Food Riot At Sumatran Port

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30291, 18 November 1963, Page 15

Food Riot At Sumatran Port

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, November 17. Reports of food riots and conditions of near starvation have reached London from Indonesia, the “Sunday Telegraph” reported. One eye-witness account described violent scenes at a Sumatran port, Tandjong Priok, after the arrival of a ship laden with rice.

Stevedores sent to unload the cargo cut open some of the sacks. They made bags out of their own clothes and carried away as much as they could to feed their families. When word spread that the 'rice ship had docked, a crowd of several hundred, including many women and children, marched on the dock gates, the “Sunday Telegraph" reported. They demanded food from the cargo.

Police and troops were called in and opened fire on the demonstrators. Several were said to have been killed or wounded. The newspaper quoted Western economic experts as estimating that since President Soekanio started his “confrontation” policy against Malaysia rice prices in many areas of Indonesia had more than doubled.

In another report from Singapore, the “Sunday Telegraph” defence correspondent, Ivan Rowan, reported a "subs’iantial Indonesian buildup of military forces along the 1000-mile-long jungle frontier with North Borneo."

He said troop movements, first rumoured from Djakarta last month, were now cont.nuing out of all proportion to the minor guerrilla incursions so far carried out by Indonesian “volunteers" into Malaysian territory. Rowan said defence planners in Singapore were watching to see whether the pattern of increased military activity and night approaches by Russian-built Badger jet bombers to Singapore a.r space amounted to an increase in trie war of nerves “or a prelude to something more serious.” Rowan said best opinion in Singapore was that President Soekarno was unlikely to make a major warlike move.

Jagan Warns Of Anarchy

(N.Z. Press Assn—Copyright) GEORGETOWN. Nov. 16. The Prime Minister of British Guiana <Dr. Cheddi Jagan) has asked the British Government to reconsider Mr Duncan Sandys decision on the future of the colony.

In a letter this week to the British Prime Minister (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) Dr. Jagan warned that Mr Sandys’s solution to the colony’s problems was likely to lead to anarchy. The Colonial Secretary’s proposal was for elections in the colony on the basis of proportional representation.