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Haunted Hunters. The paradox of Sukarno's economic plight is that it will be immeasurably worsened if ever he gets New Guinea. Between its jagged mountains, jungles and vast, malarial swamplands, Netherlands New Guinea is one of the most meagerly endowed countries on earth. Says one longtime settler: "If the Dutch ever pull out of here, the country will be taken over by the jungle again." Thousands of settlers have already pulled out; yields from the Dutch oilfield at Sorong have dwindled steadily, and the colony last year cost the Dutch $26 million.
Though eager to cut their losses, the Dutch insist that they have a moral responsibility to prepare New Guinea's primitive Papuans for self-government. They have set up a network of village schools, entrusted social legislation to a year-old, elected Council (16 Papuan, 12 Dutch members), and given natives administrative responsibility for more than half the area they control. The country now has its own national anthem, My Country, My Papua, and a red-white-and-blue flag. At a cost of $1,500,000, Dutch officials have organized a West Papuan Volunteer Corps (motto: I PERSEVERE) whose first 220 volunteers will complete basic training in June. The native hunters are reluctant to exchange blowguns and loincloths for Mauser rifles and uniforms, and are terrified of the evil spirits that haunt New Guinea after nightfall, but the Dutch expect that eventually they will make crack scouts in some of the world's toughest terrain.
New Guinea's natives, who slaughtered thousands of Japanese during World War II, vow that they will repel any Indonesian invasion. Says a top Papuan politician, Councilman Nicolaas Jouwe: "Indonesia keeps talking of Dutch colonialism, but at the same time they deny us our right of independence, our own future, our character and our flag."
*Britain's music-hall brag, aimed at Russia in 1878, added "jingoism'' to the English language and helped persuade the Czar to end his war against Turkey.