What happened in Colombia

By ISRAEL EPSTEIN

VEN the boss-kept U.S. press

has seldom lied or incited to
violence as viciously as it did
over the revolt at Bogota, Col-

ombia, where the Inter-Ameri-
can Conference happened to be
The performagce was
high

sitting.

doubly ominous because

Reads of revolt

US. officials heaped fuel on the
flames. It marked a new high
(or low) in the hysteria-breed-
ing campaign that stifles thought
at home and presages
abroad.

war

Consider the day-by-day news

and comment on Bogota in the |

Here, Dr. Pedro Almonso Lopez, Colombian delegate to the
UN and pro tem president of the Security Council, reads of
developments in Bogota. Between 1930 amd 1945 Lopez led
Colombia Liberals in- carrying .out a new deal program.

Fascists 1

By GINO BARDI
—ROME

E Italian election campaign

brought into the open a new
fascist party, the Italian Social
Movement (MSI), which makes
bones: about its political
‘origin, Its boast of following
Benito Mussolini’s “social doc-
trines” and its meetings’ are
punctuated with fascist salutes,
songs and cries of “Long Live Il
Duce.” Mussolini, remains its
hero and is usually referred to
as “the martyr.”

no

The Law in Defense of De-

mocracy and the Republic; ap-
proved by the Constituent As-
sembly on November 22, 1947,
provides:

That the MSI and its activities
and publications fall under the
“terms of this law is recognized
by most political parties—with
the exception of the governing

Christian Democratic. party.
Several months ago both the
National Partisan Association

sates ‘traitors’
—ROME

A ROME court, handing down

its decision at a time when
fascist organizations are being
allowed to reorganize, has ruled
that any Italian soldier who
cooperated with the Allies be-
fore the armistice was signed
in 1943 was a traitor to his
country. . The decision was
issued in a libel action brought
by an Italian officer against a
group of civilians who charged
him with treason because of
his help tothe allied forces
during the war. The civilians
were acquitted.

and the seven millionstrong:
Italian General Confederation of
Labor demanded that the MSI
be declared illegal in accordance
with the law.

Not only did the Christian
Democratic government fail to
act but the Christian Democrats

_ sought and accepted the support

of three MSI councilmen elected

-in last October’s Rome admin-

istrative elections to obtain a
majority for a city council which
excluded the left parties.

The Christian Democratic party
is the only reputedly democratic
party which has never attacked
the MSI. The MSI itself has
bitterly attacked every other
political organization—including

- neo-fascist groups which accept

the same basic program but are
more cautious in endorsing Mus-
solini—but it has never attacked
the Christian Democrats.

This mutually tolerant attitude,
or “mutual aid pact” as it is

New York Times—which avoids
the crude language of others we
could name but perpetrates the
same journalistic crimes with
sanctimonious dignity, like a
pious thief who looks skyward
while his hand rummages the
cashbox,

April 10: A straight story head-
lined Liberal Revolt Sweeps
Bogota told of people rising
against the murder of Eliecer
Gaitan, Liberal presidential can-
didate. An Associated Press
dispatch called the ruling Con-
servatives in Colombia a minor-
ity. It said Foreign Minister
Leareano Gomez was accused by
Liberals of “sympathizing with
the Germans during the war.”
Rioting and quarrels on this
issue dated back to January.

A new line was suggested from
Washington, not Bogota. US.
state department officials there
said that “Communists are ex-
ploiting the revolt. . . . It is too
early to determine whether they
had a hand in the actual start.”
Evidence: “The Confederation of
Workers of Colombia had asked
a general strike.”

April 11: The Times editorially
still followed its own correspon-

dents, not state department
handouts. “It appears now that
(the revolt) was a@ spon-
taneous upsurge at the

death of the dynamic leader of a
major party. The small
Communist Party apparently did
not instigate the riot.”

2 In Italy

being called, has strengthened
the widely-held belief that the

“MSI is being financed by Pre-

mier Alcide de Gasperi’s Christ-
ian Democratic: party.

The. MSI came out with a daily
newspaper: last month. - It. is

‘widely averred that “the - funds
came from the Vatican through ©
the good offices of rhe ae.

Democrats,

One MSI candidate was Giorgio
Almirante, former- ‘editor’ of
Tevere and La _ Difesa - ‘della
Raza: (Defense: of the Race),
rabid: anti-Semitic publications
issued under the fascist regime.
When Mussolini set up his phony
republic in north Italy under
German occupation, Almirante

headed the Prenee of popular

culture.

