JAVA UNREST

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 58, 18 December 1945, Page 3

JAVA UNREST

ATTACK ON RAPWI CAMP, INDIAN TROOPS OPEN FIRE (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright.) ‘(Rec. 9.30 a.m.) BATAVIA, Dec. 17. Three hundred Indonesians, armed with knives and shouting “Moslem brothers from India, join us or die,” attacked a Rawpi camp near Buiterzorg. Indian troops opened fire and broke up the attack.

The situation in Batavia and Bandoeng is quiet, but it is announced that all forces and Rapwi supplies in future will be moved to Bandoeng by air. ' >

Announcing that an R.A.F. Thunderbolt was shot down in the Sourabaya area, a senior air officer said that Indonesian anti-aircraft fire was almost as accurate as in Germany. Fourteen planes have been lost since the beginning of the Java operations. About half of them are believed to have been shot down. The spokesman added that • the Japanese intensively trained locallyrecruited gunners during the war. An official denial was made in Batavia to-day that Lieut.-Colonel H. C. G. Harding, British Assistant-Provost Marshal, said on November 24 that 60 Indonesian police were shot down “in cold blood” by Dutch and Ambonese troops in an attack on the Indonesian central police station at Batavia, as reported by the Associated American Press.

A British officer, Brigadier Maclean, in a letter to the Netherlands East Indies Government Information Service on December 12, said that the statements attributed to Colonel Harding were “entirely false and a distortion of the true facts.” He asserted that Colonel Harding, at a Press conference, actually said that 63 members of the civil police, including some Inspectors, were (taken prisoner by the Dutch military personnel on November 18 and on bis (Colonel Harding’s) orders some were released. Colonel Harding on December 16 approved Brigadier Maclean’s letter as presenting the facts, but declined further comment.

Notes Taken at Interview

The American Press comments: “Ralph Morton, the American Press correspondent at Sydney, said he wrote the story on November 24 from information supplied to him and Harry Plumridge, correspondent of the Australian Associated Press, by Colonel Harding in an interview. Morton, who has now returned to Sydney following the Java assignment, said: ‘Notes were taken at an interview, with Colonel Harding and I am certain that Colonel Harding made the statement. I felt that Colonel Harding was a competent and trusted authority, and reported accordingly.’ “Morton added that he took endless pains to examine the statements issued by all*sides in the Java disturbances and in the instance mentioned personally investigated the story after and before it was dispatched to the outside world. ‘.l heard and saw some of the shooting that took place near the Indonesian police station on November 18,’ he said’, ‘ and later was shown a 21-day-old baby lying wounded in the Indonesian hospital, _ where an Indonesian doctor told me she was a victim of the police station shooting. At the same time I was shown wounded Indonesian police officers.’ ’•’