Trotskyist arrested Free Guillermo Lora! ON January 29. 1986. the security police in Bolivia arrested and imprisoned Guillermo leader of the Workers Revolutionary Party (POR) and author of the Bolivian Trade Union's "Pulacayo Thesis" (1946). Lora was also the author of the basic programme for the 1971 People's Assembly in Bolivia.
The rightist government in Bolivia economic plan against the class and the trade unions which was used during the period of military dic tatorship 1571-78.
The present rightist government of operation with the fascist party which was in power after the military coup in
The brutal economic policies ducted by the rightist government mean nothing but increased misery to the majority the Bolivian people. Since the installation of this govern-
Socialist Viewpoint No. 11 March 1986 p5
ment in July 1985, the inflation rate in Bolivia has reached 8.000% February 1986), while wages have stood at the same level as July 1985.
The trade unions answered with a general strike. The government hit back with a state of emergency and arrested and deported more than 1,500 trade
The imprisonment of Guillermo Lora is a direct continuation and new height in these anti-worker and anti-trade union policies. The government is arguing that his crime is not paying the fine (US$9.000) which. according to an antidemocratic electoral law.
pay for receiving less than 50,000 votes in the July elections.
Bolivian workers need the support and solidarity of their comrades in this hard and difficult situation. What they
• Financial support for the campaign to pay the fine and free Guillermo Lora.
• Help in spreading information, for publications.
• Other acts of solidarity, such as sending telegrams to President Victor Paz Estenssoro in Bolivia demanding the release of Guillermo Lora and other trade union leaders still imprisoned.
Messages and donations should be
Arbyg. 3A. 6tr.
633 45 Eskilstuna
Sweden.
Dynamite-toting Bolivian miners in struggle in 1971.
$100m aid request for Contras Is Reagan going for
"NICARAGUA broke?
THE sheer scale of the US
Government's offensive against
Central America should alert
all internationalists. If Con-
gress agrees President
Reagan's $100m aid package to the Honduran-based Nicaraguan counterrevolutionaries. this will equal the total official US aid to the contras authorised in the years 1981-85.
The Nicaraguan government estimates that in addition in 1983-5 ten times as much ($1 billion) has been donated through private sources in the form of military equipment, intelligence aid, logistical sup port and military infrastructure for the contras. If this is the case, it seems likely that at least some of the total is "laundered" US government aid.
The contra forces comprise only some 7,000-10,000, based mainly in the bordering Honduran departments of El Paraise and Choliteca. They are chiefly former National Guards of the Somoza dictatorship overthrown in 1979. Others are based in the frontier areas of Costa Rica.
Having failed in their attempt to "liberate" border areas permanently. the so-called Nicaraguan Democratic Force" (FDN), Miskite MISURA, and "Democratic Revolutonary Alliance" (ARDE) nOW operate in small groups in the interior of little-populated central and eastern Nicaragua. They aim to avoid encounters with the Sandinista People's Army (EPS) and attack civilians, schools, health centres, bridges, ports, co-operative and other farms, and warehouse and processing plants for agricultural produce.
From 1981 to mid 1985, the Nicaraguan government estimates there have been 8,662 victims of contra aggression in roughly equal numbers of dead, wounded and kidnapped. (150,000 would be a proportionate figure in the UK). More than 150,000 Nicaraguans, mainly In border areas in the north have been displaced by attacks by the forces armed, trained, equipped and advised by the US Government in Honduras and the USA.
The Nicaraguan government
By BILL MACKEITH, recently returned from a
month-long trip to