VENEZUELA POLITICS

Evening Star, Issue 21745, 13 June 1934, Page 2

VENEZUELA POLITICS

UNDER PRESIDENT GOMEZ'S RULE ENEMIES EXTERMINATED DR IMPRISONED FOR LIFE “ In these times of Budget embarrassments it is regarded as something in the nature of a miracle for a country to be solvent. But that is the case in Venezuela. That is to say, she has enough money to pay off all her pub}iP debts and retain a surplus* in the cash box,” said Mr S. C. Anderson, a New Zealand engineer who has returned to Dunedin after completing a metallurgical contract on the new goldfields Venezuela. Oil, quantities of which are transported in a day to Curacao and later shipped to New Zealand, the country’s principal export, he said. ' Maintenance of the country’s sound financial position was due mainly to the effprts of President Gomez, who,- said Mr Anderson, had proved-himself a very able ruler, despite his advanced years. (He is over 70 years of age.) He was fortunate in having an immense private fortune. Revolutions play a prominent part in'South American politics, but President Gomez bad bis own effective way of forestalling any " such upheavals. In the first place_ £e had the armoury and arsenal in his palace grounds, while he held a tight grip on all operations throughout the country by maintaining a strict censorship over all postal and telephonic communications. In the event cif a plot by the intelligentsia President Gomez, with consummate cunning, would start a fake revolution as a means of ascertaining his enemies and his friends. The former were then either exterminated or imprisoned for life unless they could escape from the country. Ip conversing upon escapes, Mr Anderson related now three convicts escaped from the . French penal settlement of Devil’s Isle in 1931, If ha* been known that convicts do escape at rare intervals, he said. Some had made for the mainland, hut as a rule escapee* made for Trinidad or Venezuela, where no extradition law existed". In the 1931 case the convicts were detected by the police ,of Trinidad upon a raft which, with the assistance of the ocean current, was .being padclled towards .the shore. Upon arrival they were arrested and subjected to the customary interrogation, as the result of which a communication was sent to the French authorities. As the latter did not_ appear very enthusiastic the Trinidad Government liberated the convicts, but informed them they were prohibited immigrants without national status, and that they would have to continue their journev to Venezuela as they had intended. The Salvation Army entered the scene ami provided the convicts with ail open rowing boat and a quantity of food and water. Their' departure was supervised by the police, and it was expected they would reach the mainland at nightfall. - - - ■