Uruguay Guns Will Guard Western Leaders

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31340, 10 April 1967, Page 13

Uruguay Guns Will Guard Western Leaders

('N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright). PUNTA DEL ESTE (Uruguay), April 9, Anti-aircraft bat- ] teries have been set up around this resort town with orders to 1 shoot down any un- , authorised planes ap- , pearing during next week’s conference of ' Western hemisphere j Heads of State. Punta del Esto, a play- ] ground on the Uruguayan Atlantic coast, is being turned • into a military zone for the talks. : Almost 10,000 troops and police have taken up posi- , tions in and around the town , to guard the Presidents, who ]

will begin to arrive tomorrow. Two destroyers are anchored in the harbour. Ecuador yesterday threatened to boycott the conference unless Latin American presidents agreed to press the United States for more aid and better trading terms. The threat means that three of the 21 seats at the conference table could be vacant. The President of Bolivia, Mr Rene Barrientos Ortuno, is almost certain to stay away because he could not get his land-locked country’s claim for access to the sea included on the agenda. Observers speculated that the President of Haiti, Dr. Francois Duvalier, would not attend. President Johnson will attend the conference, and observers expect him to pledge more United States aid to Latin America. The Ecuadorian threat was made by her delegate, Mr Julio Prado Vallejo, at a sum-mit-meeting session of foreign ministers four days before the Heads of State meet The presence of the Ecuadorian President, Mr Otto Arosemena Gomez “would not be justified” if the Heads of State failed to include such a

demand in their joint declaration at the end of the talks, Mr Prado Vallejo told the ministers.

He said a six-point draft outline, prepared for the sum-

mit meeting opening at the San Rafael Hotel on Wednesday, side-stepped Latin America’s need for major outside development aid.

He did not specifically mention the United States, but sharply criticised the six-year-old Alliance for Progress plan which forms the basis of United States aid for Latin American development. Foreign Ministers of the conference nations are holding their own meeting in Punta del Este.