ECONOMIC AID FOR JUGOSLAVIA

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25902, 7 September 1949, Page 5

ECONOMIC AID FOR JUGOSLAVIA

U.S. Bank Said To Have Approved Loan

TRADE PACT WITH BRITAIN FORECAST (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.50 p.m.) LONDON, September 6. “Jugoslavia expects an announcement of British and American help within a fortnight,*' says the Belgrade correspondent ef the “Daily Express.” “Jugoslav officials in Belgrade said to-day that the American Export-Import Bank had approved Jugoslavia’s request for ?n immediate loan of 25,000,000 dollars to buy machinery and equipment for Jugbslavia’s lead, copper, and zinc mines. They forecast the signing next week of a British-Jugoslav trade pact worth £125,000,000 in five years to each side. “This help would see Marshal Tito through the winter until the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has sent delegates to Belgrade on a fact-finding mission, decides on Jugoslavia’s request for a loan of 250,000,000 dollars.” “Marshal Tito is confident that there will not be any war,” says a “New Yofk Times” correspondent, Cyrus Sulzberger. in a dispatch from Belgrade. “Marshal Tito said in an interview: ’There is no reason for people abroad to be upset or alarmed if we ourselves are not. The consequences of the last war are still too close to us to admit the thought of a new one. I make this statement in spite of the various differences which prevail in the world and the warmongering which goes on in certain countries. I maintain that there will be no war.’ “Asked about the Soviet’s efforts to strangle Jugoslavia economically, Marshal Tito replied that the blockade represented no threat whatsoever. It had, he said, been thoroughly overcome by Jugoslavia.”

Mr Konni Zilliacus, an Independent j Labour member of the House of Com- I mons, who has just returned to London from a fortnight’s visit to Jugo- I slavia. also says that Marshal Tito sees -o danger of war between Jugoslavia ' and Russia. Mr Zilliacus said that he had had an ’ interview with Marshal Tito, who hau told him that Jugoslavia remained a j Communist regime building a Social- | ist State, and had no intention of going • to the capitalist camp. Mr Zilliacus said that Marshal Tito had talked with great freedom, but'; most of it was “off the record.’’ He had formed the impression from his talks with Jugoslav leaders that the Jugoslav-Soviet split “on the level ; of the Communist parties” was com-1 plete and of indefinite duration, unless ■ there was some major change on one , side or the other But the split be-; tween the Jugoslav State and the! Eastern European camp was not com-' plete. Mr Zilliacus added that in essence! the question of Jugoslavia was the; me as that which had obtained in; fee years that saw the decline of the j League of Nations. Then, as now, the j great Powers were thinking only in | s of power politics and were ! eating the smaller States as pawns. ’ Mr Zilliacus said that at the first; meeting of the Cominform Jugoslavia i tad said that it wanted to be regar-ded a Socialist State on the same foot- ; ing as the Soviet. The Soviet Com- ■ munist Party’s claim, which was en- • dersed by the other Communist par-1 ties, was that the Soviet Union was the only Socialist State and that the } reople’s democracies were half-way I houses that had ceased to be capital- j ist States. Jugoslavia had energetic- i slly opposed this. At Strasbourg yesterdav the Euro- I pean Consultative Assembly was warn- ; e: that events in Jugoslavia might call for action in the next few months. The warning was given by Mr Leon feccas. of Greece, who said that Russian threats to Jugoslavia might call hr a new session of the Assembly or ■■r measures between sessions. Outside the Assembly Mr Maccas

; | said he was sure that the same thing ' would happen in Jugoslavia as had I happened in Greece. Russia would not ' tolerate Marshal Tito’s attitude, but at j the same time would not go directly 'to war. Russia would send emissaries j into Jugoslavia and stir up guerrilla bands to try to undermine the Govern- ; ment. Soviet Criticism Continues i The Moscow radio yesterday quoted an article in the Cominform journal as 1 saying that “dozens of thousands of • loyal Communists” in Jugoslavia have . ’ been tortured with electric currents, I starved and killed in concentration 11 camps. The article in the Cominform jour- , nal was written by Mr Radonja Golubovic, a former Jugoslav Ambassador. j Mr Golubovic is in Czechoslovakia, ' and has been branded as a traitor by Jugoslavia. ; Mr Golubovic said: “Only a newly- , i created Communist Party in Jugo- | ; slavia will be able to launch a struggle : against Tito Fascism. Tito’s gang has ! systematically liquidated the interna- ! tionalist core of the Jugoslav Com:I munist Party by means of arrests, j beatings, and murders until it has become a subsidiary organ of Tito’s J police machine.” i The article placed the working- . I class representation in the party at ’; “less than 30 per cent.” “Pravda” says that all the necessary ' conditions now exist in Jugoslavia for 1 the creation of a new Jugoslav Com- ! munist Party. i The new party’s members would be • “workers and peasants faithful to their ': country and to friendship with the j Soviet Union.” It would be organised during a struggle of all the healthy I elements with the present regime. I “Pravda” adds that in the months immediately preceding the Cominform , denunciation of Marshal Tito the Jugoslav leader took care to admit into the Jugoslav Communist Party a great number of wealthy peasants and members of bourgeois political parties, and proceeded to liquidate all the truly internationalist and Leninist Communists in the party. This was why the Jugoslav Communist Party had sided ; with Marshal Tito.