REACTIONARY RULE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1943, Page 4

REACTIONARY RULE

OVER INTELLIGENT PEOPLE PERPLEXING PARADOX OF ARGENTINA. DEMOCRACY AT PRESENT A MYTH. (By William H. Stringer, in the .■ Christian Science Monitor.”) Washington diplomatic observers, watching the strange course of events in Argentina, are seeing a great nation become one of the most perplexing paradoxes of the Western world. Its people are among the most intelligent and enlightened in the hemisphere; but its Government is developing into one of the most repressive on this side of the Atlantic. Visitors from Buenos Aires to Washington shake their heads and advise North Americans not to expect Argentina to revert to the pathways of constitutional government and democracy while the Ramirez regime is in power. The march of events brings news only of new uses of unlimited power; new fascist-like intervention in provincial politics, in business, in everyday life. A summation of the most recent reports out of Argentina gives these impressions: The Ramirez regime, it appears, is now almost completely lacking in popular support. It is backed only by the Nazi-admiring military officers who engineered the original revolt and by conservative elements of the powerful Argentine clergy. It no longer is in favour with the wealthy landowners, business men are deeply worried over governmental intentions, and liberals have been in opposition from the start. GOVERNMENT UNPOPULAR. The Navy, which was lukewarm to the original revolt, is hostile to the Ramirez Cabinet. Even elements of ,the army, including General Arturo Rawson, who served briefly as President until he saw that the Colonels’ . Junta did not intend to break off relations with the Axis, are against the Ramirez regime. In short, the present Argentina Government seems to have no more friends at home than it has in the world at large. This unpopularity, so the reports go, has not thus far discouraged the military government. Apparently it has led only to more repressive measures. Thus the regime is now actually developing a secret police on the fascist style. Argentinians are for the first time beginning to glance over their shoulders.to see who may be listening when they voice criticisms of the Government. From his predecesessor, President Castillo, General Ramirez inherited a state of siege which suspends, guarantees provided by the Constitution for protection of private citizens, so “that the Government can arrest any person without explanation. The few Communists, their “fellow-travellers,” and those suspected of liberal-radical sympathies have suffered the most, being I thrust into prison or shipped into virtual exile in the wilds of Patagonia, Argentina’s “Siberia.” Press censorship is also of the strictest, with sharp retribution for newspapers which print dispatches more than mildly critical. With so much opposition brewing up, with the ship of state still shaking from the devastating reply which Secretary of State Cordell Hull made to Foreign Minister Segundo Storni’s plea for lend-lease assistance, with the British Government also criticising Argentina’s failure to break with the Axis, what are the prospects that the Ramirez regime will be driven from office? PEOPLE NOT DEEPLY STIRRED. Reports of various observers make it plain that any change of government, if it comes, will probably not be engineered by the people. The vast majority of them are pro-Ally and they deplore Argentina’s failure to rid itself of Nazi spies and send the Japanese diplomats packing.- But the war has brought a certain prosperity to Argentina and the people are by no means so deeply stirred as to be willing to face machine-guns. And since the Ramirez regime has suspended the elections, there’s no chance to vote the Government out of office. So any change of government would therefore come through the military forces, led perhaps by pro-Ally elements among the Colonel’s group, plus General Rawson, plus conservative officers who resent the regime’s recent Nazi-like attempts to curry favour with the masses by attacking the trusts and big business, plus the navy. Further, reports say that not all of the clergy is behind the Ramirez repressions. , . a • Such is the present state of affairs. Can the United States do anything to hasten the growth of democracy in Argentina? Nothing, it is said heie, be yond continuing present economic pressures, chief of which is Washington’s refusal to grant lend-lease aid so long as Argentina maintains diplomatic relations with Germany and JapanSharper pressures would naturally be resented as foreign interference. It is Argentina’s job to work out its own national salvation. Some highlj - placed Argentinians fear that their Government’s Axis associations, if not soon severed, will -'have damaged their nation’s international position for the next 50 years. .