Bolivian Militants Tortured

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Bolivian military in La Paz News has just reached Britain of the arrest, torture and threatened execution of five union leaders from the Siglo, XX-Catavi mining region of Bolivia.

These men, elected in a mass meeting inside the mine at a time when unions are illegal, are in danger of their lives precisely because they represent the resistance of the Bolivian working class.

They were mandated . to draw up and present a series of demands in the face of the regime's "economic package' of 9 January.

This measure removed price subsidies from a range of basic necessities, resulting in the increase of the price of bread by 100%; of petrol by 300%; of cooking oil by 100% and domestic gas by 50%-to name just a few commodities.

At the same time there is a wage-freeze-except for the military who now receive just under three times their pay of a year ago.

However, it is the working class that has taken the real action with a selective but widely supported 48 hour strike in Siglo XX and Huanini mines and the major factories of La Paz and Cochatanita.

United front

Moreover, the major parties of the left have now signed a basic programme for a front for clandestine trade union unity (FUSCLA), whereby the POR (Masar), the PRIN, MIR and the Bolivian CP are pledged to fight for 100% wage increases, sliding scale of wages, immediate release of all political prisoners, lifting of the state of siege, freedom of the press and restoration of all trade union, democratic and human rights.

It remains to be seen whether particularly the Bolivian CP will carry out this agreement.

Meanwhile the five leaders now face charges for being "subversive delinquents" which, under military law, makes them liable to be shot.

An immediate campaign for the release and guarantees for these comrades must ba launched in the British labour movement.

They are Ascensio Cruz; Octavio Carvajal; Pablo Rocha Mercado; German Gutierrez Ricaldi and Florencio Gabriel.