Pampas Politics

As the reverberations of Sunday's palace coup echo through the streets of Buenos Aires, the shouts of students are undoubtedly among the loudest voices supporting the democratic elements which replaced General Lonardi's provisional government. For according to Luigi Einaudi '57, returned from Argentina, students have played, and will continue to play, a significant role in transforming the one-time police state into a democracy.

As one of two delegates sent by the U.S. National Student Association to an international conference in Chile, Einaudi spent ten days in Buenos Aires at the invitation of the main student organization of Argentina, the Federation Universitaria Argentina. With the cooperation of FUA and the government of General Lonardi, the Harvard junior was shown files kept by Peron on every university student in Argentina and was asked to publicize what he found to people in this country.

In the past few weeks, Einaudi believes the students must have become discouraged with Lonardi's regime because of the dismissal of Dr. Eduardo Busso as Minister of Interior and Justice. Busso, a prominent law professor and supporter of a democratic government, was forced out of his job presumably to appease Peronist elements. In any case, the opinions of the students were clear; as the New York Times pointed out yesterday morning, a supporter of Lonardi was dragged through the streets by several hundred university students who shouted, "Democracy, yes; nazism, no."

Evidently, Juan Peron knew the student's preference for democracy over fascism, for his tight security grip on all university activities points up his fear of the students. Not only was the name of every student, professor, and administrator on file with the "Servicio de Enlance y Coordinacion," but this secret police organization kept complete dossiers on over 70,000 people connected with universities. Tapped phone calls, unsigned reports of conversations, lists of friends--all appeared in abundance to keep 48 full-time employees busy in a small three-story building. These offices are now shut down and carefully guarded, but Einaudi was permitted to look closely at the files.

He cites one dossier as typical of many showing the complete domination of the university by the state. The file begins with a Police Report: "two students arrested last night for being drunk and shouting liberty." The next entry is an Executive Order from the Ministry of Education to the Dean of the university: "Expel the students." And the final prompt response from the Dean: "Orders complied with." The government, in short, was changing universities into mere departments, and teaching chairs were awarded as prizes for political submission.

Some students joined professors in Peron's spy network by reporting on activities of fellow students. But most students either kept quiet or joined the violently anti-Peron group, FUA. On October 5, 1954, Peron began to close his grip on FUA. State police, dressed as private citizens, engineered a fist-fight in a student meeting in Buenos Aires and several students were jailed. FUA then called a strike, which 95 percent of the students in the city observed. Armed police then moved in on the protesting students, and the result was 200 students in jail, 500 expelled from the university. Even with most leaders in jail, however, FUA survived. It moved its headquarters to Montevideo, Uruguay, sent secret agents into Argentina, helped to organize labor resistance to Peron, and even held underground elections in Argentina, where 30 percent of the students managed to vote secretly.

Despite all these efforts to spread news within Argentina, Einaudi reports, students probably had very little to do with engineering the actual revolt last September. But once the students knew that Peron was on the way out, they became one of the first groups to demonstrate in the streets in support of Lonardi.

When Einaudi was in Buenos Aires, he found the revolutionary sentiment still strong among the students. There was a tremendous release of pent-up hatred of Peron, and the streets were often full of people talking until 10 p.m. Students were also interested in queueing up with other citizens to view the displays of the jewels, furs, sportscars, and other luxuries of Juan and Eva Peron. But even more than demonstrating and looking at remnants of an old regime, the students want to establish a solid democracy, Einaudi feels. As one student said, "We want all of this to be known, and then we will destroy it, for we believe that democracy has come to stay in Argentina."