Patriots murdered

Oil flows to Britain;
blood flows in Iran

TEHERAN| at Abadan, in Teheran the firing-
While representatives of U.S.| squad was busy.

and British oil companies were
' celebrating their Iranian oil vic-
tory, another six Iranian democrats
were shot by General Zahedi.

The flow of Persian oil for the
profit of foreign companies began
last week when the tap of the giant
refinery at Abadan was turned
again in the presence of repre-

sentatives of the foreign com-
panies.
Abadan is a town of terror,

many of the leading Iranian oil en-
gineérs and workers’ leaders being
under arrest or on trial on trump-
ed-up charges of espionage, sabot-
age and treason. — :

The whole area is under military
control.

Behind the military and police
guards, American, British, Dutch,
French and Iranian officials waved
as a tanker of the Anglo-Iranian
Oil Company, the British Advocate,

steamed out with 12,000 tons of

. . j
Persian oil.

But while the representatives of

The six Iranian officers shot
after being convicted on trump-
ed up espionage charges were
the second such group. Both
groups died shouting “Long live
liberty!” and “Death to fascism!”
Although arrested Iranian demo-

crats are being tried and murdered
in secret, news of their executions
is getting out. .

After the fourth round of firing
at the first ten to be executed one
of the officers, Col. Mogacherri,
called out: “Fire, I am still living!”
News of his cry has spread rapidly
over Iran, raising anger against the
terror.

But the Iranian government is
now trying to intensify the terror
by imposing the death penalty on
all convicted by a court-martial of
being “Communists” and at the
same time using this as a threat to
break the morale of the democrats
and get them to betray their cause.

In a recent broadcast, General
Bahedi said that the death sen-

' House

tences would not be carried out if
dhose sentenced betrayed their
comrades.

Anglo-Iranian, Standard Oil, Soc-
ony-Vacuum, Texas Oil, Gulf Oil
and Royal Dutch Shell celebrated

“Fire, | am_still living,’ were the last words of Army Col.
Mohamed Ali Mogacherri (bottom picture, right) to his execution-
ers as he and nine other Iranian patriots (some of whom are shown
in. top picture) were shot for their opposition to the anti-national
policies of the military regime. , Despite the reign of terror in
Iran, popular anger is rising as word seeps out of the secret trial
and execution of democrats. :

U.S. tries to dictate
politics of Italians

ROME|bor and a member of the House of
Another U.S. attempt to dictate peu ade ee
S. A
the policies of Italians was made|°™.."° *

re nothing but a
last month when the U.S. cancelled hoe ieeon Pa TREE Italian
a $7 million shipbuilding contract Ccarerest e
With the Piaggio yards in Palermo,| “ \) elections were involved in the
Sicily. / ‘| previous cancellation of an $18

Cancellation followed a shop] million munitions contract with
stewards’ election which Commu-|the Officina Vittorio Meccanica
hist nominees won 7-1. The con-

near Milan.
tract was awarded after a previous

A-spokesman for U.S. Ambas-
election which Communist nom-
inees won by the narrower margin
of 5-3.
Before the last election, Guis-

eppe di Vittorio, secretary-general
of the Italian Confederation of La-

sador Clare Booth Luce explained
it by saying that the average ital-
ian worker pays 3 percent of his
wages to the Communist party —
“and we are not subsidizing Com-
munists.”

PPP would win, so
no Guiana elections

By ARTHUR CLEGG

LONDON

Because the People’s Progressive party will certainly win any election held in British
Guiana no election should be held in the foreseeable future.
This is the main conclusion of the Report of the British Guiana Constitutional Commis-
sion, issued last week as a White Paper. The People’s Progressive party stands for self-gov-

ernment.

Immediately the report was pub-
lished, Colonial Secretary A. T.
Lennox-Boyd, told the British
of Commons that the
Churchill government “accepts the
conclusions of ‘the report.” :

He announced that the present
hand-picked members of the Brit-
ish Guiana legislative council would
have their appointments extended
for four years.

In Guiana, Governor Sir Alfred
Savage immediately postponed
civic elections in Georgetown and
New Amsterdam and announced a
bill to “reform” local government.

Using a hostile reference in the

report to the trade unions in Brit-
ish Guiana, Savage also demanded
that the trade unions “come closer
to capital.”
_ The commission. makes absolute-
ly clear that the main reason for
the past and present attack on the
People’s Progressive party is its
support for self-government.

It declares that the cause of the
governor’s action in ousting the
elected government a year ago was:
““"because the party which receiv-
ed the support of the majority
of the electorate was unwilling
to accept and work anything
short of full self-government.”
The commission was. appointed
last December by Oliver Lyttelton
(now Lord Chandos) who was then
colonial secretary. Its instructions
were to report on changes to be
made in the constitution of British
Guiana following the ousting of the
elected government led by Dr.

Cheddi Jagan.

It was heavily weighted in favor
of British Colonial Office policies.

Its chairman was Sir James Rob-
ertson, a former civil secretary of
the Sudan. :

Sir Donald Jackson, chief justice
of the Leeward and Windward Is.
lands, was one member, George
Woodcock, assistant general secre-
tary of the British Trades Union
Congress, was the other.

