IGHT U.S.-owned rubber plantations in North Sumatra province were taken over by the local workers on the morning of February fifteenth, as a reply to U.S. hostility towards the Indonesian republic, and the U.S. aggression against Vietnam. This was disclosed in a press release issued by the National Council of the All-Indonesia Central Organisation of Trade Unions (SOBSI) on February 17th. Of the eight, two belonged to the U.S. “Goodyear Company” and four to the U.S. “Sumatra Rubber Plantation Company Limited”. A thirteen-member managing committee has been set up in the Wingfoot plantation affiliated to the U.S. “Goodyear Company”. The Goodyear signboards over the doors of all the offices, residences and hospitals were taken down and replaced by those inscribed with the words: “the property of the Indonesian Republic”. The U.S.-owned rubber plantations in Indonesia are mainly located in North Sumatra. The U.S. plantations there covered an area of nearly
160,000 acres, employing workers, The North Sumatra Provincial Committee of SOBSI issued a statement on the fifteenth, expressing full support for the action of the workers. The statement declared that after the take-over, the history of U.S. capital in North Sumatra was brought to an end. The National Council of the Indonesian Waterside Workers and Seamen’s Union, on February 13th, instructed its members throughout the country to boycott U.S. ships and prepare to take over U.S. enterprises as a reply to aggression against Vietnam, The instruction said that the U.S. imperialists’ savage attack against Vietnam was aggression against the Indonesian Republic. The U.S. imperialists had supported the British in setting up “Malaysia” as a military base to encircle and crush the Indonesian Republic. This proved, the instruction continued, that the peoples of Vietnam and Indonesia faced a common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and that they should carry on a joint struggle.
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ALGERIA :