The Politics of Redress

THE POLITICS OF REDRESS

VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE

263

PETER KEPPY

THE POLITICS OF REDRESS

War damage compensation and restitution in Indonesia and the Philippines, 1940-1957

KITLV Press Leiden 2010 Published by: KITLV Press Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies) P.O. Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands website: www.kitlv.nl e-mail: [email protected]

KITLV is an institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)

Cover: Little girl in Kamal, Madura, bewildered by the destruction of her village during the First Police Action (KITLV 14078).

Cover: Creja ontwerpen, Leiderdorp

ISBN 978 90 6718 369 7

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner.

Printed in the Netherlands Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Abbreviations xi

I Introduction 1 Redress 3 War damage compensation and restitution 4 Sources 7 How to read this book 10 Spelling 11

II Era of change 13 The Dutch East Indies in the 1930s 14 The Philippines: sugar and planters’ politics 18 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 21 Philippine independence and the nation’s ‘special relationship’ with the USA 28 Revolution and independence in Indonesia 29 The American occupation of Japan 32

III War damage 37 Pre-emptive demolition 37 Rampok 42 Brisbane plans 47 New war, more damage 48 The Hens Committee 52 The Hart Committee 60 Reparations? 63 The War Damage Council and Bureau 64 The 1946 Philippine War Rehabilitation Act 67 USA: beacon to follow 70 Summary 74

IV Scorched earth, soft peace 77 Damage registration 83 Zorab’s rearguard action 87 vi Contents

No compensation? 91 Legal hair-splitting 93 Claims 95 Indonesian viewpoints 103 Article 14b of the Peace Treaty 105 The Back Pay Committee 109 Summary 113

V The spoils of war 117 Enemy property 117 Japanese ‘administration’ 122 Economic mobilization 128 Tekisan Kanribu 131 Defeat the enemy with diamonds! 136 The Army and private enterprise 140 The plantation sector 146 The ‘Greater East Asia Robbery Sphere’ 153 Summary 156

VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 157 Eggens 157 Transfer 159 Allied shield 164 Restitution in the Dutch East Indies 170 The Temporary Council 172 Drafting legislation 174 Big business and restitution 176 Half-hearted implementation 179 Restitution dilemmas in the Philippines 182 Summary 186

VII Restitution in practice 189 Jurisprudence 196 Planters’ plight 199 After the transfer of sovereignty 203 Incomplete restitution 207 Restitution of agricultural enterprises 209 Summary 213

VIII Tracing the loot 217 Origin unknown 218 Dutch East Indies initiatives 220 Civil Property Custodian 224 Full and prompt restitution? 227 Obstruction 231 Restitution Advisory Committee 237 Restitution claims 238 Debt and sale 244 Contents vii

The Secured Fund and ‘unidentiﬁ ed’ diamonds 247 Hospital ship ‘Op ten Noort’ 249 Summary 254

IX Conclusion 255 War damage and compensation 255 Looting and restitution 257 Reconstruction and the rule of law 261

Bibliography 263

Index 275

Acknowledgements

Just as the war had its aftermath, so did the book I wrote as part of the Indonesia Across Orders project (2002-2006) organized by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD). Once completed, the book was adapted and translated into English. This would not have been possible without Dr. Wouter Veraart of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who shared with me his sharp insights on law and society; Dr. Remco Raben (University of Utrecht), who untiringly imparted a great deal of knowledge on the decolonization of Indonesia; Otto van den Muijzenberg (Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Modern History of South and Southeast Asia, University of Amsterdam), who ensured that I got my facts straight on the Philippines; and Dr. Robert Cribb (Australian National University) for his geographical maps. This book would not have been possible without a translation subsidy from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientifi c Research (NWO). My thanks to Mischa Hoyinck and Robert Chesal: not only for their fi ne translation work but also for making constructive suggestions and refi ning the text. Last but not least, I would like to thank NIOD for providing the kind of research environment in which this book could become a reality.

Terima kasih

Peter Keppy Netherlands Institute for War Documentation

Abbreviations

AIO Algemene Import Organisatie ALS Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat AMACAB Allied Military Administration Civil Affairs Branch ANP Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau ANRI Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia AS Algemene Secretarie AWA Algemene Werknemers Associatie BAT British American Tobacco Company BI Bank Indonesia BKR Badan Keamanan Rakyat Borsumij Borneo-Sumatra Maatschappij BPM Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij BTI Barisan Tani Indonesia CAB Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen CBS Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek CHTH Chung Hua Thung Hui CLO Central Liaison Ofﬁ ce COMTIEB Commissie Terugvoering Indische Eigendommen in het Buitenland CONIE Commissie tot Opsporing van Nederlands-Indische Eigendommen CPC Civil Property Custodian CRO Commissie Rechtsverkeer in Oorlogstijd CVO Centrale Verkooporganisiatie van Ondernemingslandbouwproducten DIRVO Directie Verre Oosten ESS Economic and Scientiﬁ c Section FAI Federatie van Ambtenarenorganisaties uit Indonesië FEC Far Eastern Commission Federabo Federatie van Bergondernemingen Finec Financieel-Economisch overeenkomst HCLC Holding Company Liquidation Commission HVA Handelsvereniging Amsterdam HTK Handelingen der Tweede Kamer ICC Indische Contact Commissie IISG Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis IVK Indische Verzekeringskamer xii Abbreviations

