Grim Indictment Of Russian Camps

Chronicle (Levin), 22 December 1949, Page 5

Grim Indictment Of Russian Camps

(N.Z.P.AZ-

-Reuter.

Copyright )

Keceived Thursdayv lu.,45 a.m. TOKIO, Dec. 21. ' Tlse AfMerieafl eliairfiiah of tiie' AlHed Cq'ntfol Cotmcil, Mr. . William j. Sebald, today ac- • e'tised Russia of being respons'ib'Ie b'y negle'et for the deaths o'f 374,041 J apane'se prisoners- , of-war.^ -A council meeting; heard Mr. Sebald ouiline the charges, which read like a stofy of a vast Soviet Belsen camp in As'ia. Mr. Seb'ald made his aeeusation aftef the* Sovjet delegation had walked out' of the meeting because the United States insis'te'd that the council should discuss the repatriation of Japanese prisonefs from Russia. Mr. Sebald raised the matter at today 's meeting following a feque'st by the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr. Shigeru Yoshida, that General MaeArthur appeal to_ world public opinion concerning the fate of the Japanese prisoners. : Mf. Sebald acCused Russia of .treating the Japanese prisoners even worse than Japan t.veated ' Allied prisoners working on the Burma railway. He said that he based his accusations on a tabulated list of 125 prison camps in Russian areas and on "numerous interrogations. oral and Written, of repatriates." In these camps alone 51,332 prisoners were reported to have died from malnutrition "and communicable diseases. , "Interrogation reports given by re'patriates from the Amur ! asf ea (in Eastern Siberia) were particularly gruesome," he said. "Of the total of 11,000 interhees, 3000 dead were.repofted. The cumulative death rate' of Japanese prisoners averaged 27 per cent."