COMMUNISTS IN KOREA LOSE IMPORTANT PORT

Grey River Argus, 29 October 1948, Page 5

COMMUNISTS IN KOREA LOSE IMPORTANT PORT

(Rec. 8.30). SEOUL, October 28. The South Korean Government’s forces captured the port of Yostt today. This appears to have broken the back of the Communist-led revolt. Bands of rebels are still resisting in the hills, but the loss of Yosu has robbed them of a rallying point. It was at Yosu that the army mutiny touched off the revolt on October 20. Air observers reported that one-quarter of Yosu, which has a population of seventy thousand, appeared to be burnt.

NEARLY 600 SLAIN

NEW YORK, October 26

Over 500 civilians and 60 police were slain at Suncheon, Korea, in a four-day reign of terror by 2000 mutineous soldiers of the new South Korean Army. says the HeraldTribune’s Far Eastern correspondent in a dispatch from Suncheon, dated October 2-1. The troops, led by Communist plotters, began the massacre on October 20, looting stores, banks, hotels and homes, and murdering men, women and children indiscriminately. “Driven from the city by loyal troops, the rebels took to the hills, without loss of personnel and with large stores of munitions,” the correspondent says. “Loyalists captured 180 rebels. The entire Fourteenth Regiment of the South Korean Army took part in the Red terror. Many of the soldiers are from farms and inherit a strong hatred for the police and rice collectors, and so they are fertile ground for Communist agitation.

CHAMBER OF HORRORS “This citv, the name of which in English would bq ‘peaceful haven’ is as grim a chamber of horrors as a man could imagine, with bulletriddled corpses lying in the streets while m'ief-crazed women go weeping in search of the slain men of their families. “The city is a wreck. One of the tion.” . first sights that met the eyes of American correspondents i eacning Suncheon was a rifle squad of executioners standing over their fallen enemies An American Presbyterian Mission School was seized by the Communists and badly damaged. It had the Red Flag flying over it for two days. Two other flags waved over the city during the days of terror. they were the flags of the North Korean People’s Republic, sponsored by Russia, and the South Korean Labom Party, which is a Communist crea-

Roumania Recognises Korean People’s Govt.

(Rec. 10.10) LONDON, Oct. 28 The Bucharest radio announced that the Rumanian Government will recognise the People’s Government of Korea, and will establish diplomatic relations with it.