ISOLATION PLAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27345, 22 March 1950, Page 5

ISOLATION PLAN

Political Offensive Czechoslovak Communists LONDON, Mar. 20. Czechoslovak Communists are preparing for the biggest political offensive since seizing power in February, 1948. This is stated by refugees arriving in Vienna from Prague, says the Vienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. The objective of the offensive is to complete the country’s isolation from the west, and to achieve this the Communists are sealing the 300-mile frontier between Austria by the construction of watch towers with barbed-wire fences and minefields; strengthening frontier control units and security police along the Austrian border; purging all State foreign trade monopolies and Czech business representatives abroad, and intensifying the police watch over all institutions in Czechoslovakia run by Western cultural organisations, including the British Council. A demand for a reduction in the staffs of these organisations, coupled with propaganda aimed at their complete withdrawal, is likely to be launched.

The Czech police are also reported to be preparing for action against opponents of the regime similar to that carried out, last October, when more than 5000 people were imprisoned or sent to forced labour camps.

An Associated Press message from Prague says that 14 Czechs went on trial in Hodonin, Moravia, on charges of murder, of plotting to overthrow the Communist-led regime, and of spying for the American, French and Vatican espionage services. One of the defendants is a Roman Catholic priest accused of trying to organise village revolts by reading a pastoral letter from the nation’s Catholic bishops. According to a message from Vatican City the expelled Vatican envoy to Czechoslovakia, Monsignor Ottavio de Liva, said Archbishop Beran and the bishops will resist “ even to martyrdom in the struggle between Czechoslovakia and the Church. When I saw Archbishop Beran only five days ago he was admirably tranquil and serene in spite of imprisonment for nine months in his Prague palace. He and the bishops are strong and confident.” Monsignor de Liva said he was expelled from Czechoslovakia on “ trumped-up charges based on a tissue of lies and calumnies.”