CIPRIANO CASTRO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18887, 9 December 1924, Page 9

CIPRIANO CASTRO.

DEATH IN NEW ORLEANS.

FAMOUS VENEZUELAN RULER.

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Reed. 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK. Dec. 7.

The death has occurred at New Orleans of Cipriano Castro, the famous exiled Dictator of Venezuela.

Cipriano Castro, successively famous .at home as ".the cattle bandit, of the Andes," " the Napoleon of .the Andes," and Dictator-President of Venezuela, and opprobriously known abroad as "an international nuisance," was in 1909 baulked in an attempt to return to Venezuela and re-establish himself as President. Some 10 years before he was an obscure politician who sat -in the Federal Senate of Venezuela for the remote Andine State of El Tachira. The Senator could not, or would not, pay his taxes, and his cattle were seized to • make good his default. ( That was the real starting point in his , career. In 1899 be went into rebellion [ with a handful of followers, marched against Caracas, seduced the' 6000 wellarmed troops of President Andrade, who I prudently put to sea in " the navy," and installed himself provisionally at the Yellow House. There he ruled under a hand of iron, trampling underfoot the plainest obligations of international right, and treating with insolence the remonstrances of all Powers who sought redress for the grievances of their" subjects.' Ho was tremendously popular during his reign, while he was - the despair of European - and | American diplomacy. His country was blockaded at various times for defiance of international law, but Castro believed I that such little things would right them- ! selves'if let alone, and he took all the threats that were offered him with the utmost composure, secure in the belief that if an army were landed in his country ho would settle with them in a way that would admit of no argument. Since his compulsory retirement his followers have made two attempts to secure his return to power, but with disastrous results to themselves. It is related that a few days after Castro had seized the capital of Venezuela the deposed President, Andrade, who had fled to Trinidad, sent the vessel back to La Quayra, the seaport of Caracas, with this note to the usurper: "I return you the navy; you may need it for your .flight some day." Bat AndI rade was n poor prophet. General CasI tro proved one of the most successful dictators' in South American history. Though menaced by revolutionists and plotters from the day he began his rule, i and at times under the ban of the great Powers of the world, he never lost his grip or his self-confi-dence. He proclaimed himself the regenerator of Venezuela, and, with characteristic vanity, forced the national lawmakers to establish holidays in his honour and "hail him as the peer of the illustrious General Bolivar, the liberator. There is a difference of opinion as to the progenitors of Cipriano Castro. To his biographers and interviewers he never gave an authentic account of bis parentage or the exact date of his birth. Some say his mother or his father was an Indian. Others declare that he sprang from a recreant scion of Spanish nobility, a runaway into the hill country of Venezuela. In any event Castro first saw the light probably about 1855 in tho backwoods of (he province of Los Andes, and there, when he grew to manhood, lie tended cattle on the hills, near the Colombian border. His elegant Spanish and his evident knowledge of tho technicalities of that language have led to the supposition that he must have bad 6omo schooling in his boyhood, and it is assumed that he was tutored p♦ one time or another by the Colombian [ sogues so numerous in Los Andes.