VENEZUELAN ARRESTS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28481, 10 January 1958, Page 11

VENEZUELAN ARRESTS

Vatican Taking Serious View Preu Asjocwtion-Cmmrtnhf.

(Rec. 10 pan.) CARACAS, January 9. • The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Caracas, the Most Reverend Rafael Arias Blanco, planned to confer today with the Venezuelan President, Marcos Perez Jimenez, the Caracas. Cathedral announced last night.

The Archbishop is expected to ask for release of members of the clergy under arrest since January 2, the day a New Year’s Revolt against the President was suppressed. Five clerics are known to be in custody.

The .Vatican is taking an increasingly serious tiew of its relations with Venezuela, according to the American Associated Press. It said an authoritative source close to the Vatican said a break in diplomatic ties was possible.

The source said the Catholic Church was “preoccupied and displeased” with the present trend of affairs in Venezuela, which, he said “seem to be developing into a clear persecution of Catholics.” The Pope had asked that all reports of Vatican-Venezuelan relations be brought to his immediate attention, the same source added. Vatican sources had predicted a worsening of Vatican-Venezuelan relations after last week’s revolt against the regime of President Perez Jimenez. Adding fuel to the smouldering issue were reports by a Venezuelan political exile in New York that two Jesuit priests had been expelled from Venezuela and that several parish priests were under arrest.

The Vatican source said he could not confirm these reports, but said that the situation between the Church and the Venezuelan Government was “not good.” Official Silence Officially, American Associated Press reported, the Vatican had been silent on its relations with Venezuela. Vatican publications, such as “L’Osservatore Romano,” also had not commented.

The Venezuelan Embassy to the Vatican said it could not comment immediately. The news agency said the source said a diplomatic break, if it came, might be followed by other measures if the Church felt the situation demanded it. The source did not specify the other measures.

The American Associated Press said Vatican circles in discussing the Venezuelan situation had recalled the struggle between the Vatican and the former Argentine Dictator, Juan Peron. Peron gained political asylum in Venezuela. As Roman Catholics battled Peron’s followers in Argentina in 1955, the Vatican excommunicated the Argentine Dictatorship. However, Vatican sources emphasised that relations with Venezuela were not—at least now—as bad as Vatican-Argentina affairs were before the excommunication.

CLASHES IN ALGERIA

144 Rebels Dead,

50 Captured

(Rec. 9 pjn.) ALGIERS, Jan. 8. Security forces have killed 144 Algerian insurgents and captured about 50 in the last 48 hours in various parts of Algeria, according to reports reaching Algiers today. Sixty-one insurgents were killed and four machine guns seized in three battles in the Constantine region of Eastern Algeria. Fifty-eight more were killed in a battle near Saida, Western Algeria.

In Roubaix, France, police have arrested five Algerians, one of whom they described as the Regional Chief for Northern France of the National Liberation Front, the organisation which claims to control most of the Algerian insurgents.

They named him as Mohamed Nerfouche Hamid.

U.S. ASIAN POLICY

Former Diplomat

Critical

(Rec. 7 p.m.) MONTREAL, Jan. 8. Sir Archibald Nye, former British High Commissioner to Canada, today called the United States Asian policy “simply deplorable.” “This chap Dulles has no imagination,” Sir Archibald Nye said in an interview. “I am told President Eisenhower gets quite emotional on the subject of China. It’s childish.”

Sir Archibald Nye, who retired from Britain’s Diplomatic Service 15 months ago, said the United States’ Asian policy lacked consistency. It was dictated by “an emotional, almost hysterical, attitude toward Communist China.” The West’s only hope of success in Asia lay in a long-term policy aimed at detaching China from the Russians, he said.

Geoff Duke To Ride For Germany

(Rec. 8 p.m.) MUNICH (West Germany). Jan. 8 Geoff Duke. Britain’s former world motor-cycling champion, will ride for the German B.M.W. team this season. Duke, who has represented the Italian Gilera firm for the last four years, has been world champion six times. Gilera and two other Italian motor-cycle firms withdraw from speed racing at the. end of 1957.