Operation Cynthia

Down with the Yanquis,

Down, down.

Down with Barrientos,

Down, down.

We shall defeat the accursed forces.

Forward, forward.

This song is heard these days in the rugged jungle country of southeastern Bolivia, where it is sung by a band of Castro-style guerrillas who are harassing the eleven-month-old regime of President Rene Barrientos. Though they number only about 100 men (some say as few as 60), the guerrillas have caused consternation in the Bolivian government and army. At first, Bolivia's army promised a speedy campaign and victory over the guerrillas. But it has found them so tough and elusive that President Barrientos three weeks ago even asked neighboring Argentina to send in some troops to help out. The Argentines, feeling that Bolivia's 8,000-man army ought to be able to handle the guerrillas for now, refused.

A New Ambush. Led by Guide and Roberto ("Coco") Peredo, two Bolivian brothers who joined the country's Communist Party and visited Cuba in 1965-66, the guerrillas are armed with automatic weapons, grenades and modern communication equipment. Their field of operation -- a 1,300-sq.-mi. area that straddles important oil lands between Santa Cruz and Camiri--is steep and covered with thick, thorny vegetation and huge plants with leaves so sharp that they can slice through clothes and skin. The guerrillas first surfaced in March, when they ambushed and killed seven men on an army patrol. Since then, they have been striking once every two or three weeks. By last week they had killed 33 soldiers and civilians and lost only six or eight of their own men.

One of the boldest of the guerrillas is Antonio Negro, a Cuban who fought with Castro in the Sierra Maestra. A few weeks ago, Negro strolled into the small town of Saipuru, stole a truck and eight gallons of gasoline from a government-owned oil company, then fled with five soldiers as his prisoners. Last week a manifesto signed by Negro was making the rounds in La Paz, calling on Bolivians to make their nation a "strategic center of continental revolution." To win over peasants in the countryside, the guerrillas--apparently financed by Cuba--often pay double prices at the local stores as a friendly gesture, and buy soda pop for the kids; one of their doctors recently performed an appendectomy on a farm worker.

A French Protest. Barrientos, an ex-air-force general, has 2,500 men scouring the guerrilla area and several choppers flying lookout missions. The government's anti-guerrilla campaign, called "Operation Cynthia" after the commanding officer's daughter, so far has produced only eight captured guerrilla suspects, including a French leftist intellectual named Jules Regis Debray. A close Castro friend, Debray was picked up walking out of an abandoned guerrilla camp three months ago. Since then, he has told half a dozen conflicting stories, some of them implicating Cuba's long-absent revolutionist, Che Guevara, in the Bolivian operation. Last week's version was that Che organized the guerrilla uprising, then left for parts unknown. The Bolivian government's plan to try Debray has raised a storm of protest in France.

Bolivia is a bleak place that--in its 142 years of independence--has gone through at least as many different governments. With chronically rebellious students and tin miners to keep an eye on, and now guerrillas, Barrientos may sometimes feel that yet another change of government may be looming just ahead.

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