CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ORDERED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27080, 14 May 1949, Page 7

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ORDERED

New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Re c. 11 p.m. LONDON, May 13. Tripolitania’s 700,000 Arabs were told to start a campaign of civil disobedience against the British administration, says the Tripoli correspondent of the Daily Mail. British troops have been v confined to barracks and tanks are patrolling the streets. The Arabs are protesting against the agreement between the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin, and the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Sforza, under which Tripolitania will be returned to the Italians in 1951.

The United States Consulate in Tripoli informed the State Department “that there will be a peaceful civil revolution ” and non-collaboration with the British administration in Tripolitania if Britain continues a policy “ which will throw the Tripolitanian people into the hands of Italian execution.”

The State Department said the consul received a letter to that effect signed by , the Mufti of Libya, the president and vice-president of the Liberation Committee, the Grand Cadi of Tripoli City, and four prominent Arab merchants. The letter was delivered to the Consulate by an Arab judge following an Arab general strike yesterday in which the United States flag was tom from the United States Consulate. The letter , said: “As Britain has abandoned the people of Tripolitania at the last moment and as the people have seen that the hopes they placed in the belief that Britain would be at the side of a weak country have vanished, they have decided not to cooperate in any way with the British administration in Tripolitania and see themselves obliged to declare a peaceful civil revolution if Britain does not change its policy. “Also, the Tripolitanian people see themselves obliged, in the face of British opposition, to take all decisions necessary to defend themselves and the cause of Tripolitania.” The State Department said Arab unrest had arisen from a recommendation by the United Nations Sub-com-mittee that Tripolitania should be placed under Italian trusteeship by the end of 1951.