How Dutch Woman Gave Up New Guinea Home

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30062, 21 February 1963, Page 2

How Dutch Woman Gave Up New Guinea Home

“It was not easy to decide to leave my homeland for good, but what else can I do. There is no future in New Guinea now that the Indonesians are there,” said Mrs Maude Helen Wesselo yesterday, a Dutch citizen who is on her way to Holland to join her family.

Mrs Messelo was born of Eurasi,® parents in Java when the island was part of the Dutch East Indies. . Her grandfather was Dutch, and though he married an Indonesian his nationality was automatically extended to cover his descendents.

As the Dutch nationals pulled out of West New Guinea (the majority had left by last October) there had been scenes of great distress.

“The Dutch did not Papuan friends wanted was common to see big, f and Papuan, weeping bi of leaving,” said Mrs W Foe herself, the unhappiness of leaving wm not quite to teerp. M her parent* and four son* aged IS, 18 and the 18-year-oM twine, were already in Holland. On the Move

Thia waa not the first time that Mr* Weeseto has had to leave home because of Indonesian territorial expansion. “Jn 1940, when Indonesia proclaimed her independence, we left Jakarta, went to Dutch New Guinea, and then tn Holland,” she said.

After a brief stay in Holland she and her husband and sons returned to New Guinea and opened a business in Manokwari. For the last five or six years, Mrs Wesselo has managed alone the shop which sold imported clothes, materials, cosmetics and jewellery. New Guinea had a definite potential, she said. “But it is very much a forgotten land." The Dutch were only beginning to develop it, although they had already

t want to go and their them to remain. It strong men, both Dutch itterly at the moments esselo.

invested a tot of money, without any retain, in it “The Papuan* are a very tatelligent people. They are not of Indonesian stock. They belong to Polynesia.” The transference of West New Guinea to Indonesia was going very smoothly under the United Nations, said Mrs Wesselo. Both the Dutch officials and the Dutchspeaking Indonesians were United Nations officials.

Indonesia will gain full control on May 1. There was nothing in the proposed constitution to show whether Dutch nationals would be allowed to remain after thia, said Mrs Wesselo. The Dutch Government waa unable to offer its people any security

after next December. “It would not be wise to stay under such conditions,” she “As for myself, I felt it was only common sense to leave. You see, the Indonesians bought out practically all my stock, ft was all imported and they said they ooufld not buy such good quality goods in Indonesia. Imports are strictly limited and inflation is dreadful,” said Mrs Wesselo.

“So I thought that when the Indonesians take over I might not be allowed to import any overseas stock It is hard to say what will happen. The country is so underdeveloped. It will need a lot of money invested in it,” she said. Would the Indonesians be able to carry on the social services and schools without money and trained staff? Mrs Wesselo shrugged.