OFFER REFUSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27025, 9 March 1949, Page 5

OFFER REFUSED

ATTENDANCE AT THE HAGUE CONFERENCE

DR SUKARNO GIVES REASONS WASHINGTON, Rec. 8 p.m. Mar. 4. The President of the Indonesian Republic, Dr Sukarno, has refused the Dutch invitation to a round-table conference on Indonesia. The United Nations Commission for Indonesia reported that Dr Sukarno said he and his Government lacked the authority to represent the Indonesian Government at such a conference. He added that the decisions to be made at the conference would involve a heavy responsibility which could be assumed only by the Government exercising its authority in its territory and seated in Jogjakarta. The restoration of the Republic and the return of the Republican Government to Jogjakarta were impossible at present, Dr P. J. Koets, Dr Beel’s Cabinet director, told Republican leaders on Banka Island when he visited them last week in connection with the proposal to hold a roundtable conference at The Hague. This was revealed in a report on the Banka conversations by the Republican delegation and reported to the Security Council by the United Nations Commission in Batavia. The report also stated that Dr Koets told the Republican leaders that “after the transfer of sovereignty the position of the remaining Netherlands forces will be that of a foreign army staying with the approval of the Government of the proposed United States of Indonesia and taking no action without and in accordance with the • request of the Government of the United States of Indonesia. This army will be progressively repatriated as far as transportation is available.”

According to a report received from Semrang guerrillas killed seven Indonesian estate guards and five estate workers when they ambushed a truck near Karangnjar, north of Poerwakerta in mid-Java.