Indonesia: Silent Settlement

In Djakarta last week, President Sukarno continued to resist the demands of military leaders that the Communist Party be outlawed for its sponsorship of the Sept. 30 coup attempt. Meanwhile, outside the capital in the hundreds of islands that form the Indonesian archipelago, individual army units and bands of violently anti-Communist Moslems were reportedly working to make the argument academic.

According to accounts brought out of Indonesia by Western diplomats and independent travelers, Communists, Red sympathizers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of Communists after interrogation in...