Less than a week after the
military government of General
Luis Garcia Meza announced a
round of sweeping price hikes on
basic foodstuffs, Bolivian
paramilitary and security forces
assassinated nine leaders of the
Bolivian Revolutionary Left Move-
ment (MIR) as they met in a La Paz
house. The murders, which have
provoked widespread protests,
decimated the top leadership of
the MIR in Bolivia.
The MIR was founded in 1971
by dissident Christian Democrats,
the youth sector of the Nationalist
Revolutionary Movement (MNR)
and independent Marxists. It was
one of the major participants in the
progressive coalition headed by
Herndn Siles Suazo which won the
1980 elections only to be over-
turned by the military. Jaime Paz
Zamora of the MIR had been
elected vice president.
Among the assassinated MIR
leaders were Artemio Camargo, a
major leader of the Bolivian
Mineworkers Federation, Jos6
Reyes Carvajal, Arcil Menacho
and Jorge Baldivieso Menacho (all
of whom had been elected to the
parliament in the 1980 elections),
and Ricardo Navarro (a professor
of sociology and member of the
National Resistance leadership).
A government communique jus-
tifying the murders stated that the
nine were “training groups of
foreigners to murder members of
the Armed Forces and civilians,”
and that they were caught with
“large quantities of Cuban-made
arms.”
More Austerity
The January 15 attack on the
MIR leaders came at a moment of
serious tension in the country. One
week earlier the military had an-
nounced a new “economic
package” which included
drastically increased prices for
many basic consumer items. The
cost of bread doubled, milk went
up 30%, and meat and cooking oil
prices jumped 14%. Transporta-
tion, gasoline and utilities prices
also skyrocketed. At the same
time, the government refused to
implement any wage hikes.
With international bankers
knocking on their doors to demand
payment of a short-term debt of
$170 million (the long-term debt is
$3.5 billion), and the IMF sitting on
the last portion of an aid program,
Bolivia’s military rulers are un-
doubtedly trying to impress on
their creditors that they “mean
business” and will not coddle the
nation’s workers.
Coke and a Smile
The Bolivian economy is in very
serious trouble. Tin prices on the
world market, Bolivia’s major
foreign exchange earner, continue
to fall and worker opposition to the
military has resulted in drastically
reduced production levels. In fact,
only cocaine production continues
to boom. Prices for coca leaves
(legally harvested in Bolivia) have
risen from $850 per metric ton to a
reported $15,000 in less than a
year. Some wealthy Bolivians have
taken the country’s new role as
the world’s leading dealer quite in
stride. Showing an unusual con-
cern for Bolivian workers, one pro-
fessional noted to the Washington
Post, “It’s a new moral code. Tin
mining produces little and
destroys the lives of Bolivian
miners. Cocaine makes a great
deal of money and destroys grin-
gos. What do we care?”
International drug money,
however, will hardly trickle down
to the masses who now face a
very bleak economic situation. To
prepare for the expected popular
protests against the price hikes,
the military has taken steps to beef
up its own security forces. Lamen-
ting the country’s “almost non-
existent security forces,” Interior
Minister Col. Luis Arce Gomez
reported on January 7 that the
government would create a new
national police force. A week later
the Defense Ministry ordered the
compulsory drafting of all Bolivian
males between 18 and 20. They
were given a week to report for du-
ty. No student will be granted a
diploma nor will any worker be
allowed to keep his job if he can’t
show that he has served his time.
Support From Washington
As the Garcia Meza dictatorship
moved to crush any and all pro-
test, it waited anxiously for signals
from the new Administration in
Washington. The waiting game
may now be over. In a January
1981 article in Commentary,
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Reagan’s
newly-appointed Ambasssador to
the United Nations and the Ad-
NACLA Report 40update update update update
Administration for having sup-
ported the inauguration of Herndn
Siles Suazo after he won the 1980
elections in Bolivia at the head of a
progressive coalition. What’s hap-
pening to time-honored traditions
of U.S. diplomacy, Ms. Kirkpatrick
wonders. “Even five years ago,”
she wrote, “the U.S. would have
welcomed a coup that blocked a
government with a significant
Communist/Castroite component.
Ten years ago the U.S. would have
sponsored it, fifteen years ago we
would have conducted it.”
It seems likely that the murders
of the nine MIR leaders in Bolivia,
coupled with the assassinations of
the six leaders of the Democratic
Revolutionary Front (FDR) in El
Salvador and Secretary of State
Haig’s assertion that concern with
rights, signals that the Washington
clock has been pushed back a
good many years.
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