DARLAN AT DAKAR

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 25, 24 October 1942, Page 8

DARLAN AT DAKAR

Call For Resistance If Attacked PETAIN’S MESSAGE Increased Tension In West Africa (By Telegraph—Press. Assn.— Copyright.) LONDON, October 22. Marshal Petain has refused to broadcast a plea to French workers to go to Germany, says a British United Press correspondent. The unrest against the attempted mobilization is reported to have tied up many French railway services. , Admiral Darlan, commander-in-cmet of the Vichy armed forces, arrived at Dakar today ou a tour of inspection. In a broadcast from Dakar, Darlan read a message from Petain to the people of French West Africa which said: "You demonstrated your devotion to the unity of the empire when, in September, 1940, under an attack without cause, you offered.a victorious resistance of which unhappy France still has the right to be proud. "New dangers today hang over, yon while in other parts of the empire heroic defenders are yielding only to superior numbers, knowing that their sacrifice will not be in vain when the day of justice dawns. "These threats have no shadow of excuse. You will give every aggression the same answer as in' September, 1940. Dakar, for which so many Frenchmen have given their lives in defence and development, is closer to our hearts daily.” Tension throughout French West Africa has heightened as a result of Darlan’s visit a_nd Petain’s message of warning. Axis broadcasts are continually emphasizing the arrival of American troops in West Africa and General de Gaulle’s visit to French Equatorial Africa and the Belgian Congo, which are b ! linked with alleged accounts of intense British air activity at Gibraltar. ' More Generals Retired. j Berlin radio tonight said that political circles in Berlin attached great importance to Darlan’s visit to Dakar, which was the most seriously-threat-ened point in the French colonial empire. Darlan, the radio added, was anxious to convince himself of the military preparedness of French West Africa and would discuss with the com-m'ander-in-chief, General Barraut, measures for the protection of Dakar and other parts of the French West African empire from attack. The official Vichy gazette announces that Brigadier-General Jacquot and General Vallat, who is Inspector of the Medical Corps, and also First-class Colonial Governor Parisot, have . retired “in application of the law against secret societies.” Parisot is a former Governor of Senegal. Last year he became Sec-retary-General to the GovernorGeneral of French West Africa. The British United Press correspondent on the French frontier in a dispatch published yesterday, said that the French Generals Frere and Picquendar have been dismissed because they opposed Laval’s desire that the'French Army should be ready to resist an AngloAmerican landing in France or French Africa. "

LIBERIA EXPELLING AXIS ENVOYS

LONDON, October 22. Rome radio announced that Liberia had decided to break off diplomatic relations with the Axis and had asked the Axis representatives to go.