Sarawak Situation ‘Very Serious’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31238, 9 December 1966, Page 17

Sarawak Situation ‘Very Serious’

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

KUALA LUMPUR, December 8. The Malaysian Deputy Premier, Tun Abdul Razak, said yesterday the situation in Sarawak was “very serious.”

This follows Tuesday's police swoop on 94 alleged Communists and Communist sympathisers. Twenty more are believed to have been taken in today. The Federal Government claims that a Communist insurrection may be imminent in Sarawak. It is at the same time locked in bitter dispute with legally-approved opposition parties in the Borneo province, and charges that their membership includes, variously, Communist supporters, secessionists, and backers of the old British colonial regime. Tun Razak told reporters after a Cabinet meeting: “The round-up was to prevent Communist elements and their

sympathisers making use of the fluid situation now prevailing in the state. “The evidence we have against them is conclusive. Those taken in the operation were either Communists, or their sympathisers, aiming at toppling the Government.” The Deputy Premier was asked about charges by Mr Stephen Yong, secretarygeneral of the left wing Sarawak United People’s Party, that the Government was merely trying to suppress the opposition before next year’s planned general elections. He replied: “ft is true that some members of that party were arrested. But those members, according to our information, were Communist sympathisers."