EL SALVADOR: Revolt

Salvadoran Army officers tried to topple El Salvador’s new up-&-coming Government last week. Into President Salvador Castaneda Castro’s office stalked 100 Army officers. They demanded a governmental shakeup, including Army autonomy. Castaneda promised to consider their demands. That night, he ordered loyal Army units to arrest suspected officers. As one unit moved up on Ilopango airfield, two rebel planes took off. Loyal antiaircraft fire hit the first plane’s gas tank. The plane crashed in flames. The pilot and the gunner were killed.

The second plane, piloted by Captain Francisco Ponce, buzzed over San Salvador. At dawn Pilot Ponce dived his Lend-Leased North American attack bomber straight at the National Police Barracks, killed six of the defenders with his ten bombs. Wounded by antiaircraft fire, he managed to fly on to the haven of a Guatemalan airfield. There he claimed that he had dropped his bombs in self-defense.

As the revolt petered out, rebels bolted like rabbits for Guatemala and Honduras (whose President Tiburcio Carias Andino was reported to have had a hand in the plot). Another rumored instigator, El Salvador’s ex-President Osmin Aguirre, who does not like the present Government’s more liberal program and federation-with-Guatemala plans, had remained discreetly in the background.

Said Castaneda of the rebels: “They mistook my Government’s benevolence for weakness.”