The Evening Post WELLINGTON, MONDAY, MAY 21, 1945.

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1945, Page 4

The Evening Post WELLINGTON, MONDAY, MAY 21, 1945.

A LIBERATOR'S TRIALS

In its present military phase, the Trieste incident is a question of adhering to an agreement. The incident, in its immediate aspect, is thus defined; in the following radio statement: I "Britain and the United States are insisting that the agreement reached between Field-Marshal Alexander ■and Marshal Tito last February shall operate until the final decision is reached at the peace conference table. Under the terms of this agreement Allied forces were to control Trieste and the surrounding areas." If this simple statement is true —and there is nothing so far to rebut it—then the obvious duty of both sides is to carry out the agreement. The AngloAmerican case is that the Allied armies are, and Tito's army is not, observing the agreed-on boundaries of temporary occupation—an evil which cannot be cured except by the retirement of the trespasser, which retirement—it is said —he is now -carrying out partially in Carinthia, but not wholly in the Trieste region. So long as that simple issue exists,, the Allies would be unwise to allow it to be clouded with political matters (such as the interminable story of rival Italian and Yugoslav claims to various parts of the North Adriatic) that are not relevant to a clear-cut agreement made between the armies and their chiefs. For occupation purposes and for the transitional stages from war to peace, the agreement's the thing, and manoeuvring for position by rival claimants should be secondary. The occupation, of course, should be conducted honestly as a trust—a temporary administrative device not, prejudicial to Italian and Yugoslav political claims. The Anglo-American occupation would be vitiated if it were used as a device to allow the Italians or the Yugoslavs to seize places, or establish unwarranted controls, or to act in any way prejudicial to each other's legitimate interests. There is no evidence that the Italians are stealing marches under the cloak of the AngloAmerican occupation, but there is material evidence that Marshal Tito, under his own martial cloak, and by dint of his genius for de facto coups, has made challengeable occupations in Trieste and Carinthia, from some of which he is, as stated above, now reported to be withdrawing. All available evidence, then, is that it is the Yugoslav forces that have sought to make capital out of the situation, and to complicate a military position (defined by agreement) so that permanent political advantages, irrelevant to the agreement, may be wedged in. At the same time, it is to be expected that the Yugoslavs will suspect the Italians of political machinations in Trieste, and that their own manoeuvring is in part the outcome of their suspicion of their not always innocent Italian opponents. For instance, Belgrade radio says: "We are not prepared to let Bonomi (Prime Minister of Italy) administer Yugoslav territory." The implication Here is that the Rome Government is administering, under the cloak of the Anglo-American command, territory to which Yugoslavia has a valid claim. The answer of the Anglo-American command should be that it is its own administrator till such time as other machinery, under competent authority, replaces the existing occupational machinery. In the meanwhile the stealing of a march by one rival is not warranted by a mere suspicion that the other rival is acting similarly. Because resisters in Greece made accusation —as they would be expected to do--that the British occupying authorities in Athens were not carrying out their trust impartially, it is very important to note that Washington as well as London is in the forefront of the picture so far as the task of keeping Tito within bounds is concerned. In declaring that Yugoslavia's Note on Trieste—an effort to rebut or sidetrack the Allied case—was unsatisfactory, Mr. Joseph E. Grew, who acts as U.S. Secretary of State, in the absence of Mr. Stettinius at San Francisco, . "said that the United States ranged | itself strongly behind Field-Marshal Alexander. Mr. Grew stressed the serious turn affairs had taken in the disputed region by calling attention to a continued irifiltration of Yugoslav troops, and said they were assuming an authority which interfered with the Allied commander's ability to maintain order and establish Allied occupational control. The United States was consulting with the other Governments concerned in order that the principles of just and orderly settle- j ments might not be prejudiced." A liberator's troubles do not end when he drives out: —or assists in driving out —the German tyrannical occupant of a lesser European State. Indeed, when the German goes, the liberator's troubles may merely begin. The; ljberationist forces of the liberated State may not see eye to eye with Great Power liberators such as Britain, America, and Russia. For instance, some of the Poles do not see eye to eye with Russia, some of the Greeks did not see eye to eye with Britain, and some of the Yugoslavs do not see eye to eye with America and Britain. These differences and disputes reach the surface when the common enemy, Germany, is knocked out. At that stage, military war begins to merge into political war, which is much more confusing, and much more capable of misrepresentation, than straight-out war against Germany. When the liberator's task becomes overcharged with political suspicion, he requires a new and special set of gifts.- Even if perfect, he will not escape calumny. Therefore the European conflict has now reached a very difficult stage.