unloaded a truckload of poison gas in Santo Domingo May 14. Asked whether the American occupation forces intended to use poison gas, General John J. Bouker replied that he was not in position to say.
NEW REPRESSION IN IRAN
[The following is a translation of a statement issued by the "League of Iranian Socialists in Europe.’ The original title is "A New Provocation." ]
On Wednesday April 28 the Iranian government announced officially that six young engineers, who had recently finished their studies in Britain, had been arrested under accusation of having participated in an attempt to murder the Shah at his Teheran palace.
The communiqué added that "the above-named persons have con=fessed to preparation of subversive activities and of being in contact with a foreign center for this purpose." The same statement also alleges that "books from the Chinese Communist propaganda apparatus, as well as works by Mao Tse-tung [have been found] in the homes of the above-named persons."
Only naive persons, who are not informed about the true situation in Iran, can believe this antinational and criminal government release, All those aware of the reactionary and authoritarian character of the present Iranian government, and who see through its propaganda tricks, understand that what the regime is aiming at is to divert public attention from what is really going on in Iran and to suppress the progressive Iranian national forces.
All oppositionists among the Iranian people against the cor-~rupt vassal regime are automatically branded by the Shah's propaganda service as "red subversives," or "black reactionaries, " and “foreign inspired," (Those designated "hlack reactionaries" are the religious opponents. )
In the past, before the Shah began honeymooning with the Soviet Union under the slogan of "peaceful coexistence," Moscow was regularly listed as the source of the “foreign conspiracy." Later Cairo took the place of Moscow, and today Peking has been selected as the point of origin of the "foreign inspiration." The propaganda devices of the Shah's regime are so old and hackneyed that they can mislead neither real public opinion in Iran nor progressive and demo-~ cratic organizations elsewhere,
What are the objectives of these. new measures of this reac~ tionary government?
The first goal is to neutralize the moral-psychological effect and awakening of hopes which the attempt against the Shahts life aroused among the broad popular masses of the Iranian people. Another goal is to intimidate the political opponents of the regime
by arrests, torture and executions, to demoralize them and reduce them to passivity. A further objective is to convert the attempt against the Shah's life into a pretext for settling accounts with all political opponents of the regime, especially the anticolonialist and anti-autocratic organizations and forces, under the claim that they were all party to the "psychological" preparation of the attempt.
In the Shah's foreign policy, these measures are designed to help U.S. imperialism and other political enemies of the People's Republic of China by presenting Peking as responsible for "red subversion," Moreover, world public opinion must be deluded into believing that the main center of hostility and of actions against the Shah's regime is only a small group of "ultra Communists" and insignificant sects of "black reactionaries," while the great mass of the people are not hostile but feel intimately linked to the Shah and his “royal revolution"!
We Iranian socialists expose this action of the Iranian government and condemn it energetically before world public opinion. We express our solidarity with the innocent, national-revolutionary, conscientious and patriotic elements, who are falsely accused of having "psychologically prepared the attempt against the Shah's life" and who have been seized and taken to the torture camps of the security services of the reactionary regime where they are in danger of being killed. *
We demand their immediate release!
We appeal to all the democratic and freedom-loving Iranian forces to join together in denouncing with the utmost energy this latest treachery of the regime and to display their solidarity with the fresh victims of the military dictatorship by all the means at their disposal.
We-.appeal to all democratic and responsible forces in the world, to all progressive parties and organizations, to all democratic and anti-imperialist countries, to raise their voices in protest against the inhuman and fascist measures of the totalitarian regime in Iran, and to support the progressive and democratic forces and organizations in Iran in their difficult and great struggle against colonialism and totalitarianism.
BREZHNEV