China a century or so ago. ammunition. grenades and gold Back in the days when there was such | —by the CIA's Air America, or by Maoist armed struggle has been the official Party line.
Circumstances are not unpropitious. | time to time. Indonesia is a huge archipelago. sprawling more than three thousand miles along the Equator. Logistical problems are immense. The inland reaches tha biggest islands. especially Kalimantan (Borneo) afford the kind of seclusion and inaccessibility required by base areas. The country has sound revolutionary uprisings were frequent during Dutch rule, culminating in the PKI led revolts of 1926-7 in West Java and West Sumatra. The struggles against Japanese occupation and for independence against the Dutch after the war gave further valuable experience of guerrilla war.
Before its decimation. the PKI estimated to have between 16 and 20 million supporters in Predictably, the massacre of communists and their sympathisers in thousands rendered homeless. Large won more votes than any numbers fed to the Chinese quar Indonesia since the army coup in October 1965 has failed to extirpate ters of the main cities, but thous Hands were rounded up by the communism. On the contrary. The Communist Party of Indonesia (PK1), authorities and incarcerated in concentration camps in Nedan, Ponurudely and painfully disabused of its constitutionalist illusions, has Kanak and other ports, allegedly for turned and fought back. Since the major policy statement issued by the eventual repatriation 10 China.
Kalimantan, the Chinese were parPKI Central Committee 'somewhere in Central Java' on 17 August. ticularly militant, and on both sides of the border between the Indo1966(21st anniversary of the Indonesian declaration of independence) nesian and Malavsian narts of Borneo, left-wing armed groups Hone hon achine tor heard Since the bloody pogrom conducted November last year, in which least 100 Chinese were slain and The economic situation has not 40,000 driven from their homes, the improved significantly since the entire Chinese population of Borneo army take-over. Mass demonstra- million altogether tions against high rice prices and Sarawak, Sabah and Kalimantan food shortages were staged must be regarded potential Djakarta in January and February opponents of the Suharto regime. this year. Hunger oedema has been Following violent repression in Tava. reported as widespread in Tava and local Chinese have been reported as traditions. Peasant neighbouring islands where popu- ighting back, parading with Mac lation is dense and presses on the badges and Magist slogans over-worked soil. Eighteen million Kediri, Malang, Probolinggo, Pasu urban and rural are unemployed. ruan, Bondowoso, Situbondo, Pana Aid from America and an inter- rukan and Besuki, and attempting national capitalist consortium has to scize arms from local detachbenefited the elites rather than the ments of the armed forces.
Forcien investors have
moved back in; London Sumatra Piecing logether the early history Plantations, resumed 70,000 acres. for example, Naturally. have of a people's liberation war is nor easy. News is naturally sparse and renewed investment has its parallel often unreliable. The official agen cies no manhad inaccessible places would seem to indicate support among the local peasantry. In the jungle the guerrillas have also been able themselves other to clear land and to grow crops. party in Central Java and COMe In contrast, the security forces ensecond in East Tava. In most of the counter serious logistical problems. major towns the PKI emerged with Roads are virtually non-existent, absolute majoritiesthis was the and there are too few Russian heli. case in Semarang, Surabaya copters as yet to give the army the Madiun. ( Magelang, Malang and mobility it needs if it is to cope with by Surakarta, for example. Attempts the peasantry to enforce the the rebellion. may take many days to reach sus- Government troops paper provisions of the 1960 Share. pect areas, running short of food, cropping and Basic Agrarian Laws medicine and other supplies on the were also most persistent in this way. Most of the regular troops disnotably in the peasant rising like the Borneo jungle. which Diengkol, Kediri district. D N unfamiliar to them. In carrving out Aidit, former secretary of the PRI, reprisals against villages thougt Java, on the 22 November, 1965. shot near Surakarta. Central rebels, the government forces alien- be harbouring supplying fled to this area in an ate the general population by burnattempt to set up a base area in the ing down houses etc. To prevent Klaton and Bojolali region. the guerrillas making use of sancWith this in mind, one may