U.S. And Soviet Aid To Indonesia Examined

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 19

U.S. And Soviet Aid To Indonesia Examined

United States and Soviet aid to Indonesia could not be equated, said Mr Thomas T. Driver, public affairs officer at the American Embassy in Wellington, in a statement yesterday replying to a letter to the editor of “The Press” from L. F. J. Ross. "The contrast between the efforts of the United States to help to promote peace and stability in this area and those of the Sino-Soviet bloc which aim at deliberately fomenting aggression and bloodshed is striking indeed.” Mr Driver said. The letter said: “In competing for influence in Indonesia, the Soviet Union has provided Dr. Sukarno with one billion dollars worth of armaments, and the United States has provided over 800 million dollars, including the very modern rapid-firing Amorlite rifle. “In a very real sense It would seem that the major Powers have thus made Sukarno’s ‘Crush Malaysia’ campaign possible, with all the death and devastation it can easily bring. At both major Powers would like us to believe that they are interested in peace and world stability, surely here is an opportunity to demonstrate their good faith before it is too late. “The matter of Indonesian aggressions should be brought up for debate before the United Nations Security Council and/or General Assembly. This would allow both major Powers to shoulder their responsibility to deter further Indonesian adventures, and to help keep the peace. “Would not this be better than A.N.Z.A.C. and British lives sacrificed to Indonesianfired Soviet and American bullets?” “Of the 870 m dollars in loans and grants made available by the United States to Indonesia between 1946 and 1963, only about 81m dollars was in military aid,” Mr Driver said. Rifle for Police “The Amorlite rifle was made available only to Indonesia’s domestic police, not to the army, and the number was fewer than 1000. Most military aid was of the ‘nat-ion-building’ type—that is, it was designed to help the In- . donesian Army to build such . things as roads and schools. As a matter of record, the Department of State announced on November 21 last year that all United States Gov-ernment-sponsored military aid equipment to Indonesia had been terminated in the preceding September. “Sino-Soviet bloc military ; aid during the last eight years to Indonesia has amounted to nearly one bil- • lion dollars, more than 12 i times as much as United ■ States military aid.” More than 90 per cent of American aid had been of an economic nature, a large part of it to provide badly-needed food and medicine and higher education for the Indonesian

people, Mr Driver continued. A further aim had been to help the densely-populated nation, with some of the world's wealthiest potential resources, to put its economic and military households in order so that it might better withstand Communist subversive designs to seize control of its Government. Soviet Intent For further proof of the intent and purpose of Soviet aid to Indonesia, reference could be made to the May 6 statement of the Soviet Ambassador to Djakarta (Mr N. A. Michailov) who had announced that the Soviet Union would help Indonesia to crush Malaysia, while in Washington, on the same day, the State Department an- , nounced that future American economic aid to Indonesia ‘ would depend on Indonesia’s ■ relations with her neighbours, Mr Driver said. “Constructive action in th. United Nations might be difficult to arrive at when one ■ considers the Soviet Union’s long and dismal record of vetoes, irresponsibility, and deliberate obfuscation of the world body,” he concluded.