“AMAZING REGIME”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1939, Page 5

“AMAZING REGIME”

PERU AND THE LIMA CONFERENCE

GOVERNMENT ATTACKED BY CORRESPONDENTS.

ALLEGATIONS OF SPYING AND INTIMIDATION.

By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright

NEW YORK. January 1

Cabling from Chile, the “New York Times’s" special correspondents who covered the Pan-American Conference in Lima declare that the conference functioned under an amazing dictatorial regime of censorship, intimidation and spying. ■ The ' Peruvian Government not only tried to control newspaper correspondents. but it censored and spied on the delegates. Secret service agents were found one night searching the American delegates’ offices while delegates were attending a banquet in their honour. Peruvian pressure reached its climax when the Government falsely issued an "official statement” to the Press that the delegates had unanimously agreed to sign Argentina’s modified solidarity agreedment. The delegates refused to be stampeded and the statement was contradicted.

The correspondents then go on to describe the censorship, spying and pressure to which they themselves were subjected. At Lima on the opening day it was like a scene from a Nazi rally. Thousands of swastika flags were flown and there were more Italian and Japanese flags than those of the American Republics. Throughout the conference the Gov-ernment-controlled Press gave prominence to attacks from the totalitarian States.