Internatio Internationale Crediet- & Handelsverenging ‘Rotterdam’ IOB Indische Ondernemersbond JACAR Japan Center for Asian Historical Records JB De Javasche Bank JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff KL Koninklijk Leger KNIL Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger KPM Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij MBZ Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken MVK Ministerie van Koloniën NA Nationaal Archief NARA U.S. National Archives and Record Administration Nanpo Bank Nanpo Kaihatsu Kinko NEFIS Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service NHM Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij NIAM Nederlands-Indische Aardoliemaatschappij NIBEG Nederlands-Indische Bond van Ex-Krijgsgevangenen en Ex- Geïnterneerden NIBI Nederlands-Indisch Beheersinstituut NICA Netherlands Indies Civil Admin., later renamed AMACAB NIGIEO Nederlands-Indische Gouvernements Import- en Export Organisatie NIOD Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie NIVIG Nederlands-Indische Vereniging van Importeurs-Handelaren NMM Nederlandse Militaire Missie NNGPM Nederlandse Nieuw-Guinea Petroleum Maatschappij NPPM Nederlandse Paciﬁc Petroleum Maatschappij OHR Ordonnantie Herstel Rechtsverkeer ONRANI Ondernemersraad van Nederlands-Indië PERMIRI Peroesahaan Minjak Repoeblik Indonesia PKI Partai Komunis Indonesia RAC Restitution Advisory Committee Recomba Regeringscommissaris voor Bestuursaangelegenheden RIOD Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie RIS Republik Indonesia Serikat RTC Round Table Conference R&R delegation Restitution and Reparation delegation RvR Raad voor het Rechtsherstel Sarboepri Serikat Boeroeh Perkeboenan Republik Indonesia SCAP Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers SKKK Saibai Kigyô Kanri Kôdan SKR Saibai Kigyô Rengokai SKZ Shokuryo Kanri Zimusho SOB Staat van Oorlog en Beleg Stanvac Standard Vacuum Oil Company TNI Tentara Nasional Indonesia TRK Tôgyô Rengô Kai VSI Verenigde Staten van Indonesië YSB Yokohama Specie Bank CHAPTER I Introduction

The Second World War brought destruction and loss of property on a scale unprecedented in modern history. All over the world, governments sought ways to compensate citizens and businesses affected by the war and occupation. Some designed special legislation aimed at restoring the rule of law subverted by the occupation, some sought redress for emotional suffering, while others aimed at forging national unity through the creation of war tri- bunals and amnesty laws. There were no precedents for these governments to look to. Moreover, the aftermath of World War II was inﬂ uenced by various social, economic and political conditions which differed from place to place. In Southeast Asia, the decolonization process played a key role. The politics of redress; War damage compensation and restitution in Indonesia and the Philippines focuses on the compensation of damage and loss of property due to World War II in the context of decolonization. This study deals with law and society with a special emphasis on the political and economic aspects of redress. It is an adaptation of a Dutch-language book published in response to persistent questions from the Eurasian community in the Netherlands about how the Dutch East Indies and (post-war) Dutch governments had handled the issue of compensation for war damage resulting from the Japanese occupation of Indonesia and the Indonesian revolution (Keppy 2006). This book deals with two seemingly related concepts, which, legally speaking, are completely different: war damage compensation and restitution. War damage compensation refers to compensation of material damage due to an armed conﬂ ict between countries, and to the laws and other regulations governing compensation of that damage. The second concept, restitution, concerns special laws aimed at reversing the looting that stemmed from war and occupation, and at returning goods to their original owners. The key question is how two colonial and post-colonial governments dealt with war damage and wartime looting. What moral, legal, political and economic considerations were their decisions based on? What accounts for the different outcomes in Indonesia and the Philippines? What do these points, in turn, teach us about war damage compensation, restitution and decolonization? 2 The politics of redress

Both Indonesia and the Philippines had been occupied by Japan, and both were engaged in a decolonization process. The two countries appeared to be starting from similar positions, but they ended up handling war damage and looting quite differently. The question arises why the Philippines – unlike Indonesia – adopted measures to compensate for war damage, and why Indonesia – and not the Philippines – adopted special restitution laws. The contrasts between the two colonies show how differently the two mother countries and the new Southeast Asian nation states approached the subject of redress, and how these approaches are related to economic reconstruction and decolonization. The choice of Indonesia and the Philippines is also based on practical considerations. A wider comparison would not have been possible because too little is known about how other countries in the region settled World War II redress issues.

It is not an overstatement to say that historians have so far paid barely any systematic attention to how war damage and wartime looting were settled in Asia. This is all the more remarkable considering the many rumours of Japanese looting and the enormous material damage caused by both the Japanese and Allied military forces. The issues of compensation and restitution were never high on the political agenda for several reasons. Cold War considerations led the Allies to protect Japan from the fi nancial pressure of comprehensive compensation schemes. It was felt that such demands for compensation could jeopardize diplomatic and trade relations in times of peace; Allied offi cials feared the fi nancial burden that would result if their nationals claimed compensation from their own governments. In historiography, compensation and restitution have remained largely unexplored. These topics had no place in a highly nationalistic historiography dominated by post-war reconstruction, enemy images, heroics, the assigning of blame and an emphasis on national unity. Such historiography leaves little room for ambiguity and confl icting views of the past (Raben 1999:7- 14; Frederick 1999:16-37). For example, the historiography of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines was long dominated by a strongly moralizing and nationalistic perspective (Ikehata 1999a:1-20). Similarly, the historiography of Indonesia and the Netherlands kept clear of certain war and decolonization- related topics: forced prostitution (‘comfort women’), medical experiments on citizens, collaboration, Dutch and Indonesian military operations during the revolution, and war damage and looting. Historians did write about the fi nancial and technical aid Japan provided under the banner of war reparations to help Indonesia and the Philippines rebuild their economies (Nishihara 1976; Ohno 1986). In the 1950s, Japan and the countries it had occupied during World War II slowly improved relations through bilateral agreements. Over time, the issue of reparations I Introduction 3 lost some of its sting. It became easier to discuss the issue, but the debate on reparations assumed a different meaning in the context of Japan’s rise to the position of Asian economic superpower. The new economic dependence of Southeast Asian countries on Japan became a hot topic. In light of these new dependencies, critics came to see reparations as a form of Japanese economic penetration under a new disguise called development aid. The idea of reparations as a type of redress had receded into the background.

