Word: padang
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...rebel arms cache-75 bazookas, three recoilless guns, twelve machine guns-described as being of "American manufacture." By noon, transport planes had built up the government's force to 500 men. Rebel Major Nurdin, after a few token exchanges of fire, retreated westward in good order toward Padang...
First Allies. Across the mountainous spinal column of Sumatra, the rebel colonels holed up around Padang and Bukittinggi and breathed defiance. Rebel Premier Sjafruddin cried that if Sukarno "were now in our midst, he would be hanged as a war criminal." The rebel radio charged that Sukarno had been a Communist since 1955. Posters and wall signs denounced Sukarno as a murderer, an immoral man and worse. Rebel Colonel Ahmad Husein. who is apparently acting as overall military commander, broadcast somewhat superfluously that "from this moment on, we do not recognize Sukarno as President of the Indonesian Republic...
This was no rebellion by fanatical diehards. Its leaders were some of the army's most respected officers, flanked by some of the nation's most respected politicians. From their mountain headquarters in the Padang Highlands of Central Sumatra the voice of the rebels sounded calm and collected, and urged compromise. All the rebels asked was that Indonesia's President 1) behave himself constitutionally, 2) abandon his partnership with the Communist Party...
What the rebels need most is allies, and here they are experiencing the most difficulty. Natsir lingers in Padang still uncommitted, but still the probable candidate for President, if the rebels are forced to disavow Sukarno. A key man is Colonel Barlian, commander of South Sumatra. His area includes the rich Stanvac and Shell oilfields and refineries at Palembang, which supply most of Djakarta's gasoline. Padang's Colonel Husein is his closest friend, and he is with the rebels in spirit but, so far, hesitates to disown Djakarta. Possible reasons: his region is heavily settled by migrant...
...national life, from Indonesian painting to puppet shows to dukuns (soothsayers). His favorite dukun, a ripe female named Madame Suprapto, last week offered him a particularly explicit prophecy: "The first big bomb will fall in Indonesia in March. The United States will intervene in the struggle between Padang and Djakarta, then the Soviet Union will intervene in turn, and World War III will be under way." The result: the U.S., the Soviet Union and all of Europe will be destroyed, and Red China will emerge as the world's foremost power. Indonesia, the forecast concludes, "will play a major...