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IN
THE CHINA MAID WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1960.
JOY FADES IN
GUINEA
this Guinea Republic of 3,000,000 Africans who chose freedom from France the songs of jubilation have been hushed. They were hushed by a stern call from Marxist President Sekou Toure for "confidence and vigilance."
Here in the sweltering capital of Conakry, as the rain lashes juicy green mangoes from the trees, there is talk today of ex- pulsion, arrests, torture, and death.
There are official figures available, with names-19 com demed to death. one French- man sentenced to 20 years. another 10 15 years. and 21 Guineans
each.
to Ave years
Ten released.
for
But and I have President Selou Toure's own word It-more than 100 people have been arrested.
Suspicion
There has been no mention of the other 50 or more who were Interrogated and not released
All were arrested on suspicion of plotting with the French to overthrow the Government after arros
found along the WALTU
borders of neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast.
CONAKRY
GUINEA
ENEGAL
'MILES $200)
Loudon Express Service
director who is now Minister of National Defence and Security,
Fodoba Reita.
Ready to help in directing his orceste-and interrogations.
The plot of some kind and by someone--has been proved.
The arms including Mauser guns, grenades, explosives, am-
In the political purge. Inno- munition, pistols, Bren guns, and Sten guns are now an show.cents were arrested along with and racketeers In petty criminals yard
and political opponents of this
Rackets
the railway Dear Conakry,
Looking on with smiles are one-party regime.
and 200 Communist advisers technicians (Russians, Czechs, Chinese, Poles. Hungarians, and East Germans) who have moved ilo this impoverished West African land of Guinea which is the focal point for Communist penetration into Africa.
Six Czechs are attached to the Immigration and Security Departments, They are ready
to
help the former
LAND
REPORTER ARTHUR CHESWORTH probes the mystery of an arms plot in Guinea, the new land in Africa now a target for the Reds.
-CONAKRY-
Bet without declaring it to the attractive French woman of 31
years, authorities.
dressed in black - Madame Dru Toure.
And 21 Guineens who, the people's court accepted, did not know what they were doing, received five years each.
The unlikely leaders of the plot in Conakry were named as Sald 45-year-old Lebanese, Chaoul, ex-convict, racketeer, and forger, and an outspoken M.P. named Ibrahim Diallo.
Both are now deed. It was announced that the Lebanese hanged himself in his cell.
Wis
Arrested
was
As for Diallo-his Dutch wife
simply told that he dead. She left for Paris.
There has been no official news of the other condemned men or of prisoners interrogated by the military.
I saw her for five minutes in a small side office at the bank. She I told her who I was. answered my questions.
Her Guinean husband Founde
20 Toure
and an WAL agricultural engineer.
They had been in Guinea only six weeks when at 2 a.m. on April 21 five police officers came to their apartment and bundied her husband into a 'car.
She was not allowed to ser him again until she was taken te his bedside in a Conakry hospital on the night of May 8. Je WIS
liver dead. From trouble, she was told.
Were there signs of beating or torture?
Madame Toure shrugged, and said: "I did not see his body.
Bul there are reports that live prisoners have been tor- (ured to death. Reports that was covered with a sheet up
to his nock, I could not see Diallo died under his face because my eyes were Chaoul and
That other prisoners led with tears." torture. have been released declared innocent--and have since died.
These reports have come from the French now hopping
Guard dogs
THE WIFE is Anne Marie She and Rossignol, aged 40. her husband Pierre
come to Conakry in 1953. They owned six shops.
LA
WEDNESDAY SPOTLIGHT by Cummings
Cummings
"BUTTERFINGERS"
WORLD
LEADERSHIP
London Express. Bervice.
SHOULD THE PRINCESS
NOW WITHDRAW FROM
AST week a married couple returned to Britain from their honeymoon; a couple whose wed- ding was celebrated with unaffected public re- joicing.
The general wish was more than usually sincere: "Long life and happiness."
But who exactly returned to Mrs Britam? Was it Mr and
home at the rate of 60 to 100 a week. They are forbidden to take any money or property.
There are three people In falk facts Conday who can -with
widow. authority: a wife, and friend of three
Armarong Jones? Or was a
her Royal Highness Princess arrested men.
Margaret, escorted by a dutiful husband?
All were hauled before a people's court --- made up of M.P. trade union leaders. and leaders of the National Youth Movement. There were no de-a fence lawyers,
Among those sentenced were 40-year-old French chemist Pierre Rossignol. He got a 20-
ballel year sentence for owning a radio
a
and
Her husband
was sentenced
to 20 years for not declaring their radio.
Palace;"
31
I am the first reporter to find
The six shops have now been and lerview these people.
THE WIDOW was married to taken over by the Government.
We can be sure that these Guinean. He was arrested.
