Mobilizing the Energies

At Djakarta's Kemajoran airport last week Russia's aging (76) President Kliment Voroshilov was welcomed to Indonesia with a beaming embrace from President Sukarno. "The President of a big country with a big heart," cried Sukarno. Voroshilov returned the embrace, a 21-gun salute boomed out, Voroshilov admirers released a covey of "peace doves," and Voroshilov himself launched into a speech meant to please his hearers. He got as far as "The Indonesian people are well known for their industriousness," when the audience of several thousand Indonesians, knowing better, howled delightedly. Sukarno smiled; so without being quite sure what the joke was about did Voroshilov. After the greeting at the airport, the smiles began to wane.

As Sukarno and Voroshilov arrived at the presidential palace, a group of admirers swarmed toward Sukarno's Lincoln convertible. Jittery Soviet and Indonesian security officers ordered the police into action. Swinging clubs and rifle butts, the police charged the crowd. A police jeep drove head-on into one group of spectators. Enraged, the crowd counterattacked, were driven off only after army units used tear-gas bombs.

Sukarno and Voroshilov had already entered the palace grounds safely, but Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio was not so fortunate: he stumbled about, blinded by tear gas, while the crowd smashed the windows of his limousine. The rioters, whose anger was now directed at the Russians, ripped down huge Russian flags, trampled an enormous picture of Voroshilov into shreds. On the pillar of a white ceremonial arch erected in Voroshilov's honor one demonstrator scrawled the words: "Go home."

Inside the palace Sukarno and Voroshilov sat in uneasy and unsmiling silence. Finally an aide reported that the rioters had been dispersed. Voroshilov rose, excused himself and went to his chambers for a rest. Sukarno marched off to administer a severe dressing-down to the official responsible for the melee, his personally appointed Minister for the Mobilization of Peoples' Energies, a Communist-line politician named Mustika Hanafi.

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