REBELLION QUELLED

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27992, 12 June 1956, Page 13

REBELLION QUELLED

Drastic Action In Argentina

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 11 A curfew was imposed last night throughout Buenos Aires province between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. It does

not affect Buenos Aires city.Argentina’s military regime organised a determined hunt today for the leaders of a bloody week-end revolt staged by Army and civilian followers of the former President (Mr Juan Peron).

The Government announced that firing squads had executed 38 rebels in speedy and unprecedented retaliation. It indicated that many more would face a similar fate as swift courtsmartial, convened under martial law. sat around the clock.

Three rebels were killed when a Government aircraft bombed and strafed their stronghold. The revolt—crushed in 12 hours by Government air and ground forces—flared late on Saturday night in Buenos Aires and three other major cities. The insurgents struck at two points in the Federal capital. At the same time they staged uprisings in La Plata, 35 miles south-east of Buenos Aires. Santa Rosa, capital of La Pampa province in Central Argentina, and Rosario, 180 miles north-west of Buenos Aires.

Loyalist forces directed by the VicePresident (Admiral Isaac Rojas) quickly smothered the revolt in Buenos Aires and Rosario. Jet fighter and Navy bombers finally smashed the rebel hold-outs in La Plata and Santa Rosa'.

President Pedro Aramburu, who returned from a tour of the interior after the shooting, branded the uprising a ‘mad adventure.” He said that “energetic measures” would be taken against all who took part.

Loyalist forces scoured the land for two retired generals named as the men who planned the abortive revolt. They are Generals Raul Tanco and Juan Jose Valle, both of whom held high army posts when Mr Peron was President. Both were retired summarily when Mr Peron was overthrown last September.

Commander Francisco Manrique, President Aramburu’s chief military aide, described the uprising as a “Peronist-Communist movement.” Mr Aramburu, in a statement to the press, said the same group was behind the recent student agitation and attempts to start strikes.

The newspaper, “La Prensa,” commenting editorially on the insurrection, said: “One must conclude that the abortive plot did not respond to any elevated motive, respectable ideal or justifiable error. The general opinion is that it responded to the incitation of those who lost their privileged positions.”

President Aramburu told a clamouring crowd in Buenos Aires’ central Plaza de Mayo that “sternest measures” would be enforced to curb troublemakers.