Incas Up!

Eighty thousand Indians, each clad in a red blanket and each with a tiny hat cocked low over his forehead, were reported "in revolt", last week, throughout the interior departments of Potosi, Cochabamba and Sucre.

Since 70% of Bolivians are Indians, and since those who revolted last week are of the ancient and once imperial Inca strain, their rioting, burning of haciendas, and murdering of numerous white landlords could be considered the acts of a downtrodden people, righteously aroused at last.

Naturally the opposite view was taken by Bolivian officials at La Paz, where Minister of Public Works Zacarias Benavides solemnly declared "Communists are responsible for this outbreak. They have incited the Indians to establish the supremacy of their race and obtain the ownership of all land."

Despatches indicated that the Government of President Hernando Siles was proceeding to quell the disorders by rushing picked troops to oppose the scantily armed Incas.