly proclaimed that the guerrillas had been reduced to six persons and were on the point of being liquidated, having been surrounded, Inti Peredo's group fought a battle in which they managed to break out
of the encirclement. The other day, at
a place more than 200 kilometers away,
another group of twenty-three guerrillas
took a town, seized supplies and provi-
sions, and then retreated. This happen-
ing alone proves that there is more than
one group carrying on, and more than six
guerrillas.
Q: Has the repression been very
hard in La Paz since the death of Che?
A: Brutal. There are more than 200
new prisoners, in addition to the 300 min-
ers who have been held in Panéptico for
some time accused of conspiring with or
having ties with the guerrillas.
In Santa Cruz, for example, a 65-
year-old woman, the mother of one of our
comrades, who was already living under
very difficult circumstances, was taken
by the police as a hostage to try to get
her to denounce her son.
Every trade-union activist faces
dismissal if he is so much as accused of
being "linked" with the guerrillas, and
often it means imprisonment.
In the mines, this means, in ad-
dition, that he is dispossessed from his
miserable lodgings and expelled from the
town.
In the mining districts, the army
has invaded homes and claimed that the
things they found there were bought with
money provided by the guerrillas, thus
entitling them to pilfer utensils and
household goods.
Recently the police detained a
miner in Huanuni, a mining district, and
treated him so brutally that he was left
almost dead. The people stormed the head-
quarters to rescue him, and severely pun-
ished the police. To avoid any bigger com-
plications, the army did not intervene,
staying in the hills outside the town,
where they usually maintain their camp.
Q: What_is the attitude of the sol-
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diers, taking into account that they are also part of the people, toward the guerrilla question?
A: You have to take into account that they are constantly shifted from place to place; and, in addition, are subjected to ferocious repression. Recently a case was reported of a machine gunner who was ordered to fire on people and he refused because they were his own people. When he refused to obey the order a second time, an officer killed him in front of his comrades, without the least compunction.
Cases have been reported, such as during the massacre at San Juan, where soldiers, stiff with cold in the morning, had not fired a single shot; and others who fired into the ground. On that occa~ sion, the miners did not kill soldiers, but various soldiers were shot in the back by their own officers. There are barracks in which at least one soldier is shot every week by the officers. Recently at the railway center of Huyuni, a lieutenant killed a soldier who refused to fire on some workers who had been drinking a little. The lieutenant was promoted for his "bravery."
There are cases in the mining districts in which soldiers have gone to the workers to suggest attacking the barracks in an organized way, because they are ready to collaborate. Of course, these are only isolated cases. It should be mentioned, too, that families have demonstrated in various areas to prevent their youth from being taken into military service, as happened some months ago in Pando and Beni.
: What_is the situation like in the miners' movement since the massacres?
A: The miners' movement has been completely disorganized, its leaders arrested and imprisoned, dismissed and persecuted. But in line with their tradition of struggle, the miners have been resort-— ing to new forms of organization, as well as developing new leaders. Underground committees have appeared, in which the most genuine leaders, the most experienced, are active. Likewise in the legal trade unions, minimum demands are being raised. This is happening in Catavi, Siglo XX and Huanuni, where the unions are opening up new fronts. And the student movement, it is to be noted, has taken up the task of contributing to rebuilding the trade-union movement.
The pnderground committees are serving as the axis for this reorganization, since that is where the best militants among the miners are to be found. The problem of armed struggle is constantly posed there. It was from this source that almost all the miners came who fought in Nancahuazi.
I would like to add something more. The daily topic of conversation in the mines is how to handle the problem of the army. Every miner has his ideas on this and they are continually debating it. The work of these committees also explains why men in the army get "lost," the army command claiming that they are deserters.
: What is the attitude of the peasants?
A: I would like to point to the attitude of the peasants in Ucurefia, in the Cochabamba valley. After Che's death, they staged demonstrations in tribute to him, painting slogans on the walls in the town and shouting, "Long live Che!" It should be noted that the demonstrations were carried out by groups, who went through the town on foot or in trucks despite the repression in force there. The army was sent in the next day.
Moreover, the attitude of these peasants is outright repudiation of the bureaucracy controlled by the government, the bureaucracy being the only "force" which Barrientos can rely on in the countryside. The attitude of the peasants in Ucurefia is shared by the peasants in other regions; in some areas it can be said that they don't know about the guerrilla question, but nowhere in Bolivia have the peasant masses displayed hostility toward the guerrillas.
Q: Anything else?
A: Yes. I would like the situation in Bolivia to be known everywhere, especially in Latin America, where the struggle includes the one going on in my country.
I am sure that the revolution will go forward, despite all the obstacles, even despite such unhappy events as the murder of Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara.
FRITZ TEUFEL FREED
Fritz Teufel, the 24-year-old student tried for "sedition" because he allegedly threw a stone at a cop