ARGENTINE SHOWS RIVALRY WITH UNITED STATES

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 April 1948, Page 5

ARGENTINE SHOWS RIVALRY WITH UNITED STATES

BOGOTA, April' 5. The 'Argentine delegation to the Pan American Conference today announced its “conclusive opposition to collective action in any country’s internal affairs.’ Argentina not only insisted that any reference to such action should be deleted from the “organic pact” now being written, but appeared to reject the principle of collective action against both internal and external aggression, to which she subscribed in signing the Rio de Janeiro Inter-American Defence Treaty in 1947. A United States delegation spokesman described this development, which occurred at a meeting of the committee on the “organic pact,” as “very serious.” The Argentine Deputy-Foreign Minister (Mr Pamcual Larosa) made the announcement —which appeared to imperil American hopes of the passing of a strong anti-Communist resolution —during a speech in which he denounced all who had called Argentina a Fascist. State.

The United Press of America comments that it was the first overt declaration of rivalry between the United States and Argentina, and was reminiscent of their split over Nazism in 1942. Mr Larosa called specifically for the elimination from the proposed organic pact of a paragraph which denounces direct or indirect intervention by a State or group of States in the internal or external affairs of any other State, but adds that “the collective action envisaged in this pact or in the United Nations Charter does not constitute intervention.”

Mr Larosa said: “All collective action is contrary to American principles. This paragraph should be eliminated. We reject all collective action because it is the basic element of a super-State. We have had a painful experience in this respect with intervention in our internal affairs.” (He was apparently referring to the recent Argentine election, in which the United States sought the defeat of the President, General Peron.)