Pst Envoy Seeks Suppori

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PST members murdered by right-wing death squads. Top: Anna Maria Guzner Lorenzo, Adriana Zaldua, Dicki Povedano (Carlos), Hugo Frigerio. Bottom: Patricia Claverie, Lidia Agostini, Roberto Loscertales, Oscar Lucatti Julio Mendoza, representative in Europe of the Argentinian Socialist Workers Party is currently visiting Britain as part of an international campaign to save the lives of two Party militants currently being held by the Argentinian military regime.

Jose Francisco Paez, a prominent trade union leader from the city of Cordoba, was the PST candidate for Vice-President of the Republic in the September 1973 elections.

He became well known for his denunciation of the right-wing murder squads that operated during the Peron Government.

Shortly afterwards, in January of this year, he was arrested and charged with illegal association and possession of subversive materials."

Since the military coup he has been held incognito, but in a letter recently smuggled out of prison he described how several of his fellow prisoners were being removed from their cells during the night and turning up the following morning as corpses, supposedly resulting from "clashes between the forces of order and guerrillas He warned that while these killings (17 altogether) had initially been limited to those accused-of involvement with guerrilla groups, one prisoner with no such alleged connections had recently been killed in this fashion.

This has given rise to the gravest doubts about the safety of Paez.

LEADER

Arturo Apaza is a trade union leader among the engineering workers of Buenos Aires, particular ly known for his leading role in the opposition to the official Peronist trade union bureaucracy.

He played a prominent part in coup almost all of the Party bomb attacks, Party members trade union murdered by squads.

Since the regime has cr political priso the general strike of July 1975 against the Government's austerity plan. In April of this year he was among a group of workers taken into custody by uniformed soldiers at the factory where they work.

For the past four months there has been no news of his whereabouts or welfare, despite persistent enquiries by his family, his fellow workers, and even his employers.

The Socialist Workers Party is gravely concerned for the fate of these two militants, given both the political climate in Argentina since the coup and the attentión which the party, as an intransigent defender of working class interests and independence, has attracted from the extreme right.

Over the two years preceding the the regional offices were subjected to and a total of 15 - for the most part activists - were right-wing death the military coup rated thousands of lers, among them more than 100 Socialist Workers At least one presumed dead brutal torture.

mem ers of the member is after arrest and The Socialist Workers Party is mounting a world-wide campaign to demand that the Argentinian Government 'guarantees the life of Jose Francisco Paez and issues news of Arturo Apaza and produces him immediately.

Already this campaign has gained extensive support from trade union and democratic groups throughout Latin America, including the Federation of Teachers in Colombia, and a group of 30 MPs in Colombia, headed by Senor Villar Bordo, leader of the left-wing of the governing Liberal In Portugal, the National Assembly is currently discussing a motion support for these demands, proposed by a group of Socialist MPs. It is expected that many prominent figures from the trade union and labour movement in Britain will be adding their voices to this campaign.