CONSULS DISMISSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 129, 2 June 1945, Page 7

CONSULS DISMISSED

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE REACHED TITO

OC SYDNEY, May 29. When a Sydney Sunday newspaper threw open its columns to two factions of Yugoslavs in Australia, on March 14, 1943, it solved an issue for the Yugoslav Government this week. A notice appeared in the Commonwealth Gazette stating that Mr., J. Mikulicic-Rodd and Mr. N. Mancn have been relieved of their functions as honorary Consuls at Sydney and Perth (Western Australia) respectively. Mr. Mikulicic-Rodd has been succeeded by Mr. Ivan Kosovich, aged 31, the secretary of the Progressive Federation of Yugoslav Immigrants in Australia. . , , 1 In 1943, Mr. Kosovich denounced General Mikhailovich, leader of the Chetniks, as a traitoi\ fifth columnist, and quisling. Mr. Mikulicic-Rodd professed "absolute faith" in Mikhailovich, said he was holding the gates for the Allies' Second Front, and that he was "a great friend" of Russia. The views of Mr. Mikulicic-Rodd and Mr. Kosovieh were given at. length in a special article in the "Sunday Telegraph" of March 14. 1943.

Yugoslavs have since been informed, that the article was given to Tito in Moscow, with other documents about the attitude of Yugoslavs in Sydney to Mikhailovich. The new Consul, who was born in Dalmatia, came to Australia when he was 14 years old, worked for some time on a farm, then became a journalist.