Redress

Until the 1950s, redress was synonymous with reparations to the Allied powers by the countries that had lost World War II. Reparations served a dual purpose: to punish the erstwhile belligerents and to foster the economic rehabilitation of formerly occupied territories. However, the concept of redress slowly expanded in meaning. Its defi nition was affected by post- war views on human rights and wartime conduct as laid down in the 1948 Charter of the United Nations, and by socialist-inspired ideas on solidarity. These days, redress includes truth and reconciliation commissions, fi nancial compensation of victims, memorial monuments and public apologies from governments to war victims (Torpey 2003:4-5). One of the cases that caught the attention of European media and historians in the 1990s was the settlement of material damage and loss of property as a consequence of the German occupation. This sparked a heated, worldwide debate and led to court cases about the restitution of Nazi plunder (Becker 2001; Aalders 2004). This restitution battle passed by unnoticed in Southeast Asia, as if it had no relevance to that part of the world. This is remarkable given the many stories of looting by the Japanese Army, tales that often have taken on mythical proportions. The eyewitness accounts, documents and fi lms about treasures can seldom be authenticated and corroborated. The recurring stories about stashes of gold in the Philippines, in particular about General Tomoyuki Yamashita’s alleged treasure, are infamous.1 According to legend, this Japanese commander hid loot in the Philippines towards the end of the war. Similar stories have circulated in Indonesia for decades. In October 1972, for instance, a number of people started digging for treasure in the city of Surabaya under the guise of driving a water well. In accordance with Javanese tradition, they called on the services of a dukun (traditional healer) whose supernatural powers would help him determine the exact location of the treasure hidden during the Japanese occupation.2

1 Sterling and Peggy Seagrave (2003) is a prime example of this type of ‘conspiracy theory’. 2 Kompas 23-10-1972. 4 The politics of redress

This book empirically studies wartime property looting in two former colonies. By maintaining the distinction made in legal literature between compensation and restitution, we will get a clearer picture of the post-war governments’ views on damage caused by war and conﬂ ict, and of the solutions they devised.

War damage compensation and restitution

War damage is generally thought to refer to the damage suffered by citizens and private institutions as a consequence of war actions, shootings and bombardments between different states. Damage caused by civil war is therefore excluded from this formal defi nition. In practice, however, the distinction between interstate war and intrastate confl ict is seldom clear-cut. Indonesia is a prime example. There, war and revolution blended almost seamlessly. War damage compensation is dispensed by the government and is based on the principle of solidarity. All citizens, regardless of whether they personally suffered damage, share the burden of compensation, for instance by paying taxes. The government devises legislation and ensures it is enforced. This is something entirely different from the reparations mentioned earlier. Strictly speaking, reparations are also a type of war damage compensation, but in this case the former belligerent enters into a bilateral agreement with the country it occupied to provide fi nancial aid in the shape of projects and services. Compensation to individuals for war damage is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 1919, France was the fi rst country to compensate its nationals for damage they suffered due to World War I (Robinson 1951:351-2; Stetler 1951:474). Other European countries followed suit much later; many of them did not prepare the necessary legislation until World War II. Once it became clear that this war was causing unprecedented material and emotional damage and that more countries were getting dragged into the war, governments started to realize the urgency of compensation regulations. For example, the United States Congress passed legislation on 27 March 1942, four months after the US declared war on Japan. This law provided for compensation of damage to US citizens on American territory. Damage incurred by US citizens in the Philippines was excluded from this law, however (Schein 1951:523). The US government repaired this inequality for the Philippines in 1946 by introducing a separate law. The Netherlands took no such measure, leaving Indonesia outside the scope of Dutch legislation. Ironically, the German occupation forces had taken a series of measures in June 1940 to compensate war and occupation-related damage in the Netherlands. Those regulations lost their validity after the Allied forces liberated the Netherlands in May 1945. I Introduction 5

In November 1945, a transitional regulation was adopted pending deﬁ nitive legislation. This Wet op de Materiële Oorlogsschaden (MOS, Material War Damage Act) became effective in 1950 and provided only for the compensation of damage incurred due to military actions in the Netherlands during the occupation. Similarly, the ﬂ edgling Indonesian Republic did not enact legislation to compensate for citizens’ individual material damage caused by World War II and the Indonesian revolution.

Restitution is a special type of legislation aimed at the restitution of property – movable or immovable goods, fi xed and liquid assets – confi scated or sequestrated by or forcibly handed over to the enemy during, and as a direct consequence of, war or occupation (Robinson 1951:347). According to Dutch historian of law Wouter Veraart, restitution aims to redress a specifi c phenomenon called ‘spoliation’, a form of looting carried out through ‘a complicated set of measures whose objective is to disqualify specifi c categories of people from being able to engage in legal transactions’ (Veraart 2005:29). Legal transactions are interactions between people or legal bodies, such as buying an item or renting a house. In the case of spoliation, individuals or groups of people are excluded from such transactions based on characteristics such as religion, political affi liation, sexual preference or other discriminatory criteria in order to take their property. No such exclusion mechanism is at play in the case of war damage compensation. Therefore, settling war damage is distinctly different from redressing spoliation. In the case of war damage compensation, the state takes it upon itself to compensate its citizens, dividing the burden equally over society as a whole. This principle of solidarity, of all of society sharing the burden, is absent from restitution. Restitution is about property being returned to its rightful owner. The property exchanges hands between individual citizens, companies or other institutions, with the government acting as an arbitrator by providing legislation and an appeals procedure. Any regulation to compensate war damage is a matter of public law, while restitution legislation is subject to private law. In theory, a regulation providing for war damage compensation is a way of making up for incomplete restitution. In this scenario, war victims can apply for general war damage compensation when their stolen property cannot be returned. There is another fundamental difference between war damage compensation and restitution. Restitution can also be interpreted to mean ‘restoration of the rule of law’, a return to a situation in which everyone is equal before the law. The rights of citizens who were excluded from legal transactions are restored. They are included in society as full citizens and can take part in any legal transaction without impediment. In that sense, restitution has a symbolic meaning that far transcends that of war damage compensation; it is a breach with arbitrariness and the exclusion of particular sections of the population. 6 The politics of redress

