Editorial
EDITORIAL Haya's Release The famous Peruvian revolutionary, Victor Raul Haya de la Torre, has been given his freedom. Since January 3, 1949, Haya had been confined in the Colombian Embassy in the...
...The APRA also sought to bring together the Indian peoples of several Latin American countries into an "Indo-American Union," an effort which had explosive regional implications...
...but at least they have been made aware of the gravity of the risks which their intervention would entail...
...Such slogans today are also employed by the Communists in Latin America...
...Perhaps, with the Haya case out of the way, we shall also get an opportunity to examine with less heat the Peruvian record since 1918...
...Just as it took an aroused, independent citizenry with international support to check Communism in Korea, nothing less promises ultimate victory in Indo-China...
...If Ho Chi Minh's Communists are forced to retreat, the defenders of Indo-China will gain new heart and Western diplomats will be able to muster new determination for the struggle ahead...
...The Red Chinese may well doubt if America would, indeed, drop hydrogen bombs on Peking, or if we could win a substantial part of the free world to a policy of "united action...
...Since Haya founded the APRA thirty years ago, the two have been attacked as Communist and fascist, and praised as liberal and democratic...
...Similarly, internationalization of the anti-Communist assisting forces--under I UN or NATO auspices--would help allay Asian suspicion of French motives...
...And the anti-Communist political and military leadership there will have to be revamped...
...Even without a general war over Indo-China, the present struggle there will continue...
...Dulles's recent statements was said to the Chinese about Korea during the summer of 1950...
...it will be interesting to see them printed now and to hear Haya's views on a whole range of burning topics...
...The vital support of the people of Indo-China can be mobilized only by more substantial measures toward their independence...
...The Odria regime hurt itself and Peru by denying Haya safe-conduct all this time...
...Harry Kantor, Aprista Movement (just published by the University of California Press), insists that the APRA "is much more than a one-man movement...
...does Haya still hold to them...
...Haya himself inspires extremes of love and hatred...
...He wrote two books while in exile which could not be published...
...Since January 3, 1949, Haya had been confined in the Colombian Embassy in the heart of Lima, capital of his native country...
...Haya's incarceration served to make him an international cause celebre and to excite unnecessary opposition to Odria outside of Peru...
...Barring some astonishingly conciliatory Communist offer at Geneva (which there seems little reason to expect), America's determination to underwrite a fight to the finish should prevent a collapse of the anti-Communist effort...
...Ever since, Odria has tried to get custody of Haya...
...Three of its five basic tenets, as laid down by Haya, are anti-imperialism (in practice, anti-yanquismo), nationalization of Peru's resources, and internationalization of the Panama Canal...
...does Haya continue to espouse this idea, too...
...Haya's followers had incited sailors and longshoremen at Lima's port of Callao to revolt and to seize vessels and occupy the Naval Academy preparatory to marching on the capital...
...Dulles has been constantly leaning over the Communists' shoulders and shouting in their ears as clearly as possible that the United States will not tolerate massive Chinese intervention, Korea-style...
...Bustamente's Interior Minister, General Manuel A. Odria, crushed the aprista revolt, then himself took power at the head of a military junta...
...At this writing, the French garrison is still holding out, with the Communist rebels pouring new forces in daily...
...Yet, it is also true that many APRA leaders have left the party and today Haya himself is its only leader of stature...
...It should be noted that practically nothing comparable to Mr...
...If, on the other hand, the Reds take Dienbienphu, Molotov and Chou En-lai will be in the driver's seat at the Geneva Conference opening April 26...
...Vigil at Dienbienphu The battle for Dienbienphu in northern Indo-China may well rank with Dunkirk and El Alamein among the turning points in modern history...
...by refusing them the status enjoyed by members of the British Commonwealth, the French are turning many non-Communist Indo-Chinese into "neutralists...
...Victory, however, requires something more...
...APRA's original program is a peculiar Latin American melange of Marxism, liberalism and nationalism...
...Quite understandably, Paris wants to keep the Associated States of Indo-China "within the French Union...
...Haya had sought Colombian protection after an abortive coup d'etat in October 1948...
...There will be no world war over Indo-China primarily because none of the powers want one, but also because of the alertness of Secretary of State Dulles in barring one of those half-accidental "wars through miscalculation...
...Not only must weary France be relieved of a large part of its burden, but the Vietnamese people must play a greater role...
...This climaxed three years of political warfare against the government of President Jose Luis Bustamente, who had been elected with the votes of Haya's APRA party (Allianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana...
...Yet, whatever happens at Dienbienphu, two things seem clear: There will be no general war over Indo-China...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 15
