THE BALKANS.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 867, 17 April 1903, Page 2

THE BALKANS.

TERRIBLE ATROCITIES

MASSACKL OF n;5 PKIiSOXS. By Telegraph—Tress As ocTat i o n—Copyright Constantinople, April 15. Hussein Ililmi Lusha. Governor Cj»cnernl ot tiie Macedonian \ niakcts, Ims assured a London Times interviewer that tho i ortf coin-iJt ivti iho A.’b .n’ tn question seuied. Umy a stua.l ignorant [action were concerned in t:m revolt. Twenty thousand troops are now massed round MiUovitza, a:ul arc abie to overawe the malcontents. Go hoped lo show within three months that the .proposed reforms are in progress. Toungn diplomats consider Hit mi mu optimistic, and hold that the only solution of the trouble will be a complete disarmament and military occupation of Albania.

London, April 15. W ell authenticated reports state that murders, piliage, incendiarism, and atrocities of every description occur daily in the Balkans, and that they are committed alike by soldiers, Albanians, Turks, and

Bulgarians. Authenticated reports have been received of the destruction by Bulgarians of an exclusively Mussulman village. O no hundred and sixty live persons were massacred in cohi blood. Amongst other horrors, they disembowelled pregnant women. One woman was impaled. The Spanish Government lias refused lo allow the Sultan of Morocco to send troops to the Kill Country via Melilla. U is impossible to disembark the forces elsewhere.

Vienna, April 15. The Xicuc TTie Brcss says that Russia demands JMSOO as compensation for tiie murder of M. Steherbina ; the despatch of twenty thousand Anatolian troops to Scrvia to permanently repress the Albanians, and the erection of a chapel ou the scene of M. Stcherbinu’s murder.

ALBANIANS PREPARING SOLID FRONT. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Deceived *1.50 p.m., April 10. Constantinople, April IX. Ibrahim has been sentenced to death at Mitrovitza. With tho view of uniting to resist reforms tiie Albanians have declared a truce to inter-tribal squabbles.

A TRAITOR'S STATEMENT. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.

Received 11.25 p.m., April Hi

CONST A t\TIi\OI VLiT, April M>. A traitor informed a European consul at .Salonika of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Cumini t tee’s 'methods, lie stated Unit the inhabitants of Macedonia, under pain of death, were compelled lo accept, the Commit tee’s bonds, repayable after Macedonia has been liberated from Turkish rule. it. is alleged that women tarried revolutionary eoirespouden* e across t-he frontier also that, LM) Bulgarian oilicers, disguised as pi Igr inis, arc, now operating m Macedonia ; !2H,,l( ifi l ilies ami large quau ll ties oi cartridges, bombs, and dynamite lia\e keen imported, under Ihe guise. oP hoh relics, (lie Customs officers' conniving at llie iiDjioilalioii. It is expected that the rebellion will begin at tiie time of Hie Greek Eastern holidays, when the railway bridges and limnels will be dynamited, accompanied by wholesale incendiarism and a carnival oi massacre and pillage.

GUERILLA WARFARE BY MACEDONIANS. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. Received 12.2 a.in., April .17.

UONSTANTINOPLE, April Id, The Macedonian internal organisation has resolved lo abandon a. general insurrection for Hlb.'J, owing lo Turkey’s overwhelming military strength and the improbability of outside aid, and lo coniine operaX Lions to guerilla warfare.