Word: sumatra
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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...
...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 support in the nominally uncommitted areas of Borneo, Java and the Celebes...
Even the Masjumi Party's Natsir, while counseling moderation and patience, had himself turned outspokenly critical of Su karno. "West Irian [West New Guinea] was not a real issue for Sukarno," Natsir wrote in an open letter published in the Sumatra press. "It was only the stepping-stone for a far greater strategical move-the severance of all relations with the Western democracies, and the use of the economic and political consequences of this action to bring Indonesia into the Soviet bloc...
...Sumatra home, where he has moved his family because he feels no longer safe in Java, Sjafruddin explained: "This must not be a political adventure. We do not want to install ourselves in political power. What we want is to bring down something bad. The terror in Djakarta makes it impossible for Parliament to act freely. But I hope my letter will cause further developments which will make unnecessary the formation of an emergency government. If it fails, we may have no other recourse...