SHOT IN BATCHES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 198, 19 May 1936, Page 9

SHOT IN BATCHES

Abyssinians at Addis Ababa TRIALS BY ITALIANS Disobedience to Ban on Possessing Arms HUNDREDS OF ARRESTS By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received May IS, 8.25 p.m.) London, May 17. Tn a copyright message the Djibouti correspondent of “The Tinies” says: Reports from Addis Ababa state that the Italians have made 1500 arrests since the occupation of the city. The majority of those arrested are alleged to have looted the city. Trials by a military tribunal have been summary and the evidence ■ketchy. Those condemned have joen shot in batches of 40 and 50. A new capital crime is the possession of arms by Ethiopians. Following a decree ordering arms to be surrendered within three days, of which the majority of the population was unaware, a search for arms began on May 9 and punishment for disobedience was applied mercilessly. For instance, an Austrian banker returned home on the afternoon of May 9 to find that his servants had disappeared. He applied to the military governor, whereupon he was told that they had been shot during the night. Some of them had been in his service for 20 years. Moreover, they defended the house during the looting. The Italians have also carried out deliberate revenge, including the murder by soldiers of the Ethiopian patriot lawyer, Ato Aderra. who opposed the Italians in a lawsuit in the early days of the war. Mr. George Steer, “The Times’s” special correspondent, who early this month married a girl correspondent of a Paris journal; Mr. Neben Zahl, of the Havas news agency, and two other Journalists, all accused of antl-Itallau propaganda and espionage, have been expelled from Addis Ababa and entrained for Djibouti among a score of Europeans who have been ordered from the city. Balahu, the giant former umbrella carrier to Haile Selassie, and later drum-major to the Imperial Band, was condemned to death by an Italian military tribunal for espionage and brigandage and was shot. A number of other natives accused of murder, pillage and traffic In tirearms were executed. Executed bandits include four who were charged with looting and murder in connection with the attack on a farm at Multi of a German-Swiss agriculturist, whose wife rushed to the rear Italian camp and brought askaris to the rescue. An American, Dr. A. Lambie, field director of the Sudan and Ethiopian Missions. who nationalised himself as an Abyssinian in order to extend his contact with the natives, is to become an Italian subject, explaining that Haile Selassie failed his people by listening to Armenian adventurers. DUM-DUM ' BULLETS Britain May Reply To Allegations (British O Olein 1 Wireless.) Rugby. May 16. According to Press messages from Geneva, it would appear that the Italian Government has decided to withdraw the communication it deposited with tjie Secretariat making further allegations as to the supply .of dum-dum bullets of British manufacture to the Abyssinian military forces. In this case it is understood that so far as the League is concerned the document is "nul et non avenant.” As a consequence of the Italian decision the British Government will not be called upon to reply through the League tb the new charges brought in support of the allegations, which already had been several times the subject of official and categorical British denials both In Geneva and in London. But whether, in view of the considerable publicity which already has been given to the reported contents of the Italian memorandum, these allegations require an answer in some other form is a matter which is still under consideration in London. In the meantime two members of Parliament have given notice that they will ask the Foreign Secretary in the House of Commons on Monday if he has any statement to make on the “allegations repeated by the Italian delegation at Geneva last week that dum-dum ammunition has been supplied to . the Abyssinian army by British firms'.” REMAINING AT POSTS New Zealand Missionaries Addis Ababa. May 17. A rescue party found Miss Freda Horn and Miss Daisy MacMillan, the missionaries who were rescued by Italian soldiers from Abyssinian pillagers at Marayo, 70 miles to the south, safe and in good health after the attack. They are remaining at their post and consider the danger is over. Mi®? Freda Horn, a “Dominion” Special Service message states, joined the Sudan Mission from Palmerston North. She was born at Cheltenham, about 15 mileo from Palmerston North, but lived for the greater part of her girlhood at Palmerston North. She received her primary education at the College Street School and then went to the Palmerston North Girls’ High School, of which she was dux in 1923. Mifie Horn is a" daughter of Mrs. Jessie K. Horn and the late Mr Horn, who conducted a grocery busimw in Cuba Street until the time of his death some years ago. Mrs. Horn is still residing at Palmerston North at 10 Knowles Street. A brother of .Miss Horn is aiwo engaged in the Abyssinian mission fields but is at present on furlough in America. Mrs. Horn stated yesterday that for three or four years her daughter had worked peacefully in tier mission district. She attributed the attack to the fact that the Abyssinian “Shiftie,” or hill tribes, in their hostile attitude toward Italians, thought anv white people they saw to be Italians. Mrs. Horn felt sure that the people among whom the missionaries were working had nothing to do with the attack, because she knew of the friendly feeling which existed between them. Miss MacMillan is a Dunedin girl. Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. Thomas MacMillan, Kaikorai Valley, and she was a .Sunday school teacher at the Mornington Baptist Church.