FLIES ON A PIECE OF MEAT"
: The gruesome repression of Indonesia is still not ended. New York Times correspondent Alfred Friendly Jr. reported September 17 that anti-Communist students had begun "a new drive to find. and arrest Communist agents who they say have been filtering intoa.. the capital at the rate of 200 a week since early June.
_ House-to-house searches were started in Djakarta's congested areas. No arrests::were made the first night, but student leaders "said they expected better results after military authorities handed over lists of suspects to them at a ceremony scheduled for tomorrow. Those seized on suspicion will be turned over to paratroop headquarters for processing. »
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In a separate. article filed the same » date, the Mmes” correspondent reported that the new regime is having great ¢ difficulty in stabilizing the economic situation. The cost of living which went up 900°times in the last eight years increased 80 percent between March and June of 1966.
The government is virtually bankrupt so far as its credit _ rating abroad is concerned. But the "burned moneymen" of. Japan and the United States, to whom $530,000,000 is due this year and $629 ,000,000 next year, are cautious about loosening their purse strings- They want an "austerity" regime; they want their investments anid profits guaranteed. :
' The responsive generals have drawn up a new law "regulating" foreign investments for submission to parliament. It is "reported. to contain guarantees against expropriation as well as attractive foreign exchange and profit repatriation provisions." If this. goes through, then the foreign moneymen are ready to take action. "A. veteran European businessman in Indonesia remarked this week that if 'the risk.factor were only reduced to a bearable level here, if businessmen could only trust the Government for cooperation and pro-tection, foreign capitalists would be all over Indonesia like flies on a piece of meat.