Challenge & Response

In Padang, at the foot of Sumatra's towering Barisan Mountains, 40,000 troops and civilians gathered on a balmy tropical night last week to hear Lieut. Colonel Ahmad Husein proclaim a "revolutionary government with full sovereignty over all Indonesia." Designated Premier of the new state was Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, ex-Governor of the Bank of Indonesia and a bitter personal enemy of President Sukarno. Cried Sjafruddin: "It is with deep sorrow and sadness that we are compelled to raise the banner of challenge against our own head of state. We have talked and talked. Now we must act."

So the new Republic of Indonesia got its first major rebellion, and seldom had the world seen such a reluctant one. For months the rebel colonels had debated and threatened. Early last week they issued their oft-promised and oft-postponed ultimatum. It gave Djakarta five days to replace Premier Djuanda and his Cabinet by a new government free of Communist influence and headed by moderate ex-Vice President Mohammed Hatta and the popular, middle-of-the-road Sultan of Djokjakarta.

The central government's response was swift: it ordered the dishonorable discharge and immediate arrest of Colonels Husein, Lubis, Djambek and Simbolon, sent two B-25 bombers over Padang to spray the city with leaflets announcing the colonels' dismissal for "endangering the security of the state."

"Be Our Leader!" In Padang the rebel colonels were unintimidated by Djakarta's maneuvers, and as the week wore on they found some encouragement in reading news reports on Secretary of State Dulles' press conference in Washington.* To 10,000 cheering students. Colonel Ahmad Husein cried that he was submitting his military rank to the will of the people. Pulling off his epaulets, he flung them into the crowd. With equal sense of theater, the students shouted, "No. no, be our leader!", and several of them hurriedly fastened the insignia back on Husein's uniform with the cry of "Recommissioned by the people!'' Troops and field-grade officers lined up to pledge loyalty to the rebels. As the ultimatum's deadline approached. Padang set about preparing for the worst. Machine-gun posts were spotted throughout Padang, armored cars patrolled the streets, a heavy guard was thrown about the residence of every colonel.

During the week's uproar. President Sukarno seemed the most relaxed Indonesian. In Tokyo, on the last leg of a jaunt through Asia, he went with his staff to a geisha party at the Tskuki No lye (House of the Moon) and renewed a fond acquaintance with a pretty, 29-year-old geisha named Keiko Isozaki, whom he had known during World War II in the Japanese-occupied Celebes where she was entertaining the Japanese troops and he was a Japanese supporter. Next day, Sukarno's Imperial Hotel suite had a hospital hush until late in the afternoon. Explained a wan Indonesian aide: "It was a very excellent party, but now I do not feel so well." Geisha Isozaki tripped merrily off to a fashionable shop on the Ginza and bought Sukarno a 24-karat gold ear-cleaner inscribed with his name--the sort of gift that, in Japan, is made only to intimates.

Oil Squeeze. Few guns are likely to be fired in anger between the supporters of Indonesia's rival governments. The armies are small ones--measurable in battalions rather than divisions--and there is no easy way for them to get at each other, since neither side has enough warships or transports to mount an invasion. The rebels have no aircraft at all; the central government has only a few, with perhaps several hundred paratroopers. Java has more population (54 million, v. Sumatra's 12 million). But Java must import even its food, is already in serious economic difficulties. Sumatra is rich in rubber, tin and coffee, provides some 72% of Indonesia's export revenues, v. Java's 17%. The rebel government made clear that its pressure on Djakarta would be primarily economic. As a beginning, it ordered Sumatra's oil companies (BPM. Stanvac. Caltex) to cease deliveries to Java and halt payment of tax revenues.

Even at this late date, no one seemed eager for a final break. All of the nation's major political parties, except the Communists, offered their services to mediate between rebel Sumatra and the central government. In Djakarta, hundreds of students routed Dr. Mohammed Hatta out of his bed at 3 a.m. to urge that the nation's problems be solved "without bloodshed." Hatta obligingly announced that he would have "no part of any government formed under the pressure of rebel threats," and the Sultan of Djokiakarta took time off from examining model dairy farms at the University of Wisconsin to say mildly that his support was not pledged to either side.

At week's end President Sukarno at last flew in from Tokyo, cheerily told the crowd at the airport that, with God's help, all difficulties would be solved. He might be right, but it was up to him. Even as the rebels appealed for recognition by the world's governments, they insisted that they would be happy to disband the minute Sukarno accepted their demands.

*Said Dulles: ''We would like to see in Indonesia a government which is constitutional . . . There is a kind of 'guided democracy' trend there . . . which may not quite conform with the provisional constitution, and apparently does not entirely satisfy large segments of the population."

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