INDONESIA: Police Measures
Monday, Aug. 04, 1947
Their acts, said the Dutch last week, were only "police measures of a
strictly limited character." They looked more like war. The Dutch
claimed that they could rebuild the Indies only after they had subdued
obstructive Republican leaders. The Dutch had a detailed plan of attack
for vermiform Java: cut off the head and tail (richest rice-growing
regions), then hit the heart of the Republican government at Jogjakarta
in south central Java. In a week the Dutch plan had all but succeeded.
Dutch Marines, trained by the U.S. Marines, staged amphibious landings
in the east and quickly took Java's richest agricultural area.
Throughout Java the Dutch seized plantations, sugar mills, port
installations, roads. Indonesian scorched-earth tactics had caused some
damage, chiefly to the Chinese merchant class whose houses the
Republicans burned. "The population's attitude," claimed the Dutch, ".
. . could hardly be bettered. . . . From a military standpoint there is
hardly any resistance worth the name." Fleeing Republican soldiers shed
their shoes—the faster to run and the better to disguise themselves as
peasants.
Suicide Squads. But from Jogjakarta the Republican government was still
shouting defiance. The Dutch drive on the capital was stalled in the
mountains north of the Republican capital. The Dutch might seize key
centers of Java, but the Republicans hoped to wear them down in a long
guerrilla war. Youthful (24) Major General Soetomo was organizing
suicide squads called Berani Mati (Those Who Dare to Die). To belong,
said Soetomo, an Indonesian must kill at least ten Dutch soldiers. He
also had some advice for women fighters: sprinkle pepper in Dutch
soldiers' eyes, then stone them to death.
The Dutch had gambled everything on quick military success. (Their
well-trained, well-equipped army had no supplies for a long campaign.)
But the political problem could not be so quickly solved. After a week
of fighting, Acting Governor General Hubertus van Mook promised a
"regular government." The Dutch talked of splitting the Indonesian
Republic into seven autonomous (and more manageable) areas. Van Mook
asked "prominent Indonesian personalities" to join him in rebuilding
the country.
The Ever-Present Comrades. But the Dutch strong-arm policy had played
into the hands of extremists like top Communist Alimin Prawirodirdjo.
Last year Alimin returned to Java from long exile with an
up-to-the-minute party line. Like Viet Nam's Ho Chi-minh, China's Chou
En-lai and Mao Tse-tung, he is a graduate of Moscow's Far Eastern
University. Alimin's influence with Indonesian President Soekarno had
long been strong. Now, since Alimin controlled the best-organized
underground in Indonesia, it was stronger than ever. Alimin's advice to
Soekarno: don't cooperate with the Dutch.
Meanwhile, moderate ex-Premier Sutan Sjahrir, favorite Dutch candidate
to head a new Indonesian government, flew to India to mobilize world
opinion against the Dutch. He found one sympathetic listener in
Jawaharlal Nehru. Said Nehru last week: India will bar Dutch traffic
from Indian ports and airfields. But, he added, India will not send
arms to the Indonesians ; "we do not intend to be at war with the Dutch
Government." Nehru promised to bring the Indonesian problem before the
United Nations immediately.
Source: http://www.time.
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