BRITISH CENSURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11, 13 January 1945, Page 5

BRITISH CENSURE

Retention Oi' Hostages Is Strongly Condemned OVER 12,000 I\Y T OLVED Rec. noon. RUGBY, Jan. 12. Although the British Government approve the truce concluded in Greece they to-day issued the following warning about the hostages:— "The terms signed by the British and E.L.A.S. representatives for the truce were endorsed by the British Government. Taking and holding hostages is, however, a barbarous custom condemned by international law. The British Government must make it clear, therefore, that no truce can be enduring or ripen into peace unless or until the hostages; taken by the E.L.A.S. have been effectively safeguarded and released." The E.L.A.S. Is reported to have retained some 12,000 to 15,000 civilian hostages. These unfortunate people, who include men, women and children, have been seized over a period of months by the E.A.M. secret police as part of a deliberate policy of terrorising those who wished to break away. The E.L.A.S. nas always been a more or less unwilling association held together by Communist terrorism. As long as the Germans were in Greece patriots were all too often confronted with the choice of submitting to E.A.M. tyranny for the sake of maintaining a united struggle against the Germans or of joining security battalions formed by the puppet Government for protection against the E.A.M. After the Germans left a third choice became open. They could rally round the Coalition Government. The E.A.M., however, discouraged this tendency by seizing as hostages those who showed signs of discontent and the families of those who succeeded in leaving the E.A.M.