better tuary in Sarawak, the Indonesian appraise the scattered reports of the authorities try to work closelv with PKI-led armed strugele in lava in Malaysian security forces across the the last two wears Armed actione border. After an ambush by to kidnap and execute local land- liberation fighters some 60 kilomlords and reactionary officials have etres from Bengkajang town at the been reported from the neighbour- end of November, 1967, the security hoode of South Malang, South forces realised they were up against Blitar. Tulungagung. Bodionegoro well-armed guerrillas equipped with and Kediri. Clashes with security automatic weapons, heavy mortars, forces have occurred in and other sophisticated equipment, in Ngawi, Malang and Banjuwangi, and well-entrenched in mountain. according to recent reports. It is ous country advantageous to them. assumed that the Pki is trying to In a raid on Singkawang town. establish a base area in the southern guerrillas got away with more than border region of East and Central 200 new automatic weapons. Bases vacated by the rebels and occupied
La mimon wcte punch death under army supervision, and 200,000 imprisoned in over. crowded jails and pestilential concentration camps. But clearly an important reservoir of support re mains. Moreover, the armed forces are by no means united in their support for the right-wing clique of President Suharto and General Nasution (between whose, respective followers there are also differences). The PRI had many sympa thisers among the junior ranks the army, in the air force, and in the marines (KKO). In the area of Malang, East Tava, 330 troops were reported in March this year to have gone over, officers and men, to the people's liberation units operating in the region, taking their arms and other equipment with them. Simi lar defections are reported from are nevertheless headed by a colonel innocent purposes, these us forces to the outside world. What follows been culled from Western official Indonesian, and PKI sources who. in the words of The Times (8 July, 1968), •. is an experi- available to me. enced veteran of Special Forces and In Java resistance has been strongcounter-insurgency in Asia. Such est in the Fast and Central Regions.
brazenly neo-colonial set-up 1s The PKI has solid rOOtS here certain to provoke resentment and Although the Party took an amresistance, especially in a-country biguous stance at the time the army like Indonesia with its 450-year took power-hoping to be saved experience of colonialism. from extinction by President Sukarno's intercession —armed re Finally, in cataloguing the objective sistance did occur in East and in the present situation an Central Java as soon as persecution Indonesia, something must be said began. It was in this area that the about the Chinese. About three in the country, of whom place, starting in centering on Ngawi and Ponorogo, Surakarta, and million are citizens of the Chinese villages on the outskirts of Madiun. People's Republic. During In the national elections of 1955 slaughter communists, and the local elections of 1957 the Chinese Main copies of the works of Mao trom West Java, Sulawesi (Celeben) Tee-tung, end there com.bend.aume and Sumatra. In April this vear, tion but that the guerrillas are p.
members of the armed forces pared for a long, long struggle. It is plotting to set up an underground WCTC arrested and charged with TOE amount of alarm at the deteriora- - these reasons that a certain COmmUnISE cell 1n South Sumatra. ting situation has been expressed in But it is from the huge island of the official Indonesian press this Kalimantan that reports of PKI year. Recently the revolt has spread armed struggle have been most per- to East Kalimantan, guerrilla groups sistent and substantial. Here great having been engaged near Kerajan stretches of dense jungle and moun- and Longawan. tain favour the guerrillas. Both sides claim major victories in the fighting With the economy continuing to that has taken place, and the num- stagnate and with millions of combers involved indicate that this is munists nursing vengeance against one location where the situation is a regime which put so many of their COHEROES to death, ment, serious. In October last year, Suharto cannot ignore the rising four months after the struggle had tide of armed resistance. In this oflicially been admitted to exist, a context, the presence of an Americlash in which 150 guerrillas were can defence liaison group" has reported killed took place on sinister and foreboding
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1948 communist rising had taken million ethnic Chinese are resident
well developed and, for the govern- President