Here the five man Palestine partiti

on commiission holds its first press conference at Lake

Success. Members said that the crucial question of employing force in the Holy Land to imple-
ment partition would be put before the UN Security Council im a special report this month.
Left to right: Per Federspial, Denmark; Paul Diaz de Medina, Bolivia; Dr. Lisicky, Czechoslo-
vakia; Vincentt J. Francisco, Philippites; Dr. Eduardo Morgan, Panama,

Y

SS
Ss =

Sie
BESS os

The world in review

PALESTINE

Anglo-American plot aimed at inciting Arabs against Jews

[= BRITISH government and

-and the U.S. state department
are..working together to wreck
the - United Nations Palestine
partition plan, an article in
the Nation charges. Near East
oil,” military bases and exten-
siow of the Truman doctrine to
the Middle East are at the bot-
tom. of the plan, Lillie Shultz
writes, adding that Britain seeks
to make the partition plan un-
Workable and then remain in
Palestine as dominant power un-
der a new “federation plan.”

“No more cynical veto was
ever applied by a major power
to a United Nations decision
than Britain’s refusal to comply
with the general assembly re-
commendation to evacuate part
of Palestine by February 1,
1948,” she says, blasting British
reasons that it would “jeopar-
dize an already delicate situa.
tion.” _ :

If the British federation aim
doesn’t succeed, the article
points ott, a plan to let the
Arab Legion overrun all Pales-
itne, already worked out in Lon-
don by Brigadier Clayton and
leaders. of the Arab League, will
be..put into effect. Under this
setup the Jews would be herded
into a. ghetto, the Arabs will
get.. Palestine and the British
will have won. :

“Aceusing ‘the British of disarm-
ing members of the Jewish Ha-
ganah militia while arming
Arabs, the article reports: “In
Many instances British troops
have been passive spectators of
attacks on the Jews and in some
cases, accessories.”

By its embargo on arms to
Palestine, the article charges,
the U.S. is accessory to a man-
oeuvre by which the Jews are
being exposed to annihilation.
Arab states are buy’ag arms and
turning them over to the Mufti’s
men for immediate, effective use
against the Jews.

Instead of aiming for an inter-
national police force to safe-
guard partition, the U.S. has no
intention of sending any troops
at all, Miss Shultz declares. De-
fense Secretary James V. For-
restal has privately threatened
to resign and to denounce’ the
Truman administration if it con-

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1948.

tributes to an international force
or even gives impetus to the
formation of such a body, she
reveals.

é

RITAIN’S prime object, the

article asserts, is to assure con-
tinuance of old concessions —
military, political and economic
—or their extension in order, on
the one hand, to protect Brit-
ain’s oil empire and on the other
hand to advance plans of the
US. and. Britain to “contain the
Soviet Union.”

On January 15 this policy be-
came evident when an Anglo-
Iraq military treaty was signed.
Although under it Iraq is grant-
ed complete territorial independ-
ence, an annex to the. treaty
says: “In the event of war or
a menace to hostilities, the King
of Iraq will invite His Brittanic
Majesty to bring immediately to
Iraq the necessary force of all
~arms and will furnish to His
Brittanic Majesty on Iraqui ter-
ritory all the facilities and as-
sistance in his power.”

(Mass demonstrations against
the treaty in Bagdad forced Re-
gent Abdul Illah to declare that
since “the treaty does not real-
ize national rights and aspira-
tions” it would not be ratified.)

“The present disturbances can
be laid to British connivance,”

Miss Schultz says. “As long as
the U.S. fails to take approp-
riate action, the inference must
be that the state qepartment, in
agreement with -the British, is
deliberately undermining the
pledges of President Truman.”
As an immediate U.S. program
to effectively carry out the UN
decision she urges:
1.—Exposure of the Grand
Mufti as a war criminal through
the publication of the secret files
which were seized by U.S. forces
in Germany and his arrest, in-
dictment and trial as a war
criminal, (Entry of a number of
Yugoslavs into Syria to help
train Arab forces was protested
last week by the Yugoslav gov-
ernment. The protest to the
Syrian government stated that
the Yugoslavs, former members
of the pro-Nazi Ustachi and
Chetnik forces were wanted by
the Yugoslay government for

‘trial as war criminals.)

2.—Extradition and trial of
Kauwji, now in Syria, actual
field commander of Arab forces
siphoning into Palestine.

3.—A UN embargo on all arms
shipments to Arab League
states,

4.—Recognition of Haganah as
the Jewish defense force and its
proper equipment by member
nations of the UN. ©

UNITED STATES

Work injuries killed 17,000 in 1947

: _ —WASHINGTON,

ORK injuries brought death

~ to 17,000 Americans during
1947, or about 500 more than
in 1946, according to the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics,

Although the fatalities were
sharply up in 1947, the number
of ‘injured rose only 3,000 to a
total of 2,059,000. :

BLS said the higher number
of fatalities was due primarily
to the Texas City (Tex.) explo-
sion and the Centralia - (Til.)
mine disaster.

“Work. injuries cost U.S. pro-
duction almost 44,700,000 man-

—
*

days—equal to a year of full-
time employment for 150,000
workers. And if additional al-
lowance is made for future ef-
fects of the deaths and per-
manent physical impairments in-
cluded in the 1947 total, the eco-
nomic time loss chargeable to
these injuries would amount to
nearly 233,700,000 man-days. This
is equal to full time employ-
ment for a year by 780,000 work-
ers.

