THE CHARTER FOR INDONESIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26045, 8 January 1946, Page 4

THE CHARTER FOR INDONESIA

The statement by Dr van Mook, Lieutenant-governor of the Dutch East Indies, that the Dutch must come to a mutual understanding with the Indonesians, expresses a mood that should augur favourably for a satisfactory settlement of the unfortunate conflict that has raged for the last few months. But the uncompromising declaration by Dr Soekarno, who is described as President of the Indonesian Republic, that Indonesia is determined to fight for its independence, whatever the opposition which it may have to meet, and will be content with nothing less than complete independence, threatens an ugly complication. For Dr Soekarno, having been a collaborator with the Japanese, does not commend himself as one with whom a mutual understanding is to be greatly desired. With Dr Sjahrir it is different. It is a grimly ironic circumstance that it is to the sudden collapse of Japan that the challenge to the Netherlands’ control of the East Indies was due. The Allies, Dr van Mook confesses, were themselves taken by surprise. Japanese forces were widely distributed at the date of the surrender of their nation. It has been estimated that of 170,000 of them in Eastern Indonesia 50,000 were in Java. If these Japanese in Java had gone down fighting or if the fall of their people had not come so speedily—had not come until the Dutch and their allies were in a position to act decisively in Java —the question of Dutch rights in the territory would not have arisen. The collapse of Japan occurred, however, at a time when Admiral Mountbatten, Supreme Commander in the East, had neither troops nor shipping available to deal with Java. It was six weeks before even a token force could be landed. The months that followed provided a perfect opportunity for the Japanese to leave behind them a legacy of trouble for the Allies. As Lieut.-general Martin, military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, writes, they made the most of their chances. During these months it was the Japanese who fomented anti-Dutch feeling, and who re-armed the extremists. Not only that: a whole corps of Japanese marines melted away in Java —to fight in the ranks of the Javanese. The Japanese thus succeeded in creating an almost wholly artificial anti-Dutch movement. A republican Government of sorts was formed, containing nationalist elements of an educated kind and securing as its followers young men armed with what the Japanese handed over to them. It will have been by the latter that terrorism and savagery were practised. There seems to be

ground, however, for the belief, expressed by Dr van Mook, that the majority of the intellectual and moderately intellectual Indonesians and the greater mass of the peaceloving people have given their support to Dr Sjahrir, who is acknowledged to have planned a constructive policy. And in this reposes the hope that the aim of the Dutch Government, as declared by Dr Van Mook, to “ lay the foundation of collaboration as participants in a single empire ” may eventually be achieved.