Democracy Suspended

In Argentina, the military run the country, but do not want to appear to.

Having ousted Arturo Frondizi, the country's constitutional President, two months ago and replaced him with a figurehead executive, the military last week moved against Argentina's Congress and its political parties. In doing so, almost all pretense of democracy came to an end.

From the desk of Puppet President Jose Maria Guido came a pair of presidential decrees dissolving all political parties and formally recessing Congress for a year.

Guide's powerless Cabinet unhappily agreed. Said a disgusted Cabinet secretary as he emerged from the 3 a.m.

meeting: "It was done entre gallos y medianoche"--a Castilian expression for an evil deed committed between midnight and cock's crow.

The military aimed their decrees against exiled Dictator Juan D. Peron, whose still faithful followers won a surprising 35% of the vote and 45 congressional seats in elections last March. But the action may have a wider effect. Argentines, and their free but prudent press, have until now shown themselves curiously lethargic to their country's fate. Last week political parties on all sides cried outrage and defiance. "The recess decree is a juridical absurdity," snapped Olegario Becerra, the acting presiding officer of the Chamber of Deputies. "Tomorrow, insofar as it is in my power," he promised.

Congress would sit as usual. The fanatic Peronistas, who had remained quiet through all the previous military usurpations, passed word that they, too, would defy the generals.

Gas & Water. Shortly after 3 p.m. next day, a cheering mob of Peronistas appeared before the Congress building. The Deputies marched toward the building, each bearing as credentials a telegram from Acting Chamber President Becerra asking him to appear at the session. The Peronistas got as far as the door, where police blocked the way and lobbed tear-gas grenades into the milling mob. Water trucks turned on their high-pressure jets, spraying everyone with red-dyed water.

In the confusion, three Peronista Deputies, using wet handkerchiefs as makeshift gas masks, managed to slip into the building where 65 other Deputies were trying to hold a session. When the Peronistas arrived to take their seats, the chamber erupted into bedlam--many Deputies loudly defended their presence, some screamed insults at them. Becerra vainly shouted for order, but gave up in despair. He ordered the chamber lights turned off and left the room. The Deputies filed from the building, trying to pick their way between police and rioting Peronistas. One Deputy, slowed by a lame leg, was hit in the chest by a tear-gas bomb and hospitalized.

Last Weapon. The abortive rump session ended Argentina's congressional life for the foreseeable future. Without the right to meet, the Deputies are powerless, and the nation's political parties are equally impotent without the right to assemble. But labor still has the right to strike, and is wielding the weapon. Last week, demanding two months' back pay owed them by the nearly broke government, railroad workers staged a 24-hour walkout. Argentina's General Confederation of Labor has called a 24-hour general strike for this week and another two-day walkout June 18-19. The nation's economic health is rapidly failing, while prices have shot up 40% in the past two months. Argentina is not only proving a dead democracy but also a sick dictatorship.

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