Revolts That Failed

The boondocks uprising is the current fad in Latin American rebellions; instead of storming the capital, the insurrection-aries plan to strike a spark in some comfortably distant spot and wait for the country to catch fire. The strategy worked well in Argentina last September, but a pair of tries during the last fortnight showed that it is still no surefire technique.

In Brazil, the chief rebels were Major Haroldo Coimbra Veloso and Captain Jose Lameirao, a pair of air force officers. Commandeering a Beechcraft, they flew from Rio to a set of airstrips well up the Amazon, took the strips by pulling rank on the noncoms in command, and signed up some recruits. Biggest prize: Santarem, a town (pop. 15,000) and airport on the river. The rebels kept pursuing planes from landing by strewing logs and oil drums on the strips; at length the government, more embarrassed than harassed, loaded 700 soldiers aboard a river boat at the Amazon delta and steamed to the at tack. Veloso and Lameirao thereupon took off from Santarem for parts unknown, apparently to hide for a time, then seek new adherents or safe exile.

In Peru, Brigadier General Marcial Merino rebelled with his 10,000-man Jungle Division on the upper Amazon (TIME, Feb. 27), and said, in effect, to the country's other garrison commanders: "I move that we overthrow President Manuel Odria." Strongman Odria hastily shifted several doubtful generals out of high command. By last weekend it was clear to Merino that no one was going to second his motion. In a voice choked with suita ble emotion, he surrendered to the government by long-distance telephone from his headquarters in the river port of Iquitos, then took asylum in the Brazilian consulate.

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