167
Enclosures
on 5Q2 9/4841/52
9/4841/52 Refer. 175)
AMMEX
The Blackboard Incident
As you know some of the villagers on the Chinose side of the border possess fields on 'our side of tho border and the villagers are allowed to come und go Frcely in order to work them. On 2nd October a European police inspector was patrolling on foot the frontier
patroll village. opposite Lo Fong (
In one of the
fields cultivated by Lo Fong village he cumo across a blackboard on which was written:
"Listen to Chairman Mao's Taving
All reactionaries are "Paper Tigers", The reactionarios seen to be dreadful from their appearance, but in fuco, their strength weighs little. Viowing further of ti o question, the real mighty strength does not belong ve the reactionaries, but belongs to the People. American Reporter Anny Lewis says,)"
(as the
Perhaps unwisely he took this down and subsequently a delegation from the villago visited Ta Ku Ling Police Station to protest. This they did vociferously and at one point were told to shut up not unnaturally by the inspector, They demanded the replacement of the blacktbound and that the police inspector be punished. When they learned that photographs had been taken of the blackbourü they demanded not only the return of the photographs but also the negatives. After a rood deal of hard thinking here it was docidol that de wo had port.aps blundered by taking the blackboard in the first place we cught to concedo a point by retuming the blackborzi, photographs and the negatives and to give the assurance that would be usual in such a case involving a Hong Kong citizen and the Police thut the complaint against tlo Police was being examined. As a first step the blackboard was replaced but the villapers were still unhappy, particularly (bout the investigations of the case against the Police. On 7th October urrungements were made for another European inspector to mect villagers of Lo Fong village. This he did and handed over the 20ll of undeveloped film and a letter explaining that the original incident had resulted from a misunderstanding. The atmosphere at this mocting was, in contrast to the earlier moeting, most civilised: there was no shouting or speaking out of turn. The inspector was informed that they wore
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