MURDERS IN DUTCH NEW GUINEA

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28153, 17 December 1956, Page 9

MURDERS IN DUTCH NEW GUINEA

12 KILLED IN NATIVE UPRISING (N.Z Press Association —Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 16. Natives of Dutch New Guinea have killed at least 12 people and destroyed a mission plane, huts and schools in a series of uprisings in the Wissel Lakes district, according to messages reaching Sydney. All the known dead are said to be Indonesians or natives. The reports said that the Dutch authorities had flown in heavily-armed squads of police and naval forces. The murders began two weeks ago in an area of central Dutch New Guinea 180 miles south of Biak. Details of the first incident were received in Sydney by the wife of a missionary at Wissel Lakes, Mr Walter Post. Mrs Post said that one possible reason for the uprisings was that the Kapauku natives of the district “are losing their pigs through illness, and they think foreigners are the cause of it.’’ Mrs Post said that her husband wrote that natives using bows and arrows massacred an Indonesian sc 1 00l teacher, his wife-, and their tv«o children. Then they killed a na» ive policeman, chopped a mission •MUtraft to pieces, and burned a vilIc/,e, including a mission school. “They want to get rid of everyone from the interior of New Guinea. The older Kapauku men also feel that they are losing their hold on the voung people who are at our schools and churches.’’ she said. Mrs Post said that native police and friendly natives had saved the Wissel Lakes staff from attack. After the first attack, violence spread to nearby Valiem Valley. Similar reports have been received by mission authorities in Sydney and Melbourne.