In short, restitution marks the return to the rule of law (Veraart 2005:21). In Southeast Asia, looting and destruction were rife during the Second World War and its aftermath. In practice, there was neither a uniform restitution policy, nor an institution to carry out such a policy – let alone any unambiguous legal terminology – that the countries in this region could rely on.3 An example of this is the Debtor-Creditor Ordinance passed after long deliberations in the post-war British colonies of Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo in 1948. This legislation, drawn up by legal experts from the Colonial Offi ce, was intended to reverse the payments that citizens of the British colonies had been forced to make to Japanese banks during the occupation (Kratoska 1998:328-9). Although the term restitution is not used, this British ordinance must be considered a form of restitution rather than war damage compensation. In Indonesia, the Dutch East Indies government took a similar fi nancial measure as part of a much more comprehensive law to reverse Japanese looting. This law will be dealt with more extensively in the second half of this book. In the Philippines, no such legislation was ever passed, not even in the limited form it took in the British colonies. This book deals not only with the violent pillaging that so many suffered, but also with the less obvious but equally damaging types of theft such as commandeering, forced payments and enemy property control. These practices were carried out openly and were even lent the cloak of legitimacy. A useful tool to map out these various types of looting is the Hague Convention of 1907 detailing the Laws and Customs of War on Land. This international treaty was drafted in 1899 and ratifi ed by many countries, including Japan, the Netherlands and the US, in 1907, well before World War I. The Hague Convention was intended to protect citizens from arbitrary and barbaric acts by a wartime enemy or occupier.4 This fi rst Law of Armed Confl ict or Law of War (often referred to as the Rules of War) includes the rules that an occupation force must follow regarding the use of property belonging to the occupied state and its citizens. The Rules of War can help to distinguish between various types of looting, to identify different groups of perpetrators and victims, to pinpoint dilemmas in international law and to better understand the post-war settlement of wartime looting. This is not to say that the Rules of War are the perfect tool to understand looting. However, in spite of their shortcomings and in the absence of any other criteria, they remain the only satisfactory analytical tool to sort out the tangle of disparate events connected to looting.

3 For an overview of the differences between the European countries, see Robinson 1951. 4 Convention with respect to the laws and customs of war on land (Hague II), 29-07-1899. See http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/hague02.htm All internet sources in this book were last consulted on 23-05-2008. I Introduction 7

Sources

The sources used in this book refl ect a very chaotic period of war, revolution and decolonization. There are no reliable statistics to calculate how much property, or what type, was damaged or stolen. The information available is fragmented and incomplete. Much information was lost. The Japanese deliberately tried to destroy any trace of theft, there were numerous looting incidents (rampok) during the Indonesian revolution, and the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to Indonesia with great haste. Moreover, neither the Indonesian nor Philippine authorities had the resources necessary to make an accurate estimate of the damage and plunder. The sources referred to are mostly Dutch and American in origin. They were drawn up by either Dutch or Indonesian offi cials working for the Dutch East Indies or Dutch government or by personnel of the US occupation force in Japan. These offi cials would often show a Dutch or American bias in their perspective on war damage and restitution. Indonesian sources are remarkably reticent about these two topics. Japanese sources are gradually opening up, but private archives often remain inaccessible. The biased views on war damage and restitution and the fragmentation of the archival sources makes reconstructing the events a complicated, though not impossible, endeavour. Information on war damage compensation in the Philippines is primarily taken from secondary literature and, to a very limited extent, from American archives. More time and funding would have been required to conduct additional, extensive archival research.5 Fortunately, the available literature on the Philippines provided suffi cient clues to reconstruct in broad outlines, and sometimes even in detail, how war damage compensation was handled in the Philippines. Hence, I was able to make a valuable comparison with Indonesia. One important source is the archives of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), the US occupation power in Japan, located in the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) in College Park (MD, USA). The SCAP archives provide insight into Japanese looting methods, but even more information on the Allied Powers’ attempts to locate and return loot from Indonesia and the Philippines. From 1946 to 1951, SCAP returned more than 50,000 articles to various representatives from Allied countries, and corresponded feverishly with Allied representatives in Japan. At the same

