Paul Robeson Demands Freedom For Africans NEW YORK — Addressing more than 15,000 cheering Negro and white people in Madison Square Garden last Thursday, the largest meeting ever held in the United States on the issue of freedom for the people of Africa, Paul Robe- son, world-famous singer, actor, and chairman of the Council en African Affairs, urged the American people to demand “Big Three Unity for Colonial Freedom.” American, British and other im- perialist powers were trying to tighten “their control over the peoples of Asia, the Middle East, Hurope and Africa,” thus prepar- ing “another bloody holocaust.” “To win total peace, there must be total freedom,” Robeson told the meeting, called by the Goun- cil on African Affairs to arouse American support for liberating colonial peoples in Africa and throughout the world, and _ for aid to Starving millions in the Union of South Africa. Robeson stated that the “Stop Russia” cry raised by both Brit- ish and American statesmen at the present time, was an effort to “stop the advance of the co- lonial peoples of Asia and Africa toward independence” and to block the forces of progress and democracy in Europe ‘and the PAUL ROBESON let my people 9 go United States. “Stop Russia means—let the privilege few .con- tinue to rule and thrive at the expense of the masses.” He flatly accused the coloniaj rulers of lying in their state- ments that the Africans would not be ready for self-government “in any foreseeable future,” that they had no governments or cul- ture before the Europeans’ arriv- al in Africa, and that Africans Were content to remain in co- lonial bondage. The demonstration that the Soviet Union had given that it is possible “to wipe out colonial- ism and all that that word con- notes, within a single generation,” further explained why the im- perialists cry “Stop Russia!” he said. Other speakers including Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune, chairman of the National Council of Negro Women, Congressman Hugh De- Lacy, Councilman Benjamin J. Davis, Congressman Adam Clay- ton Powell, William S. Gailmor, news analyst, and Etukah Okala, a Nigerian scholar and leader, joined in describing and con- demning the conditions of brutal exploitation and oppression in Af- rica. Repeated specific references were made to the pass laws and color bar evils in the Union of South Africa, and the landless- ness of the people which con- tributed to their starvation there. Both Mr. Robeson and Dr. Max Yergan, the Executive Director of the Council, indicated that the AOSTA ETT For A Successful Jubilee Picnic, Sell Your Tickets AAACN PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2 He declared that full cooperation of labor and all other progressive forces through- out the country would be sought in demanding that the United States and the United Nations act to end the’ “bankrupt, plund- ering and wasteful system” of imperialism. Several Broadway, concert and radio artists, both Negro and white, personally pledged Support to the Council’s” program and there was enthusiastically ap- Plauded entertainment provided by the Katherine Dunham Dance Group and several noted ballad singers including Pete Seesar and Josh White. Resolutions adopted called for specific action by the Union of South. Africa and other imperial-— ist powers including the United States, toward providing full jus- tice, democratic rights and self- determination to the people of Africa. Messages of greeting and sup- port for the meeting were re- ceived from many prominent figures including Jawaharlal Ne- hru, Indian WNaticnal Gon gress leader; Louis Saillant, Secretary- General of the World Federation of Trade UWnions; Dr. R. T. Bok we, Assistant District Surgeon, member of the Council on Afri- can Affairs, and agent of the volunteer African Food Fund, ad- ministering relief in Middledrift, Cape Province, one of the hard- est hit famine regions in the South African Dominion; Dr. A. B. Xuma, President General, Af- Tican National Congress, Johan- nesburg, Wnion of South Africa; Ken Hill, Vice-chairman, ‘Trades Union Congress of Jamaica, Brit- ish West Indies, and U.S. Sena- tor Harley M. Kilgore. Victims Of Fascism These emaciated children of Greece are dwarted and twisted from years of malnu- trition. They are the product of successive fascist regimes inspired by Chamberlain- Churchill-Bevin. Together with food, of the world’s people to rid their countr the anti-fascist democratic people of Greece. clothing and medicine, they need the assistance y of imperialist domination, and return it to i Bevin’s Greek Monarcho-Fascist Government Relies On Terrorism The backing of Bevin’s foreign policy by the recent Labor Party conference in Eng- land does not cancel out the need of a complete reversal of British policies in Greece. The Greek-American Council ing repudiation of the March 31 Greece. The British Labor government “has continued and even intensi- fied the repressive policies of the Churchill government in Greece,” the Council said. It charged that the presence of British troops in Greece “has brought only terror, forwarded a request to chairman of the Labor elections and the withdrawal of British troops from Party, ask- unrest, chaos, and now monarcho- fascism.” The Council called upon the Labor party conference to act “in the interest of world peace, in the interest of friendship be- tween democratic atHies.” LONDON, Eng.