Peron's Purge
837 GEORGE BRINSMEAD IN mid-April the leade-rs of Argentina's lavishly-financed army and of the powerful trade unions jointly delivered an ultimatum to President Peron : they announced that if he did not purge his government of corruption, they would be obliged to do so for him. Per6n began by dismissing his own brother-in-law, who committed suicide on the following day. It was at once apparent that for the first time in Argentine history a president of the republic had set out to clean up his government from within.
Favouritism and bribery are endemic in Buenos Aires, but they are not generally considered despicable. In Argentina (as a talented local writer, Scalabrini Ortiz, explained many Years ago) corruption is simply a means of " humanising ' the law. In colonial times the people of the Rio de la Plata —an optimistic, expansive and hospitable race—refused to tolerate the laws which metropolitan Spain imposed upon them. They adopted the attitude of Obedezco, pero no cumplo,," I obey but do not fulfil." Restrictions on international commerce Were by-passed; contraband trade flourished; and the evasion of the law became a local habit. Today, as formerly, the Argentines have little respect for legislation; and the modern bureaucratic machine would be intolerable if it could not be "humanised." Let us suppose that the identity-card belonging to a certain Sefior Rodriguez has expired. He resents all the formalities connected with application for a new card, all the queueing and delay. So he naturally appeals to his friend Fernandez, who is employed atColice Headquarters. It would be unpardonable that Fernandez should refuse to prepare this document for him privately; and it would be uncomradely if he were to decline the invitation to an asado at Rodriguez' quinta on the following Sunday. Similarly, if a Senor Perez has power to issue import licences, he is under a moral obliga- tion to grant a licence to his relative Dominguez and, of course, to accept the commission on the deal that has been reserved for him. Even the rules of Association Football are considered too rigid for human nature, and they have to be forgotten occasionally during an exciting game, so that there may be room for emotion.
There has long been a popular saying in Argentina, that no government, no matter, how corrupt it may be, can ruin the country, because the resources of the land are so vast. The period of greatest corruption was the last two years (1929-30) of the final presidency of the aged Hipolito Yrigoyen, when a para- sitic swarm of Radical politicians and hangers-on plundered the coffers of the Post Office, the State Railways, the Customs and the national lottery. At that time there were 3,500 unauthorised employees in the Customs, while one of the offices of the-State Railways that has a budget for six was employing 300 persons. So, in September, 1930, in the traditional manner, the army marched into Buenos Aires to remove the president and clean up the Casa Rosada. Argentina survived, and the claim that no government could ever ruin the country was doubtless justified; but more recently, since the invention of State-trading, elaborate economic controls and exchange rates, and State- managed charity, much greater damage can be done by an unscrupulous administration. With the increase in State inter- vention and the phenomenal growth of the bureaucracy, the opportunities for corruption have multiplied, and nowadays, when corruption is practised at the centre, its effects are soon felt throughout the community. For example, import restric- tions, by creating shortages and black markets, encourage the payment of very substantial bribes for the coveted illegal licences, and the development of large-scale and very expensive contraband. The result is a rising cost of living.
No one ever accused Yrigoyen of personally accepting bribes and favours; and even the enemies of the present regime do not suggest that President Peron has himself been involved in corruption. The charge is that he allowed his entourage to abuse his confidence. For example, it was an open secret that the late Juan Duarte—Per6n's brother-in-law and his private secretary—was responsible for the arrangement whereby. the only automobiles legally allowed into the country were Mercedes-Benz, and that he received a handsome bonus on every vehicle of that make imported. It is apparent that Peron was surprised and scared when the army (previously purged of anti-Peronista officers) and the representatives of the favoured descamisados (who brought him to power in 1945) insisted that he must abolish corruption in -high places and check the constant increase in the cost of living.
The President soon decided who were his real enemies. With- out hesitation, he launched a vigorous campaign against all those who,,by resorting to graft or profiteering, had contributed to the rise in retail prices, and all those, who by criticising the regime at home and abroad and by spreading rumours of dissension and disaster, }lad contributed to the atmosphere of apprehension. His declared enemies, therefore, were the corrupt officials in his own administration, the greedy industrialists, speculators and middlemen, the cattle-breeders who withheld their animals from the Buenos Aires market to sell them for better prices elsewhere, the " Jockey Club " landowner clas'S who wished for a return to the old order of things, the opposi- tion political parties, and United States journalists. Peron lost no time in attacking this formidable array of targets one by one. Many senior members of the government circle were sacked; business-men were arrested; cattle-breeders were threatened with expropriation; the Jockey Club went up in flames, and well-known* figures in " society " (including the democratically-minded writer and enlightened publisher, Senora Victoria Ocampo) were imprisoned; the headquarters of the Conservative, Radical, and Socialist parties were sacked, and the party leaders taken to Villa Devoto gaol; and for a while the United States news agencies in Buenos Aires were in fear of closure. For obvious reasons, all these actions and threats were popular among the working-class descamisados. Housewives were delighted to see prices in the food-shops falling spectacularly. President Per6n, indeed, is once again playing the role of agitator, intimidating the privileged and the prosperous, renewing his personal contact with the workers, from whom his movement has always derived its strength and elan. More- over, in the past two months he has given proof of his honesty by refusing to spare members of his own family and the favourites of his late wife. Not only did he remove Juan Duarte: he has also dismissed the Minister of Labour, Freyre, who was a man of his own choice, and another brother-in-law, Bertolini, who had a high post in the presidential secretariat. One of the Per6ns' closest friends, Colonel Domingo Mercante, has been expelled from the Peronista Party. And so, for the present at least, Juan D. Per6n need have little fear that he will meet with the fate of previous presidents who, looking from the windows of the Casa Rosada, saw the army marching into the Plaza de Mayo to eject them and their corrupt associates. The mass of the Argentine people, like the now extinct gauchos of the wild wide plains, thrive on chaos, which is the essence of the new world to which they belong. Laws are repugnant to them, as they were to the lawless gauchos. The rich landowners are regarded as aliens, for they acquired their wealth by subservience to overseas markets; and their fortunes were largely placed abroad. The Argentines still admire physical prowess and force, and the brutal, reckless, open- handed cowboy is still their hero. The republic was born in revolution and was brought up through decades of civil war. Peron understands this, and, although he is the elected president of a great nation, he behaves .as though he were an opposition leader, for he knows that his compatriots will more readily follow a revolutionary caudillo than a constitutional ruler.
Previous page
