Brazil fears open fascist coup

RIO DE JANEIRO.

The latest events in Brazil indi-
cate a qualitative change in the
direction of fascism, and probably
mark the eve of a coup to install
the open dictatorship of President
Eurica Gasar Dutra as representa-
tive of the U.S. state department.

On April 17, the army arsenal in
Deodoro, a suburb of Rio, blew up,
causing 50 deaths and destroying
huge military stores. Whether this
disaster was a provocation prepar-
ed by the FBI or not (and who is
it that wants to do away with the
old military equipment and provide
new, patterned on U.S. models?),
it was quickly labeled “Communist
Sabotage.” ;

This incident marked a change in
the methods of the Dutra govern-
ment, which has dropped even the
pretense of legality, moving openly
against the Communists and demo-
crats.

The Folha do Povo was sacked
and its personnel beaten up and ar-
rested, including its editor Egydio
Squeff, Leading Communist ex-
deputies, Mauricio Grabios for in-
stance, were dragged from their
homes during the night and held

ad

incommunicado,

The home of every known or
suspected Communist was raided in

Nazi-Palmer fashion and some 300
individuals arrested, each of whom
was alleged to be the leader of a
“Communist cell.” The headquar-
ters of the ‘Committee to Aid the
Popular Press” was raided and
Prestes’ sist.r, Clothilde, arrested.
The journalists Ailton Quintiliano
and Humberto Teles were arrested
in the raid on Folha de Povo, and
Waldur Guimaraes there suffered
a fractured skull at the hands of
the police. Certain leading Com-
munists have simply disappeared,
such as the former city council-
man, Agildo Barata. ,

All branches of the government
are engaged in a hunt for Luis Car-
los Prestes, the Communist general
secretary. They are like so many
hounds on the trail. One day he is
reported in Uruguay, another day
in Sao Paulo. But so far he re-
mains in contact with the Com-
munist Party, and undiscovered.

It is symptomatic that the gov-
ernment openly hunts for Pres-
tes, the idol of the people, the
most popular man in Brazil, And
if they find him, there is very

Parley backs Bevin,
but opposition grows

—LONDON

_ Delegates to the Labor Party’s third annual conference
Since it took over the government in 1945 voted overwhelming-
ly in support of the foreign and domestic policies of Prime
Minister R. Attlee and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.

But political observers here say
that dissatisfaction with Bevin as
Foreign Secretary has arisen in
the ranks of the government it-
Self. Party Chairman Shinwell is
Supposed to be pushing ex-Finance
Minister Hugh Dalton for Bevin’s
Job, with a program of greater neu-
trality between the U.S. and Rus-
Sia.

Bevin, in his foreign policy
Speech, went to some pains to ex-
Plain that his course was set for
“collective security” rather than
an alliance with the U.S. for war
on Russia. He said he deplored ex-
€cutions of resistance fighters by

Royalist victim

ATHENS.

Greek guerrillas under General
Markos Vafiages have proof that
Greek royalists killed George
Polk, CBS: correspondent, with
Athens government. connivance,
the guerrilla Free Greek “Radio

announced.

The official spokesman for the
Suerrilla Greek Democratic gov-
ernment asserted that Athens
authorities organized Polk’s mur-
der because he had exposed Greek

Yoyalist atrocities. The individ-—

‘uals responsible, the spokesman
Said, “were the same men who
last year in Salonika killed Janis
Sevgos, who exposed royalist
crimes to the United Nations
Balkan Commission.”

the royalist Greek government,
which enjoys British and American
support. He blamed Russia for dis-
agreements. Two questions exten-
sively referred to by floor speakers
—the U.S.-Soviet peace note con-
troversy and British support for
the Arabs in Palestine—were not
touched by Bevin.

The system of voting at British
Labor Party conferences discounts
minority criticism. Union delegates
do not cast individual ballots but
hold up cards siowing the total
number of members of their
unions, even if the vote on the same
policy within the union was close.
Thus. conference delegates cast
4,097,000 block votes for Bevin’s
foreign policy, as opposed to 224,-
000 against. The mineworke?s dele-
gate alone Leld up a card saying
608 which automatically chalked
up 606,000 votes. In the miuework-
ers’ union ‘tse, Bevin is oppcsed
ty a subsiantial minority, inelud-
ing some top Officials. This did n™.
show.

Some interest was aroused by a
British Communist Party state-
ment appeang to the conference
tu “stop war.’ The statement
charged that 40 percent ot Brit-
nin’s tax iv;ome under present
policies goes to Pay for past and
future wars, while educacion.
health and hcusing only ger 15
percent omoung them. .

Britisn labor resentment against
U.S, Isccnomic Cooperation Ad-
ministrator Paul G. Hoffman’s re-
mark that no Marshall plan funds

of nationalization made ‘itself felt
both from the floor and from gov-
ernment leaders. Party Chairman
Emanuel Shinwell, who is also Brit-
ain’s war minister, declared that
“no country, let alone Britain, will
accept strings tied to any form of
assistance.” The Hoffman _state-
ment veferred to nationalization of
the British steel industry, which
is also the chief point on which
Winston Churchill's tories are
fighting the labor government.

On home policy, the conference
did not press nationalization of
the steel industry. A resolution was
passed asking the government to
reaffirm its pledge to nationalize
steel, but no date was set. The ques-
tion was shelved after government
spokesmen quoted Attlee as having

already reaffirmed this pledge.

would go to industries in process.

great. danger that, under some
pretext or other, he will be mur
dered out of hand, This is what
General Marshall's policy
amounts to here.

Meanwhile, there are certain
positive developments. The cam-
Paign against brazilian petroleum
concessions for Standard Oil of
New versey, has been taxen up by
the students. Under th -ir leader-
ship, mass activity has resulted, in-
cluding several successful mass
meetings and parades. Some of the
meetings wer. shot up by the po-
lice. But to a considerable extent
the students have reconquered the
right of assembly.

