INDONESIAN CABINET

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29004, 18 September 1959, Page 11

INDONESIAN CABINET

Communists Wanted (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) DJAKARTA, September 16. President Soekarno said by implication in a speech tonight that he still wanted to see Communists sitting in the Indonesian Cabinet. At an Indonesian Communist Party reception he declared: “I would like to say firmly to you a ‘gotong royong’ (all together) Cabinet still remains my idea.” President Soekarno said in 1957 that he wanted such a Cabinet for the Republic, but dropped the proposal after heavy pressure by religious parties and anti-Com-munist Army leaders. The present Cabinet contains no Communists.

President Soekarno spoke at the final session of the Communist Party’s sixth national congress, held under heavy restrictions imposed by the Army under martial law.

The Communists clapped enthusiastically when President Soekarno recalled that under his guided democracy programme several high bodies had been formed on a basis which included Communists.

"With God’s help, I will form a People’s Consultative Congress (the proposed highest constitutional body in Indonesia) based on ‘gotong royong,’ and a ‘gotong* Cabinet remains as my aim,” he said.

President Soekarno, who declared he was the only President of the non-Socialist country to attend a Communist congress, explained his beliefs as a mixture of religious, nationalist and socialist feelings. Mr Dipa Nujantara Aidit chairman of the Indonesian Communist Party, described the President as “a genuine friend of the party.” Mr Aidit said he regretted rumours of Communist preparations for a coup in 1960, adding: ‘‘A coup d'etat is the way of desperate people who do not have confidence in the people and in democracy.” “But the Indonesian Communist Party bases its struggle on the action of masses," Mr Aidit said. “The Communist Party rose from fourth biggest in Indonesia to become number one with 8,000,000 voters.”

A number of stony-faced military officers sat in the flowergarlanded hall. Lieutenant-General Abdul Haris Nasution, Army Chief of Staff, who is generally regarded as strongly anti-Communist, was not at the reception because be was attending a Cabinet meeting.