OCCUPATION OF JAVA

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23316, 27 September 1945, Page 5

OCCUPATION OF JAVA

British To Move In (7.30 p.m.) SINGAPORE, Sept. 26. The British occupation of Java is being speeded up because of the confused political state of the country. A force of the South-east Asia Command consisting of the 23rd Division is planned to land at Batavia early in October and establish a military government. after which Dutch civil affairs will taken over the administrative machinery. British troops will remain to police the country in the absence of sufficient Dutch forces, whose return is delayed by the world shipping shortage. It is understood that the Japanese Kempeitai commander is afraid of disorders inspired bv Indonesian nationalists. Dr. Soekarno. the self-styled president, whose Cabinet was prevented from functioning by the Kempeitai told the correspondent of the Australian Associated Press that Indonesians were not planning a coup d'etat or contemolating violence to gain their ends. They hoped by peaceful means to induce Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten tn transmit to the United Nations their plea for independence for consideration by the Peace Conference. Ships Held Up The Prime Minister. Mr J. B. Chifley, said he would receive the representations of the Dutch authorities to-day regarding the hold-up of Dutch ships destined for the Netherlands East Indies, states a Canberra message. Earlier Mr Chifley had told the House of Representatives that the trcuble in Dutch ships began when Indonesian crews refused to work them. He said that if the Dutch could not make their own subjects do the job it was difficult to envisage subjects of another country being likely to take action which might be called "scabbing” on the Dutch themselves. Dutch ships in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne are held up. Some Indonesian crews have refused to work fearing that supplies carried by the Ships will be used against the nationalist "government” established in Java by Dr. Soekarno. The Federal Executive of the Waterside Workers’ Federation has declared black all ships in which Indonesian crews are on strike, or which are suspected of carrying munitions for use against the Indonesian Nationalist Government, Mr Chifley mentioned at to-day’s conference in replying to the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition. Mr E. J. Harrison, who said he had been informed that the Brisbane Trades and Labour Council had decided to ask the Government to waive the penalty provisions of the Immigration Act in regard to members of ships’ crews. These men were aliens, said Mr Harrison, a"d if they were put off the ships the Government would have to take action against them as prohibited immigrants.

Mr Menzies said the holding up of Dutch ships was an impudent attempt bv Communists in the Waterside Workers’ Federation to intervene in the domestic affairs of the Netherlands East Indie .