Cuba Regime’s Answer To Rebel Strike Threat

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28553, 5 April 1958, Page 13

Cuba Regime’s Answer To Rebel Strike Threat

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK. April 4. The Cuban Government was ready to grant amnesty. to Fidel Castro’s rebels if they would lay down their arms, the Prime Minister, Mr Gonzalo Guell, said last night, the American Associated Press has reported from Havana. His offer to compromise with Castro came less than 24 hours after the Government met rebel strike threats with drastic decrees authorising workers to kill anyone interfering with their jobs. The Prime Minister said that the rebels were a minority group opposed to the desires of the people, but the Government of President Batista was willing to negotiate with all political opposition elements to restore peace Election Solution Speaking to foreign corres-. pondents. Mr Guell said that the elections now fixed for November 3, promised the best solution and pledged all opposition parties would be given full guarantees in the voting. The Government would • agree to the supervision of the elections by an interna-

tional agency if the Opposition parties desired. The Prime Minister said that Government forces had not' yet made an all-out effort to rout Castro’s forces out of their mountain hide-outs in Oriente province. but they were fully capable of crushing any disorder. He reiterated earlier Government charges that Communists and professional agitators were behind Cuba’s troubles. In Miami, Florida, 11 Cuban commercial airline pilots who said they had been ordered to return to Cuba and fly arms fcr the Government, last night requested political- asylum in the United States. One of them, Captain Jorge Prellezo. said: “We do not want to fly arms which would be used against the people of Cuba . . . We do not intend to take sides. But they are asking us to risk our lives to fight against Cubans. This we won’t do.” Captain Prellezo said that he and his colleagues had been ordered to return to Cuba by Major Efraim Hernandez, brother of the Cuban Consul in Miami, to fly arms to President Batistajs army from the Dominican Republic.