—For 30 their correspondent. Within three days of applica- tion, after hasty preparations and inoculation with small doses of cholera, typhoid, para-typhoid, smallpox and everything short of leprosy, I placed my infected body in the plane for Delhi. “INTRODUCTION TO EGYPT” Maita—(we had an hour’s stop at the airport)—-was only a brief vision of yellow brick, blue sky and hot sun. Sardinia revealed it- self exactly aS in a map. With Cairo, the East, or rather colon- jalism, first became ‘visible. The passengers used the brief hours of our stay to depart'on a hasty looting expedition Known as shop- ping. As we flew over Egypt the Kindly British Overseas Airways Corp. placed in our hands an illustrated booklet entitled In- troduction to Egypt, with much reading matter, This contained useful points for the Indian ne- gotiations. The booklet reminded us how on Feb. 28, 1922, Britain proclaimed Egypt an “independent sovereign state” but that “the fol- lowing matters are absolutely re- Served to the discretion of His Majesty’s Government: (1) secur- ity of communications of the British and Egyptian; (2) defense of Egypt; (3) protection of for- eign interests in Egypt; (4) pro- tection of minorities: (5) the Su- dan.” The booklet continues, “Hsypt did not accept the policy,” but under British martial law “Fuad none was necessary before 1914) has Now when the Cabinet Missions left for India an of the day, it was clearly at last a favor I welcomed the proposal of the Londo By R. PALME DUTT India Revisited: Notes From The Diary Of A Great Indian Leader years Ny passport (in fact, ever since [I had one, since been marked “Not valid for the British Empire.” d a “good atmosphere” was the order able opportunity to visit India, and accordingly n Daily Worker to go there for a short space as was proclaimed King of Egypt and a constitution imposed. Bri- tish martial law was maintained till August, 1923. Thus Egypt be- came “independent.” BASRA AND KARACHI Basra was only a short glimpse of an RAF station bookstall with Pin-up girls and steak-pie for lunch under a broiling sun. By. night we arrived at Karachi, and I set foot on Indian soil in sultry darkness. Sweepers, small figures with pinched, elderly-looking faces and legs like thin sticks, were end- lessly engaged in sweeping up the limitless shifting sand and dust with minute carpet-brushes. The colossal waste of labor, al- ready visible at Cairo, reaches fantastic heights in India. The night was spent in a hotel rather like the medieval inn op- ening on a courtyard, with each room reached directly through through the courtyard on the ver- anda followed by the inner room and behind this a stone bath- room, The rich warm night was strewn with noises; erickets,; Singing beetles, frogs, human singing, early birds. By 6 a.m. visitors were at the door; journalists and a delega- tion of the Sind Provincial Par- ty—my first meeting with Indian Communists in India. I sent a cable of greeting to Mr. Gandhi. The clerk, on seeing my name, asked me if it was I who had fought Amery in the election and expressed at once the most demonstrative welcome as Soon as f admitted this. The fight against Amery appears to have struck the imagination of ‘wide numbers in India and proved a kind .of open sesame ‘wherever I went. DELHI A short three-hour flight brought us from Karachi to Del- hi by noon, mainly. over the vast spaces of Rajputana. As EI look- ed down at the brown waste be- low, a fellow-passenger drew my attention to the unending regu- larly-spaced little elusters of black specks on the brown, and explained these were villages and that the people extracted a liv- ing somehow from this barren ground. Descending from the plane at the airport I found an array of Ted flags. Some 100 Delhi com- rades had trudged the 10 miles to the airport to meet me and, according to the traditional fash- ion, to garland me with flowers. Quarters were arranged for me at Pataudi House, the govern- ment hostel for pressmen and minor officials. = Service there is provided with the habitual disregard of man- power. A dhobi, or wasSherman, receives the dirty linen, solemnly counted out te him by the bearer; the A wave of protests from all progressive organizations this week brought about slight modi- fication of a government decree outlawing all trade union rights and other democratic’ liberties. The decree still provides the death penalty for “moral auth- ors” of action against the state. it suspends the right of accused persons to a trial and would al low people to be jailed indefinitely without charges. The two provisions which the government was forced to with- draw ordered a minimum of five years in jail for strikers in pub- lie utilities and empowered police to search any house or office without a warrant. The decree was termed a “revival of fas- cism” by the Greelx General Gon- federation of Labor. The present Greek government was brought into power in the Mareh 31 elections, which ‘were boycotted by trade unions and other democratic Sroups because electoral lists were false and Widespread terrorism by reaction- aries Made honest voting impos- sible. The elections were held at the insistence of the British goy- ernment, which still has troops in Greece to “maintain order.” The British delegation of Labor members of parliament which has Just returned from a visit to Greece has recently issued a Statement exposing the phoney elections and the regime of ter- ror now unloosed as a result of monarchist-fascists election “vie tory.” Regardless of the official “endorsation” of Bevin’s foreign policy by the recent Labor Party conference in England, scores of big British trade unions and 1lo- cal labor parties are unanimous in their condemnation of the Greek monarcho-fascist govern-= ment. Same afternoon I can see them drying in the sun and return beautifully fresh by, the evening. When i expressed to a fellow guest, a senior official, surprise at this fantastic waste of man- power in a country desperately in need of increased production, he hblandly informed me that there was so much Over-popula- tion in India that otherwise they would have nothing to do. Qn phoning my old friend Shiva (Continued on Page 8) See INDIA ERIDAY, JUNE 21, 1946