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POLITICAL MANIFESTO OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA.
It is two months now since we made clear in every possible way our desire to live as a free people. Today we are entering a new phase in our fight for freedom, and we are conscious that the eyes of the world are on us, with a view to ascertaining what our views and objectives are. It is therefore incumbent on us to afford the world every facility to study us and to realize that not only is our cause grounded on truth, justice and humanism, but also on common sense and sane thinking.
On March 9, 1942, the Dutch Government in Indonesia surrendered to the Japanese in Bandung after going through the farce of offering resistance to the invaders. As a result of that Dutch defection, the unarmed Indonesian people were dilivered to the tyrannical excesses of the Japanese militarists; and for a full three and a half years the Japanese worked their will on the population, subjecting the people to a type of pressure and oppression unknown in the last few decades of Dutch rule here. The Japanese looked upon Indonesians as mere cattle. Not a few Indonesians were sacrificed by them in the interest of Japanese aggression. Forced labour was imposed on the common people, while
