Gunboats Off Macao

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31235, 6 December 1966, Page 19

Gunboats Off Macao

(N.Z. Press Association —Copyright* MACAO, December 5. The boom of Chinese cannon and the appearance of Communist gunboats heightened fears today in this tiny Portuguese colony, troubled by two days of pro-Communist rioting and facing its worst crisis since Chinese artillery fired on it in 1952, the Associated Press reported.

Seven were reported killed in riots on Saturday and Sunday led by young Chinese, who, like the rampaging teen-age Red Guards of China, chanted quotations from the Chinese Communist Chairman, Mao Tse-tung, and shouted “Kill the foreigners.”

Hundreds were injured, Macao’s City Hall was sacked and a score of other buildings badly damaged, including one used to house refugees from China and another head-

quartering an anti-Communist labour organisation. The dead included a Chinese youth, reported shot when police opened fire on rioters yesterday, and a Government markets inspector, who died of injuries after being beaten by a mob the day before. A convoy of army trucks, guarded by armoured cars and jeeps, moved into the Portuguese residential areas and began evacuating its citizens. They were being taken to the two centuries-old forts on the twin commanding peaks overlooking the six-square-mile colony of some 175,000 persons—more than 95 per cent of whom are Chinese. ARTILLERY FIRE

The sounds of artillery and mortar fire across the border in China and the appearance of seven Chinese gunboats in waters adjacent to the colony apparently are parts of a Chinese psychological attack. There was speculation in both Macao and Hong Kong that the China-inspired riots were a form of financial blackmail—a warning to the wealthy Chinese who own and operate most of Macao's businesses and gambling establishments that not enough money contributions were reaching China. Competent Macao sources said Macao’s gambling casinos and its dog track lost approximately one million dollars worth of business during the riots last week-end. Continued violence or threats of violence could multiply that loss many times in gambling and tourist revenue alone, plus large withdrawals of capital funds which Macao badly needs. Against that kind of background, financial blackmail by China is likely to be paid, in the form of contributions, by the colony’s wealthy Chinese enterpreneurs, Associated Press said.