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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 20, 18 May 1940, pp. 1 & 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Nothing is more ominous than the round-robin of “assurances” exchanged among and between the U.S., Japan, France, and Britain about maintaining the status quo of the Netherlands East Indies, richest prize of the southern Pacific.
In terms of modern imperialist politics, this means that each of those nations has served notice that it intends to sit in on the feast. Cordell Hull’s latest warning to the Japanese was virtually an open threat of war.
The Japanese have professed “satisfaction” with the Dutch government’s pledge that it would not seek or accept foreign “protection” for the Indies, but the act of French and British troops in landing at Curacao and Aruba in the Dutch West Indies has brought the Japanese to the alert. And what’s more, the Dutch government has already fled to London and is likely to be an addition shortly to the list of governments without countries. This will leave the issue of the Indies wide open.
The Japanese have already begun the process of inching toward action to secure possession. They have demanded not only the maintenance of the political status quo, but also of the economic, i.e., if Holland should divert to itself or to the Allies any of the rubber and tin that now goes from the Indies to Japan – a likely enough prospect – the Japanese will regard the status quo as infringed and would take their familiar measures of “self-defense.”
The job of manufacturing pretexts for eventual action is already also well underway. On Sunday, May 12, the Japanese consul in Batavia “protested strongly” to the Dutch governor-general against “increasing anti-Japanese agitation among the Dutch inhabitants.” Further, and more significant, Domei (Japanese) News Agency began circulating reports on May 14 that a movement of the natives against the Dutch rulers had been launched in the Indies.
We know that the Japanese are primarily interested in creating a situation which would facilitate their intervention and the utmost vigilance must be maintained with respect to rumors of this kind.
But it is nevertheless precisely with such a nationalist movement that the colonial slaves of the East Indies sought to win their freedom after the last war. Strikes and partial insurrections of the plantation workers throughout the 3,000-mile archipelago developed between 1919 and 1925 into a war of considerable magnitude. The “peaceful” and “democratic” Dutch laid aside their knouts, and with rifle, machine gun and bombing plane, crushed the revolt amid great slaughter.
On Feb. 4, 1933, the whole Far East was electrified by news of a mutiny by native sailors aboard the Dutch battleship, De Zeven Provincien. The mutineers sailed the warship toward Sourabaya and fought off attackers by sea and air for six days before they were forced finally to surrender. The Dutch rulers seized the opportunity to stage a ruthless drive against nationalist organizations and during the whole subsequent year carried out wholesale raids and arrests.
As in all the other subject lands, this movement smolders not far from the surface. When it bursts into blaze, the old masters shall go and all the calculations of those who aspire to their place will be upset.
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Last updated on 20 February 2020