Malaysia Dispute “Dangerous”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30602, 19 November 1964, Page 1

Malaysia Dispute “Dangerous”

The worship of President Sukarno in Indonesia was worse than the German’s worship of Hitler, the former Labour Prime Minister, Mr Walter Nash, said in Christchurch yesterday. He was giving a luncheon address to members of the Canterbury branch of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand.

In the long run, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand would have to do what they could to defend Malaysia from attack, said Mr Nash.

Indonesia and the Philippines had agreed that if a majority of the people in the area wanted to be part of Malaysia they would support the federation. The United Nations, after a survey, had found that a majority in the area had wanted to be part of Malaysia, but Sukarno had not accepted this, and since then “he has done nothing but kill people.”

There had been no evidence of Malaysians going into Indonesian territory, but there was plenty of evidence of Indonesians entering Malaysian territory. It had, in effect, been an invasion of Malaysia, and an undeclared war, Mr Nash said.

There were only 10 million Malaysians against nearly 100 million Indonesians, and there was not a shadow of danger to Indonesia. Indonesia was well armed with arms supplied by the Soviet Union, and some other countries.

Sukarno was attacking in a very cruel way, yet he had one of the areas which was among the richest in the world in resources. The Indonesians had done some terrible things, and he had been told, although he had not checked it, that 70 per cent of their income was spent on war materials, said Mr Nash. He did not think the Americans could win in Vietnam, but it did not look to him as if the situation in Vietnam would develop into a global war. The situation in Malaysia

was much more dangerous. He thought the formation of Malaysia was an excellent thing. Mr Nash spoke on the Asian area, in which there were nearly half the peoples of the world. In the area were 724 million Chinese, 576 million Indians, and a total of 1534 million persons. There were 96.8 million Indonesians, 94 million Japanese, and 10 million Malaysians. He believed China was one of the most peace-loving peoples of the world, and they were industrious and hard working. They had made remarkably fine progress, although they had made a lot of mistakes on the way, said Mr Nash. New Zealand and Australia, however, had only about 14 million people—l 4 million in a sea of 1534 million others. The two countries had more unused resources than any of the others, although Indonesia was one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of unused resources. The two danger spots were in the Indo-China area and the Malaysian area. New Zealand had obligations in the area through 5.E.A.T.0., the Anzus pact and the Antarctic treaty. She also had obligations to the British Commonwealth and the United Nations. There was no military solution to the world’s problems, Mr Nash said. Unless the other half of the world found some way of feeding the other half which was so short of food there was nothing that could produce a world of peace.