BOGOTA UPRISING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26746, 15 April 1948, Page 5

BOGOTA UPRISING

GUARDS FOR REFUGEES AMERICAN TROOPS’ ACTIONS ARGENTINE SENATOR'S CLAIM N.Z.P.A.—Copyright Rec, 10 p.m. NEW YORK, Apl. 13. The Argentine Senator, Senor Alberto Durand, said on his return to Beunos Aires from Bogota to-day that American soldiers guarded refugees from Bogotan mobs and exchanged shots with the rioters during the recent uprising. At the height of the revolution!" Senor Durand and other refugees left Bogota in a truck guarded by American soldiers who. were armed with machine guns. His* truck was followed by another carrying American troops.

When a reporter asked Senor Durand whether he was sure that the troops were not Colombians, Senor Durand said emphatically that they were United States men.

Before we reached the airport we had to throw ourselves on the floor of the truck while American soldiers exchanged volleys with Communists who attacked us from a car," said Senor Durand.

In Washington State Department officials said they had no information that any American combat troops were in Bogota. There were American- officers assigned to the Embassy and military mission, but it was impossible to believe that American military men would have fired shots during the revolution as claimed by the Argentine Senator. American servicemen stationed in Bogota comprised eight officers and 13 men. .Conference to Continue As the Colombian capital was beginning the long road toward normalcy to-day, delegates to the PanAmerican Conference announced that they would be meeting to-morrow, which is Pan-America Day to honour the great .South American liberator, Simon Bolivar. Another sign of stability was the Colombian Government’s announcement that censorship on press messages has been lifted. The chief delegates to the conference are meeting to-day to hear- a report from the special committee named to decide whether conditions in Bogota would permit a continuation of the sessions. No official details of the re* ports have been issued, but there is no doubt that the decision was to continue. Bogota’s food markets, some coffee houses, and unwrecked shops have reopened. The last group of rebel Bogotan police, numbering 600, surrendered this morning to troops, who roared up to their barracks in armoured cars. The police did not resist and handed over petrol and dynamite which they had been using as weapons for four days. \ Precautions in Chile A statement issued in Santiago from the office of the Chilean President, Senor Gonzales Videla, said the uprising in Colombia was part of a Communist master plan calling for similar outbreaks in Chile and Bolivia. The statement said the plan, kno\vn as the “Autumn Plan,” was laid down last October at Belgrade. President Videla summoned high army and police officials to a meeting to adopt defence measures against an alleged Communist plot for a May Day coup in Chile, details of which are said to have been learned from documents found on a Communist arrested in Santiago recently.