VIOLENT ATTACK ON FRANCO

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23315, 26 September 1945, Page 5

VIOLENT ATTACK ON FRANCO

Fawning Satellite Of | Dictators Laski Broadcasts By Telegraph—N.Z Press Assn Copyright LONDON, Sept. 24. A violent attack on General Franco, whom he described as a “fawning satellite of Hitler and Mussolini," was made by Professor Harold Laski (president of the Labour Party) in a broadcast to the United States. Professor Laski demanded the withdrawal of official recognition of the Franco regime, and declared that but for the dishonest Anglo-American, policy of non-intervention, the Spanish Republic would still be in power today.

Professor Laski, who emphasised that he was speaking purely in a personal capacity, broadcast over the American Broadcasting Company's network.

“Our peoples did not make immense sacrifices in this war to perpetuate either a tyrant like Franco, or an unedifying, mythologist like a Vatican-sponsored King of Spain hastily trying to learn the vocabulary of the four freedoms,” said Professor Laski. “It was the fear of putting arms in the hands of the Spanish people, and not good will, which kept Spain formally neutral during th£ war. I do not share the view of those who think we should be grateful because at a critical time Franco did not complicate our strategic problems in the Mediterranean. He was neutral because he was afraid, but at a nod from his Nazi-Fascist masters he would have laid Spain at their feet. “The cause of Republican Spain has come to be to this generation what the liberation of the Russian people was in

the harsh days of Czarist tyranny," the speaker continued. “Anglo-American statesmen, who must know that Hitler and Mussolini were preparing Spain as a theatre of experiment for a second world war, timidly and hypocritically allowed the Spanish people to be crucified in the service of appeasement. The grim struggle of the second world war ended in victory, but executions in Spain still continued on a massive scale. Freedom-loving supporters of the Republic are still imprisoned and tortured." Giving a warning that a continuance of the Franco regime must inevitably lead to a new and more barbarous war, Professor Laski appealed to the United Nations to aid Republicans to overthrow Franco. The General Executive Council of the Transport and General Workers’ Union passed a resolution demanding the breaking off of all trading and diplomatic relations with the France regime in Spain, whose continued existence constituted “a menace to the security of the people of Europe.”