Indonesia: Justice in Djakarta

"Gantung Aidit!" demanded the crudely painted slogans on Djakarta's downtown walls. That meant "Hang Aidit!" — the pro-Peking boss of Indonesia's 3,500,000-member Communist Party. The wily Red was nowhere to be found, so the rampaging mob last week had to make do with less. They sacked one of Aidit's four Djakarta homes and burned his furniture, then headed for the offices of his cocky Communist Youth Front. There, at the starting point of many a raid on the American library or embassy, the rioters administered poetic justice: the Red headquarters went up in flames.

Other symptoms of rampant anti-Communism and hatred of Aidit's Peking masters abounded throughout Indonesia last week. A mob of 800 stormed the Chinese-run Republika University in the capital, wrecked and burned a two-story building, then invaded the dormitory with knives and submachine guns. Chinese shops in East Java were ransacked, and a newspaper editorial ranted ferociously against the "CIA"—meaning the "Chinese Intelligence Agency."

Salvaging Nasakom. To Indonesians, long accustomed to President Sukarno's friendship with Peking, it seemed odd indeed that Red China could be so viciously maligned. There was nothing really odd about it, for the anti-Chinese campaign simply marked the determination of the army under Defense Minister Nasution to wipe out all traces of Aidit and his Partai Kommunis Indonesia. Nasution would probably succeed, for he and his generals seemed in firm command of the country.

This did not mean that the army was broadly anti-Communist or pro-West, since Marxism and Communism remain respectable among most Indonesians, including the military. Indeed, with Nasution's obvious approval, Sukarno last week set about salvaging what he could of his beloved Nasakom—the tenuous blend of nationalism, religion and Communism on which political control in Indonesia has long been balanced. Part of the salvage plan: formation of a "new" Communist Party based on nationalism and Indonesian self-interest rather than Peking's influence. Aidit, who was believed still hiding out in Middle Java, was branded "a renegade and an outlaw." He would be purged, and the new party would lean toward the Soviet orbit rather than the Chinese. "The President will settle the upheaval," assured a Sukarno aide with typical Indonesian optimism. "If you eliminate the kom from our Nasakom then the balance has been destroyed. That is not practical politics. But you can eliminate the kom that is against you and create another in its place."