U.S. DRAGNET OUT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 5

U.S. DRAGNET OUT

KOREAN _RIOTERS TRIAL BY ARMY COURTS JAPANESE LAW DEFIED {N.Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright.) (10 a.m.) TOKYO. April 27. Lieut.-General Robert Eichelberger, commander of the American Eighth Army, said that the ringleaders of the Koreans' riot in Kobe and Osaka will be tried In provost courts and by military commissions instead of Japanese courts. In November, 1949, General MacArthur ordered all Koreans In Japan to obey the Japanese law. In line with this the Japanese insisted that Koreans

attend Japanese schools or bring their own schools into line with the Japanese law. The Koreans Insisted that their liberation “from Japanese oppression” put them outside the law. They ran their own schools, teaching the Korean language and history. The Eighth Army announced late today that a dragnet had been thrown around Kobe and the adjacent areas. The army spokesman said that Japanese police and American military policemen would continue the round-up until it was certain that all persons responsible for the destruction of the Kobe Prefectural Governor’s office on Saturday had been arrested. No casualties had been suffered in the round-up and resistance has been negligible. By nightfall 1152 Koreans had been arrested in Kobe. Most of the demonstrators in Osaka and Kobe had been dispersed. The situation has now quietened.