YUGOSLAV COUP D'ETAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20152, 12 January 1929, Page 11

YUGOSLAV COUP D'ETAT.

REGIME MEANT TO EAST. CROAT LEADER INCENSED. PRIME MINISTER'S STATEMENT. Australian anil N.Z. Press Association. (Received January 11, 7.5 p.m.) BELGRADE. Jan. 11. General Zivkovitch, tho new Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, in an interview with the representative of the Daily Express, said: —"The country will return to a parliamentary regime the moment our particular job is finished." When asked whether the present regime was a permanent absolutism, a military dictatorship, or Fascism, he replied:—"lt is' neither. Tho King has done only what Croats and Serbs, alike have been demanding. They all said: 'Let the King act, only the King can save tho situation.' "Well, the King has acted. He has selected men devoted to the State, with clean political records, to form a neutral reforming Government." Dr. Matchek, leader of the Croat Peasant Party, in an interview published in a Budapest newspaper, denounces as sheer lies the statement that the new regime is welcomed' in Croatia. "We know well that the dictatorship will not be short-lived. On the contrary, it will last. Its purpose is to attain the Serbisation of the Croats, which other means failed to attain." "We demanded satisfaction for the murder of M. Raditch in Parliament last June. Instead, 'we have got a dictatorship, which will result in the annihilation of the Croat spirit." The Berlin Tageblatt's Belgrade correspondent, in a message to his paper, says the Ministers confirm the statement that the present situation will last for several years. The Government is working out a programme. There is no question of reorganising \ ugoslavia on a federal basis, and certainly there will be no restoration of a Croatian State. With the exception of messages inspired or approved by the Government, no news has been received to-day in London either from Belgrade or Zagreb. General Petar Zivkovitch was born in 1879 at Negotin, in Serbia. lie was at the Belgrade Military Academy. Ho commanded the Royal Guards, and was during the war the commander of a division of cavalry. He was actingPrime Minister in January, 1928, but did not retain the position long.