In her bungalow home. twe questions are being debated be- found innocent by the people's
Alsatians are on guardhind the scenes, tribunal, but died.
Madame Rossignol told me: "My They are being debated by I found her working as o
being cashier at the Bank of Guinea husband is innocent. He is in what is called loosely the the military prison at Kindia
They are in
1 Gow him for five minutes in debated by conscientious social the presence of the governor." observers. Perhaps they are THE FRIEND Look, me to his even being debated occasional- ly by the honeymoon couple home to talk of the case of a
themselves. 22-year-old Frenchman, Guy Fagneux, the under-manager of Chargeurs Reannis, a large shipping firms.
Conakry. A dark
Death-defying dives for
Malaya jungle forts
As
S another decade in the stratosphere is assured for the Royal Air Force by the Skybolt order, its pilots are showing a skill in low-level opera-
tional flying that has not been surpassed.
Among the squadrons engaged
in the last stages of the cam- paign against the Communist gueras in Malaya this is known as "Olde Tyme Flying" or flying by the seat of your pants."
TOM POCOCK
By TOM
These Biggles-like feats are be thrown about like fighters, being performed by the crews Twisting and turning among the of "workhorse". transport peaks and razor-backs, the giant airplanes Volettas, Pioneers jungle trees often only a few and helicopters.
feet from their wingtips.
Jungle kit
pilots must be trained. instructors face a nerve-racking ordeal.
"These Pioneers have not got dual controls," explained one, "so you just stand behind your
Fagneux was Hrrested on P March 13. He is still held in a the military camp. Not even French Embassy knows why.
President Sekou Toure, just back from a trip to the interior in hi Russian helicopter received me at his palace,
These two must ultimately find the answers. But others can help them to find them. The questions are important, the answers even more so, For the answers will affect the happiness of two young people.
Temptation
Did he accuse France directly There will be a temptation in of plotting against his Govern- same quarters to say that there ment? He replied: "Yes, We are no questions and that, there- shall produce a White Paper and fore, no answers are necessary. give details."
Was he satic-The marriage, it will be sug- fled that all those sentenced. [or gested, has changed nothing so ingence, the French chemist far as the Princess is concerned. Rossignol, were implicated in A plot?
Sekou
Toure smiled and Their said: "It is impossible to say that a judgment or a trial is perfectly just because it reflects a law made by men or the sentiments of a people."
As I left his room I noticed that along the corridor, sitting patiently and quietly by herself, was Madame Rossignol.
Once again she had, come to ask President Toure if she might see her husband.
supplies 10 Commonwealth A Valetta in which I flew was pupil while he makes his land to drop aviation fuel for heli- . They are keen lads, but copters to For: Chabal deep in jungle landings are the most
direy there are."
Their task is to parachute Brigade patrols and police forts deep in the jungle on the Siamese border; to land on tiny jungle airstrips; and to evacuate wounded soldiers from hostily cleared landing zones.
Razor-backs
On a recent visit to the Far East Air Force I was able to see fying which would ence have been thought impossible.
On a typical morning, beture the thunderheads have
started
to boil up out of the cumulus
jungle valley. The pilot's notes on the drop read: "Approaches in either direction are obstruct- ed by high ground.... Start turning to port when almost adjacent to goal-pust trees on top of ridge.... Descend sharp- ly when ridge is passed."
The pilot suggested that it might be simpler to nail sign- posts to the trees.
runs are
On this drop seven over the mountains, fat Valett; made as the young Royal Army transports the militory version Service Corps dispatchers - armed, and dressed in jungle kit of the Viking airlines-ke off
from Kuala Lumpur airfield in case of a crash-manhandle bound for the jungle forts.
Sometimes the forts and tiny airstrips can be seen in jungle clearings. Sometimes there is nothing to see but a thin column of smoke and an orange balloon above the massed trees.
Before parachuting supplies to mountain forts the Valettas must
TALKING
POINTS
the huge packs out of the door. As the Voletta ewoops down the narrow valleys in the hot, joling air the pilet dives his airplane on the Port like a ghter-bomber, soaring away on the shout "Pack away!"
RAF helicopter pilots operat- ing from the Australian base at. Butterworth, near Penang, per- form extraordinary feats. They fly patrols into and casuallies out of, primary jungle where the trees are usually 2006. high. sometimes 30011.
Novice pilots
A helicopter landing-ground is meant to be minimum of 50 yards in diameter, but often it
London, that great cess-is less and the pilots have to fy
the
pool into which all loungers of the Empire are Irresistibly drained.
-CONAN DOYLE.
down narrow chimneys an ex- perlerice, said one, "not unlike taking a lift from the third floor of Harrods to street level,"
The only airplanes capable of landing on jungle, airstrips are light Pioneers which, their crews Life without industry 18 boast, they have made them- eclves "from the backs of cereal Usually these airstrips packets," Bre only 200 yards long, some- times luss.
guill.
