Catavi massacre in 1967
The Catavi Massacre in 1967 , even massacres Midsummer Eve called, took place on 24 June 1967 at Catavi , close to the north of the city Uncía in the province Rafael Bustillo in Potosí Department lying tin mine Siglo XX in Bolivia instead. There had already been massacres of miners here in 1942 and 1965.
prehistory
The mine was acquired by the “Tin King” Simón I. Patiño in the 1910s .
After General René Barrientos was elected Bolivian President in July 1966 , he reversed many of the social benefits granted to miners by the MNR government in previous years in order to get the workforce under control. He placed the state mining company COMIBOL under a military director and canceled the veto rights of the union leaders. Barrientos cut the miners 'wages to the equivalent of US $ 0.80 per day, finally banned the Central Obrera Boliviana (COB), the umbrella organization of the Bolivian unions, as well as the miners' union, and sent union leaders into exile.
massacre
When the military occupied the mines in June 1967, there was a massacre of miners and their families at the mine of Catavi, Siglo XX . Around 100 people were shot dead at the trade union meeting on June 24th.
On Midsummer Day , June 24, 1967 under the regime of René Barrientos , attacked army units under the command of General Rogelio Mirandades one built on the mine site storage of union members and their families and occupied the premises. After the massacre of Catavi on December 21, 1942, they carried out the massacre of miners and their families with the highest number of victims in the history of the class struggle in Bolivia. The union secretary Isaac Camacho was among those killed. The military was deployed to crack down on a national miners' union meeting scheduled for that day. They intended to raise demands for higher wages at the meeting and to pass a resolution to support guerrilla groups. Union activities had been banned by the ruling military junta. The daily La Patria reported that "at 4:55 am, the settlements of miners in the region were awakened by intense rifle fire, machine gun salvos and dynamite explosions" when the army and security forces occupied the miners' camps in a bloody operation. Initially, there was talk of 20 dead and 72 injured. The union operated a radio station on the site that was switched off by the military. In the hand there was a list of those murdered, injured and disappeared in the massacre: Rosendo García Maisman ( Spanish Secretario General del sindicato de Siglo XX ), Ponciano Mamani, Nicanor Tórrez, Maximiliano Achú, Bernardino Condori, an eight-year-old child and a newborn were those first on the list. Nationwide censorship was imposed on the incident in Bolivia's key industry. Member of Parliament Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz indicted the government of René Barrientos Ortuño in parliament and was immediately arrested. Jorge Sanjinés addressed the massacre in his 1971 film El coraje del pueblo , the performance of which in Bolivia was suppressed by the regime of Hugo Banzer Suárez .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Pampuch, Agustín Echalar Ascarrunz: Bolivia. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57368-2 , pp. 57 and 66.
- ^ Catavi-Siglo Massacre in Bolivia 1967. Wars of the World, accessed April 25, 2013 .
- ↑ Thomas Pampuch, Agustín Echalar Ascarrunz: Bolivia. Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-57368-2 , p. 68.
- ↑ Partido Obrero Revolucionario, MASACRE MINERA DE SAN JUAN EN SIGLO XX, 24 DE JUNIO 1967
- ↑ Quetzal Online Magazine: The San Juan Mine Massacre, accessed on June 23, 2010
- ^ David Kohut, Olga Vilella, Historical Dictionary of the Dirty Wars , p. 284