ITALY’S FORMER COLONIES

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25784, 21 April 1949, Page 5

ITALY’S FORMER COLONIES

PROGRESS OF U.N.’S DEBATE 29 DECLARATIONS ALREADY MADE (From a Reuter Correspondent.) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) NEW YORK April 19. Half the members of the United Nations have now expressed their views on the future of Italy’s former colonies in Africa but the result of the General Assembly’s debate remains in doubt. From the 29 declarations made so far. the following pattern has emerged: 17 nations favour giving Britain trusteeship over Cyrenaica and of returning Somaliland to Italian administration under a trusteeship agreement; 12 countries seek the return of Tripolitania to Italian administration; and 10 have recognised France’s claim to administer the Fezzan. The largest measure of unanimity so far has been for Ethiopia’s claim to part of Eritrea to give her access to the sea. Twenty-one of the 29 nations have favoured giving Ethiopia at least part of Eritrea, either by annexation or under a trusteeship. The London correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association says that thousands of Italians have sent postcards to President Truman appealing to him to use his influence to ensure that Italy’s colonies are not all taken away frojn her, and particularly that the two Italian-founded towns of Asmara and Masawa, in Eritrea, should not be handed over to Ethiopian control.

The Rome correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” says that this last suggestion sems to have aroused all classes of Italians and welded them into quiet and persistent indignation. Many Italians, who would not have been shocked at a joint British-Ame-rican administration of Eritrea, consider Ethiopian control of the results of Italian colonisation an insult to their country. Discussing the situation in Tripolitania, the Tripoli correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian* states that Italians in that territory have been encouraged by Italy’s improved international position, and the Arabs have become correspondingly depressed. “Tne Arabs feel that they are under a cloud since the Palestine debacle and that the will of the population may count for little unless it is backed' by some display of force,” says the correspondent. “Relations between Italian colonists and the Arab population have taken a turn for the. "worse. This was very evident when at the recent funeral of a big Italian landowner. Carlo Fenzi. in Tripoli, 4000 Italians who followed the coffin gave the Fascist salute as the coffin was Tarried down the cathedral steps. ‘'The Arabs are now asking how they can believe the promises of a more liberal Italian regime when such demonstrations are possible. The Arabs boycotted the funeral and tore down posters referring to it.”