BROKEN PACT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1939, Page 8

BROKEN PACT

SECRET DEAL BY ITALY ARMS FOR ISLANDS. NAVAL BASES IN RED SEA. Large supplies of arms are being sent as gifts by Italy to the Imam Yahya, ruler of the Yemen—the southern end of the .Red Sea coast of Arabia, writes Mr W. N. Ewer, diplomatic correspondent of an English paper. In return Italy is being granted virtual control of a number of strategically important islands along the coast. Signor Mussolini is thus treating the Anglo-Italian Agreement, only a few months old, with scant respect. By one I of its most important clauses, the Italian Government pledged itself not to seek to obtain a privileged position of a political character in the Yemen. Much endeavour has been made to keep Italy’s activities secret. But reports of them have been reaching authoritative quarters in London for some time, and are being very carefully studied. The first detailed news comes today, however, from our Damascus correspondent—news based on reliable information brought to him from the spot. Arms and ammunition, he says, have been coming for weeks into the Yemen through the port of Hodeida, on the Red Sea. Owners of motor lorries, camels —even donkeys—have been forced to lend them without payment to the Yemenite Sultan, the Imam Yahya, for the transport of these consignments to Saana, the capital. Some of the arms formerly belonged to the Ethiopian army. Others, both new and secondhand, are of European manufacture. At least one consignment is known to be of Japanese origin. They have been discharged at Hodeida from Italian and German boats. The object, it is stated, is to construct small naval bases, or to make preparations for their construction at a later date. j Approach to the islands over which the Italians have been given special rights is strongly discouraged. But pearl fishermen declare that engineers and workmen have disembarked, and materials unloaded from Italian ships. Some, of the islands arc believed tc be oil-bearing. German engineers sank wells on them before the war, and the Italians are taking up the search again. Italy, the first European Power formally to recognise the independence of the Yemen and the sovereign title of the Imam, concluded a new treaty of friendship with it in 1936. Mussolini then presented the Imam with two tanks, anti-aircraft guns and 25,000 rifles. While Italian influence is uppermos.’ diplomatically at Saana, commercial influence is rapidly passing into the hands of Germans. The trade hitheric conducted from the British port of Aden is being ousted by German trade through Hodeida. Officially. Yemen’s relations with 1 Britain and France are cordial, and the : Yemenite Crown Prince, Seif-ul-Islam. ! is now in London as one of the Arab representatives at the conference on Palestine. 1 When, however, a representative of - the British Governor at Aden recently sought an interview with the Imam * regarding the status of Shabwa. an in- ! dependent territory near the Had- ' hramaut-Yemen border, it was not granted. 1 British air and land forces were la- I ter sent to Shabwa, and the Yemenite 1 troops who had occupied it withdrew. ;