Argentina: Continues

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In the growing campaign of terror waged by the Argentinian military dictatorship some heavy blows have been inflicted on the workers' and left organisations.

The main direct agents of the terror are the police and the licenced death squads which are organised by army generals and the security services. Huge numbers of local trade union leaders, left-wing priests and political refugees from other Latin American dictatorships have been murdered or have disappeared and are presumed dead.

But a large part of the campaign has been directed against the two guerilla organisations - the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) which is the armed section or the Castroite PRT (Workers' Revolutionary Party) and the left-Peronist organisation, the Montoneros.

Last week the secretary general of the PRT, Roberto Santucho, was murdered by the police along with six other leading members of the ERP/PRT.

The increasingly savage and indiscriminate nature of the repression reflects the rapid break-up of central authority within the dictatorship.

General Videla and other leading members of the Junta wish to exterminate the guerilla groups and repress all signs of independent activity by the working class.

BOLIVIA The miners' strike continues in at least two of Bolivia's major tin mines (Siglo XX and on July 14th.

But there is little chance of these negotiations taking place in 1 the near future since the miners' newly elected representatives have demanded the withdrawal of the troops occupying the mining areas and the return of the exiled and imprisoned leaders before they are prepared to negotiate.

Several hundred union leaders have been arrested since the struggle began and about sixty of them have been deported to Chile.

Banzer faces this trial of strength without any popular support and But having sent their finance minister Martinez de Hoz on a begging mission to Europe and the. United States to get funds alleviate Argentina's financial crisis, they would like to do it without the embarassment of the death squads and the more public savage activities of the police.

The fact is, however, that the Junta does not really hold command. Its power over the Generals who manage the death squads is minimal and it is scarcely able to control the police.

General Videla's Junta is becoming little more than a figurehead in a country where the ultra-right murderers freely roam the streets.

And the working class is now paying a heavy price for the treachery of its political leadership, especially the Communist Party which supports the military dictatorship and most of the trade union bureaucracy which continues to discuss compromising deals with the Junta.

The two guerilla organisations have suffered heavy casualties and this seems to have advanced the movement towards their unification under the title Argentine Liberation Organisation (OLA).

They continue to offer considerable military resistance to the Junta but their previous political positions have kept them relatively isolated from the working class and prevent them from offering an effective political leadership to Argentinian workers.

BANZER CONFRONTS CRISIS own.army.

And the stocks of tin which amount to 7,000 tons are enough to last only a few more weeks hafner Dannana anvarnment ring

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CIALIST Jaly, 1976

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