Leaflets Dropped Over Indonesia

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30588, 3 November 1964, Page 13

Leaflets Dropped Over Indonesia

(N.ZR.A.-Reuter—Copyright) KUALA LUMPUR, November 2. Malaysia today staged its first retaliatory action in the two-year-old undeclared war with Indonesia. Leaflet-carrying aircraft of the Royal Malaysian Air Force, assisted by the Royal Air Force, raided into Indonesia itself.

An official statement said the aircraft dropped “thousands” of leaflets warning Indonesians not to engage in any fresh raids against the federation.

The leaflet raid follows three Indonesian guerrilla assaults on south Malaya in less than three months.

Altogether 256 Indonesians and Malaysian renegades have come ashore, and the casualty list so far is 47 Indonesians and five members of the Malaysian - Commonwealth forces killed, 185 Indonesians captured, and four allied soldiers wounded. For the whole unofficial war, which opened with rebellion in Brunei, British Borneo, in 1962, the number of dead is believed to be around 400. Today’s announcement from the Malaysian Government said: “For the first time since Indonesia’s attack upon Malaysia, thousands of leaflets were airdropped today into the Indonesian bases from which they launched their attacks against the Malav Peninsula. R.A.F. HELP In Singapore, a British military spokesman said that some British aircraft and crews had taken part in the raid. The operation was “planned and conceived by the Malaysians.” Bengkalis Island, off Sumatra, 20 miles across the straits of Malacca, is claimed by Malaysian military authorities to be the main forward Indonesian invasion base against Malaysia. Today’s Malaysian Government statement said: “Interrogation of captured Indonesian invaders has disclosed that the real reasons for these landings are still not known to the Indonesian people and most of the Indonesian military personnel other than that ‘we are to liberate the Malaysian people from the British.’

“Recently radio stations in Indonesia launched a campaign of falsehood claiming Indonesian invasion successes in eastern and western Malaysia with the object of bolstering Indonesian public morale and distracting public attention from the crime of the Indonesian leaders in carrying out the armed confrontation against Malaysia. LEAFLETS’ INTENTION “The intention behind these leaflets is to give the widest information to those Indonesian people who are likely to be sent in the future so that when they come here it would not be within their right to deny their knowledge of the purpose for which they are rent. It is difficult for us to say with certainty that what they are telling us is true or false. “According to those interro-

gated they appear to believe in all sincerity in the statements they made. If these leaflets attained the above objective then the Government considers it justified in air-dropping them.” Today’s leaflets consisted of an appeal by the captured

> commander of an airborne - landing force which came in :at Labis, south central : Malaya. He is Second Lieutenant i Soetikno Tjitrosomarto, of the Pasokan Gerak Tjepat, or F parachute corps, of the Indo--1 nesian Air Force.