Bolivian workers bitterly resist military take-over

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 8

Bolivian workers bitterly resist military take-over

NZPA-Reuter La Paz Bolivia’s military rulers yesterday urged workers to return to their jobs in a bid to break a general strike of resistance to the coup d’etat last week. Broadcasts over the State radio network called on Bolivians to go back to normal work and to co-operate with the “national reconstruction process” launched with the revolt, which toppled President Lidia Gueiler. Contact with the southern Andean mining region, where the 50,000-strong miners’ unions have organised resistance, was cut at the week-end when a network of miner-controlled radios went off the air. Infantry troops with armoured support had captured three miriing districts and were reported to be approaching Catavi and Siglo, two of the most important tin-mining centres. The miners’ radio said before it went off the air that the army had encountered strong resistance in Santa Ana and Chocalla, 450 km south of La Paz but military

sources said the miners’ situation was hopeless. They faced enormously superior fire power in a tightly concentrated zone which could easily be surrounded, the sources said. Sporadic clashes between troops and civilian groups continued in working class suburbs of La Paz and the ruling junta extended for 20 days the suspension of academic activities to prevent students from organising resistance. The national reconstruction junta, composed of the commanders of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, has not issued any casualty figures for the revolt. The only confirmed victims so far were the Socialist Party chief, Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, and a miners’ leader, Gualberto Vega, both killed last week in an attack by plain-clothes gunmen on the Bolivian Workers? Confederation headquarters. Relatives of Simon Reyes, a Communist member of Parliament, said he had been killed in the same action, but this was not officially confirmed. 1

Unofficial reports said about 200 people, mostly political and union leaders, had been arrested, but military sources said they were being gradually released. Mrs Gueiler remained in the Papal Nunciatura, where she took asylum at the week-end, and a source close to her said she planned to announce her resignation before leaving the country. Mrs Gueiler was awaiting the right moment “to disclose details of the way . she was forced to resign,” the source said. . . The Leftist presidential candidate, Hernan Siles Zuazo, who won the popular vote in elections on June 29 and had been expected to be confirmed as President in a parliamentary run-off, has urged Bolivians to join the resistance. Mr Siles Zuazo, who went into hiding after- the coup, said in a statement: “This national destruction government has launched selective repression against all civilian, political and union leaders as a first step to open an immense graveyard in the heart of South America.”