Word: sumatra
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Padang's rebellion floundered, seemed perilously near collapse. The rebel communiqués continued to report bloody battles all along the shrinking perimeter of rebel territory in Central Sumatra, but newsmen searching for these savage conflicts were finding little but bad roads, torrential rains and, occasionally, friendly government troops. "It's an accident when they fight-like two people bumping into each other in the dark," said one Western observer...
Monsoon Rains. Rebel sources blamed Nangolan's tame surrender of Medan on the failure of reinforcements to arrive from North and Central Sumatra. Colonel Simbolon, the rebel Foreign Minister, had set out for Medan from the rebel capital of Bukittinggi, but his 100-truck column was bogged down by monsoon rains that caused landslides and washed away bridges. Another rebel column from Tapanuli was stopped dead by a government regiment that was supposed to switch over to the rebels but did not. Djakarta gleefully announced that the remnants of Nangolan's command were cornered on the eastern shore...
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...
...protest. To the impatient military commanders of the Outer Islands, nothing seemed to come from Djakarta except the sound of falling Cabinets and the noise of futile oratory. These young, vigorously anti-Communist colonels were a new factor in Indonesia's tumbling political confusion. The Outer Islands, and Sumatra in particular, produce nearly 100% of Indonesia's exports, while overpopulated Java has always been a deficit area. The profits earned by their products went to Djakarta and, it seemed to the colonels, never came back. Sukarno believes not in economics, but in people-and Java had most...
...Sukarno spent the Outer Islands' earnings on Java. In early 1955 Colonels Sumual and Warouw in the Celebes began shipping out copra and collecting their own taxes on the trade. Instead of sending the revenue to Djakarta, they used the money for local schools and roads. In Central Sumatra veteran Colonel Ahmad Husein followed their lead, took over the regional administration, soon was exporting rubber to Singapore. Tall, efficient Colonel Simbolon in North Sumatra and scholarly Colonel Barlian in South Sumatra also went into the business of army-managed barter and invested the profits in schools, roads, barracks...