RED TROOPS OUT OF N. KOREA, SAYS REPATRIATE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22730, 31 August 1948, Page 6

RED TROOPS OUT OF N. KOREA, SAYS REPATRIATE

(From Reuter’s Correspondent.) TOKYO (By Airmail). Almost all Soviet troops have been withdrawn from North Korea, a recent repatriate from the Soviet zone told the Japanese press. The Korean People’s Army, equipped with Soviet weapons, were first-class troops, said the repatriate, who until recently was chief of the accounting department of the North Korea Japanese Technicians’ League. With the People's Army firmly established, most Soviet forces had been withdrawn, and the Soviet forces did not interfere with administrative matters concerning the North Korean force. Early in the occupation supervisors were attached to all Govern-ment-controlled industrial workshops and the railways were under their direct control. However, most of the Russians had now been evacuated. “The general feeling of the Koreans toward the Soviet Union is not unfavourable,” he said. Great emphasis had been placed on political education. Every day workshops held meetings where workers were instructed on current political problems. “Freedom of political activity is also admitted,” the repatriate said, but he did not specify to what degree. .He named the North Korea Labour Party, the Korean Democratic Party and the Young Friends’ Party (all of which are described in South Korea as Communist organisations), as the three officially-recognised political parties. Men and women over 18 were expected to be affiliated with one of these parties.