»_° trial started in Boli- “is Debray, the follow- by Robin Blackburn, the end of September, able background _in- ". Blackburn, an editor ft Review in Great *S In Bolivia where he 4 Debray in a cramp- le, He also talked to Dipemetted with the § the military pro- feces. 4 le is repri printed from g Star, f ue pected of conspir- Novara forces, the Bo- ‘t 4 ot have no case " hd are finding it @, fake one up. ee seized on April Snnicad for three months a storm. and eventually, AS his t4: of international M eng = was scheduled ontin Of July, but it has 4 oY postponed. “thin ‘st the charges , Toby opeared grotesque: prtcy, Ane? rebellion and ter all Debray and an) P2nions, Roth (an ) wend Bustos (an Ar- Q aay arrested while wet credentials with ae ——-°e Office in Muyu- ae €ntered Bolivia . ad subsequently al Name and pass- “aying’ in hotels. His ; ie ted poreditation had MH, Stic, by the Presidential ff Nal” Where he had gone W Mog. spires that his » inten 1 80ing to Bolivia "Cuba, < Che Guevara, : Tevolutionary lea- Would was unaware NS with necessarily en- the B the guerrillas— x deg Olivian guerrillas bay | erations at the Ent to meet Gue- ied a hij : ny that.the military sty of 4, attempt to chal- Dep © Will concen- as activities once 8, With the guer- Li ho ye here is to find sty 2 incriminate De- .Y. ‘py, AVE at least some 4, Roth © English photo- iy Slane”, Teleased, has all that Debray is Charges against SO I i ibtson et” '€wed Debray’s at no ..Bustos, he told apg, ime had Debray ad Beye’ added that the Mature given any- i ag as. © of instruction Best es he pint is very impor- tary court will h Ty to pin the ee uP” of the S onto Debray. Debray» st ape S Captors have 0 n ey clause they will tr ; y "Sig fe ful the rather or” €reby the “in- an offence Mried deep in the Boli- - ®se facts, as they. is as guilty as the offender him- self. © But even if a very broad inter- pretation is given to this (as it will be) the military prosecutor will still find the going very hard. His only evidence comes from three deserters from the guer- rillas who are testifying in ex- change for light sentences for themselves. With the remarkably weak tes- timony he will have to prove that Regis Debray, the French philosophy post-graduate, was giving instruction in guerrilla warfare to Che Guevara! Debray has of course, never concealed his sympathy for the guerrillas nor his belief that in Latin America armed struggle is alone capable of liberating the continent from poverty, foreign domination, illiteracy, disease and military rule. Because he holds these ideas he is ipso facto guilty, as far as the shabby military dictatorship of General Barrientos is con- cerned. However the striking success of the Bolivian guerrillas so far, and the new sense of urgency and determination which emerg- ed from the OLAS conference provide ample:warrant for De- bray’s optimism. The Bolivian guerrilla leaders, the Paredo brothers, are them- selves members of the Bolivian Communist Party, while they draw their support from a wide political spectrum that includes the M.N.R., the former Govern- ment party. The Barrientos regime has al- ready earned the implacable hostility of the tin miners, who produce most of the country’s foreign exchange. Their wages have been cut in half, many redundancies declar- ed and scores of miners massac- red by Government troops. The army now requires more than a division just to occupy the min- ing areas. If one considers Bolivian his- tory the present regime’s fear of the tin miners is easily explained as these miners have always been the most fearless fighters for national independence and Socialism in Bolivia. ; Plans for denationalizing the mines have already been set in progress with the surrender of all marketing and distribution to a private foreign consortium. Thousands of miners have been declared “redundant” in a politically motivated “rationali- sation” plan. However, the miners’ resist- ance continues. Many miners have gone to join the guerrillas (the majority of whom are now ex-miners) . Government officials cannot move in the mining areas except with army escort and the miners have recently concluded a mu- tual defense pact with the stu- dents’ organization, whereby students and miners will act in co-ordination. We asked a young miners’ leader what had been the effect on them of the Government per- secution and he said: “Our will to struggle is unbroken, we all want to establish Communism here.” The difficulties in which the Government finds itself have pro- duced a flood of military aid from the United States (new weapons and technical advisers) . However, this assistance has ne- gative repercussions as it offends Bolivian national feeling. The fact that Debray was in- terrogated by U.S. military offi- cers shortly after his arrest has already aroused comment even in very right wing circles. The arrest of Debray himself .is now being seen as a serious error in that it drew attention to the steadily worsening situation in Bolivia at a time when it was least wanted. Regis Debray blivian plot to frame Regis Debray An Argentinian view By VICTOR PEREZ BUENOS AIRES In a joint statement issued recently in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, the Communist parties of Argentina and Brazil expressed their common view- point on a number of today’s problems in the world and in Latin America, as well as*on the struggle for unity of the Communist movement in Latin America and throughout the world. The statement is similar to other declarations that have been issued recently by Com- munist parties of Latin Ameri- ca following a number of bila- teral and