ORDERS FROM LAVAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1942, Page 4

ORDERS FROM LAVAL

RULE OF TERROR RESULTS IN MADAGASCAR ISLAND WEAKLY DEFENDED. INCAPABLE OF RESISTING INVASION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, April 22. “Orders which were flashed from Laval’s headquarters have resulted in a rule of terror throughout Madagascar,” says a “Daily Express” correspondent at Antananarivo in a dispatch which has been smuggled to South Africa. “The police in Madagascar, under orders from agents of the Gestapo, are trying to round up the remainder of the de Gaullists, hundreds of whom were arrested after Japan broke into the Indian Ocean. “The Secretary-General to the Government is among those who have been imprisoned. Any official who expresses an opinion against Italy or Germany is dismissed. The entire white population, consisting of about 35,000 officials and settlers, is kept under the strictest watch, and small craft are guarded. “Nevertheless, the Free French supporters are constantly frustrating the Administration, and a new channel of escape opens as soon as another closes. One party, which recently escaped from Tamatave, first plastered the town with anti-Axis signs. German agents who have been detached from Fifth Column work in South Africa watch every movement of the Governor, M. Annet, who took over the rule of the island last year after the recall of his predecessor, M. de Coppet. “In the meantime, the few battalions of French coloured troops on the island could not hope to resist a Japanese landing, and Vichy cannot give any help. Thus Madagascar, which cannot be defended against a Japanese invasion, is the prize of the first-comer.”