ARGENTINA: Three Wild Irishmen

Five swooping airplanes sent bomb after bomb splashing into a dense wood not far from La Paz in Argentina’s northeastern border province of Entre Rios, last week. The bullets nipped off leaves & branches, plopped into tree trunks, but not a man did they hit. Twenty-one provincial police went scurrying into the wood, shouting and firing. Fourteen scampered back. When night fell Argentina’s “Three Wild Irishmen”—Mario, Eduardo and Roberto Kennedy—still held their wood. In Buenos Aires Dictator-President General Jose Francisco Uriburu pulled his long mustaches and scratched his head. He could not turn over the government to President-elect Augustin Justo with clean hands until the Kennedys were smoked out. ”Trivial and ridiculous fiasco!” he growled—and called for more troops. Trivial (but not entirely ridiculous) Argentina’s latest “revolution” was indeed. With some 100 followers the Kennedy brothers, famed fighters with pistol & knife, set out from their ranch one night and slipped into La Paz. In the police station they found 22 sleeping policemen. Eighteen surrendered without a struggle. The chief and three others they shot. They then stole $40 from the police safe, took the electric light plant and telegraph office, began parading the streets calling for recruits. Few joined, but for 18 hours the Kennedys held La Paz. The uprising never crossed the Parana River, which separates Entre Rios Province from the rest of Argentina. In Concordia and Concepcion del Uruguay, police dispersed bands of rebels. Troops heading for La Paz knew no better than to telegraph ahead. The Kennedys got their message, quickly left for their ranch, leaving all but a dozen of their men to be captured. In the wood on the edge of their ranch they made their stand, defied police, troops and airplanes to come and get them. As a final gesture the besiegers set fire to the wood. When the green trees would not burn, they shrugged their shoulders and went back to La Paz. Argentina made a formal protest to Uruguay that the revolt was hatched on Uruguayan soil. When Dr. Adolfo Guemes and Dr. Jose Luis Cantillo, Radical Party politicians, reached Buenos Aires from Montevideo they were promptly arrested, soon released. Onetime President Hipolito Irigoyen, about whom all the rumpus centred, was coughing with bronchitis on Martin Garcia Island. Dictator Uriburu ordered the new Congress convoked Jan. 20, promised to return Argentina to constitutional government within 30 days. Leaders of the insurrection were announced as General Severo Toranzo, Lieut.-Colonel Gregorio Pomar and Jose Abalos, who was President Irigoyen’s minister of public works. All were in Uruguay fortnight ago. After the Kennedy Brothers’ revolt collapsed. General Toranzo and Colonel Pomar were located in Uruguayana, Brazil. They never even got to Argentina.