Freighter Shelled

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28543, 24 March 1958, Page 11

Freighter Shelled

(Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 23. Reuter reported from Copenhagen today that the Danish Minister in Jakarta would ask the Indonesian Government for a safe conduct for the 2784-ton Danish freighter, Bretagne, which was shelled off Padang, Central Sumatra, yesterday. The Bretagne, which suffered minor damage in the incident, will be ready to leave Padang, which is held by the rebels, in five or six days. The ship’s owners asked the Danish Foreign Office to intervene. They said yesterday that it was believed the ship was shelled by an Indonesian corvette through a misunderstanding. The Dutch Government has imposed a ban cn .the sale of six patrol vessels of the wartime German Navy, now owned by a Dutch firm in Amsterdam, eithei to the Indonesian Government or to the Sumatran rebels. Indonesian interests had taken an option on the vessels.

The broadcast did not say where the rebels gob the bombers. It said that they flew the 1125 miles from Menado to Bandung and were believed to have gone on to Sumatra.

Another battle for Medan, the capital city of North Sumatra, appeared imminent today. Colonel Simbolon, the revolutionary regime’s Foreign Minister, was said to have linked up his rebel task force with two other rebel units in the area yesterday, the American Associated Press reported from Singapore. A rebel battalion seized control briefly at Medan, after a mutiny last Sunday, but later withdrew. Reliable reports reaching Singapore said that the force led by Colonel Simbolon joined up with this battalion and an army of 2000 men from the rebelling province of Tapanuli, led by Captain Sito Pohan. The United Press quoted revolutionary sources in Singapore as saying a group of rebet troops had broken through a trap* in the Seribudolok mountains south of Medan and had linked up with three battalions from Tapanuli province.

There was an almost complete blackout of reliable news from the area but rebel sources said they were converging on Medan from the Lake Toba area, (about 50 miles away, the United J’ress said.

The American Associated press said the rebel radio at Bukith'nggi capita] of the dissidents, said new weapons had been sent to guerrilla units in preparation far a counter-attack in the Pakanburu oil area.

The central Government anmy headquarters claimed that their troops captured Kota Tengan, 70 miles north-west of Pakanbupu, and that 60 rebels surrendered at Langkat, 14 miles north ©f Medan.

The “New York Times” said today that the Antara new? agency in Jakarta had reported that three rebel companies, numbering about 400 men, hadj deserted their cause. The newspaper said that the Antara report, had been referred to Lieutenant-; Colonel Rudy Pirngadie, chief spokesman for the Indonesian Army, but he had said he had no official information regarding the report. Colonel Pirngadie had said that 300 rebels were trapped at Tigaras, on Lake Toba. in Northern Sumatra. The rebels were being hounded by Mustang fighter planes and by Government troops.