S Pain Next?
OREA, Turkey, and then Spain? Although there has been little indication so far that the moribund Eisenhower administration has yet grasped that its unthinking and almost indefens- ;hie support of the Iberian Dictators is likely to and it in the same embarrassing position in which it has recently found itself both in Korea and in Turkey, General Franco has evidently realised that it would be unsafe to rely on erican obtuseness continuing indefinitely. The _nrn audillo's visit to Barcelona was an attempt to appease Catalan susceptibilities, but the incident at a Barcelona concert when the audience insisted upon singing a forbidden Catalan song—as a result of which many of them were arrested, beaten up and tortured—has merely inflamed Catalan unrest. Those involved have been chiefly Christian Democrats; the Abbot of Montserrat has protested to Franco about the arrest and 5 torture of Christians and there have been some impressive mass demonstrations of protest in front of the Bishop's palace in Barcelona. (Why, °Ile wonders, do not Roman Catholics in Britain Or America protest against these persecutions of their co-religionists?) The Catholic workers' organisation have also been at odds with the regime over the hardships caused by its stabilisa- tion plan.
The fact that it is the Christian Democrats who have lately been bearing the brunt of the Caudillo's oppression is yet another illustration of how ridiculous is his claim that the opposition to him is Communist-inspired and that he is the nolY alternative to Communism. That this must now be plain to everyone except the American Ambassador in Madrid accounts for the revival of charges against some very distinguished Spaniards of the heinous crimes of attempting to form political parties and distributing leaflets. Franco has every reason to be alarmed both by events in similar regimes elsewhere and by the hardening opposition of the Spanish people. It is the increasing weakness of his position which is driving him to ever harsher measures— measures possible only because he continues to enjoy American support. In giving it to him the US does not even have the excuse that it had in South Korea and Turkey, that these countries are adjacent to the Communist world.
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