Communists Exploit Indonesian Unrest

Wanganui Chronicle, 18 January 1949, Page 5

Communists Exploit Indonesian Unrest

NEW YORK, Jan. 16 (Recd. 7pm). —Writing from Batavia after a tour of South-east Asia from India to Indonesia, the “New York Times” correspondent, Robert Trumbull, says: Every mistake, whether political or tactical, made by th e anti-Communist Governments in the area, has been shrewdly exploited by the Communlists. It is not strange that Communism should flourish in Asia because nowhere else in the world has the ordinary man’s lot been more hopeless, and the prospect for the continued growth of Communism is favourable because ther e are few indications that economic improvements can be expected soon. Trumbull says that measures taken against Communism had been almost exclusively military and therefore not i too successful, because they had not attacked the fundamental causes. He says that in any appraisal of Communist strength in the Far East, the effect of Dutch military operations in Indonesia is an important consideration. It is felt generally in SouthEast Asia that the Dutch attack on the Indonesian Republic can only have the effect of increasing Communist strength. In most Government in the Far East there is a transcendant fear of a Communist China. Unrest in the Far East benefits Communism throughout the world by denying the products and materials of this area to western industry and by keeping alive a situation which the enemies of the western democracies can exploit as they see fit.