Word: padang
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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...
...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...
...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...