INDONESIA: NATION IN JEOPARDY

OF the 15 countries propelled to independence since the beginning of World War II, none set out with more confident fervor than Indonesia. After 350 years as a colony of the Dutch, one sudden, exuberant transformation made the islands the world's sixth most populous nation (80 million), rich in natural resources, and in national ambition. This month, the young Indonesian Republic begins its sixth year of independence, and the confident fervor is gone. The economy is sick with inflation. Unrest is growing among the 90% Moslem population because of 1) the weakness of the central government, and 2) the way the Communists are infiltrating Premier Ali Sastroamidjojo's government with the open encouragement of the Premier and the men around him.

Against the debits of disappointment and disillusionment stand few credits. Rice production, for the first time, now equals the country's needs; illiteracy has been forced down from 95% to about 75%. Confessed President Achmad Soekarno recently: "Our accomplishments have been few."

Djakarta, the capital and seat of most of Indonesia's troubles, has grown from a city of 500,000 before the war to a seething 4,000,000. From there, TIME Correspondent Dwight Martin cabled last week:

Downtown Djakarta sprawls rank and sullen in the fetid subequatorial heat. Wilhelmina Park, once the pride of the city's stolid Dutch proconsuls, now lies half given back to the jungle, its cracked statuary staring vacantly above a graveyard of wrecked jeeps, trucks and armored vehicles. Swill and offal clog the canal that cuts through the main shopping center, and along its banks people gather in family clusters to bathe, brush their teeth, defecate or wash clothes. Hideously deformed beggars swarm the approaches to even the humblest cafes.

By day, the streets are choked with gaudily painted, bell-tingling pedicabs, with tiny, pony-drawn gharries, with stray livestock and rickety prewar Fords and Chevrolets, all cowed by the horn-blasting Packards, Cadillacs and Mercedes of government officials, black marketeers, Chinese and European traders. The near chaos of Djakarta's streets is symptomatic of the near chaos--economic, political and social--of the whole republic.

Departing Business. Indonesia's economy is being slowly strangled by in ept government policies. While badly needing and openly crying for foreign investment, the government is slowly forcing out firms already in business. Most planters (tea, rubber) say they are not even bothering to replant. General Motors closed its assembly plant at Tandjong Priok a few weeks ago after 27 years of operation. Philco Radio and Britain's vast Imperial Chemical Industries are expected to follow quite soon. At Tandjong Priok, the capital's seaport, costly prefabricated school buildings are rusting on wharves because someone has forgotten them; at Bandung, in West Java, a $45 million munitions factory sits unassembled because the officials who imported it forgot also to import technicians to put it into operation.

Foreigners here tend to believe that the problems are all traceable to incompetence and shortsightedness within the Sastroamidjojo government. It is true that there is better political and ad ministrative talent outside, most of it belonging to the Socialists. But even if The Socialists have better brains, they seem no less infected with the same blinding anti-Western bias. Anti-Westernism runs, too, through the Masjumi (Moslem) Party, the country's largest, though both Moslems and Socialists are at least antiCommunist. Last week the Indonesian Minister of Information gave a small party for press attaches and foreign newsmen. The feature of the evening was movies -- a short on a glass factory in Leningrad, another on modern apartments Moscow, and a full-length Russian film in color.

Spreading Revolt. What is not so visible in Djakarta by day can be clearly seen at night: the government's failure to establish that essential of true independence -- law and order. From sunset to sunrise, the banking center, all the great commercial godowns and the store houses are cordoned off by troops to prevent looting in the heart of the nation's capital. "Small wonder the army can't suppress the terrorists in the country side," said an acidly. "The bandits in the capital itself don't give them any free time."

Spreading Marxism, it is an un settling truth that few, if any, military or civil officials in Djakarta know just how many insurrections the government has on its hands at any given time. One morning last week, an aide burst into his boss's office in one foreign embassy and said: "My God, the government radio has just broadcast a declaration of war, but we can't find out against whom." Several hours later, the embassy was able to learn the facts: Premier Ali Sastroamidjojo's Cabinet had proclaimed a state of siege and war -- that is, martial law -- in three islands dominated by the secessionist rebels who have set up what they call the Republic of the South Moluccas. Other revolts are already in progress in parts of northern Sumatra, Celebes, southern Borneo, and western and central Java. Some government officials admit in private that even with effective and stable central government, revolt and rection will take years to overcome.

The army itself, some 200,000 strong, is crosscut with internal plots and counterplots. Soldiers in the same unit often do not have the same type weapons. The chief of staff, handsome, greying General Bambang Sugeng, has had no military training. Many of the army's seven territorial commanders operate, in fact, as private warlords, some in almost outright rebellion. The worst of the army's difficulties, however, can be traced directly to Defense Minister Iwa Kusumasumantri, a bull-necked Marxist of 55, who professes not to be a Communist, though as a young man he went to meetings in Moscow, and in 1946 was jailed for his role in the Communist Tan Malaka uprising. Iwa has been weeding out anti-Communist officers, and he carefully limits supplies and ammunition to units and commanders not accounted faithful to him. His next ambition: to establish a separate territorial command which will give him military control over Djakarta.

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