5 The archives most suited to further research are those of the Philippine War Damage Com- mission (PWDC), stored at NARA, College Park, MD and those of Frank A. Waring, chairman of the PWDC, housed in another NARA location, the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, MO. 8 The politics of redress time, the US forces in Japan produced reports on various aspects of the post- war occupation of the country and the reforms necessary to democratize the Japanese empire. The SCAP archives, which contain hundreds of thousands of documents, including photographs, present an enormous challenge to historians. One of the most common complaints from historians studying an aspect of the Japanese occupation is the lack of Japanese archival sources on this period. Shortly before and after the Japanese capitulation, many – though certainly not all – Japanese military and civil institutions and businesses intentionally destroyed their archives. It is also common knowledge that Japanese companies do not readily grant access to their archives. This makes it difﬁ cult to ascertain exactly what role the Japanese business community played in plundering the occupied territories. However, I found important Japanese documents that are stored at the Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD, Netherlands Institute for War Documentation), as well as documents that turned out to be accessible through the website of the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR), a National Archives of Japan project. Based on these documents, it is now possible for the ﬁ rst time to study the Japanese policy on controlling enemy property in Southeast Asia from a Japanese perspective. Supplemented by recorded Allied witness accounts, these documents can to some extent compensate for the lack of accessible information in Japanese company archives. As the JACAR project shows, the Japanese government is now serious about opening up its archives and making its sources on World War II accessible to the public. Japanese archivists have catalogued tens of thousands of documents and published a selection of this material on the JACAR website for research.6 The Dutch archives also offered some surprises, particularly on the subject of restitution. Unfortunately, some archives of executive government agencies from the Dutch East Indies are irretrievably lost, such as those of the Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR, Council for the Restoration of Rights) in Indonesia, the subsidiary archives of the Commissie voor Rechtsverkeer in Oorlogstijd (CRO, Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime) , and the archives of the Nederlands-Indische Beheersinstituut (NIBI, Dutch East Indies Property Administration). A thorough, new search through the archives of the Dutch Council for the Restoration of Rights uncovered the shadow archives of its equivalent in Indonesia, which allowed me to reconstruct a history of restitution in Indonesia after all. The Codearchief at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs formed a welcome supplement to the archival sources in the US. The foreign ministry also houses the archives of the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS), an agency

6 See http://www.jacar.go.jp/. I Introduction 9 which was less well informed than its name would suggest. The Dutch only started to gather intelligence after the Japanese had capitulated. NEFIS possessed very little information about the Japanese occupation, which was soon overshadowed and complicated by the Indonesian revolution. The Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI, National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia) houses part of the archives of the Offi ce of the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. This section of the archives turned out to contain important documents on restitution and compensation. For example, it contained draft policy documents on restitution and a series of requests for compensation of damage. No such documents have ever been found in the Netherlands. I did some brief, last-minute research in the archives of De Javasche Bank at the Bank Indonesia in Jakarta. In my search for additional information on Japanese custodians and the liquidation of the Dutch banks, I was pleasantly surprised to fi nd the minutes of the meetings of the Hart committee, which was charged in 1946 with formally calculating and submitting the Dutch claims to war reparations from Japan. The committee minutes provide a rare peek into the personal views of some high-ranking Dutch East Indies offi cials in Jakarta as they grappled with the issue of war damage compensation in the spring of 1946. Primary and secondary Indonesian sources tell us very little about the damage and loss of property and the settlement of these. The many memoires that can be found on the Indonesian war of independence pay only scant attention to these topics. The documents from the archives of the Republican police in Yogyakarta, stored at ANRI, are an exception. They sketch a unique image of the revolution from the perspective of the Javanese population in Central Java, caught between the violence of the Dutch troops, the Indonesian Army and people’s militia (lasykar, pemuda). The archival sources also disappoint us at the level of Indonesian government politics and policy regarding war damage and restitution. Even if the archives of the Indonesian successor to the Council for the Restoration of Rights, Panitia Untuk Menjelesaikan Soal Pemulihan Hak, have survived – and that is doubtful – then no one knows where to look for them. Indonesian newspapers paid hardly any attention to war damage compensation and restitution, but did cover the debate on Japanese reparations. This difference in emphasis could well be attributable to the Republican government’s priorities and the concerns of the population. The testimonial literature in the form of journals and memoires about the war in Southeast Asia regularly refers to looting and damage to property (Fusayama 1997:115; Pakpahan 1979:37-41; Lim 1999:99-100; Mañalac 1995:68- 9; Hartendorp 1967:191-2, 299-300). A fragmented picture emerges. The issue of redress is not dealt with at all, as if the authors did not know about this or considered it irrelevant. This is not as strange as it may sound, since most 10 The politics of redress people in chaotic conditions such as war and occupation are not fully aware of the signifi cance, motives and scope of the occupiers’ actions. In addition, many of these actions are surreptitious. War victims are seldom aware of the possibility of claiming compensation or restitution, let alone the distinction between the two. This study explicitly tries to bring this ‘invisible’ and legally abstract world into the open. It deals with specifi c subtopics such as the Japanese policy on enemy property control; the preparation, organization and implementation of restitution, and the debates between offi cials on the subject of compensation. Information on such complex matters at the crossroads of economics, politics and law was diffi cult to distill from the witness accounts. It proved impossible to conduct personal interviews about the specifi c topics mentioned above, and supplement these with documents from private archives, because those directly involved had passed away.

How to read this book

This book is divided into two parts. Part One deals with war damage compensation and Part Two with restitution. Prefacing these two parts, Chapter II provides a bird’s eye view of the political, economic and social history of Indonesia and the Philippines on the eve of, during and after the Japanese occupation. Readers well-versed in this history can turn immediately to Part One. Chapter III, which focuses on the types of damage incurred during the Japanese invasion and occupation, on the political and legal discussion and the ‘bureaucratization’ of the damage issue. Chapter IV deals with the consequences of the Indonesian revolution, the collapse of the colonial state and the politicization of the damage issue. This situation is contrasted with the 1946 War Rehabilitation Act regulating the compensation of war damage in the Philippines. Part Two, which focuses on restitution, begins with Chapter V, which describes the methods and motives of Japanese property theft in the occupied territories. Chapter VI discusses the Dutch preparations for restitution against the backdrop of the chaotic Japanese transfer of power and the budding Indonesian revolution. This chapter touches upon the post-war collaboration issue in the Philippines as a possible explanation of why the Philippine government failed to pursue a restitution policy. Chapter VII is devoted to the restitution legislation in Indonesia and its problematic implementation as a result of the colony’s collapse and the new balance of power after independence. Chapter VIII deals with the post-war return of Indonesian (and, to a lesser extent, Philippine) loot from Japan. The restitution issue in Japan, by contrast, unfolded under the inﬂ uence of Cold War considerations: I Introduction 11

US economic and political interests and the battle against communism. Restitution in Japan thus followed a unique historical path with no link to the Dutch-Indonesian conﬂ ict or the decolonization process in the Philippines. The book concludes with a chapter about the tension between redress, economic reconstruction, decolonization and the rule of law.

