SOVIET INDICTED

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20912, 18 September 1939, Page 7

SOVIET INDICTED

VIOLATION OF TREATIES PRETEXT FOR INVASION REPLY BY POLAND (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Sept, 18, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 17 The Polish Embassy in London has issued the following statement:— At 4 a.m. on September 17 Soviet troops crossed the Polish frontier at many points. The Polish Army immediately strongly resisted them, particularly at Molodeczno. “Russia’s pretext to justify this flagrant act of direct aggression is that the Polish Government has ceased to exist and had abandoned its territory, leaving its population in territories outside the German war zone without protection. The Polish Government cannot discuss the pretext which Russia had invented in order lo justify the violation of Hie frontier. The Polish Government is responsible to the President and the National Parliament is functioning in Polish territory and carrying on the war against the German aggressors with all the means in ils power. "The Soviet, by this act ui direct

aggression, has flagrantly violated the Polish-Russian Pact of non-aggres-sion concluded at Moscow on July 25, 1932, by which the parties mutually undertook to abstain from all aggressive action or attack against each other. “Moreover, the protocol signed al Moscow on May 5} 1934, prolonged the pact until December 31, 1945. Russia and Poland, by a convention concluded in London on July 3, 1933, cleanly stamped as an act of aggression any encroachment, on the contracting parties’ territory by the other's armed forces, also that no political, military or economic consideration could serve as a pretext for an act of aggression. “Therefore the Soviet stands selfcondemned as the violator of Ils own ir.Cernational obligations, contradicting all the moral principles on which it pretended to base its foreign policy since admittance to the League of Nations.” Several Towns Occupied The Soviet High Command headquarters on Polish soil radios Rial Hie troops, advancing against very weakresis Lance, penetrated in places for lifly miles and occupied several former Russian cities in the North, including Gluhokoe, Yolozhin and Molodeczno. The centres occupied include Uaranowicze in Hie South, and also Stavropol, Rovao and Dubuu.