TWO BRITONS HAVE BEEN CAPTURED BY COMMUNISTS IN TIBET

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 November 1950, Page 5

TWO BRITONS HAVE BEEN CAPTURED BY COMMUNISTS IN TIBET

NEW DELHI, Nov. 6 (Recd. 11pm). —The British Government has protested to Communist China over the capture of two British nationals—Mr. Jeffrey Bull a Scottish missionary, and Robert Ford, a wireless operator, formerly employed by the Tibetan Government—by Chinese troops near Chamdo, a Tibetan fortress 400 miles from Lhasa, according to a reliable source quoted by Reuter’s Kalimpong correspondent.

The protest is understood to have been delivered to Peking by the British Charge d’Affaires. It asked for an explanation of the detention of the two men.

The Chinese Government has asked the Indian Government to withdraw Indian troops stationed at Gyantse and Yatung on the trade route between India and Lhasa, according to a Peking broadcast today. The broadcast said that the Chinese Government expressed the view that it was no longer necessary for Indian troops to remain in these places as Tibet had become ‘‘the sole concern and responsibility of China.” Indian troops are stationed at Hyantse and Yatung under a treaty signed between Britain and Tibet in 1906, and reaffirmed in 1910. The function of the troops is to provide a safe passage for caravans.