SOLOMON ISLANDS: Martin Lo

On a routine cruise to “show the flag,” the British warships Amphion and Contest steamed into the harbor of Santa Ana Island in the southern Solomons (which are under a British protectorate). On the beach the Britons saw a strange flag flying from a pole—a yellow field with vertical black stripes. The Amphion’s pidgin-English interpreter asked the truculent islanders grouped around the flagpole what the flag stood for. It stood, said the natives, for “Martin Lo”—pidgin English for Marxian law. Communism had arrived among the atolls.

At a little distance, six white men were grouped around another flagpole, flying the Union Jack. They were Heinrich Kuper, a German-born, naturalized planter who had lived 30 years on Santa Ana, and his five sons. Kuper suggested that the Amphion fire some star shells into the air. Scared stiff, the followers of Martin Lo lit out for the jungle.

Planter Kuper reported that Communists had taken advantage of unemployment in the copra industry to incite the islanders. The movement, also called “Marching Rule” (Marxian Rule), was led by natives from Malaita Island, traditional headhunters who had been proselytized by Australian Communist servicemen. The Malaita agitators, according to Kuper, were in touch with a U.S.-organized Communist cell on Guadalcanal.

Martin Lo’s followers had been told that Sept. 1 was the “day of deliverance” when a U.S. destroyer and a Liberty ship would arrive to help them (the natives believed that the U.S. was a Communist state). The Liberty ship would carry a mosquito-proof hut and a kerosene refrigerator for every Martin Lo-er. The natives around the flagpole were the reception committee.

During the last month, authorities have jailed some 20 Marching Rule leaders at Harira, capital of Guadalcanal. War drums throbbed through the islands when the Marching Rulers were picked up, but most of the natives were reported to approve the arrests. Reason: Marching Rule turned out to be more oppressive than British rule.