ACCUSATIONS BY ‘RED STAR’ “S.E.A.T.O. Tool Of Aggression”

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28531, 10 March 1958, Page 9

ACCUSATIONS BY ‘RED STAR’ “S.E.A.T.O. Tool Of Aggression”

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) MOSCOW, March 8.

The Soviet Army newspaper “Red Star” said today that the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation aimed at preparing an atomic war and enslaving independent countries and created a serious threat to world peace. It accused the United States of using S.E.A.T.O.—the members of which are Britain, the United States, France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand—“to facilitate the aggressive activity of th§ir armed forces, primarily the United States Navy, in the west Pacific, and to have new military bases there in which to place atomic and rocket weapons.”

Quoted by the Soviet news agency Tass, the newspaper said that several major exercises had been carried out in the west Pacific, near China and Indonesia, in 1957 and this year. “These exercises testify to the intensive preparations being made by the navies of the S.E.A.T.O. countries, with the Seventh United States Fleet at their head, for aggressive offensive action and atomic war.

“The S.E.A.T.O. military bloc, allegedly created for purposes of defence, is in fact a tool of aggression and colonialism like N.A.T.O. and the Bagdad Pact.”