INDONESIA
DRENCHED IN BLOOD. —
: ‘According to the. January 29 issue of the London Economist, the purge launched by Indonesia's reactionary generals in their efforts to crush the Indonesian: Oommunist party (PKI) has gone to such extreme lengths as to.drench the country. in blood.
"The Masjumi party end its followers, suppressed for many years, and the adherents of Nahdatul Ulama party whose members had often suffered at the hands of the PKI mobs," says The Economist, "have taken a terrible revenge. on the communists and anyone associated with them. Deaths from the army's mopping-up operations have been relatively few. Killing by kris and club has taken the heaviest toll. Estimates of thé number of killings since October range from 87.,000 -- officially admitted by the president -- to gossip of | 450,000. Ghoulish rumours of log-jams of bodies in the rivers of Sole and Malan -have reached Jakarta but there is no official confirmation or denial. Army sources estimate the deaths of between 185,000 and 250,000.. In the East Java district. of Malan a welfare organisation has already registered 400,000 children orphaned since October. The. scourge has spread to Bali, Sumatra and the Celebes. West. Java is comparatively quiet."