Vol. 75/No. 43      November 28, 2011

Below is an excerpt from Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia by Rodolfo SALDAÑA, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for November. SALDAÑA (1932-2000) was a Bolivian revolutionary who in 1966-67 helped recruit fighters and provided logistical support to the ultimately unsuccessful guerrilla campaign organized in Bolivia by Ernesto Che Guevara, a leader of the Cuban Revolution. Guevara’s campaign sought to forge a revolutionary movement of workers, peasants and youth to overthrow the military dictatorship in Bolivia and open the road to socialist revolution in South America. He was eventually captured and murdered by the Bolivian army in a CIA-organized operation.

SALDAÑA was interviewed in April 1997 by Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder, and Michael Taber. Copyright © 1997 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

QUESTION: What was the popular response within Bolivia on learning of Che’s guerrilla?

SALDAÑA: After the first clash between the army and Che’s forces occurred on March 23, I drafted a manifesto, and we distributed it in the cities. We did not yet have a name, so we were posed with the decision of what name the organization should use to address the people. We knew the decision rested with Che and the guerrilla group. That was where our command was. But we needed to say something to the people in some way, to explain somehow what was happening.

This was the document we used to begin to work in the mines, with which we began to work in the city, explaining more or less what the guerrilla struggle meant.

QUESTION: Without mentioning Che?

SALDAÑA: Correct. Under those conditions, we had to do our work without mentioning Che. The enemy already knew there were guerrillas, and it had to have known that groups were working to support the guerrillas. We were telling them nothing they didn’t know. There were individuals among the people, among the workers, however, seeking ways to make contact with the guerrillas, seeking that possibility. These were the reasons for what we did, and the conditions under which we did it.

QUESTION: What was happening among the tin miners?

SALDAÑA: The support received from the miners is one of the things that gives the lie to charges that the Bolivian workers and peasants were indifferent to the struggle Che initiated.

I had been a miner at Siglo XX [tin mine]. I built the Communist Party there in the 1950s. So I knew the party members, many of whom I had recruited.

I went to Siglo XX, it must have been in February 1967. I spoke with Rosendo García Maismán, who in those days was general secretary of the union, of the miners of Siglo XX, and a leader of the party there. He was an intelligent comrade, a very capable and courageous comrade. Without entering into details, I informed him that a decision had to be made soon. Later, after the first battle, he and I met on a number of occasions. By then he was already one of us, and he began to form two groups. One of these groups was to join the guerrilla column, and the other was to carry out support tasks.

As to the miners’ commitment to the struggle, we have the testimony of Rosendo García’s widow… . The miners registered their support to the guerrillas at general assemblies. They decided that each worker would donate one day’s pay to help the guerrillas. Their commitment shows us that there was generalized support among the workers. It’s possible, of course, that there were some who were not in agreement. But the miners unanimously made this decision at their assembly… . This was at the end of May or at the beginning of June.

On June 24 there was supposed to be an expanded meeting of the miners federation, that is, union leaders from all the country’s mines were coming to Siglo XX. Representatives of the teachers and university students were also coming. In addition, this meeting at Siglo XX was to serve as a vehicle to discuss some general questions dealing with the workers’ demands, and certainly it would have taken up support to the guerrillas.

During the night of June 23 into the dawn hours on June 24, the army entered the mining camp shooting, throwing grenades at the homes of the miners while they slept. This is why many women and children were among those killed. That was the Noche de San Juan massacre. The only place the troops encountered armed resistance was at the union hall, where Rosendo García was, together with the few who were able to respond to the call of the mine’s siren. The union’s siren would be sounded in the mornings so the workers would get to work; it’s like an alarm clock. But the siren was also used to summon people to assemblies and as a warning about some danger. That night the siren was sounded.

Immediately the workers knew—since it wasn’t time to go to work it had to be something else, some emergency, or an assembly. Something was happening.

With a few rifles, they confronted the army. A number of people were killed there at the union hall, including Rosendo García Maismán, the central leader of the workers at Siglo XX. Many others died in their homes from machine-gun fire.

The delegates who had arrived for the meeting hid out in the mines, and later in different ways they secretly left the area, which was occupied by the army.

This was the highest expression of support the guerrillas received, but this doesn’t mean it was the only one. There were other demonstrations of support, although none reached this level… .

This is in response to those who say there was no support among the Bolivian people, that Che was isolated. That is not true. The guerrilla events after March 23 stirred the people as a whole, the population as a whole, in all their different social layers.  
 
 
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