Spelling

The book uses modern (1972) Indonesian spelling for geographical place names in Indonesia. This may be regarded as an anachronism since this spelling – and indeed Indonesia itself as an independent state – barely existed for the larger part of the period studied in this book. Not to mention the fact that in the past, several place names were completely different. One example is the geographical name Batavia. The Japanese military administration changed this to Jakarta (old spelling: Djakarta). After the Japanese capitulation, the Dutch insisted on calling the city Batavia, while the Republican government referred to it as Jakarta. To avoid this tug-of-war with names, I decided to stick to modern place names and to add the old colonial name in parentheses only if necessary. Similarly, I refer to Indonesia in the geographical sense of the word, in an attempt to avoid the debate on the legal status and the date of birth of the Republic. When discussing speciﬁ c governments, government institutions or policies, tt is more important to make a clear distinction between the Dutch East Indies government, the Interim Federal Government, the United States of Indonesia and the Republic of Indonesia. Quotations from Indonesian literature predating 1972 and Indonesian proper names of people and institutions keep their original spelling, hence Soekarno instead of Sukarno. Frequently used Indonesian terms are listed in the glossary. In an attempt to create order in the often confusing and inconsistent transcription of Japanese terms in Dutch sources, I have opted to adhere, in the main body of the text, to modern, Romanized Japanese spelling.

CHAPTER II Era of change

Tiga satengah abad Samsekkie berkiber di ini daerah, Tapi dalem sakedjep soeda tertoekar laen bendera, Ini kadjadian boleh sekali ditjatet dalem sedjara, Jang bangsa Japan taloekin Blanda poenja tentara (Tjoekoer 1946:9)

For three and a half centuries, the Dutch colours fl ew in this land Only to be replaced, in a fl ash, by another fl ag This event may be written down in history as the conquering of the Dutch Army by the Japanese people

Djepang mendarat bikin keada’an djadi beroba Kebedjikan koerang keboesoekan semingkin tamba Masjarakat bedjat bacilnja soeker di geba Inilah jang dinamakan DJEMAN PANTJAROBA !!! (Tjoekoer 1948:8)

The Japanese invasion brought change Virtue stolen, evil given free reign The germs of an infected people are hard to wipe out This is what we call the era of change

Khoe Wie Hin, a Chinese Indonesian from Jakarta who published under the pseudonym of ‘Razorblade’, related his experience of the Japanese occupation and the Indonesian revolution in the form of traditional Malay syair poetry. The image that he painted of three and a half centuries of Dutch rule is debatable. Many regions of Indonesia remained free of any direct colonial interference well into the nineteenth century. Even in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger (KNIL, Royal Dutch East Indies Army) was still subduing rebellious native rulers, in Aceh and Bali for instance, and bringing them under control of the colonial authority in Batavia. Khoe did, however, have a sharp eye for how rapidly Dutch rule in the colony had been overturned. The poet also quite accurately pointed out that the Dutch capitulation and Japanese occupation had marked an era of shocking change (jaman pancaroba), or even insanity (jaman gila) in his view. The Philippines received a similar shock, but the country’s occupation precipitated less of an abrupt break with the past. The presence of the Japanese merely exacerbated the existing social, political and economic inequalities. 14 The politics of redress

The Dutch East Indies in the 1930s

In 1930, the year of the last pre-war census, some 61 million people lived in Indonesia. Approximately 59 million were classiﬁ ed as indigenous Indonesians. The main minority groups were the 300,000 Europeans and 1.5 million Foreign Orientals (more than a million of whom were Chinese) and Arabs (Volkstelling 1930, VIII). This legal categorization, devised by the colonial powers, completely disregarded the social and cultural differentiation within these population groups, as well as an unwritten racial divide and the economic stratiﬁ cation. For example, the population segment referred to as Chinese actually included various groups of newcomers, or singkeh, who remained distinct through differences in dialect and Chinese region of origin. Taken as a whole, the singkeh were in turn quite distinct from the peranakan, the Indonesian-born Chinese who descended from mixed marriages. The peranakan rarely spoke the language of their foreign ancestors; most were native speakers of one of the many local Indonesian tongues, Javanese, Sundanese or Malay, though their speech was often peppered with Chinese words. The syair quoted above is an excellent example of this. Like the Chinese, the Europeans were not nearly as homogenous a community as their legal status suggested. Aside from the non-Dutch Europeans in this group, such as Italians and Germans, there was also a large group who were of mixed Asian-European descent, whom the Dutch East Indies legislators formally regarded as Europeans.1 Eighty percent of the Europeans lived in the main cities of Java: Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya. They worked for the government, the various departments or state- owned companies, at the large private trading companies and banks, in retail, in the plantation business and in the military. The 59 million Indonesians included various ethnic groups, the largest of which was the Javanese. The majority of Indonesians (40 million) lived in rural areas of Java and Madura. In socio-economic terms, the rural population of Java and Sumatra was highly differentiated and ranged from members of the landowning village elite to a much larger group of smallholders and landless farmers. Another 18 million Indonesians lived in the so-called ‘Outer Islands’ of Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi (Celebes), Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda), the Moluccas and Papua (formerly New Guinea, later renamed Irian Jaya).

