Indian Prime Minister) and the scattered members of PDRI. In order to ensure continued supplies of food and military supplies for the guerilla units still operating in Sumatra, Sjafruddin established a supply section, which controlled the Republican trade of agricultural products and opium to the Malay peninsula. On one occasion on 14 January 1949, Sjafruddin and a large number of PDRI's civilian and military leaders attended a meeting at the village of Situjuh Batur. Sjafruddin left after the meeting, but a number of leaders (such as ) stayed the night there and were killed in a Dutch ambush at dawn the next day. As the Republican forces led by Sudirman conducting guerrilla warfare in Java and Sumatra recognized Sjafruddin's PDRI as the legitimate Republican government, the PDRI gave the Indonesian fighters a unified authority during this critical time. The PDRI also stifled Dutch plans to present a lack of an Indonesian government as a fait accompli to the UN, with Sjafruddin giving instructions to the Indonesian delegation at the UN. This coordination, alongside Republican military successes, gave negotiators under Mohammad Roem a strong bargaining position. The Dutch, frustrated with continued Indonesian resistance, eventually approached Sukarno and Hatta in order to negotiate, bypassing Sjafruddin's emergency government. This angered him, as he believed that Sukarno and Hatta had no legal authority at that time and that the PDRI should represent the legitimate government. Many leaders, including Sudirman, were also displeased as neither Sukarno nor Hatta consulted the PDRI leaders while negotiating the Roem–Van Roijen Agreement, and pressed Sjafruddin to reject it. Sjafruddin thought that the exiled Republican leaders in Bangka underestimated the strength of the PDRI. Sjafruddin was convinced to agree to the outcome of the agreement after some negotiations with Natsir, Johannes Leimena and Abdul Halim in Sjafruddin's hideout at the village of Padang Japang – Hatta had gone to meet Sjafruddin, but he went to Aceh as the captured Republican leaders initially thought that the PDRI was based there. Eventually, coming along with Natsir's delegation, Sjafruddin left his hideout, and returned to Java. In a speech before his departure, Sjafruddin indicated his misgivings with the agreement, but acknowledged the need of presenting a united Republican front. He returned his mandate to Sukarno in Yogyakarta on 13 July 1949. Political career Deputy Prime Minister Following Sjafruddin's return to Yogyakarta, he was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister for Sumatra in the Second