UNDER JAP. RULE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 256, 29 October 1942, Page 5

UNDER JAP. RULE

NETHERLANDS INDIES Cruel Treatment Of Natives And Europeans Special Australian Correspondent United Press Association—Copyright Rec. noon. SYDNEY, this day. The Japanese are encountering serious economic problems in the Netherlands East Indies. Great industries have been choked by lack of shipping. The natives are disillusioned but passive. Europeans and natives alike queue up at the public kitchens for vegetable soup and rice. This picture is drawn by a young Dutch Army officer who has reported at General Mac Arthur's Headquarters after escaping from Batavia. Big towns in Java were strongly garrisoned by .enemy troops, said this officer. Japanese soldiers spent all day in training and physical culture. After the Japanese occupied the island they adopted terrorist tactics and commonly beat up people to get information.

Europeans in essential services were left to work, but most were interned. A few months ago all the Europeans at one large centre were interned because the Japanese said they were not co-operating. Although allowed to go free, European women were not allowed to receive cash when their personal funds were exhausted. They were forced on to the public kitchens set up by the Japanese. The enemy's "Asia for the Asiatics'' propaganda, which was directed at the natives, had been greatly offset bj r the disillusionment brought by their harsh treatment and cruel punishment for minor looting. One term of Japanese punishment for this offence was to tie a heavy weight around a native's shoulders, tie his hands behind his back and a noose around his neck, so that he would strangle himself when he dropped exhausted. Throughout the Netherlands East Indies the Dutch language could not be used officially. All letters must be written in Malayan. Newspapers were published in Malayan by the natives under Japanese supervision. The enemy attitude was that the war in Java had finished. There was no blackout, and all air raid shelters had been demolished, but parties cf Dutch troops still operated in the mountains.

GRIM STORY TOLD LIFE I.N EAST INDIES Rec. 12.30 p.m. DURBAN, Oct. 2S. Dutchmen who have just escaped from the East Indies and reached Africa give a grim picture of life under the Japanese. All the male Europeans aged from 16 to 60 years are interned. Women and children are free, but they have no resources. The children are not allowed to go to school. The strict rationing, with forced labour and lower pay. which the Japanese imposed, caused great discontent among the natives, and general poverty had led to an epidemic of thefts, to which the Japanese replied by cutting off the hands of suspects or by public executions. The Dutchmen revealed that the Quislings, whom the Dutch had interned at the time of the invasion of Holland, were at first freed and then reinterned by the Japanese.