San Juan Massacre


The Massacre of San Juan is the name given to an attack by the Bolivian military on miners of the Siglo XX-Catavi tin mining complex in Bolivia. The attack occurred on 24 June 1967, in the early hours of the traditional festival of the Night of San Juan which is a winter solstice festival in the Southern hemisphere. The army was acting under the orders of the president of Bolivia, General René Barrientos Ortuño.

Background

René Barrientos Ortuño considered that the start of a new guerrilla resistance to his dictatorship was brewing among the mining communities, inspired by Che Guevara's small force which was operating in Bolivia at the time. The ambush was planned to crush any attempt to organise resistance among the miners. The miners union the FSTMB had called for an enlarged national meeting for the day after the night of San Juan in the miner's settlement of Llallagua XX.

The massacre

The assembled miners and families celebrated the festival of the longest night of 23 to 24 June with bonfires, firecrackers and dynamite as well as traditional foods and beverages, not knowing that units of the elite Rangers and Camacho regiments of Oruro had already surrounded them. At around 5 in the morning the soldiers poured out of the train carriages and descended on the assembled mass, attacking with machine guns and dynamite. The electricity had been cut shortly before the attack, so the local radio station La Voz del Minero was unable to warn the miners or spread the news to the outside world. The soldiers shot men, women and children at close range. Many of the miners and families were either asleep or intoxicated after the all night festivities and the sound of the initial shots and explosions were confused with the traditional firecrackers of the celebration.
The bulk of the victims were in the encampment called La Salvadora around the Cancañiri railway station.
Under the conditions of dictatorship, media reporting of the massacre was severely limited and no official investigation followed.
La Patria newspaper reported that:
Initial estimates of casualties were of 20 dead and 72 wounded.
The total number of deaths was never determined, however one recent source estimated the number of dead, missing or wounded to be above 200.

See Also

Other massacres in the same location