Another candidate was Con-
cetto Pettianto, old friend of
Mussolini and editor of La

Stampa of Turin under’ the Ger- -

man occupation. After his ‘re-
lease from prison eight months
agg, Pettinato resumed writing
for the neo-fascist press; Ed-
mondo Cione, another old friend
of Mussolini, was a _ candidate
in Naples. He was arrested
March 25 for ending one of his
campaign speeches with: “This

time the march on Rome will.

begin in Naples.” He was quick-
ly released, however.

On foreign policy, the MSI is
firmly behind what it hails as
the U.S. “get tough” policy with
Russia. Its newspaper, L’Ordine
Sociale, commented April 4: “If
Europe will be saved tomorrow
from Bolshevik slavery, history
will say that Spain, Italy and
Germany had laid the founda-
tions for victory 10 years ago.”

April 12: The Times de-empha-
sized facts and began a political
campaign. A front-page head
said: Red Role In Uprising Seen.
This was based on one passage
by correspondent Milton” Bracker.
He saw no ‘such “role” but re-
ported only: “It is now apparent
that the intent of the (Colom-
bian) government is to paint the
most shameful spectacle in Col-
ombian history as an out-and-
out Communist revolt designed
to wreck the conference. . . . The
U.S. delegation headed by Secre-
tary of State Marshall has not
made up its mind.”

The day’s editorial backed Col-

ombian propaganda unreservedly.
It blamed “mob violence” on
“the murdered Senor Gaitan”
himself, because he had refused
a bi-partisan “coalition govern-
ment of Conservatives and Liber-,
als” while alive. It approved
Bogota martial law and shoot-
to-kill orders as “undoubtedly
drastic” but “justified in view of
sporadio sniping, a general
strike, and food shortage.”

The Times was now satisfied
that Moscow did it all. “The
proof . .. must still be furnish-
ed,” it said, “but circumstantial
evidence . . is strong.” Since
its own reports still found none,
its “evidence” was that the out-
break came when the _ Inter-
American Conference took up
an anti-red resolution.

April 13: Marshall himself,

citing no facts, declared Bogota
could not “be judged on a local
basis. It is the same definite
pattern which provoked
strikes in France and Italy,
where elections will be held
May 18.” (!) Times writers now
Said that “any weakness shown
here will influence adversely the
Italian elections,” U.S. newsmen
in Bogota tried vainly to get

state department help against
Colombian censorship.

Times correspondent. Milton
Bracker described the .censor-
ship. The Columbian govermm-
ment claimed, he _ said, that

“blood did not flow, the bodies
did not exist, and rubble did not
litter the streets.” But news-
men were informed “that the
Communist: angle was fine. Stor-
ies emphasizing it—would be
passed.”

The Times editorial writer ex-
ulted: “The (Columbian govern-
ment has hit back at the brain
—of communism by breaking
diplomatic relations with Soviet
Russia” (Columbia had not con-
firmed this). He called both
Gaitan’s murder and the mutila-
tion that made his assassin un-
recognizable a red “master plan.”

April 14: Columbian officials
disclosed that a Conservative
killed Gaitan. Revolting police-

men (not reds) had started later
shooting. The Times buried this
xnder a
page 10.

one-column head on

People’s leader slain

Here Jorge Elicier Gaitan,
leader of the Liberal Party of
Columbia, is shown, surround-
ed by friends, as he lay mortally
wounded in Bogota’s Central

' Clinic after he had been assas-

inated.

The daily press has smother-
ed the true facts of what hap-
pened in Columbia by publiciz-
ing the charges inspired by. the
Columbian government and the
U.S. state department that the
Communists were responsible,
if not for the actual assassina-
tion of Gaitan ‘then for the riot-
ing that broke out in Bogota ,
during the Pan-American Con-
ference there.

Falsity of these charges is ex-
posed by the revelation that
the assassin was a _Conserva-
tive, an adherent of the big

landlords’ party whose policies
Gaitan had. fought.

The Communist Party of Col-
umbia is numerically weak —
it polled only 7,000 votes in mun-
nicipal elections last year—and
it has been effected by a
factional struggle which cul-
minated Jast July in the expui-
sion of Auguto Duran, former
general secretary.

Gaitan, an outstanding crim-

inal lawyer, had a tremendous
following among the common
people, workers and landless
peasants, and he was hated by
the Conservatives and feared by
the right wing leaders of his
own party. In March, 1947, his
supporters won the leadership
of the Liberal Party, subse-
quently winning both Houses of
Congress, and Gaitan was ex-
pected to be the Liberal candi-
date for the presidency in the
1950 elections.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 23, 1948—PAGE 6