MORE CRITICISM

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 63, 12 September 1945, Page 7

MORE CRITICISM

POLICY IN. KOREA

NEW YORK, September 10

The Washington correspondent of the "New York Herald Tribune" says that high officials in the War and Navy Departments were astounded at the decision to retain the Japanese administrators in Korea, and claimed that it -was a direct contravention of the Cairo Declaration, which promised a "free and independent Korea." The present explosive situation in Korea is regarded as a serious political, blunder which may have damaging results upon American prestige among Asiatics. A diplomatic observer pointed to the rapidly-increasing number of eye-witness accounts of Japanese atrocities, and asked how it could be deemed preferable to keep the Japanese officials in Korea instead of Koreans.

Korean organisations in the United States have sent sharply-worded protests to Washington. The Korean American Council accused the State Department of being "a party to degradation of the Koreans when it supports a division of Korea, half to be under Communistic authorities and the remaining half to be administered by the cruel, barbarous Japanese."

A correspondent of the Associated Press at Seoul, Korea, comparing the American occupation of Korea with the Russian occupation of Manchuria, writes: "The Americans have a halfapologetic attitude towards the civilian population which never occurs to the Russians, who are grimly efficient. The Russians, in the matter of transport, simply take everything on wheels, making no attempt to distinguish between Japanese, Chinese, and Europeans. It is a different story here, •where the Americans explain lack of transport by saying that they are unable to obtain sufficient vehicles. Furthermore, anyone who has seen the Russians disarming the Japanese must blink with unbelief at the American methods. The Russians at -Dairen herded the Japanese to the airport, disarmed them down to pocket knives, and within a few hours had whisked them to prison. The Japanese soldier here would never know he was defeated so far as the Americans are concerned."