multilateral meetings (Uruguay-Brazil, Argentina-Boli- via, Colombia-Venezuela, Brazil- Chile, Central America-Panama- Mexico, etc.). The document notes among other things that neither repres- sive laws and measures nor poli- tical provocations. (which are growing steadily in number) have been able to weaken the positions of the Communist par- ties; on the contrary, these par- ties today are working more closely than ever, coordinating their activities and strengthen- ing their solidarity. Imperialism, however, is un- questionably increasing its at- tacks on the Communist parties of Latin America. An intensive propaganda campaign is current- ly underway in this part of the world, striving to frighten the people with warnings about “imminent Communist aggres- sion”, Cuban “intervention”, etc. Concurrent with this cam- paign, various efforts are also being made throughout Latin America to disunite and con- fuse the ranks of the progres- sive workers and peasants. In Argentina, for example there has recently arisen a number of cir- cles of so-called “Left nationa- lists.” These are, in the main, small petty-bourgeois groups, some of them closely allied with the Trotskyists, which advocate the most extreme form of na- tionalism, marked by phrases and slogans borrowed from _Marxism-Leninism. The common features of these groups are: their anti-Communism, their sys- tematic disruption and splitting of existing organizations, and their willingness to compromise with some of the most reaction- ary forces (such as the right- wing Peronistas in Argentina) particularly during moments of decisive social struggles. Al- ‘though these groups have few members, they seem to be sup- plied with ample funds and have ready access to various news- papers, magazines and publish- ing houses. For several months now these groups have been trying to deve- lop a public debate around the views of the French journalist Regis Debray, currently impri- soned in Bolivia. Debray has published a number of articles and books about Latin America and about the Communist par- ties of several Latin American countries, their program, policies and tactics. In these works he puts forward as his own, con- cepts which are actually copies of views that were known and rejected in Latin America as far back as 40 years ago. The Argentine Communist Party has recently published an interesting pamphlet titled, “There Can Be No Revolution Within a Revolution,” in which Debray’s political and ideologi- cal concepts are examined in de- tail. Debray puts a military inter- pretation on the revolutionary process' in the various Latin American countries and alleges that the only possible and worth- while decision one can come to today everywhere is to carry on an immediate armed strug- gle through so-called guerrilla “focos”. ch a struggle of “isolated minorities’, Debray claims, will grow into a “natio- nal tidal wave’, into the nuc- leus of a revolutionary national front. He asserts further that each such “foco” will awaken the masses and by itself—with- out a political party or a speci- fically worked out ideology — will give birth to socialist con- sciousness. The ‘“foco” will somehow even create its own revolutionary party. “Insurrectional activity is to- day the number one political task,” Debray writes, “. . . the principal stress must be placed on the development of* guerrilla warfare and not on the streng- thening of existing parties or the creation of new parties... the peoples’ army will be the nucleus of the party, not~ vice versa...” This concept of “focos” ig- nores the masses and their role, rejects the working class and its party, renounces the prin- ciple of organization, worships spontaneity and argues the bankruptcy of Marxism-Lenin- ism in relation to everything connected with revolutionary situations. It considers all of Latin America ripe for a period of “focos”, as if the Latin Ame- rican revolution could be simul- taneous and identical, i.e., that_ it could erupt and be victorious - simultaneously and be carried through in only one way and in > only one form. With one stroke of his pen, Debray disposes of the role of the working class and the worker-peasant alliance, rejects the role of the socialist camp in today’s international situation. The scornful attitude of the author to the working class is all the more inadmissable be- cause the working class of Latin America is no longer in its for- mative stage: in such important countries as Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Colombia, the working class plays an important role, even though it is as yet at various levels of class consciousness. At the same time it should be noted that the percentage of the urban population is growing. Ac- cording to latest statistics, in Brazil and Colombia 36 percent of the people live in the cities, in Mexico 42.6 percent, in Vene- zuela 53.9 percent, in Chile 59.9 percent and in Argentina 74.6 percent, One could ask: what has brought about the recent sharp- ening of the ideological and political struggle in large parts of Latin America? Is it because imperialism and reaction are ad- vancing? Not at all. While one cannot deny that partial retreats and reverses are experienced here and there due to the com- plexities of some concrete situa- tion, the new upsurge is caused by the decisive action of the people, particularly of the werk- ing class-action which in each country takes its own forms, in accordance with concrete loca! conditions. What is advancing is the people’s struggle, in the forefront of which stands the Communist Party of each coun- try. October 13; 1967--PACIFIC’ TRIBUNE+Page-S*’