The campaign against payment
of the trade uBion tax which
amounts to a day’s: wages a month,
has gained considerable headway.
The workers are refusing to pay
it in many industries. This money,
being used by the government to
bribe its flunkies in the “govern-
ment unions,” is necessary to the

‘| whole fascist union set-up. Success

in refusing to pay it represents an
outstanding popular victory.

Finally, there is a growing reali-
tation in all circles, except the

Dutra clique, his advisers and sons-
in-law, that a coup d’etat is. im-
minent, which will leave the coun-
try at the complete mercy of a cor-

rupt and incapable puppet.

Symptomatic is the public excite-
ment as a result of the attack on
the journalist Carlos Lacerda. La-
cerda is an_extreme rightist, with
former Trotzkyite connections. He
is violently anti-Communist, but
sometimes gets violent at certain
figures in the government.

On April 18 one of the big Poli-
ticians, said to be General Goes
Monteiro, had his “boys” beat up
Lacerda, as the latter entered a
djowntown radio station. The polic-
declined toe intervene, or to investi-
gate afterward.

Lacerda made a great deal of
noise and has rectived great deal
of support from all sides, and the
incident has served to make wide
circles realize that personal secur-
ity no longer exists in Brazil.

St the arrests, the beatings.
the torturings go on. At the mo-
ment, there is probably «more
sadistic brutality and unrestrain-
ed bestiality practiced by the

Brazilian police than in any other
country in the world, not barring
Franco Spain.

The government has demanded

more stringent laws from Congress.
which is completely servile, to
guarantee “internal security.”
These laws, if approved, amount to
the outright establishment of fas-
cism, and will do away with any
pretense of constitutional govern-
ment.

Meanwhile. on April 18, there
appeared Volume 1, Number 1 of
The Voice of Brazil, a single sheet
pocket newspaper modeled on the
war-time underground resistance
sheets. Indeed, the voice of the
People will not and cannot be
drowned out.

The housing crisis grows worse.
The lack of transportation becomes
more acute. Inflation widens the
gap between costs and wages. And
the government busies itself to pro-
tect the black-market profits of its
circle of friends, and to carry out
the orders of the FBI agents who,
after all, are behind the scenes, or-
ganizing the crusade to defend
“western Christian civilization.”

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN

The nation of Israel

Jews proclaimed their

Since its birth, Israel

by Britain as well.
man,

by the
Legion,

2 year.
she had abandoned rule
Palestine. But she came
in, with non-Palestinian

grants and

closed Haifa, Israel’s

three months.

—NEW YORK

was
born of two acts. The UN voted
to partition Palestine into free
Arab and Jewish states, The
state
May 16, the day Britain’s legal
authority ended, despite British
resistance and U.S. flip-flopping.
has
been attacked not .-only by
neighboring Arab countries but
An English-
John Bagot Glub, com-
mands operations in Jerusalem

Transjordan Arab
which is financed by
Britain to the tune of $6 million
Britain told the UN
over
back
mer-

U.S., USSR and other countries,
Britain hampers Jewish immi-
imports. She has
biggest
port, to all incoming shipping—
on the plea that evacuation of
British forces may be impeded.
The evacuation is due to last

° Jerusalem, which, the UN kept

Rubble lies in the bus station at Tel Aviv after an Egyptian bombing attack in which
40 persons were killed and 60 others injured. Man at right motions to another man (left
foreground). A bus smoulders in one of the bays.

Israel fights British intrigue

Jews but against growing U.S.
influence. Standard Oil of New
Jersey and Socony-Vacuum al-

neutral as between Jewish and
Arab states, is the political key
to partition. The British aim
to instaH Transjordan’s King
Abdullah there, get him so
proclaim rule over Palestine
with Glubb at his elbow’ and
announce that nothing can be
done to dislodge him. The
Arab-British request for delay in
a proposed UN truce was de-
signed to give Glubb time to
get control of the historic capi-
tal by destroying all Jews
there. .

Abdullah and Glubb in Jerus-
alem would kill the second half
of partition — an independent
Arab state. Most of that area
would go to Transjordan—in
other words, Britain. Israel
would be menaced or eliminated
by a great power. It would not

cenaries, through the back live side by side with an equal
door. neighbor. Less British-bound
At the same time, despite ios states, like Egypt a
recognition of Israel by the yria, would be given y

token slices of the Palestine
pie. Egypt has been told .to
quit pushing the notorious
Grand Mufti for Palestine boss
London’s king-pin is Abdullah.

Haifa, terminus of the great
pipeline bringing inland oil to
the Mediterranean, is the other
point Britain is determined to
dominate—not only against the

*

ready own 23 percent of the
wells serviced by the Haifa
pipe. Britain fears that greater
American economic power will

ease her out altogether, if she
doesn’t keep political control. —

The US. pitch, after long
wavering, is to endorse Israel
politically but not make it too
easy for it to get arms, The
arms restriction humors Amer-
ica’s pocket king, Ibn Saud of
Saudi Arabia, who hates both
the Jews and Abdullah. His
oil goes to Standard Oil of
California and the Texas Oil
Company. i

Britain’s chief fear now is
that the American arms em-
bargo may be lifted and re-
equipped Jews will drive Ab-
dullah out. She may therefore —
propose an “impartial” arms
ban for the whole Middle East,
on the lines of the “non-inter-
vention” that killed republican
Spain in 1939. Men and arms
for the Arab-surrounded Jews
must come by sea. They could
easily be stopped by naval
patrols. Nobody can watch the
far-flung land borders of the
many Arab states involved.

“

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 4, 1948—PAGE 3,