EQUADOR REBELLION

Evening Star, Issue 21073, 9 April 1932, Page 17

EQUADOR REBELLION

♦ ACTION BY GOVERNMENT PORT CLOSED TO MARINE TRAFFIC Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. GUAYAQUIL (Equador), April 8. (Received April 9, at 1 p.m.) The Federal troops sent up on Thursday to Port Puna Piedra, which is still in the hands of the rebels, were withdrawn on Friday, and it appeared that the army was getting ready to blast the mutineers out with aeroplanes and bombs. General Leonidas Plaza Gutierrez, a former President, whose reappearance in Equador is believed to have caused the rebellion, was on his way to Quito by rail on _ Friday. In the meantime the authorities have ordered the port to be closed to all marine traffic in an effort to starve out the mutinous navy, which seized Equador’s two gunboats on Thursday and a steamer up river in front of the forts. This was to prevent a repetition of the raid when one of the warships darted out r i captured the British tanker Buaro. The tanker reached the port of Salinas on Friday. The captain explained that the rebels stated that all they wanted was to have him tow the gunboat Cotopaxi a short distance, because the gunboat’s engines wmro not functioning.