Informe de Machado y la discusión posterior del informe 1929 11 00 ers, or as spectators called there by their curiosity. At the next meeting generally many of these visitors, sympa thizers or spectators applied for membership into the Union. The immediate result was that the police increased their surveillance of our activities. After about two weeks, after my arrival at Curaçao (May 4, 1929. the military movements in Venezuela sharpened and a drive for men began in Curaçao in order to recruit new soldiers for the dictator army. large sailing boat from Venezuela, the Julia Ramona. proceeding from the state of Falcon, and sent by its President, arrived in Willemstad in order to transport the recruited men to the Mainland. The Government agents had already enlisted 160 workers, bribing and misleading them. The Curaçao local of the issued a manifesto and posted it (freely all over the Island, especially in the places where the Venezuelan workers used to meet after work, denouncing the manoeuver. The effect of this manifesto was that NONE OF THE MEN LEFT AND THE SHIP ETURNED EMPTY. The result of this victory was an increase of prestige for our Party as well as an intensification of the persecutions of the workers by the Dutch Colonial Government and by the agents of Gomez, led by his Consul Leyva. few days later two workers were deported to Venezuela, after they completed a sentence in Willemstad for being caught with an arm in their possession; another one was a rrested because of his political views and was ready to be deported. This worker had been in Curaç ao one year before at the time of the general strike against the deportation of 11 fugitives (political) to Venezuela. He was one of the 11 men involved, toge ther with General Urbina. That GENERAL STRIKE lasted 24 hours and comprised the workers of the Dutch refinery in Curaçao, as well as the workers of the Yankee Standard refinery in Aruba (a near by Island belonging to Holland. The result of this general strike was that none of the 11 men were sent to Venezuela, giving a complete victory to the demands of the mass. Inasmuch as this very active worker was arrested again, we agitated against his persecutors and against his deportation to Venezuela. The authorities replied to us that he would be sent to Venezuela anyhow where certain death awaited him. At that time we organized a Committee for the Defence of the Persecuted Workers, and issued a manifes to entitled Does Gomez Rule in Curacao? This document enraged the authorities who became more and more indignant and intensified their search for the leaders of the workers, publicly declaring that as soon as caught these leaders would be sent to Gomez who would take care of them in the usual way.
The general opinion of the members of the Party in Curaç ao was that the