FRENCH CRITICISED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 5

FRENCH CRITICISED

BRUTAL TREATMENT IN INDO-CHINA CORRESPONDENT MAKES COMPLAINTS Recd. 8.15 p.m. Saigon, Dec. 20. A French war correspondent has protested to General Le Clerk, commander of the French forces, against the torture and killing of a Tonkinese member of the insurgent Annamese forces. The correspondent says he saw the Tonkinese nearly beaten to death by a French lieutenant, and by a civilian interpreter, for his refusal to answer questions. The Tonkinese, says the correspondent, was then shot by a French sergeant in the presence of French officers. The correspondent says the execution of captured Annamese soldiers who refused to talk is quite an ordinary feature of any French clean-up operation anywhere in southern IndoChina A French armoured patrol made a search for 16 wounded, all or whom were killed. The leader of the patrol said the Annamese were halfdead. anyhow. The correspondent says that official figures which he obtained from reliable French eye-wit-nesses indicated that the French reconquest of Indo-China involves systematic mass slaughter of insurgents. Onlv a few days ago. at the French police headquarters in Cholon (Saigon’s Chinatown) 11 m. surgents were shot without Uiai, and 40 other prisoners were compelled to witness the execution.