State of Siege

As self-interest seemed to be the dominating characteristic of most of the officers on the list of suspects, the new policy worked. From time to time there were plot scares and midnight executions, and for one period of a month martial law was declared; but although the roads to the north were now permanently in insurgent hands (Sanusi impudently collected taxes from the villages in his area), the Government did not lose any more ground. The losses they suffered from now on were in terms of morale rather than territory.

The black market, for example. There were simple economic reasons for its growth. The American credits had been spent not on capital goods, but dissipated on such things as cars, refrigerators, radios and air-conditioning equipment, the importation of which had produced huge personal commissions for members of the Government and their subordinates. Efforts to control the resulting inflation had been half-hearted. “Inducement taxes” had been imposed only to be evaded. In Selampang there was a black market in practically everything. In the tuberculosis clinics set up by the World Health Organisation, a mantri would even inject water into his patients so that he could steal the B.C.G. vaccine and sell it on the black market. All kinds of racketeering flourished. In Asia, admittedly, the giving and taking of bribes is a normal, accepted part of the daily business of getting things done; but in Sunda it assumed stultifying proportions.

Yet, the Government, although recognising the need for measures to deal with the problem, were quite unable to agree what those measures should be. It was not mere indecision, and it was not simply because there were some ministers with personal interests to consider. Their inability to deal effectively with this or any of the other social and economic problems which confronted them had a deeper cause. The Sanusi affair had in some subtle way served to demoralise them completely. Certainly, after the discovery of the conspiracy of 1950, the whole business of government in Sunda was conducted in a deadly atmosphere of guilt, greed and mutual suspicion that made any major decision seem horribly dangerous. The Nasjah Government, in fact, was suffering from a recurrent nightmare, and their fear of it incapacitated them. A watertight plan for eliminating Sanusi was the only thing that could have produced unanimity.

Up in the Tangga Valley we were to some extent isolated from all this madness; at least during the first year. We used to be told about what was going on by visitors, especially World Health Organisation and UNICEF people who came to work in our area, and be surprised that such intelligent men should expect us to believe the fantastic stories they told. Later on, when our own contact with the capital became closer, we knew better. But as long as Gedge had the labour force he needed and supplies continued to come up to us from our small port on the coast, we were able to feel that what went on in Selampang was no concern of ours.

And then the “government nominees” began to arrive.

It is one of the basic principles of Colombo Plan policy that, when aid is given for a project like the Tangga River dam, as many of the managerial posts as possible should be held by Asians. If qualified Asians are not immediately available and Europeans (i.e., whites) have to be employed under contract, then every effort has to be made to replace them with Asians when those contracts expire. Obviously, this is good sense, and, naturally, a man like Gedge was in eager sympathy with the principle. But the operative word is “qualified.” Asia is desperately short of technicians of all grades, and at the managerial level the shortage is acute. In Sunda, the position was as bad as could be.

However, that fact did not deter the authorities in Selampang. When a government depends for its physical safety on a policy of “jobs for the boys,” highly paid jobs become scarce. Furthermore, the salaries were paid by the Colombo Plan contractors, not by the Government. When the Europeans’ service contracts began to expire, the Tangga Valley project must have looked like a gold mine in Selampang. Innocently, Gedge assumed that his formal, routine requests for Asians to replace the departing Europeans (requests that he was legally obliged to make) would be acknowledged and then forgotten in the usual way. He knew perfectly well that they had nobody suitable to send him. And he was right.