What happens
This episode of The Pacific Story, broadcast on October 6, 1946, follows the unrest on the island of Celebes in the Dutch East Indies after the Japanese surrender. At the port of Makassar, a Makassarese seaman named Jilo and a Dutchman in white look on as native boats unload goods. Jilo voices his resentment of the Dutch, the Japanese and the wartime demands placed on Indonesians. The narration traces how Indonesian nationalists take control in places, how Dutch authorities return, and how fighting spreads through the interior. It ends with a conference at Malino, where delegates debate a federated Indonesia, and with the outlook for Dutch and British withdrawal still unsettled.
Makassar and the island of Celebes, Dutch East Indies, 1946, with a segment at the Malino conference
Characters: Jilo, Dr. Ratu Langi, Dr. Hubertus J. van Mook, Sutan Sjahrir
Listen for: Jilo's account of Indonesian feelings toward the Dutch and the Japanese, and the Malino conference debate over a unitary or federated Indonesia
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.