CROATIANS FIGHT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 27, 11 March 1942, Page 6

CROATIANS FIGHT

REBELLION IN DALMATIA

The Croalians are particularly 'discontented at the behaviour of Italy. A short time ago the Italians occupied the whole Dalmatian coast. It js not knoAvn whether this step was taken because the Italians are still insatiable or because Ustasa cannot control the situation in Dalmatia. In any case the comments of the Italian Press are important. They ' state emphatically that Italy occupied the Dalmatian towns to ensure "safe conditions of labour' there. | Whom do the Italians fear? They £lo not border on. any indepen' 1 - n {. enemy State. It is clear that this -step was evoked bj r the resistance and discontent of the population against Italy and the Ustasa, and it has seriously jjrejudiced the "cordial" relations between Mussolini and Pavelic. Germany and Italy are at present dividing the government of Croatia between them, and the result is strained relations between Berlin" and Home. The Italians are declaring publicly that the Germans are interfering in their "liv-

ing space."

General Siniovic, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, declared: "In Croatia, there are perhaps a few thousand Croats altogether who are behind Pavelic, and they are all paid by Italy and Germany." Croatian guerillas fight in Zagoria, in the immediate neighbourhood of Zagreb. Croatian underground workers organise the numerous bomb outrages carried out in Zageb. Dalmatia as a whole is in a state of rebellion; and Dalmatia is a Croatian province, (n the vicinity of Zadar, all the men are in the woods with the guerillas and the villages are inhabited exclusively by women and children. Two-thirds of the Slovene territory with a population of about 800,000 lias been occupied by the Nazis. The deportation of the 200,000 Slovens was carried out by the Nazis. The

victims were partly sent to Italyoccupied Slovenia. The whole territory between the Dalmatian coast and Mostar is in a state of war. At the beginning of August, four Croatian students threw a bomb at a company of Ustasi students. The four boys were shot together with 180 Croat hostages. The Duke of Spoleto, would-be King of Croatia, cannot enter "his" country. Tlip Italians having urged the ceremony, Pavelic was compelled to answer that he could not guarantee the Duke's safety in Croatia.

Nazi propaganda is doing its best to persuade the world that only the Serbs resist Nazi oppression, while the Croats are looking on passively. As a matter of fact, the unity of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes has never before been as strong as it is now, since, in these days, the three nations stand up in common, desperate defence against aggression, This brotherhood, originating in a common, militant struggle for freedom, will be a lasting one , . , .