Of the total deaths, 2400 were
in construction, 1500 in mining
and quarrying and 4300 in ag-
riculture. Manufacturing took a
tol of 37000.

LATIN AMERICA

Murder of Communist arouses Cuba

POWERFUUL storm of pro-

test, ranging from street dem-
onstrations by hundreds of thous-
ands of workers to official de-
nunciations by jJeaders of the
Senate and House of Represen-
tatives—has resulted from _ the
slaying of Jesus Menendez, pop-
ular leader of the Cuban Sugar
Workers Federation.

Menendez, a Communist mem-
ber of the House of Represen-
tatives, was sérving his second
4-year term. He was shot in the
back while travelling to a sugar
workers’ meeting. The shots
were fired by Captain Joaquin
Casillas of the Guardia Rural,
who sought to arrest Menendez
to prevent him from addressing
the meeting despite the parlia-
mentary immunity from arrest
guaranteed to all members of
Congress,

The congressional __ protests,
signed by leaders of all political
parties, pointed out that the
army captain not only bypassed
parliamentary immunity but vio-
lated the fundamental right of
every citizen to live. The con-
gressional leaders demanded
that all those involved in the

shooting be brought to justice.

Capt. Casillas got his only
support from General Genovevo
Perez, Cuban chief of staff, who
justified the shooting with the
claim that Menendez, as a Com-
munist, wanted to ‘incite the
army and the police to rebellion
against the government.”

President Ramon Grau San
Martin has so far failed to take
any action against the captain.
Labor leaders here say he is
reluctant to do so because he is
relying. on the army as the only
bulwark of his unpopular re-
gime. :

The murder of the union lead-
er came when sugar workers
are fighting at every mill and
plantation for a living wage and
are being forced to stay on the
job by troops.

The union has put up a mili-
tant fight despite the mobiliza-
tion of the army and has won

new contracts at 12 mills, mak-
ing the maximum wage of last
year the minimum wage of this
year and granting stabilized pay
for the entire year. Usual cus-
tom is to cut pay to almost
nothing when the grinding seas-
on is over. In two mills, the
union won an escalator clause
which compels employers to
raise wages if prices rise above
a specified point.

Menendez, because of his par-
liamentary immunity, was one
of the few leaders of the sugar
union who escaped arrest be-
fore. Most of the union leaders
have been in and out of jail
regularly in recent weeks—ar-
rested when employers brought
false charges against them, re-
leased when the charges couldn't
be substantiated, then arrested
again on another set of charges.

Biggest sugar mills in Cuba
are owned by U.S. firms, includ-
ing the American Sugar Refin-
ing Company, Atlantic & Gut
Sugar Company, United Fruit
Company and the Cuban-Ameri-
can Sugar Company. Virtually
all the American mills have re-
fused to sign contracts and have
posted military guards in the
mills.

All forms of terror are being
employed against the workers.
In some cases, where workers
have defied the troops and re
fused to work until contracte
are signed, their houses have
been burned to the ground.

The sugar workers’ union has
350,000 members, bulk of whom
are employed by U.S. _ firms
which produce 70 percent of
Cuba’s total sugar output. When
workers lose. jobs in sugar ‘mills;
they have no other place to turn
because, except for a smaller
tobacco industry, Cuba is a one-
crop country, Development of
other industries is effectively
blocked by the banks, which re-
fuse to lend money except at
exorbitant interest rates to busi-
nessmen in other fields. There

is no unemployment insur-~

ance. @

POL

Death penalty

AND

for a speculator

—WARSAW.

PRE-WAR big businessman
named Dolewski was recent-

‘ly condemned to death for sa-

botage against the national in-
terests of Poland in a trial
which graphically illustrated Po-
land’s new approach to social
problems. 4

Dolewski, who headed an im-
portant Poznan paper firm, ad-
mitted in court: “I did not take
part in the struggle against the
Germans because I was entirely
engaged in commercial activity.”

After the war, Dolwski’s mar-
ket-cornering operations were so
vast at they held up the
supply of paper for textbooks.
The price of paper on the free
market dropped 33 percent after
his arrest. Between Poland's lib-
eration in 1945 and July 1946
he increased the capital of his
firm from a modest 600,000
zlotys to a fortune of 44 mil-
lion. 3

The charges against Dolewski
included these:

- He put under lock and key
equivalent to two million school
notebooks, tripling the free mar-
ket prices. He purchased (ille-

gally) 10 tons of newsprint from.
from the Polish Peasant party,
which was constantly making
public complaints about the
small quantities of paper allot-
ted to it, while anti-democratic
Polish groups abroad charged
that in Polish government, as
part of its campaign to “sup-
press” the opposition, denied it
newsprint for its publication.
By concealing his profits, he
cheated the state of 15,900,000
zlotys in taxes.

His final act was to try to
buy his release from Polish of-
ficials for 20 million zlotys.

Dolewski, it developed during

his trial, was one of the big

financial. backers of former Po-
lish Peasant party leader Stan-
islaw Mikolajezyk, one of the
growing number of discredited

European politicians who have-

found a ready haven in the U.S.
His contributions to the party,

Dolewski confessed, were con-.

sidered by him as an investment
because he felt the Peasant Par-
ty leader’s accession to power

would permit a return to “un--

restrained free enterprise.” @
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 10

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