"I Accuse"

Boss Anastasio Somoza smelled trouble, and his Guardia National found more scents of it almost every day. At the home of an ex-hardware merchant named Luis H. Scott, enough dynamite was found to blow the Somoza government clean out of business. That, charged the Guardia, was exactly what Don Luis had planned to do with it.

Luis Scott was jailed, but he did not stay in jail long. One night he got out over the roof, scurried away through the jungle and took refuge in neighboring Guatemala. General Somoza had long suspected that the Guatemalans were encouraging Nicaraguan rebels, and last week he came right out and said so.

"Before the world," he cried, "I accuse President [Juan Jose] Arevalo of Guatemala of fomenting and supplying arms for a revolution in Nicaragua. If this revolution breaks out, it may result in a Central American conflagration. I am ready to repel this aggression and it may turn out to be a boomerang for Arevalo, who is interfering in the internal affairs of Nicaragua."

Apparently Somoza was only trying to smoke out a plot that was being hatched across the border, but Arevalo had no intention of being used as a smudge pot. "Absolutely false," he replied coldly. Old Nicaraguan Rebel Emiliano Chamorro, who is now in Guatemala, took time off from his scheming to add his own sardonic comment. "Our efforts are confined to diplomacy," he said. "Somoza, scared by his own crimes, has a persecution complex and is trying to escape attention by making fantastic accusations to justify a wave of terror in Nicaragua."

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