100,000 HELD IN INDONESIA

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30939, 21 December 1965, Page 21

100,000 HELD IN INDONESIA

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) DJAKARTA, Dec. 20. More than 100,000 Communists have been arrested throughout Indonesia since the unsuccessful coup on October 1.

Observers have deduced this following the publication of figures by the official Antara news agency. Antara said 55,000 had been arrested in four provinces. Of these 30,000 were arrested in South Borneo, 10,500 in North Sumatra, 10,573 in West Java and 4000 in Djakarta. Figures for the other 13 provinces of Indonesia have not been published. These include those for Central and East Java, where the army has reported fighting against the Communists and where operations to snuff out coup supporters are going on. Isolated figures officially published from the East and Central Java areas have said that 2500 people were arrested in Banjuwangi, East Java,

and 3000 in the Central Java area around Solo and Jogjakarta. So many gaols are full that the authorities have been forced to hold numbers of prisoners in large halls and open compounds. Meanwhile, Antara today reported the commander of the Army’s strategic forces, Major-General Umar Wirehadikusumab, as saying that “several” of the mastermind* of the coup attempt were still at large, but he was confident they would soon be captured with the co-operation of the people.