LIFE PROLONGED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22440, 22 September 1947, Page 6

LIFE PROLONGED

U.N. BALKANS MISSION INQUIRIES FRUSTRATED LONDON, Sept. 18. The United Nations’ Balkan subcommission, decided. by a majority vote, to prolong its own life pending instructions from New York, although the Russian and Polish delegates consider the sub-commission non-existent since the Security Council removed the Greek issue from the agenda, says the Times’ correspondent in Salonika, After a final and useless attempt to cross the frontier to examine alleged Bulgarian assistance to Greek rebels, the sub-commission returned to Salonika.

The Bulgarian Government, abandoning its delaying tactics, bluntly refused to recognise the sub-commis-sion's right to enter Bulgarian territory. Although the sub-commission has been consistently prevented during the past three months from entering the territories of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Albania and so has been unable to complete an investigation of any frontier incident, its presence has not been valueless. It has forced those three countries to furnish, by their non-co-operation, additional strong evidence of their guilt in assisting the rebels in Greece and the sub-commission’s reports have been reproduced in a State Department White Paper on which the United States recommendations to the Assembly will be based. Its presence has also done much to encourage the people and army in Northern Greece to continue to fight the aggressors in the belief that the United Nations is watching their struggle and will eventually come to their assistance.