With Sword & Cutlass

Sumatra, the second largest island in Indonesia, straddles the equator and points northwest into the rolling blue wastes of the Bay of Bengal. On the island's tip, in the province of Atjeh, live about 1,000,000 Achinese, a proud and irritable people, unshakably Moslem, the first Indonesians to embrace Islam in the 11th century and the last to be pacified by the Dutch (1904). Some centuries ago the Achinese were intrepid pirates, raiding Western shipping, and attacking fortified towns in quest of slaves, concubines and booty. In modern times they have been peaceful farmers, fishermen and plantation workers. But they still reach for their weapons when aroused; and last week the Achinese were in bloody revolt against the Indonesian government at Jakarta, on the neighboring (and more populous) island of Java.

The Achinese resented the dominance of Java and of the Javanese in the central government and the government's plain lack of interest in the welfare of outlying provinces. Last summer when a new government was formed at Jakarta, under Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo, the Achinese cup of wrath brimmed over. The new regime was supported by the Communists (though not Communist itself), and no member of the Masjumi (Moslem) Party, Indonesia's largest, was in the cabinet.

Secession. The angry Achinese rallied around Teuku Daud Beureuh, a former military governor of Atjeh. Beureuh was in touch with another Moslem rebel, Kartosuwirjo, who had been defying the government for three years from the wilds of West Java. In September, Beureuh seceded from Indonesia--that is, he proclaimed Atjeh a part of an autonomous Islamic state headed by Kartosuwirjo. At the same time 10,000 of his Achinese warriors, wearing homemade black uniforms and brandishing swords, cutlasses, kukris and even kitchen knives, attacked government police and military posts in eleven Atjeh towns. In most cases the rebels ran up against barbed wire and machine guns and were driven back with heavy losses, but with fanatical fury they kept on attacking. The government forces captured 600 and killed 400 more, and announced that the Achinese revolt was under control. They spoke too soon.

Appeasement. Last week Indonesia's bullnecked Defense Minister Iwa Kusumasumantri made a quick, one-day visit to the Atjeh battle zone. What he found was that the government held only some stretches of the east-coast railway, a few strong points on the coast, and that Moslems in the government units were defecting to the rebels in large numbers.

However severely bloodied, Beureuh's Achinese had some strongholds of their own, on the sea and in the mountains. The government showed signs of thinking that appeasement might bring better results than force. Said the Times of Indonesia: "The provinces must come into their own." A government spokesman said that a large measure of autonomy was being considered for Atjeh, if only the Achinese would put away their sharp blades.

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