STAND BY POLES

Grey River Argus, 17 February 1945, Page 3

STAND BY POLES

AGAINST BIG THREE Army Alleges 7 Decisions ROME, Feb. 15. General Anders, the Commander of the Second Polish Corps, said that the Polish troops in Italy had sent, a message to the President of L’oland informing him that the Second Corps refuses to recognise the “one-sided Crimea decision.” General Anders called on the troops to maintain discipline and morale. The Army newspaper publishes a statement by General Anders that the Polish soldiers do not recognise the decision of the Crimea conference, recognising the Lublin regime as a Provisional Polish Government, aiso the Curzon Line as the Eastern Polish boundary. General Anders says: “During the tragic moment for Poland through which we are living we can never recognise unilateral decisions. The conception of freedom, honour, liberty, and justice is one for all civilised nations, and for these sacred ideals we have already shed a sea of blood. Nobody can deviate the Polish nation or her soldiers from their chosen road of honour and struggle for unadulterated independence and democracy.” PARTITION OF COUNTRY OPPOSED “NO SURRENDER, TO SLAVERY” PREMIER’S STATEMENT IN LONDON LONDON, Feb. 15. Mr Arciszewski, Polish Prime Minister in London, to-day, re-affirmed his Government’s refusal to accept the Crimea decision on Poland. Addressing a F’ress conference, he said: “We shall never surrender to slavery and the new partition of Poland made at the same time by our Allies.” The Premier added that he could not. believe there would be any Poles in London who would go to Poland to create a new Government with the Lublin' Committee. Asked if the Government proposed to do anything except “sit in London and talk,” Premier Arciszewski replied: “There are important forces lighting on land, on the sea and in the air under the Government’s orders, and that is more than talking.”

He added: “The F'ofish nation does not believe in the words of Russia when she promises a form of democracy for Poland. We are waiting for the words to be put into practice not for promises. We hope that the free citizens of Britain and America will not believe the sincerity of these words until they are put into practice. If the people of .Britain and America believe them they might be disillusioned in the very near future.” The Premier concluded that the Government could not resign as a result of any outside decision. That would amount to accepting dismissal from foreign hands. GENERAL SMUTS’ VERSION. (Rec. 11.40). CAPETOWN, Feb. 16'. In the South African Union Assembly, during a debate, Doctor Malan referred to the case of Poland, when citing the Curzon Line agreement at: Yalta, lie attacked the Crimea declaration as being betrayal of the Mlantic Charter. General Smuts, in reply to Dr. Ma lan, vigorously’ defended the Crime?. conference decision on Poland. He said: The Curzon Lin e was a frontier carefully negotiated by a peace conference 25 years ago as Poland’s natural eastern boundary. Marshal Pilsudski, the Polish leader, however, was not satisfied with Poland’s borders, and seized a great part of White Russia, territory that is now being contested. He also occupied part of Lithuania. Th e Great Powers to-day have said in effect: "Back to the Curzon Line”. Things that went wrong after the last, peace conference are now being rectified.

Italy’s Hardships IGNORED BY “BIG THREE” (Rec 10.10) LONDON. Feb. 15 The Yalta declaration of the “Big Three” made no reference to Italy and her problems. The “Times’s” Rome correspondent says: “The obscene from any specific reference to \ Italv and to her problems has created surprise and disapointment and

even bitterness among many of the Italians. The Rome paper “11 Popoio* commented: “Tnfifc remains the permanent absurdity of a nation which is, at one and the same time, vanquished. and a co-beiligerenr. with the victor.' The case of a people who carry together with the permanent burdens of defeat, those burdens of a new war at the victor’s side l is certainly rare in history. Our Italian prisoners of war do not return. Supplies for us are still under consideration. Yet our fight is against the same enemy, and Italian “are dying for the same cause.”