Using an attempted coup as the pretext, Bolivian President Hugo Banzer Suárez decreed a sweeping series of measures November 9 to clamp down hard on opposition to his shaky military regime.

As part of the “new order,” the general outlawed all political parties, labor unions, and student and business associations. Heavy penalties were set for any public or private institutions that engage in political activity.

In addition, the dictator dumped his promise to hold elections. These are postponed “until 1980.” Under mass pressure, Banzer had talked frequently of holding elections. In June 1973 he declared his intention of “moving toward constitutionalization of the state,” and as recently as October 15 he announced that elections would be held in June 1975.

After banning all labor organizations, Banzer decreed in their place a system of forced labor in the regime’s civil service. Any Bolivian over twenty-one years of age is now subject to government service, in effect, a draft into civilian work. Those who decline face a two-year prison sentence or exile.

Not only does the measure give the government total control over wages, enabling it to institute a wage-freeze, but it also allows it to remove possible political opponents from their jobs in newspapers, universities, or private organizations. Such individuals can then be put in posts where they would have no influence, or where they would be forced to serve the regime.

Banzer has already tried to draft union leaders into government employment as “labor coordinators.” When six leaders of the miners union refused the honor, they were put in prison, according to the November 26 New York Times.

“My own personal opinion is that the Government is putting a lock on our mouths,” said Demetrio Avendano, the head of the Food Workers Union, after he was drafted as a “labor coordinator.”

Another draftee was Augusto Céspedes, Bolivia’s best-known novelist, who is not considered a government supporter. Apparently he was “less than ecstatic” over his appointment to a government public-relations job, the New York Times reported.

The major labor organization, the COB (Central Obrera Boliviana – Bolivian Workers Federation), reacted to the “new order” by calling a forty-eight-hour general strike beginning November 12. The clandestine Executive Committee of the COB declared that if by November 14 Banzer’s government still “persisted in its attitude of shackling the Bolivian people, the strike will be prolonged indefinitely....”

A communiqué signed by the COB’s general secretary, René Higueras del Barco, denounced the armed forces’ actions, saying that it put them “at war with the people and the institutions.” The statement also said that “the absolute liquidation of all the liberties, rights, and guarantees,” corresponds exactly to “the institutionalization in the country of a dictatorship on the Brazilian or Chilean model.”

Confronted with this challenge, the military declared a state of emergency on November 11, and issued a further decree taking over the management of all union funds. The Ministry of Labor (under the “new order” it is to be called the Ministry of Labor and Social Development) ordered the abolition of full-time union posts and forced all union leaders back to their jobs. The ministry also announced the formation of “schools of union training,” adding as a further enticement that “the most capable union leaders will be admitted to the school of advanced military studies.”

Although the leaders of the miners union announced that they would not obey the COB strike directive out of concern for “the physical safety of its members,” 5,000 workers went out on strike in the mining districts, and the regime sent in troops. On November 13 Banzer issued a new decree authorizing dismissal without any social security benefits for activists who encouraged strikes.

Many factory workers in Cochabamba also went out on strike, the Buenos Aires daily Clarin reported in its November 14 issue. The minister of labor responded to the strike by declaring on November 13 that any workers who didn’t return to their jobs by the end of the day would be dismissed. The joint command of the armed forces demanded that Banzer declare all districts where conflicts occurred “military zones.”

The coup attempt that the regime took as its excuse for tightening the screws was Bolivia’s ninth in the past year. On November 7 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra – the city 350 miles east of the capital of La Paz that was the base from which Banzer launched his own coup – dissident members of the Twelfth Infantry Regiment and the U.S.-trained antiguerrilla Rangers Manchego Regiment seized key buildings and radio stations in the city. Rebel broadcasts announced that the uprising was led by General Julio Prado Montano, a former prefect of Santa Cruz, and by a former minister of health in the Banzer regime, Carlos Valverde Barbery. The rebels accused Banzer of condoning “corruption” and of attracting “lackeys” as followers.

According to a government communiqué, the attempted coup was crushed the same day by a force of paratroopers, air force units, and air force cadets under the personal command of Banzer.

In La Paz, the military declared a state of siege, instituted press censorship, shut down the foreign news services, and occupied their offices with troops. Banzer’s cabinet resigned.

The minister of urban planning, Colonel José Patino Ayoroa, was accused of directing the plot and was placed under house arrest. On November 12 the military announced that a tribunal had judged him to be a ringleader of the coup attempt, along with another former minister, Colonel Javier Pinto Telleria.

Source: https://www.themilitant.com/Intercontinental_Press/1974/IP1245.pdf#page=34&view=FitV,3