La Paz
With respect to the recent developments, the La Paz Regional Committee of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario [Revolutionary Workers Party, the Bolivian section of the Fourth International] states the following:
1. The nationalisation of the Gulf Oil Co. is a triumph for the Bolivian people and its revolutionary sectors. It is a battle won in the war of national and social liberation that the Bolivians are waging against capitalist exploitation and imperialist oppression.
But for the victims of this patriotic struggle, who crowd the prisons, we demand unconditional release. If we are going to fight imperialism, it makes no sense to continue persecuting and imprisoning the best anti-imperialist fighters.
Together with the revolutionary people, we demand the immediate release of Felipe Vasquez, J. Moreno, Cordova, Chambi, Ortega, Pereja, Orosa, and all the revolutionary patriots imprisoned in the Panoptico de San Pedro.
In saluting this popular victory and declaring our support to it, we Trotskyists remind the people that this anti-imperialist triumph is bound up with the struggle of the Nancahuazu guerrillas, with Che Guevara, Inti Peredo, and their comrades. It is a result of the struggle of these fighters, who, in March 1967 and later, said, "Enough imperialist exploitation!" and by their example and their heroism touched a responsive chord in our entire Bolivian fatherland.
2. The expulsion of the Gulf Oil Co. is a step forward. But the struggle of revolutionists does not end there, because no other road to civilisation and progress for the peoples is possible but the one that leads through socialist construction.
If the capitalist system is retained, if the oppressive structure continues with the bourgeoisie in power, imperialism will find ways to pervert this conquest and integrate it into its machinery, as was the case with the measures enacted under the MNR [Movimento Nacionalista Revolucionaria— Revolutionary Nationalist [illegible]].
Therefore, we call upon the Bolivian masses to mobilise and close ranks around the consistent revolutionists, who, arms in hand, opened up the road for the liberation of Bolivia. We call upon the masses to remain alert against the machinations of the defenders and puppets of imperialism and those others who would substitute tinkering and piecemeal measures from above for the great revolutionary march of socialism which is generated from below.
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At the same time, we demand the release of Leyola Guzman, Tertu T. de Orosa, Geraldine de Coronada, who are being held in the Obrajes Women's prison; Regis Debray and C. Bustos who are in the military prison in Camiri, also.
Together with the revolutionary people, we Trotskyists demand instant cessation of the furious persecution and the attacks on the liberty of the general secretary of the POR, Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso, and all our national leaders. The release of the revolutionary fighters will also be a victory over imperialism.
3. The struggle against imperialism in Bolivia has its martyrs, its heroes, its victims. To those who gave their lives, like Che Guevara, Inti Peredo, and their companions, we pay grateful homage in this hour when the people have dealt a blow to imperialism.
For the La Paz Regional Committee of the POR. Jose F. Mirabel M.; Juan M. Alegria L.; Macario Plata Siles, 17 October 1969