Word: padang
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...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...
Premier Djuanda thought otherwise. Last week Djuanda dispatched the Mas-jumi (Moslem) Party's respected Elder Statesman Mohammed Roem to insurgent headquarters at Padang in Sumatra to propose a compromise. Djuanda's offer: if the dissidents agree to stay their hand until the President returns, he will ask Sukarno to purge the National Council of its Communists and fellow travelers and to invite former Vice President Mohammed Hatta back into the government, probably to take over as Premier from Djuanda himself...
...Late? Djuanda's compromise might have come too late. In Padang, Roem found some civilian leaders receptive. "But," Masjumi Party Chairman Mohammed Natsir told him, "it is not for us to decide." Plainly, Colonel Maludin Simbolon and his fellow colonels have grown increasingly impatient with Sukarno's attempts to solve the crisis by postponement, and the colonels' power is decisive in Padang's councils. For they control most of oil-and rubber-rich Sumatra (which they propose to make the base of their counter-government if Sukarno cannot be brought to terms), can also claim scattered...
...government would become a permanent counter-government which would seek recognition from other powers as the legitimate government of all Indonesia, on the ground that the Djuanda government is actually challenged almost everywhere in Indonesia except in Java, and that it has never been invested by Parliament. Said one Padang official: "We fought for a country based on Pantja Sila [the Five Principles of belief in God, nationalism, humanitarianism, social justice and democracy]. Did we do this just to turn the country over to Communists as they are doing in Djakarta...
Separate Channels. Already the outlying areas are operating almost like separate countries. Djakarta customs officers inspect the luggage of Sumatra-bound passengers as if they were flying to a hostile country. In contrast to Djakarta, Colonel Simbolon's Padang was remarkably peaceful, secure, and spotlessly clean. It was also much healthier economically. Padang's cost-of-living index has risen 77 points in the last five years against 144 for Djakarta; bartering its rubber with Singapore produces an estimated $1,500,000 a month in profits. When Djakarta seized eight South Sumatran ships in an effort to halt...