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THE AMERICAS: Viva Hungr

3 minute read
TIME

The nations of Latin America, onetime colonies all. shared with the U.S. the shock of the Anglo-French attack on Egypt, and street crowds predictably peppered British and French embassies (and in Havana even a hapless local agency for the French Renault car) with stones, eggs and even bullets. But when Russian troops and tanks cracked down brutally on freedom-seeking Hungarians, the demonstrators forgot the errors of Britain and France and turned against the Soviet Union with anger born of horror and—in the case of the generally left-wing university students—with bitterness born of disillusionment.

Fire & Fiery Words. In Uruguay students shouting “Viva Hungria!” shouldered aside policemen, smashed into Russia’s Montevideo consulate, sprayed the place with gasoline and burned it down. In Buenos Aires a mob of 2,000 chanted “Murderers!” outside the Russian embassy until driven off by a fog of police tear gas. Guatemalans, openly encouraged by their anti-Communist government, paraded and protested.

Argentina’s President Pedro Aramburu, in a speech quivering with indignation, exclaimed that “there should be a little Hungary in every heart.” In the Brazilian Congress, Monsignor Arruda Camara, a Deputy, called the Russian aggression “treacherous, brutal, cowardly and unjust,” and was loudly cheered. Cuba’s Delegate to the U.N., Emilio Núñez Portuondo, who took a leading role in guiding General Assembly opinion toward passing U.N. resolutions condemning the oppression of Hungary, charged Russia with “genocide.”

A Hemisphere Unified. A few of the nations of the Americas hastened to back up their anger with acts. Argentina agreed to give refuge to 3,000 Hungarian children ; Chile invited Hungarian farmers. Most dramatically, Colombia, the only Latin American nation to send troops to Korea, came through again with a fast offer to join the United Nations’ Middle East police force (see FOREIGN NEWS). At week’s end the first advance party of 55 Colombian soldiers with full equipment was already wunging eastward from Bogota in a pair of U.S. Air Force Super Constellations. Brazil’s President Juscelino Kubitschek also offered 500 soldiers, and asked his Congress to speed the required constitutional approval.

With Moscow discredited even among most fellow travelers, and with London and Paris looking newly imperialistic. Washington’s prestige almost automatically zoomed up in Latin American eyes. The police-force move, and the U.S. support for it. were popular throughout the Americas. Out of wrong, one good thing had come: for the crises that are still ahead, the hemisphere is now unified as it has not been since World War II.

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