The essential basis of their re-
port is that: :

“The great majority of the ord-
inary people of British Guiana
have, for the moment, a common
eutlook in that
they are dissatisfied with their
conditions and are anxious for
swift and sweeping improve-
ments which they believe can
only be achieved when they have
an increasing say in the manage-
ment of their affairs.”

Because they had that common
outlook they voted overwhelmingly
for the PPP, so that it won 18 of
the 22 elected seats in the House
of Assembly in April 1953 and
formed the government.

And, because it tried to carry
out the wishes of the electorate,
it was thrown out of office by the

-| British government.

“One solution,” says the report,
“would be to accept the demands
of the People’s Progressive party
and without further delay to hand
over to the people of British Guiana
full responsibility for their af-
fairs.

“We have indeed given care-
ful consideration to this possi-

bility, only to dismiss it.” :
Therefore the commission recom-

mends that there should be no
elections until the PPP abandons
its demands for full self-govern-
ment.

Such demands of the PPP, the
commission claims, are ‘“disrup-
tive policies.”

Without any evidence the com- after the Kabaka’s

ALAN LENNOX-BOYD

mission accuses the PPP of having
wanted to establish “one-party gov-
ernment.”

It does this because the over-
whelming support of the people
of “British Guiana for the PPP
made the organization of a mass
opposition party impossible.

When the report deals with the
actual difterences between the

PPP government and the governor,
it can show nothing against the
PPP other than that it wanted
more democracy and improved con-
ditions for the people.

Although in an appendix the
report tries to revive the flimsy
charges of police informers about
an alleged “arson plot,” the main
body of the report can find no evi-
dence of violence or incitement to
violence -to justify the governor’s
action.

For the foreseeable future, there-
fore, there are to be no elections
in British Guiana, and if eléctions
are ever held again the report re-
commends new and _ stringent
checks on elected ministers, who
may not now form more than haif
the government.

While it demanded the end of
democratic government in Guiana,
it also threatens all colonial peo-
ples who may dare to demand full
self-government now.

It asserts: “If the leaders of a
colonial territory are not prepared
to accept in principle some such
limitation the whole basis for pro-
gress along the lines of this policy
(gradual advance ‘to self-govern-
ment) is lacking.’”

Judge states Britain
erred in ousting king

KAMPALA

The people of Buganda rejoiced as word sped through the country
that Chief Justice J. B. Griffin of Uganda had said that the British
government acted wrongly in the way it withdrew recognition from the
Kabaka (King) of Buganda in November last year.

Chief Justice Griffin made the
statement last week in delivering
judgment in a case before the
Uganda High Court in Kampala
testing the legality of the British
government’s action.

The people of Buganda immedi-
ately took it as a condemnation
of the Kabaka’s deportation, and a
sign that he would soon be back.

The Kabaka, Mutesa II, King of
Buganda—a country in treaty rela-
tions with Britain—was forcibly
deported from Uganda when he
refused to answer certain demands
without consulting his parliament,
the Lukiko.

While Chief Justice Griffin did
not fully uphold the case of the
people of Buganda that the de-
portation was illegal (and this may
give rise to an appeal) he con-
demned the actual action taken.

The treaty under which the case
was brought to court was the 1900
agreement the Kabaka of Buganda
concluded with the British Foreign
Office.

Chief Justice Griffin ruled that
the court could not consider
whether any right to withdraw
recognition under ‘article 6 of the
agreement had arisen. 2

But in view of the possibility of
an appeal he gave his view that
in the situation the British gov-
ernment could either have ended
the whole agreement or, alterna:
tively, could have made withdrawal
of recognition an act of state.

He considered that the British
government had no right to with-
draw recognition from the Kabaka,
and therefore deport him, under
article 6. This was the procedure
used,

The case, a civil one, was taken
to court by three members of the
Lukiko who held, with the agree-

ment of the regents appointed
deportation,

that actions taken by the regents
were illegal.

Chief Justice Griffin held that
the Governor of Uganda was en-
titled to enforce emergency rezu-
lations in Buganda and invest the
regents with the Kabaka’s powers,
and therefore the regents’ action;
were legal.

And, though he held that the
1900 agreement gave Buganda
legally enforceable rights, he quali-
fied this by making the Colonial
Secretary the sole judge of wheth-
er the Kabaka and people were
“cooperating loyally,’ under the
Agreement.

China building
automobile plant

PEKING
' Buildings for six major work-
shops and a‘ power station have
been completed at the construc-
tion site of China’s first automo-
bile plant.

Using overhead travelling cranes
and other tools, the workers are
now unloading and installing ma-
chinery and electrical equipment.
Some 200 machines have already
been installed -in the auxiliary
workshop which will be the earli-
est to begin production before the
end of this year.

When all the machinery and
equipment is installed, the entire
production processes in these work-
shops will be streamlined. The
machine parts and structural com-
ponents turned out in the work-
shops wiil be relayed by conveyor
belts and other automatic means
to the central assembly workshop.

The big modern shops of this
plant are being built according io
Soviet designs and under the direct
guidance of Soviet experts.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 12, 1954 — PAGE 3

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