MARTIAL LAW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1943, Page 4

MARTIAL LAW

PROCLAIMED IN LEBANON CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES DISSOLVED. PRESIDENT AND PREMIER ARRESTED. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day. 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, November 11. The Lebanon Chamber of Deputies has been dissolved, martial law has been proclaimed, and the Premier, Raid El Solh, the President, Alfred Makkache, and two other Lebanese have been arrested and taken to an unknown destination. This is reported by Reuter’s Cairo correspondent. According to the Berlin radio, De Gaullist troops have occupied Beirut, and Reuter’s Beirut correspondent says considerable violence occurred in the city streets. These developments followed the Lebanon Parliament’s adoption of a Bill modifying the Lebanese Constitution. The French Committee of National Liberation opposed the Bill, stating that it would refuse to recognise it, as it was one-sided action. The crisis is due to differing interpretations of the status of Lebanon. Reuter’s Cairo correspondent says Senegalese troops, who are reported to be using considerable violence, broke into the President’s house at 7 a.m. today and removed him. The French High Commissioner, in a broadcast from Beirut later this morning, denounced what he called “a plot against France.” The newspaper “Almisi” stated that the High Commissioner ordered Senegalese troops to patrol the streets and occupy all strategic points in Beirut and other cities. It adds that a general strike was threatened in the past few days, but that, thanks to the intervention of the Lebanese Premier, work is proceeding normally at present.