SOLOMONS NATIVES DISPERSED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22439, 20 September 1947, Page 6

SOLOMONS NATIVES DISPERSED

SUDDEN END TO THREATENED REVOLT (N.Z.P.A.—Reuter— Copyright.) SYDNEY, September 19. Star shells fired into the air by a British submarine ended at birth the revolution which threatened this month to involve the British Solomons Islands Protectorate.

Officers of the submarine Amphion, which has arrived at Darwin from the Solomons, told the story of how she and the destroyer Contest coped with the native revolutionary movement. A native rising had been planned to take place this month.

When the Amphion entered the, harbour of the small island of Santa Ana, in the Southern Solomons, the officers said they saw a “Punch and Judy show” enacted for their benefit.

A strange flag with a yellow background and black stripes flew from a mast on the beach- The natives said it was their flag of freedom and the symbol of “Martin Lo” (Marxian law) When a parly was landed they saw a large mass of natives congregated on the beach around the flag. A short distance away another party of several men stood bv a British flag which also had been hoisted.

The party consisted of a naturalised British subject of German birth. Mr. Henry Kuper. who owns the plantation on the island, and his sons.

The Amphion fired star shells in the air and the natives dispersed. Mr. Kuper said that the leaders of the uprising were natives from the large island of Malaita, which had been chosen as the headquarters. He believed that the uprising was due mainly to Communistic propaganda circulated after the American occupation of the Solomons during the war. The natives had been told that on September 1 an American destroyer would arrive with a cargo ship bringing a mosquito-proof house and refrigerator for each one of them. The date was postponed. When the Amphion came into the harbour, the natives thought this was the nromised sign of deliverance from British rule.

The destroyer Contest is now patrolling the islands, and most of the ringleaders have been captured and imprisoned-