45
DYNAMITE UNDER MEXICO
Guatemala, just south of Mexico, is the most thoroughly or
ganized fascist country in Central or South America. Its chief
industries, coffee and bananas, are virtually controlled by Ger
mans, whose enormous plantations overlap into the state of
Chiapas, Mexico. But President Jorge Ubico, who is not much
of an Aryan, prefers Mussolini s brand of fascism because the
Nazi theory of Nordic supremacy does not strike a sympathetic
chord in the President s heart. As a result, the Italian Minister
to Guatemala is Ubico s adviser on almost all matters of state.
Guiseppe Sotanis, a mysterious Italian officer who sits in
Costa Rica, collecting stamps and
the Gran Hotel in San
Jose",
studying his immaculate fingernails, arranges for shipments of
Italian arms into Guatemala. A few months ago Sotanis, the
Italian minister to Guatemala,
and Ubico met
in
Guatemala
City. Shortly thereafter the Italian arms manufacturing company,
Bredda, sent Ubico two hundred eighty portable machine guns,
machine guns and seventy small caliber cannon.
But President Ubico is not hopelessly addicted to one brand
of fascism. Nazi ships make no attempt to conceal their landing
of arms and munitions at Puerto Barrios. From there they are
transported by car, river and horse into the dense chicle forests
in the mountain regions, then across the Guatemalan border into
Chiapas and Campeche.
sixty anti-aircraft
During March, 1938, mysterious activities took place in the
heart of the chicle forests in Campeche. The region is a dense
jungle inhabited by primitive Indian tribes. There
reason for anyone to build an airport in this territory,
is
little
much
of
which has not even been explored. But if the Mexican Govern
ment will instruct its air squadron to go to Campeche and fly
forty miles north of the Rio Hondo and a little west of Quin-
Roo border, they will find a completed airport in the heart
of the chicle jungle; and if they will fly a little due west of the
tana