Broadly speaking, Indonesia’s economic structure was divided between Java and the Outer Islands. Java had an extensive services sector and many export-

1 For more information on social rank, professional specialization and racial divisions within the European community, see Bosma and Raben 2008. II Era of change 15

MYANMAR

Yangon P A C I F I C LUZON THAILAND O C E A N VIETNAM Manila Bangkok PHILIPPINES A V E IS S A Y A Ho Chi Minh City A S N N LEYTE I A H W A C L A H P T U O S

Banda L A BRUNEI Aceh Penang Y A S

M I Medan S A Tarakan U Malakka M MOROTAI A Singapore Manado T BINTAN R N A Tanjung Pinang Pontianak A Ternate Bukittinggi T A N Balikpapan M Padang Jambi BANGKA L I K A SI Pangkalpinang WE LA Palembang U Jayapura Banjarmasin S I N D I A N Plaju BELITUNG N I N D BO PAPUA Telukbetung O N Makassar AM Jakarta E S I A O C E A N MADURA Bandung J A V A Surabaya BALI Yogyakarta 600 kilometres Den R MO Pasar TI 300 miles SAWU Kupang RBC

Map 1. Southeast Asia. oriented agricultural companies producing rubber, sugar, coffee, tea and kina. Most of these businesses were European-owned. In addition to the large, export-oriented plantations, there were also small subsistence farms and farms that supplied the domestic market. Smallholders in Java and Sumatra grew rice, tea, coffee, rubber and other crops. The private estates, which dated back to the time of the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, Dutch East Indies Company) had a status all their own. Mainly concentrated near Jakarta, these estates were run by Eurasian and Chinese landlords who ruled like feudal lords. Different rules applied on the estates; they were subject to special landownership laws and a system of mandatory services aimed, for instance, at maintaining public works. The landlords were entitled to levy taxes on crops grown by the local population. These land rights and levies became a source of social unrest; the estates became a hotbed of gang activity. Crime was not limited to the private estates around Jakarta. Across Java, there were local criminals who, sometimes with the help of the village elite, robbed neighbouring residences in order to pay their taxes (Onghokham 2003:133-45). The periods of chaos that marked the Japanese invasion and the Indonesian revolution would offer many of these criminals new opportunities to increase their clout, status and wealth. They would be responsible for a great deal of looting and material damage. 16 The politics of redress

The services sector was well represented in the cities of Java. De Javasche Bank, which was responsible for banknote circulation, was headquartered in Jakarta, as were three Dutch private banks: de Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank, de Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM), and the Escompto Maatschappij. The so-called Big Five, the main Dutch trading companies, also had their headquarters in Jakarta: the Borneo-Sumatra Maatschappij (Borsumij); Jacobson & Van den Berg; Geo. Wehry; the Internationale Crediet- & Handelsvereniging ‘Rotterdam’ (Internatio) and Lindeteves. These institutions and companies had branch ofﬁ ces throughout the archipelago. The Big Five also held interests in the plantation sector and maintained close relations with the Dutch East Indies government (Baudet and Fennema 1983:52-3). The Dutch business community was well organized. The plantation owners were represented by special lobby groups for each product sector, which in turn were represented in a Jakarta-based umbrella organization, the Indische Ondernemersbond (IOB, Dutch East Indies Business Association). The ﬁ nancial sector and the import/export business were mainly owned and operated by Europeans. Retail was less homogenous; it provided an income for Chinese Indonesians, Indonesian Arabs and indigenous Indonesians as well. Small-scale industries in Java were owned by Indonesian, Chinese and Eurasian entrepreneurs. These industries provided many jobs. A famous example was the batik trade. Lesser-known examples included brick factories, tanneries, weaving mills and the food industry, all of which employed or belonged to the rural population. These were the main sources of employment aside from agriculture and retail.

SUMATRA J A V A S E A

Jakarta Tangerang Krawang Depok Bekasi BANTEN Cirebon Bogor Brebes Sumedang MADURA Bandung Demak Sukabumi Linggajati Tegal Semarang Kamal Pamekasan Majalaya Garut Ambarawa Surabaya Surakarta

Kaliurang Yogyakarta Kediri BESUKI Malang Lumajang Jember BALI I N D I A N O C E A N 100 kilometres

RBC

Map 2. Java and Madura.

In the Outer Islands, economic differences between regions were vast. The eastern coast of Sumatra, around the city of Medan, had a concentration II Era of change 17 of large-scale tobacco and rubber plantations where Chinese and Javanese migrants earned a living as coolies. Further south, the city of Palembang lay near an important oil-producing region. East of Palembang, the islands of Bangka and Belitung (Billiton) were known for their tin mines. Bintan, in the Riau Archipelago south of Singapore, was the centre of the colony’s bauxite production. Kalimantan was known for its oil wells and reﬁ neries in and around Balikpapan. The same was true of the nearby island of Tarakan off the eastern coast of Kalimantan. The more easterly islands of Sulawesi, the Moluccas and Papua were geographically peripheral and economically marginal areas (Touwen 2001).

