UNRRA SUPPLIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 August 1946, Page 6

UNRRA SUPPLIES

PILFERING OF SHIPMENTS AT TRIESTE

LONDON, August 4. “UNRRA and’Military Government officials in Trieste frankly admit the pilfering of supplies handled at the port,” says the Trieste correspondent of the Associated Press. . . . “It .is because there are insufficient Allied troops adequately to protect supplies;. “UNRRA,’s senior port representative (Mr Barry White) commenting on Mr La Guardia’s statement. ..said that in the last few weeks UNRRA repatedly had asked the Allied military authorities for soldiers to guard supplies as far as the frontiers of the receiving countries. They were told that soldiers were not available. “Losses in the port area, which is guarded by Americans, are infinitesimal, but between the time the trains leave the port and reach their destinations, officials estimate the loss at 30 per cent. “American military police officers said there was conclusive evidence that police in Venezia Giulia are implicated in the thefts.”

“The Director-General of UNRRA (Mr F. H. la Guardia)’is strongly protesting to .Allied Headquarters against the widespread pilfering of UNRRA supplies in Trieste,” said the Associated Press correspondent in Belgrade on August 2. “Mr la Guardia said that unless things were righted he would take up the matter with the British and American Governments. He described conditions in Trieste as ‘deplorable and intolerable,’ and the forces guarding the supplies as ‘a boy scout arrangement.’ Entire freight cars have disappeared. . . “ ‘There is no use fussing round this matter any longer,’ he said, ‘either the Military Government can protect these UNRRA shipments or it must openly, publicly, and officially confess that it cannot. Armed guards must oe furnished. We do not want observers, we need guards.’’’.,,, .