In Large

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28217, 4 March 1957, Page 9

In Large

COMMUNIST GUNS Reports Of Arming <Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 2. Malayan Communists had established headquarters at Medan, Sumatra's capital, and were exploiting President Sukarno’s bid to take Communists into his proposed “new democracy,” the American Associated Press reported today. In a dispatch from Pandang, Sumatra, the news agency quoted Government officials as saying 10,000 guns had been distributed Illegally to Indonesians affiliated with the Communist-controlled all-Indonesian Trade Union Congress.

The weapons were reported to be a windfall to the Communists because of a feud between two Indonesian Army colonels, one of them Colonel Dmajin Gintings, Commander in Chief in North and Central Sumatra. Colonel Gintings ousted Colonel Maludin Simbolon, the anti-Gov-ernment officer who seized control in North Sumatra on December 22 in protest against the policies of the Central Government in Jakarta. Colonel Simbolon now is a fugitive. Colonel Mekmur, considered a pro-Communist, was said to have approved distribution of the arms among the Communists, the American Associated Press said.