---RUSKIN.
There has never been a statue in honour of-a-
SIBELIUS.
Even the most blase and hardened RA pilots admit that
Aying
calle: fog was highest degree of airmanship. Most of them are veteran, aome of them Pleasure is the greatest top light pilots from the
bcentive to svil
PLATO
V-bomber force.
At present most of the piloti ore-Baltisku, -but-young Malay
-(London Express Service).
-London Express Service).
provided her with an Income of £15,000 a year. She will wish to earn it.
Moreover though the routine is exhausting, everyone feels the attraction of performing a ceremonial role. Even the Prime Minister, despite the heavy burdens of office, sought and welcomed the glamour of being Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
Every mayor. every magis- trate, every member of Parlia ment feels his personality en- hanced because of the position which he holds.
Ne
As one is immune.
I walked in the front rank of the archers from Aldermaston to
PUBLIC LIFE?
on, I caught myself think- ing: "Now ! an important. eighed down with responsi bilty, I'must walk"with"grave (?) step and bent brows.
Fortunately the feeling passed.
BOOR
We can recognise the induce- ments which may make Princess Margaret wish to continue in the life for which she has been trained, Yet we may also think that any such wish would be
mistaken.
Marriage is the great decision which changes the life of any- one who makes it.
Not immune
From
She will now have her own house. She will have, as she her Own has always had,
this rule Princess circle of friends,
But she will resume her Margaret is not immune, What- public life. She will continue ever other duties she may have, to inspect rallies of Girl Guides; one is paramount: The duty to to open municipal buildings; to marriage itself and to all that visit factories and universities. this implies. Perhaps in time she will become Governor of some Colony in our still far-flung Empire.
By A. J. P. TAYLOR
The days are long past when Marriage is now a partnership. be great gain from the point of a woman lost all individuality But so far as public life goes, view of Moustarchy itself. In # on marriage and was eclipsed the hurbed remains the senior sciety which is becoming in- The Princess herself may well by her husband. But the days partner. So, too, it should be creasingly democratic, the more incline to this view. She has a have not come, and never will with Mr and Mrs Armstrong- the Murchy adapts itself to high sense of her duty and of come when things are
the Jones, position. Parliament has other way round.
her
24-HOUR DISPERSAL SHIFT-BY JAK
yours not only the Russians don't know wĨ
This is by no means the first lime that members of the Royal Family have married outside the royal circle. But all previous marriages have been to mem- bens of the aristocracy, who en- joyed a high standing in county society.
more
The married Princess stepped down. But only to become the
lady in : a greatest restricted territory. She could still enjoy glamour and au- thority by the side of her bus- band.
A commoner
this the better for us all
The victory.
Some people talk of the magle. of Monarchy, a quality which would be tarnished by the light of common day.
They are wrong, Monarchy depends on respect; not ́ ́on magic. It is an instituțion of rood sense, not of mystery. Nothing on strengthen the Monarchy more than for a Princess to IHETTY '1- ^ CQ03- moter anıd make a suOCESS of it.
We can go further. The hap- Mr Armstrong-Jones is dit piness of individual bazan ferent, A real commoner, not beings is more important than merely a scion of aristocracy any institution, however great who does not happen to possess and historic that institution may a title. He has no county con be nections, no place in the country The crowds who rejoiced at to which he can withdraw. the wedding of the Princess No one would suggest that we were rejoicing, however uncon- should follow
The Swedish sciously, at the victory of this example, where a member of principle. She bad put privele the royal family who married happiness first. And this was as a commoner renounces his rank it should be. and becomes a commoner him- self.
No demands
Princess Margaret will re- raina Boyal Highness with all the respect and standing
This daring experiment will which this implies. But her life, to be successful, should succeed only if it continues as it be that of a commoner, with began, Princess Margaret should become, Mrs" Armstrong-Jones drawn from public affairs. There will be sacrifice here. This will bring happiness to her without compromise or regret. Sacrifice of pride when the and content to us.
bright lights 'cease to play. For we too have an oblign= Sacrifice perhaps from the
tion. As the Princess withdraws
financial point of view. (At present, no doubt, most of Into private life we should re- her. Income escapes tar and cogniae her choice, and support her in it. We should cease to comes to her in the form of make demands upon ber, Do tax-free expenser.)
attention.
With fewer public duties, the longer make her the centre of allowances for expenses will be "Any other course will being less But then we should re-conflict and disappointment for member, that the expenses will all concerned, Princess Margaret be less also. So maybe the has made a democratic decision. financial position is not 50 It is for our democracy to con gloomy pos
firm that decision on its OPEL side.
The gains, though less obvious will be wibeizutini There will
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