THE GREEK AFFAIR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 44, 30 January 1945, Page 4

THE GREEK AFFAIR

factions of the. British ruling class to keep reactionary governments in power in the occupied countries. We have only to remijtnber our dealings with the pro-German Mihailovich in Yugoslavia, the Darlan affair in North Africa, and our hasty disarmament of the. popular Resistance Forces in Italy,, France and to see that this is. so. Article 3 of the Atlantic Charter states: "We respect, the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live." That is what we are lighting for. We must not stand by and watch allied troops that, could hp used to advantage on the Western being used instead to keep the Greek people in subjection. Let us. remember what the Greek people did for our New Zealand boys, and let us demand that the British keep their hands off Greece, • and keep their promise of the self determination of all nations. Yours etc. SECRETARIAT, Edgecumbe Branchy Communist Party.

Sir—lt is important to remember that the truce in Greece is purely military and the real political settlement of outstanding Greek grievancec is not yet begun. A restoration to: normal life in Greece is not something which can be imposed as the result of a successful British military campaign. No allies fought more • gallantly nor helped our New Zealand soldiers more unsparingly than did the Greek guerillas. Yet we have stood by and allowed these same gallant allies to be crushed by British force of arras or by the Poles and Indians who are being largely used there. How did the situation arise? Let " us examine a few; of the facts. The Greek Government under Papandreous and the Greek guerilla forces—E.A.M. arid E.L.A.S. had come to an agreement of equal disarmament of Royalist troops and Guerilla forces. Beneral Scobte immediately intervened and ordered the total disarmament of the guerillas while leaving the Royalist forces untouched. If he had with all Greek parties in complete agreement, there Avould have been no "Civil War" and no excuse for British intervention in the internal affairs of Greece. ~ In August 1943 5 General Wilson admitted that the British armies in the Levant were ready for the 'invasion of the Balkans at short notice yet 14 months of slow starvation of Greece was allowed to elapse before our troops, with only 300 occupied Greece. The British Army was no armj' of Liberation. That liberation had already been accomplished by E.L.A.S. It was an army of occupation, for a purely- political motive —to prevent the political grouping that obviously controlled Grcece, from exercising political power. < This, is not peculiar to Greece. It is part of a long term and deliberate policy on the part of certain.