From the underground, unionists appeal for world support TWO LEADERS of the Bolivian Confederation of Labor (COB) who managed to escape the recent police roundup of trade unionists (see International Viewpoint No 84, October 14, 1985) gave the following interview on September 21 to a representative of Internationalen, the paper of the Swedish section of the Fourth International.
"On September 18, the day before the declaration of the state of siege, our headquarters was surrounded by security forces and sealed off. They did not let anyone come in. Inside, there were a lot of comrades who had just gone on hunger strike, and their families were bringing blankets, tea, and other drinks. But the security forces kept us totally isolated.
"Later, in the morning, the miners' mobilizations managed to break our isolation for a while. We got permission for contacts.
"It was on that occasion that Lechin made his last public appearance before being imprisoned. He explained the situation to the journalists, in front of all the miners, factory workers, and students who had gathered outside the COB headquarters."
However, the building was soon sealed off once more.
"Finally, we requested that the government give us a chance to meet, the entire Executive Committee with the National Strike Committee.
"It was to present this demand that our delegation went to the government palace. But when the delegates got there, they were arrested and taken to the premises of the Ministry of the Interior.
"We have to condemn a government that is so perfidious that it arrests our comrades when they come to negotiate.
"The next day, September 19, at 3.00 am, a large group of police came into the building where we were on hunger strike. They fired into it and smashed doors and windows and dragged us off.
"After that we were taken to the airforce base at El Alto, on the heights outside La Paz. From there, they started sending people off, first of all, us from the Executive Committee, to internal exile in Pando and Beni.
"It was during these proceedings that I managed to flee and go underground."
Castonon said that so far 2,500 people had been taken to the airforce base at El Alto. But the government has published lists of only 148 persons sent into internal exile. Where were the others taken?
The COB's underground leadership is appealing for international support in this difficult situation for the workers of Bolivia.
"We want to inform world opinion about what is happening here. We want to inform the workers movement so that it can exert pressure and so that we can win back our trade-union rights. We need your help in condemning and protesting against this 'democratic' regime that is pursuing a fascist poliey."
Anibar Castonon Clavijo, the COB's permanent secretary and Angel Zaballa, the Executive Committee's financial secretary, had gone underground to continue to organize the struggle. It was in those days that many trade-unionists were being arrested, when the radio stations of the factory and mineworkers were shut down, and when the editor of the radical weekly Aqui was arrested when he came to the parliament in his capacity as a journalist to cover the debate on the state-of-siege proposal.
It was in these days when many groups of workers took refuge in churches and started up a hunger strike against the regime's repression. At the same time, the government claimed that a state of siege was needed because "plans for rebellion" were afoot and that the hunger strikes were "illegal" because they represented attempted suicide.
This is how Angel Zaballa described the situation.
"The regime has rejected all attempts at negotiations and all offers from the Church and the Commission for Human Rights to mediate between the labor movement and the government. We find ourselves virtually in a war in which the government's objective is to destroy the union movement altogether.
"In the government there are ministers who participated in the previous military dictatorships. One is the minister of planning, Bedregal, who was chancellor in Natuch Busch's military regime. There is the minister of defense, Valle, who led the military's assault on the university under the dictatorship of Garcia Meza. There is the minister of information, Rivero, who was also minister of information in Busch's government.
"This is the new style today in Bolivia. We have a democracy that carries out fascist measures and a government whose main enemy is the working class. The government is doing the dirty work of the bourgeoisie and US imperialism."
Zaballa was among the COB leaders arrested by the military on Tuesday, September 19. While the others were taken off to internal exile in the northern part of the country, he managed to escape. He explained how the conflict with the government developed.
"The reason for the conflict was the new economic policy that the government wants to impose. It means selling out Bolivia to imperialism. It opens up all the doors for foreign investors. It gives management the right to hire and fire as they chose. It freezes wages, while removing all controls on prices and trade. All of this is going to lead to the total collapse of small and middle businesses in the country.
"We workers already knew what was happening and we decided not to accept these measures, which threaten the very subsistence of workers in this country.
"So, when all attempts at dialogue with the government came to nought, we called a 48-hour strike, then a 72-hour one, and finally a general strike.
"We always wanted to talk to the government. We proposed a wide-ranging debate with the government on economic policy, a debate that would be broadcast over all the radio and TV stations.
"But the government refused. And then they shut off all possibilities for dialogue.
"In response to this, we began a mass hunger strike. The entire Executive Committee of the COB, with Juan Lechin in the lead, took the initiative for the hunger strike. A national strike committee was selected to negotiate with the government.