Underground Revival

On his desk in Caracas' well-guarded Miraflores Palace, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, No. 1 man in Venezuela's military junta, found a fresh copy of Resistencia, the mimeographed bi-weekly of the outlawed Action Democrdtica Party. Resistencia was also on the desks of Marcos Perez Jimenez and Luis Felipe Llovera Paez, the other members of the junta's triumvirate.

Seven months after the overthrow of the Action Democrdtica government of President Romulo Gallegos, the A.D. was again a live force. The junta itself was largely responsible for the revival. Its failure to back up its wholesale charges of corruption and irresponsibility in the Gallegos regime brought many Venezuelans to the A.D. side.

Cells & Pipelines. With the help of these adherents and with reviving elements of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, A.D. set up an underground. It now has cells throughout the country and free-flowing pipelines into the army as well as into the government. Even the junta's most secret acts are reported in one of the underground's ten "newspapers." Resistencia is the largest. Though possession of a copy is cause for immediate arrest, Resistencia's hand-to-hand circulation has doubled to 8,000 in two months.

Accion Democratica believes that the junta will be overthrown by violence--though it does not urge that course on its members. Undergrounders expect that the revolution will be started in the army, which has been divided by rival factions since the day it booted out Gallegos. At first the schism was confined to garrison commanders who refused to cooperate with the junta. Lately, word has gone around that the division exists within the junta itself.

Struggle for Power. Delgado Chalbaud, according to the scuttlebutt, has been contesting with Perez Jimenez for army support. Llovera Paez, No. 3 man, has been an uncertain balance of power--but not a power in himself. In the scramble for sides, several hundred officers have been quietly jailed. The strategy of A.D. leaders is to keep building up strength until army strife gives them a wide-open chance to take over the government.

They also hope for a break to develop from the general uneasiness that now characterizes Venezuelan life. Some of the uneasiness stems from last winter's 20% cutback in oil production which threw hundreds out of jobs. Even more has been caused by the junta's failure so far to fulfill its promise to restore constitutional rights and to free political prisoners.

The leading political prisoner has been scholarly Valmore Rodriguez, president of the Senate during the Gallegos regime. The junta admits that some 200 such prisoners (the underground says 2,000) are still in jail. It does not know what to do with them. Moaned Llovera Paez: "If we exile them, they discredit us abroad. If we free them in the country, they lead the opposition against us. If we keep them in jail everybody criticizes us."

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