DUTCH PRETENCE GONE IN SECOND RESORT TO FORCE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22825, 21 December 1948, Page 7

DUTCH PRETENCE GONE IN SECOND RESORT TO FORCE

(11 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 20. For the second time the Dutch have repudiated a signed agreement and re.sorted to armed force in the hope of suppressing the Indonesian nationalistic movement,” says the Manchester Guardian in a leading article. There Is no pretence this time of ‘‘police action of a strictly limited character” against “terrorists” who were alleged to be making negotiations with the Indonesian Republic impossible. The aim is now to destroy the Republican Army and “liberate” the remaining areas under Republican authority—in other words to remove the Republic altogether in its present form as an obstacle to setting ud an interim Federal Government for Indonesia on Dutch terms. The scale of the Dutch combined operation suggests it has been carefully nrepared during the weeks when the Netherlands Foreign Minister has been travelling between Holland and Indonesia seeking a basis for negotiations. When the Dutch decision to set up an interim Government without the Republic requires the use of 130.000 troops, with tanks and aircraft, even the Dutch-sponsored leaders of the non-Republican Indonesian States may begin to Question the good faith of the Netherlands Government.

The Security Council, at its meeting today, has a chance to exert moral authority and save the Netherlands Government from its own folly.