BELGIUM'S FASCIST=MINDED DOCTORS - ~ wd
After a spectacular effort to reach an agreement with the representatives of some 10,000 doctors who staged a nation-wide walkout at the expense of the sick and the injured in order to force cancella-~ tion of a public health insurance law, the Belgian government was forced April 12 to order conscription of the practitioners,
The medical men had organized an "emergency service" manned by only 2,000 doctors, . When ‘the negotiations broke down, they coldbloodedly. cancelled even this gesture.
It remained to be seen how effective the government move would. prove ta be in getting the doctors to actually care for patients, . Thousands of them had crossed the borders into neighboring Holland, Luxembourg, Germany and France at the beginning of their ultrareac~ tionary action in anticipation of .such a move by the government,
‘Western Europe stood aghast at the bestial action of Belgiumts doctors ~-- only too reminiscent of the attitude of the Nazi doctors in the nightmare of Germany's concentration camps and gas chambers,
The conservative Paris daily Le Figaro, which is opposed to socialized medicine, expressed this reaction in an unusual state-~ ment [April 13], drawing the line against the horror now being enacted by the witoh=doctors! associations that have the Belgian doctors on their membership lists, Le Figaro reported the words of an anonymous French doctor sympathetic to a cause of his fraternity in Belgium:
“tWhen all the arguments are exhausted,! a French doctor told us icily, ‘war is declared, In every war there are victims,'"
To which Le Figaro protested: "Certainly, but in a war the victims normally mus e the combatants, But in this ‘wart of a profession against a government, the victims are not likely to be the combatants (one still wonders if the ultimate aim of the asso-= ciations is not political), but more likely the children of the pro-# vinces of Lidge and of Luxembourg where the beginnings of epidemics have been reported..." |
The inhuman action of Belgium's doctors does seem to have a political connection. The Belgian weekly Pan was able to reveal some facts about this which were in turn pub on the press wires April 9,
According to Pan, neofascists are deeply involved in the leader~ ship of the dootors! associations. The strings are held by Pierre Joly, a sympathizer of the French terrorist OAS Lorganisation de lLtarmée Secrdte] which conducted a bloodbath in Algeria at the end of the war there and organized widespread bombings and terrorist attacks in metropolitan France, including various attempts to assas-= sinate de Gaulle, and one Dr, Teichman, head of the MAC [Mouvement |
.. ones
dtAction Contre-révolutionnaire] and of "Young Europe" [" Jeune Europe" J and editor of the OAS journal in 1961 and 1962,
The April. 10 Paris Le Monde quotes the following from Pan:
"The course being followed by the doctors is in fact exaotly in accordance with the procedures advocated in the brochure, Counter~ . revolution, Strategy and Tactics, printed by Pierre Joly in the days of e OAS, This is actually a collective job written by colonels Gardes, Argoud and Macheroy and R.P.Georges, S.J." Page 90 of the pamphlet outlines the means that counterrevolutionaries must use,.. Among them is a tastic involving the doctors, According to the authors it is necessary to campaign against “government and subver~ sive encroachment on the free exercise and organization of the pro= fession. "
.The book continues: "The limitation of the freedom of the modie« cal profession, and by analogy the liberal professions, involves a unanimous reaction of hostility. These professions thus become reserves of counterrevolutionaries," me
Pan asks: "Doesn't this text clarify certain aspects of the conflict?" a,