FREEDOM RESTRICTED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26407, 11 March 1947, Page 5

FREEDOM RESTRICTED

ARGENTINE LABOUR UNIONS ATMOSPHERE OF SUSPICION Rec. 8 p.m. WASHINGTON, Mar. 9. A delegation consisting of members of the American Federation of Labour and the Railway Labour Executives’ Association, which toured Argentina in January, declared that the Argentine Confederation of Labour was no longer a free instrument of the workers, but a political arm of the Peron Government. , The delegation stated that although the trip was made at the Peron Government’s invitation it encountered difficulty in making an objective study and was “ disgusted ” with its treatment. Government officials and General Peron himself made it clear that the delegation must not •“ investigate ” the labour movement or any other matter, nor speak too often with the confederation’s secretary-general, Luis Gay. Gay subsequently disappeared and the delegation was unable to trace his whereabouts. Gay’s principal assistants were removed and no successsors elected until the delegation left Argentina The delegation’s report said, “While there is lit tie formal action by the Argentine Government to suppress civil liberties, there is definitely a general atiposphere of fear and mutual suspicion which interferes with the exercise of ordinary civil liberties, particularly by workers’ organisations unsympathetic to the Government pr those which merely wish to remain aloof from political activities.”