TREATED AS SLAVES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20918, 19 October 1942, Page 3

TREATED AS SLAVES

NATIVES IN RABAUL JAPANESE “JUSTICE” (Special Australian Correspondent.) (10.30 a.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 19. Natives in the Japanese-occupied islands are living under conditions of slavery, according to “boys” who have escaped from Rabaul. The “boys’ are members of a large party who have arrived in Allied territary after a month’s journey. . When the Japanese occupied Rabaul, the natives were rounded up into barbed wire compounds. They were put to work, given insufficient food and frequently thrashed. Former Japanese residents in New Britain have been brought back and appointed to positions approximating thpse previously held by the Australian district officers. These officials dispense summary justice. A native said that the one Japanese official who had been a trader in Rabaul some years ago, concluded his inquiry into a dispute between two natives by cutting off the hand of a man whom he believed to be responsible for the trouble. . Three hundred Japanesa Geisha girls are stated to have been brought to Rabaul. The girls dress in kimonas with wooden clog shoes. The natives have been forbidden to speak to them.