ARGENTINIAN UNREST

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 October 1945, Page 5

ARGENTINIAN UNREST

STUDENTS’ GENERAL STRIKE UNIVERSITY BESIEGED BUENOS~AIRES, Oct. 3. More than 30,000 students in Argentina’s six ' national universities have gone on strike, thus taking a lead in ! ■ the Argentine people’s struggle to regain their freedom. “Completely disregarding the efforts under way to reach a compromise between the Government and the university councils, the students boldly took matters into their own hands and began a movement which they hope will develop, into a vast campaign of civil disobedience,” says the correspondent of the “New York Times.” “Hundreds of students and professors barricaded themselves in the buildings of the Buenos Aires University. A large group of policemen to-day besieged the buildings and cut off the light and water supply. “Yesterday the engineering building was attacked by a group of afmed men who fired about 30 shots at the students inside. Two students were wounded. The engineering building is located directly across the street from the Secretary of Labour of which the-vice-president (Colonel Peron) is secretary. Therefore, most Argentinians have no doubts where the attack originated. The Government instituted a censorship on outgoing Press dispatches relating to the strike, but lifted the ban after a protest had been made by the United State Charge d’Affairs.” According to the Associated Press, the police who besieged the university buildings to-day later withdrew in order to avoid possible bloodshed. POLICE DIRECT ACTION. (Recd. 1 p.m.) BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 4. The students’ strike flared into open fighting this afternoon, when the police armed with clubs, and tear gas bombs broke into the university buildings at La Plata, in the effort to ■eject students. bn d been barricaded in since October 2, CONFERENCE POSTPONEMENT

WASHINGTON, October 3

The Under-Secretary of State (Mr. D. Acheson) has announced that the United States has recommended the postponement of the Inter-American Conference scheduled to open in Rio de Janeiro on October 20 “because Argentina has repudiated her hemisphere obligations.” He added that the United States Government felt it could not properly negotiate, or sign, with the present Argentine regim’e, the treaty of military assistance for which the conference was called. In a Note to Brazil suggesting the postponement the United States emphasised that, in view of the great importance attached to the treaty, the negotiations should proceed as rapidly as possible. A Brazilian Foreign Office spokesman said Brazil agreed to the postponement of the conference.