POLITICAL PRISONERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18641, 20 May 1932, Page 2

POLITICAL PRISONERS.

TORTURED WITHOUT TRIAL DICTATOR’S REIGN OF TERROR. It has been said that General Juan Vincente Gomez is both the best-liked ‘and most-hated man in South America n —well beloved by his few friends, and y bitterly hated by his many enemies. It is said, too, that he has introduced t peace and prosperity to Venezuela, s For 25 years he has been virtually t the autocrat of the republic, and the v price paid by the people for the benefits of ills leadership has boen too great. For parallel with his apparent peace and prosperity runs a veritable reign of terror. And for good reason. f Juan Gomez Is of an old peasant , family. As a boy of ten he was a muleteer. lie, like Mussolini in Italy, 3 Stalin in Russia, Pilsudski in Poland, 3 and other dictators of to-day, rose 3 from the ranks by the force of his ' personality. His mother was a poor, devout 1 Catholic peasant. When she lay - dying she sent for her famous son. * "My son,” she said, “this is the last > request I will ever make to you. Re- > lease the priests of Mendoza and ■ Monteverde." I Gomez kissed his dying mother’s ■ hand. “Yes, my little mother,” he i swore, “1 will release them. You may i be sure I shall do that for you." But when the old woman was dead and his promise was mentioned, Gomez turned fiercely, "I can’t let them out,” he said. His sister pleaded with him, reminding him of his promise. "Mother died thinking I would release them; it was a comfort to her,” was his answer. The Real Ruler. Such is the real ruler of the republic. ThJ nature he displayed then, characterises his relentless and unscrupulous autocracy. Parliament meets in a ritual which but gives effect to. the will of Gomez; and those who question or contradict are cast into the Rotunde. The Rotunde Is the prison in Cara- 1 cas, Venezuela’s capital, which Gomez ] has made a living hell for the prisoners, and a perpetual, silent threat for ■ the people. There his foes are not only incarcerated, but they are tov- < tured. Their intellectual standing or artisan ability is not considered. The reasonableness of their opinions Is not in question. They opposed Gomez—they must suffer for it as Gomez diciates. When, three years ago, SenatD? Salvador Cordoba, moved to impotent : fury, spoke his mind, he followed the , thousands of university students and j political opponents who had gone before him into the terrible tortu"e \ house where men have been lying in j completely dark and airless cells, ( crippled by foot irons weighing over j 701 b, for more than 20 years. The noted Venezuelan writer and jurist, Josef Poccaterra, who spent four years there, has set down the revolting facts concerning the starvation, mutilation and torture of Gomez's victims. Were not these facts well enough known at Geneva, one might disregard them as the ravings of a lunatic, A Terrlbl# Oaae. One of the most terrible cases of Gomez’s ferocity concerns the fate of Delgado-Chalbaud, onoe president of £ the Companie de Navigation Fluviate et Cotiere. Delgado-Chalbaud was arrested in n 1913 and thrown Into La Rotunde. 1 There, untried, he remained for 14 a years, during which period his leg n irons were never removed. ® Poccaterra was confined in La Ro- b tunde while Delgado Chalbaud was a there. He tells how the wretched 3 man’s wife went to Gomez himself to 13 Implore him to free her husband. “Why, certainly, comrade, I will hasten to do so," promised Gomez. But that night he observed at dinner that he had promised the release when he became president. “And yoil have no intention of doing that?" he was asked. Gomez shook his head. To him it '1 was a good joke. Among the terrible allegations made k against the authorities of this prison is that of systematic arsenical poisoning of the prisoners. “The doath agony of Dr. Franquiz," says Poccaterra, “lasted two days. Ills intestines were torn and wrung by the effect of the arsenic he had gradually absorbed In his food. “As ho waited for his last hour to come he alternately moaned and cried in delirium, reciting tho Holy psalms K and the prayers of the Virgin of Carmel." k “This Is Not All." P This Is not all. There are good reasons for believing that aboriginal Indians, innocent of all political Intrigue, are Induced by Gomez’s agents k to leave their homes to work tho Venezuelan farms and mines for a small wage. k When these peons ask to be allowed to return home they are told that they owe their employers large sums, far », beyond their means ever to pay. They are told that this sum represents the cost of their transportation. K The Venezuelan courts, corrupt and In fear of the despot, uphold these M claims, and thus virtually play their ignoble part in protecting a system of masked slavery. This Is how Gomez makes Venezuela n peaceful and prosperous. Peaceful, because no man dare oppose him; a prosperous, because men work almost as slaves when he demands It.