Looting Reported In Kuala Lumpur

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31989, 16 May 1969, Page 11

Looting Reported In Kuala Lumpur

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) KUALA LUMPUR, May 15. Looters today went on a rampage in parts of Kuala Lumpur, where more racial violence and outbreaks of fire have occurred. Reliable sources say that shots have been heard, and that a plane flew across the city making loudspeaker appeals to people to take cover; but all telephones in the centre of die city appear to have been cut and it is difficult to check on what is happening. Today’s trouble began as thousands of people flocked into the streets to buy food during a two-hour relaxation of the round-the-clock curfew imposed 36 hours earlier.

Smoke from buildings set on fire by Malay and Chinese gangs during a second successive night of violence, still hung in the air.

Several more deaths have been reported, but no firm figure is yet available. At the last official count late last night, there were 42 known dead. But unofficial sources say that well over 100 have been killed since the rioting began on Tuesday. A sub-post office and other buildings were set on fire by the rioting gangs, as they roamed the streets only hours after the Prime Minister (Tunku Abdul Rahman) had assumed sweeping emergency powers. At least three dozen buildings have been destroyed since the riots plunged the country into its worst crisis since it

gained independence, and the burned-out hulks of more than 200 vehicles can be seen in the rubble-strewn streets. Amid reports today that security forces were driving j people off the streets by i shooting in the air, Radio Malaysia urged residents to keep away from the Malay and Chinese areas where the worst clashes and killings had occurred. Large areas of Kuala Lumpur, particularly the attractive middle-class residential areas, are peaceful, and the remainder of the country is also quiet, although the curfew has been broken in some nearby States. In Penang, where more than 70 curfew-breakers have been arrested, no incidents of violence were reported while the curfew was lifted for six hours. The Associated Press reports that the General Election in East Malaysia has

been postponed indefinitely under the Federal Government’? new special powers, which give it the right to cancel elections in States where they are not completed. Observers question the validity of the postponement of the voting in Sabah because there has been no violence there. Neither has there been any report of trouble in Sarawak. The “Hong Kong Star” said today that the Chinese Government had ordered the Hong Kong branch of the Bank of China to send a large amount of money to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to stir up more trouble. Attributing its report to its own sources in China, the newspaper said the money was being transmitted via Macao to be used under the direction of China’s SouthEast Asian Revolutionary Unit headquarters in the Portuguese colony.