U.S. PLANS TO MEET UPRISINGS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 14657, 28 April 1948, Page 3

U.S. PLANS TO MEET UPRISINGS

INCIDENTS IN JAPAN AND KOREA

Large-Scale Communist Riots Expected

Part Played In Recent

Disturbances

London, April 27. Plans to meet large-scale Communist riots and uprisings expected to begin on May 1. are being speeded up by the American authorities throughout Japan and Korea. A special correspondent in Tokyo said that there was" proof that the recent incidents in the Osaka-Kobe area were the forerunner of bigger riots to follow May Day and precede the Korean elections. The police today began to round up the Korean school authorities who refused to comply with the orders issued to register their schools under the Japanese educational law. Japanese reports today estimated the casualties m Kobe and Osaka on Sunday night variously from three to 13 killed. After the police had used fire hoses to break up a Korean demonstration, involving a crowd of 25,000 persons, shots were fired between Koreans and Japanese. A Communist Party spokesman today announced the party's official support of the Korean rioters. There is definite evidence that Communists organised the recent riots, said high American sources today. Lieutenant-General Eichelberger, who flew yesterday to Kobe, where more than 1000 Koreans have now been arrested, said that seven selfproiessed Japanese Communists, who had been positively identified as involved in the Kobe incident on Saturday, were also in American hands. He said he had photographs showing known Korean Communists in the riots. The ringleaders of the riot would be tried in Provost Courts and by Military Commissions instead of by Japanese Courts.