Evidence to Consider

Last November Venezuela uncovered a three-ton Cuban arms cache on its northern shore, and took its evidence to the Organization of American States, charging Fidel Castro with "aggression." Last week, after seven long months of diplomatic maneuver, the OAS finally bowed to Venezuelan pressure and set July 21 as the date for a full-dress foreign-ministers meeting on Castroite subversion. Said Venezuela's OAS Ambassador Enrique Tejera Paris: "If the OAS cannot move now, we will become a laughingstock."

The OAS could go so far as to impose military sanctions against Castro, specifically a blockade to prevent further gunrunning. But the most that can be hoped for is a two-thirds OAS vote for an economic embargo to cut off Castro's remaining trade ($9,000,000 annually) with Latin American nations. The OAS may also recommend that Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Uruguay complete Castro's diplomatic isolation by breaking their ties with Havana. When the final vote comes up, Mexico and Chile will probably abstain, and Uruguay and Bolivia are still question marks.

Even Awhile the OAS was meeting in Washington, new evidence was building up against Castro. Last month officials in Surinam, The Netherlands' self-governing colony on South America's northeast coast, reported that Castro gunrunners in high-speed launches are smuggling large amounts of arms down the Courantyne River for delivery to Communist terrorists in neighboring British Guiana. The Dutch army has already sent 1,000 soldiers, plus two helicopters, to reinforce the border-river patrols, and a navy frigate has just steamed in with more much-needed help.

More specific was the first real evidence of Castro guerrillas in Argentina. Last March Argentine national police captured six Castroites in a mountainous area of Salta province, near the Bolivian border. Over the next three months, the police captured 27 more and identified several marauding bands. The captured men, some of whom had Castro-style beards, wore olive-drab uniforms, black-and-red armbands, and called themselves the "People's Guerrilla Army." As in Venezuela's F.A.L.N. terrorist group, the men were between 25 and 35; at least one had been trained in Cuba, another was nicknamed "El Cubano."

The guerrillas were armed wih submachine guns, pistols, grenades and explosives. Two of the guns were Belgian Fabrique Nationale automatic rifles that bore the Cuban military crest and were traced to a 1959 shipment to Castro. There were also five antitank projectiles of Russian make.

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