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Show REBELS IN RAID USE THE TORCH AMERICANS ARE MENACED BY CUBAN REBEL BANDS WHO THREATEN MASSACRE. Refugees from Oriente Province Tell Terrible Stories of Devastation Wreaked by Negro Bandits in Reign of Terror. New York. Charges that Cuban rebels are burning and pillaging the homes and properties of Americans .mil, oilier foreigners in the districts of l'almarito, ISayato and Miranda. Oriente province, were made by twenty-four American and British refugees who arrived here May 0. They predicted pre-dicted that there will be a massacre of the white residents remaining unless the United States intervenes, and asserted as-serted that the Cuban government is powerless to cope with the situation. Most of the refugees escaped with only the clothes they wore. The accusations were substantiated by an appeal for aid signed by 116 Americans remaining in the territory occupied by the rebels. The appeal, the refugees said, will be forwarded to the state department at Washington. The threat of a massacre is contained con-tained in a statement included in the appeal, alleged to have been written by Gen. Bias Maso. The statement Maso is reputed to have made safd: "You will holler loudest and we will destroy until your hollering will be heard in Washington and force American Amer-ican intervention. For the time being we will not fight the government troops and we will not kill you unless you oppose us. We are only fighting now with the torch, terrorizing and organizing. organiz-ing. "But if Menocal does not steD out May 20 we will fight and kill. We are 15,000 rebels in this province, all well armed, and the whole province will become be-come a wilderness. Y'our government can prevent this by intervention. "I invite an American commission to come to the interior aud see our forces, see the destruction that we are making and tell their government the truth." |