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16.

(c) Saigon. The political situation in Indo-China forbids

any considerable development of active political

propaganda by a British agency, directly or indirectly.

Until recently, moreover, there have been obstacles

to our passing a considerable amount of information

to the French authorities in French Indo-China for

their use if they agree and are capable of using it.

This restriction has now been relaxed and it may be

hoped that the French can do something about it on

the basis of material to be supplied by the R.I.O.

(d) Indonesia. There has been a hiatus of several months,

since the departure of the Information Officer. A

new Information Officer is about to leave the U.K.

for Batavia, This appointment coincides with the

favourable political development inaugurated by the

outcome of the Hague Conference. It may be found

desirable to develop information activities in

Indonesia considerably: at present they are restric-

ted to a very small organization in Batavia alone,

and probably have little or no effect on the popula-

tion as a whole.

As regards the colonial territories, the position

may be briefly stated as follows:

(a)

(b)

In the light of para. 14 (a) and (b) above, Public

Relations Officers should have more time now for

local activities: long-term and general

anti-Communist publicity are the direct task of the

Regional Information Office, i.e., the latter approach

departments, officials, publicists and newspapers,

etc., direct.

The Department of Public Relations in the Federation

of Malaya is energetically concerned with the local

aspects/

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