Fijians Kill Their First Terrorists

But Still Some Misgivings on the Home Front

CHE Fijian infantry battalion serving against the terrorists in Malaya moved into an opera ional area early in June and by the liddle of the month had scored its rst success.

The Battalion is now one of three ifantry units in the 63rd Gurkha rigade with headquarters in Ser tnban.

The area that has been allotted > the care of the Fijians is about 40 miles directly north-west of ingapore—about 50 miles from mala Lumpur, and 30 miles east of eremtaan. It is a rubber district, nd about 45 plantations are under le protection of the Fiji battalion.

A platoon of C Company under le command of Major Isireli Koro ulavula MC ambushed a party of urorists and in a ten-minute en agement killed three and wounded nother who escaped.

In a second engagement,, Ser eant R. T. Lowry and 30 men, out a jungle patrol, observed and fol ded tracks, and overtook, fought ith and wiped out a small party f bandits.

Fiji, and particularly the Fijian ommunity, is hungry for news of iie doings of the battalion in and ut of action. But, to date, most of tie information about the Fijians i Malaya has arrived in Fiji as mall news stories from Reuters orrespondents stationed in Malaya.

The local Fiji press has been 'aging a war against this lack of iformation for several months but 'iji Military Forces brass-hats seem d take the attitude that what the *iji battalion is doing is strictly tie business of the military authori ies, and that the public should r ait patiently for driblets of news hich are, of course, released only fter all the proper precautions are mde for security. Civilians, these ays, are not impressed by this top secret” stuff, and the plain act of the matter seems to be that ae FMF has made little or no pro ision for an information service.

Mission Protests

Meantime the Methodist Church i Australia has renewed its protest ver the Fijians being sent to fight i Malaya. In Sydney in mid-June lie Rev. Alan Walker, a prominent lethodist minister, said that Aus tralians and Britishers should hang tieir heads in shame for recruiting oung Fijians to fight in Malaya.

“To recruit them for a war they now nothing about, in a land of 'hich they have scarcely heard, is blunder and a crime,” he said.

Some time ago the Methodist !hurch protested to the Secretary f State for the Colonies and re eived the reply that the Acting governor of Fiji (Mr. A. F. R. itoddart) considered that the ex erience gained by the Fijians in

their overseas service would incul cate a spirit of resourcefulness and initiative and that the battalion re presented only 1.2 per cent, of the total Fijian male population.

The Methodists have sent a further letter to the Secretary of State, pointing out that the male population includes infants, middle aged and old men and that in the age group of 20-30, from which the Fijian infantrymen come, the per centage is many times higher.

At the time of the sudden decision to send the Fijians to Malaya PIM pointed out that the whole thing seemed ill-considered and that, in view of the rapidly increasing Indian

population in Fiji, the Fijians had a problem of their own to settle at home. To send the cream of Fiji’s manhood to help clean up the Malayan mess seemed to be leaning over backwards to assume patriotic responsibilities when much better endowed countries like Australia and New Zealand were doing vir tually nothing.

Officialdom may be right in that it will inculcate a spirit of resource

fulness and initiative in the Fijians.

Service in past wars nonetheless has not been noted for fitting* service men to the task of tackling the problems of civilian life.

However, at the time that PIM registered its surprise, there was no official protest from the Metho list Mission in Fiji, and nothing was heard of their objections until the battalion was actually in Malaya.

The Fijians, of course, love being soldiers, just as they love playing football, and for much the same reason. They are also enthusiastic adherents of the Methodist Church.

It would have been interesting to see the results if the Fiji Methodist Mission had campaigned vigorously against recruiting for Malaya when it was being undertaken in Fiji at the end of last year.

Miss Patricia Graham who is one of only three Australian women to hold a commercial flying licence, has joined Gibbes Sepik Airways (NG). Airwomen have been seen in P-NG before —but briefly. If Miss Graham flies the regular schedules of Gibbes Airways—which are mostly in the rough and tough Sepik and Central Highlands areas —she should give local inhabitants, brown and white, a new topic of conversation. The principal of the Airways, Mr. Bobby Gibbes is at present on a visit to the ÜBA.