EASTERN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS

Press, Volume LXXXIIi, Issue 25302, 30 September 1947, Page 7

EASTERN EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS

Exiles Seek Action By United Nations MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED TO PRESIDENT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rcc. 10 p.m.) NEW YORK, September 28. A coalition of former east European Cabinet members and officials now in exile asked the United Nations General Assembly to-day to reorganise the Communist-dominated Governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, and Poland. The exiles submitted the request to the President of the Assembly (Dr. Aranha) in the form of a 150-page memorandum over the name of the International Peasant Union, which they recently formed. The memorandum accused Russia of interfering in Bulgaria. Rumania, Hungary, and Jugoslavia, and alleged that Soviet armed forces had been used in those countries “for aggressively subversive political, economic, and social ends.” The signatories to the memorandum are Dr. George Dimitrov, of the Bulgarian National Agrarian Union, Dr. Vladko Macek, of the Croatian Peasant Party, Mr Ferenc Nagy, of the Hungarian Smallholders’ Party, Mr Grigore Buzesti, of the Rumanian National Peasant Party, and Dr. Milan Gavrilovic, of the Serbian Agrarian Union. The union’s spokesman announced that a formal motion to place the memorandum on the agenda of the Assembly’s present session would be made by delegates of one or more nations, “who have already expressed their agreement in principle.”

The spokesman added that Dr. Dimitrov, Mr Nagy, and Dr. Macek were now in New York meeting delegates of all United Nations members except Russia and her satellites. The union, he said, was made up of “free representatives of eastern Europe.”

The memorandum specifically requests the Assembly (1) To find the “unrepresentative” governments of the five Slav States guilty of violating the principles of the United Nations charter. (2) To appoint a commission to watch over the implementation of the Charter and other international agreements in each of the countries, and to establish caretaker governments pending the framing of new electoral laws and the preparation of free and unfettered elections under the United Nations supervision. (3) To take under its protection citizens of the five countries “that are subject to Communist persecution,”

and to appoint an international commission to look into the charges made against them. The memorandum also asks that Jugoslavia and Poland be suspended from United Nations membership as long as they fail to abide by the Charter, and that Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania be barred from admission until democratic rights have been restored.

The memorandum describes the five governments as mere tools of Russia’s expansionist designs, and adds: “It is time for the United Nations to assert its international authority and to make full use of the means open to it for the restoration of freedom and independence of the nations ‘liberated’ by the Soviet Union.”

Mr Nagy is the former Prime Minister of Hungary. Dr. Dimitrov was once secretary to the recently-execut-ed Bulgarian Peasant Party leader, Mr Petkov. Mr Buzesti is a former Rumanian Foreign Minister.