No Offer To Pay Damages

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31783, 13 September 1968, Page 15

No Offer To Pay Damages

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) MOSCOW, Sept. 12. The Soviet Union said yesterday that it expected Czechoslovak counter - revolutionaries to be held responsible for the economic damage done to their country by Warsaw Pact occupation troops.

In a situation report from Prague, the official Tass news agency also accused unnamed Czechoslovak newspapers and radio stations of following a West German lead in trying to “exploit” the question of economic damage. “Such actions as were taken in response to counter-revolu-tionaries did cause a certain amount of damage to the national economy, and it is only natural to expect that the Czechoslovak people will

make the guilty persons answer for this,” Tass said. Earlier, the Soviet Union had reportedly been offering Prague a loan to help compensate for and recover from the damage caused by the occupation, but the status of the offer is now unclear.

Tass said that the damage question was being raised with especial zeal “by those commentators who only recently in their clandestine leaflets and radio broadcasts urged people to cut off lines of communication, put electric sub-stations out of operation, stop production, call strikes, commit sabotage and elose shops, hotels and so forth.”

It also criticised Czechoslovaks who, “in their public statements praise the activity of clandestine radio stations.” But it said the Czechoslovak party and people would undoubtedly grasp the situation and defend the interests of socialism.