MASS PROTESTS IN NEW YORK AGAINST “PEACE” CONFERENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27039, 25 March 1949, Page 5

MASS PROTESTS IN NEW YORK AGAINST “PEACE” CONFERENCE

NZPA—Copyright Rec. 10 p.m. NEW YORK. Mar. 23. Patriotic, civic, and ex-service organisations to-day announced plans for a mass protest against the “ world peace ’ conference opening in New New York on Friday under the sponsorship of the United Stales National Council of Arts, Sciences, and Professions, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Stale Department officials have described the conference as a Moscow move to oppose the North Atlantic pact and to further other Soviet aims. Leaders of the move against the conference said the demonstration would have as its slogan: “ Communists are not welcome here. We do not want you. Get out! ” The sponsors said crepe-covered flags of countries behind the Iron Curtain would be carried by refugees “ it is time we took the initiative away from Stalin and his Communists here.” declared Mr Joseph Calderon, a Brooklyn attorney and chairman of the Protesting Committee. “ This will be a move to strike back with a prayer of protest—a prayer that liberation will come soon for Russia’s enslaved millions.” Four Czechs, who were the first of the foreign delegates to arrive, to-day complained of discrimination because their visitors’ permits were limited to

seven days. The delegation spokesman, Jiri Hronek. director of the news section of the Ministry of Information of Czechoslovakia, said its members “ think we shall be able to prove that what is called in this country ‘ the Iron Curtain, does not divide the world but that the world is divided simply into those who foment war and seek war, and those hundreds of millions of human beings throughout the world who want peace.” When asked whether there was a chance of Czechoslovakia returning to a democratic form of government, Hronek replied: “We think there is democracy there now.” Earlier this week the United States Embassies in London and Paris denied visas to three British and three French non-governmental delegates to the “ Peace Congress.” Similar measures were taken against four Italians. State Department officials in Washington declared that the three British delegates had been found “ inadmissable ” according to the immigration laws of the United States. A spokesman said that delegates from Russia and other Iron Curtain countries were being admitted to the United States because they were official delegates of their respective Governments. Those from Britain, France, Italy and Latin America were not official Government delegates.