Why Dutch Eurasians Fight

A Home In Guinea

Letter to the Editor

IN your editorial of March, you quoted Mr. Osmar White, of the Melbourne Herald, who described the very un satisfactory conditions in the recently established Eurasian settlements in Dutch New Guinea, the existence of which is being threatened by an Indo nesian boycott.

During my stay in Java, from 1940 till October, 1942, and later, in 1946, I had the opportunity to learn what was the underlying cause of Eurasian-Indonesian enmity.

Before the war the Eurasians had the same rights and obligations as people born in Holland, and quite a few of them

played a prominent part in developing Indonesia into a country in which there was, instead of racial strife, a peaceful collaboration for the mutual benefit of Europeans and Indonesians.

The war found all Eurasians on the Allied side. Many of them were pilots in the airforce; others fought very well in the navy and army. Like Europeans of Dutch descent, they were all interned after the capitulation, and many were eventually sent to Siam, Burma and Japan.

The end of the war brought no victory for them, however. A few days before the Japanese capitulation, Marshal Terauchi, supreme commander of Japan’s armies in South East Asia, summoned Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta to a con ference, from which they returned with Japan’s recognition of Indonesian inde pendence.

Because the first landing of Allied troops was delayed for two months, these two Indonesian leaders had plenty of time to establish themselves, and arm their followers, with arms mostly sur rendered by the Jananese occupation forces.

Military activities started immediately after the first Allied landings.'Mostly they were of a terrorist tvpe and committed against defenceless people of no matter what race. Because Eurasian women and children had not been interned in “pro tective” camps during the absence of the heads of families, like the Dutch ones— but, instead, were living amongst the population—many of them were mur dered in cold blood.

For many months “liberated” ex- P.O.W. Eurasian and Dutch husbands and fathers were kept waiting outside Java, knowing that their families over there were at the mercy of a mob stirred up by many years of Japanese teachings of intolerance and anti-Europeanism.

There were sincere Indonesian leaders, but they were obviously powerless to control the Japanese-armed hooligans.

IS it to be wondered at that Dutch Eurasians do not wish to live in Java any longer, or in any part of Indonesia, but that they are trying to establish themselves in the only nearby country in which this is still possible?

A successful Eurasian settlement will mean the eventual establishment of 200,000 adaptable, progressive citizens bom and bred in the tropics, who could be a barrier against the designs of any foreign power against New Guinea. The Indo nesian Government knows this and ac cordingly tries to prevent supply ships reaching the struggling Eurasian colonists.

If the Indonesians succeed in destroying the settlements, the only opportunity of populating the empty spaces of Dutch New Guinea with a people who have proved to be loyal and indust rious and are used to tropical conditions, and who suffered so much because they defended their country against Japanese aggression will have gone, and forever.

This will directly affect Australia’s interests which are connected with New Guinea in its entirety in connection with defence and foreign affairs.

Accordingly, help for the struggling Eurasian settlements in New Guinea is not only commendable from a humanitarian point of view, but also from a political one and this might pay rich dividends in the possibly very near future.

I am etc.

D. De Graaff

Port Moresby.