Indonesia Disintegrates
TAS, SAL
Despite the anti-Dutch clamor, Jakarta faces mounting opposition amid Communist gains INDONESIA DISINTEGRATES By Sal Tas The dramatic conflict now raging in Indonesia is not a fight between the...
...In 1955, when the exposures of corruption were reaching their peak, Sukarno and Premier Ali Sastroamidjojo sponsored the Asian-African conference at Bandung...
...Though the expulsion of the Dutch is the most dramatic aspect of the events in Indonesia, the conflict within Indonesia is far more important in the long run...
...That collapse is fast approaching...
...For several years, the left wing in Holland was quite ready to hand West New Guinea over to the Indonesians...
...If it fails to do so, a Communist Java very soon is a real possibility, and with it the fragmentation of the Indonesian Republic and a basic shift in the Asian power balance...
...Local elections in Java and elsewhere in the past year have shown that Communist strength mounts at the expense of the PNI...
...But Dutch governments were unwilling to transfer the territory without guarantees for the population of West New Guinea, which differs considerably from the Indonesians and which fears exploitation by the Javanese...
...This type of centralism—in which the Government spends Sumatran profits to prop up Javanese deficits—has been another disastrous feature of Sukarno's rule...
...First he formed a "national council" to stand above the Cabinet, but only the PNI and the Communists joined it...
...for if Communism assumes control in Jakarta and the central government controls West New Guinea, it would be a major strategic threat to Australia...
...The Army officers—or the great majority of them—are determinedly anti-Communist...
...More and more intellectuals and politicians see that he is leading Indonesia to chaos...
...yet the opposition has not yet taken power...
...Meanwhile, however, the outer islands pile up resources by trading their products without recourse to the Government's Office for Foreign Exchange...
...The opposition forced him to call a conference with the rebel generals of the outer islands...
...At the conference, held in Jakarta, Sukarno was urged to cooperate with Mohammed Hatta, who had resigned as Vice President in protest against Sukarno's policies...
...Indonesians understood this, and made little of the issue for several years...
...Surely giving it up would not appease Sukarno, any more than concessions could appease Iran's Mohammed Mossadegh or Egypt's Colonel Nasser...
...Despite the anti-Dutch clamor, Jakarta faces mounting opposition amid Communist gains INDONESIA DISINTEGRATES By Sal Tas The dramatic conflict now raging in Indonesia is not a fight between the Indonesian people and the people of the Netherlands...
...the Government, which must cope with Java's deficits, is practically deprived of foreign exchange...
...This last remnant of what used to be the Dutch East Indies was kept by Holland chiefly to pacify right-wingers in Parliament who opposed Indonesian independence altogether...
...West New Guinea—vast, unmanageable and of no economic value—¦ was retained by the Dutch when they transferred sovereignty to the Indonesian Republican Government...
...This combined opposition to Sukarno has a potential power base in the outer islands, on which Java depends, and Sukarno has been desperately trying to head off their revolt...
...The Netherlands lacked the resources to explore and exploit it in any case...
...The major Moslem parties, the Masjumi and Nahdatul Ulama, have opposed Communist influence for some time...
...The seizure of Dutch companies and expulsion of Dutch nationals are part of a fight between the present Indonesian regime and the anti-Communist opposition...
...Now, even in Sukarno's Nationalist party (PNI), there are protests against his fellow-traveling...
...They are, moreover, in deep sympathy with the rebellion of the outer Indonesian islands against Javanese exploitation...
...For, despite Sukarno's diversions, the opposition to him is mounting...
...Later, however, when poverty crept into every Indonesian household, when widespread corruption was revealed in the Indonesian regime, when Communism made substantial inroads in the other political parties, in the trade unions and among the intellectuals—only then was the West New Guinea claim put forward aggressively...
...Once again, jingoism was the last refuge of the clique around Sukarno...
...The Indonesian claim to West New Guinea, which set off the new violence, was only a pretext for President Sukarno, a diversion by which he hoped to rally Indonesians who were becoming disillusioned with the failures of his regime and wary of growing Communist strength...
...Now, however, few in Holland see any point in yielding the territory...
...Hatta, for his part, refused to acknowledge the "national council," and the conference ended in deadlock...
...The opposition expects economic collapse to topple Sukarno...
Vol. 40 • December 1957 • No. 51