The colonial government consisted of a Dutch administrative apparatus of residents, assistant residents and controleurs headed by a governor-general. Below this layer, there was an Indonesian administration ranging from regents (bupati) to village heads. Various regions were governed by so-called ‘home rulers’. The Dutch granted a degree of administrative authority to these ‘viceroys’ whom they had recruited from the local aristocracy. Examples of such home rulers were the Sultan of Yogyakarta and the Susuhunan of Surakarta in Central Java, and the Sultan of Pontianak in West Kalimantan. This dual form of rule was also refl ected in a dual legal system. In addition to codifi ed Western law for Europeans, the colonial administration allowed adat or customary law and Islamic law for the native population. This duality refl ected the colonial administration’s views on the economic roles of the various ethnic groups and their subordination to the colonial authorities. The courts of justice were structured accordingly. The Supreme Court in Jakarta was the highest court for Europeans, while Indonesians turned to the Landraad, the highest regular court for hearing criminal and civil cases. Although the latter were intended as courts of justice for the local population, they were presided over exclusively by Dutchmen until the 1920s (Lev 2000a:13, 16-7). One Indonesian who regarded the dual justice system as unjust was the nationalist and jurist Mas Besar Martokoesoemo. He had been brought up in a Dutch home in Java, and was the fi rst Indonesian to study law in Leiden, from 1919 to 1923 (Lucas 1991:271). Mas Besar Martokoesoemo advocated the introduction of a modern and uniform Western judicial system in Indonesia. He was the fi rst Indonesian lawyer, running his practice from Tegal in Central Java (Lev 2000b:245-82). He rose to the position of Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice of the newly independent republic. In that capacity, Martokoesoemo would become involved in matters of post-war restitution. In an attempt to address the colony’s aspirations for more say in its government and fi nances, the Volksraad (People’s Council) was established in Jakarta in 1918. The Volksraad’s 38 members, half of whom were non- Europeans, provided the governor-general with political advice. From 1925 18 The politics of redress onwards, they formed a co-legislative council whose members were elected by the governor-general and a few local electoral colleges. This undemocratic electoral system and the lack of true Indonesian infl uence undermined the Volksraad’s status as a representative body (Hering 1996:63-72). Dutch colonial policy was characterized by a patronizing attitude towards the Indonesian people combined with a curtailing of their political freedom. The administration provided education for Indonesians, made improvements in the kampong (the urban districts inhabited mainly by the Indonesian proletariat) and built roads into the remote areas. But at the same time, they gagged the press and meted out other punishments such as forced exile to suppress the Indonesians’ budding political awareness and nationalism. The colonial administration felt threatened by the degree of political and administrative emancipation Indonesians had attained. In 1931, the young Soekarno was put behind bars for his political activities. In 1933, the governor- general banned all meetings of the various nationalist organizations that had lost faith in the Volksraad’s ability to foster Indonesian emancipation. In 1934, a group of young Indonesian nationalists was arrested, including Soetan Sjahrir and Mohamad Hatta. Sjahrir, the leader of the Bandung- based Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia spent eight years in prison and in various internment camps (in Tanah Merah, Upper Digul, New Guinea; and Bandaneira in the Moluccas). Later, during the Indonesian revolution, he would rise to the position of fi rst Prime Minister of the Indonesian Republic. The repressive government policy continued until the Second World War and led some politically progressive Dutch people to regard the colony as a ‘police state’ (Mràzek 1994:116-28, 154).

The Philippines: sugar and planters’ politics

In 1898, after 330 years of Spanish rule, the Philippines fell into American hands. The country became independent 48 years later, in July 1946. Under American rule, the colony’s economy became highly dependent on the mother country, as it was geared mainly towards the import/export trade with the USA. The 1909 Payne-Aldrich Act, named after the Senators who submitted the bill, provided for free access of Philippine products, including sugar, to the US market in exchange for tariff-free access of US products to the Philippines. Philippine sugar producers needed unrestricted access to the American market in order to compete with their Cuban, Puerto Rican, US domestic and Hawaiian counterparts (Larkin 1993:123). From 1907 to 1946, free access for sugar to the US markets was a recurring issue in colonial relations between the USA and the Philippines. II Era of change 19

Sugar was one of the factors that led the United States to consider granting the Philippines independence. The American business community felt threatened by Philippine sugar and other exports, while at the same time the Americans realized there was little economic advantage in controlling the Philippines. Meanwhile, Philippine nationalists were applying increasing pressure for independence. From 1916 onwards, the issue was debated in both the US Congress and Philippine political circles. One of the key questions was what shape the existing tariff-free trade deal would take after independence. The fi rst step towards independence was the 1916 Jones Act. Congress explicitly addressed the issue of future independence on condition that the future Philippine government would be solid and stable. Under the act, a Senate was created in the Philippines giving the country legislative power for the fi rst time. The Depression years of the 1930s fuelled American calls for Philippine independence. The unions and the sugar beet and dairy industries felt threatened by the import of tariff-free Philippine sugar and the arrival of thousands of Philippine migrants. In the words of Theodore Friend, the motto of these special interest groups in the USA was: ‘Give them independence, [….], so we can shut out their products and their people’ (Friend 1988:19). In conservative Republican circles, however, there was opposition to unconditional independence, especially among those with fi nancial interests in the import of Philippine products. The second important step towards independence was the 1934 Tydings- McDuffi e Act which proclaimed the establishment of a Commonwealth. The Philippines would be allowed to draw up their own constitution, legislative power would rest with a chamber (Congress), executive power with a President and judicial power with a Supreme Court. The Philippine constitution was modelled after the American constitution (Feliciano 1990:173). Unlike colonial Indonesia with its dual legal system, the Philippines had been ruled under a uniform Anglo-American system introduced in the early 1900s. The Supreme Court was the highest judicial authority, to which other courts such as the Court of First Instance were subordinate. The Supreme Court dealt not only with appeals, but also with regular cases (Thompson 1989:72). From 1935 onwards, the chief justice and all ten associate judges of the Supreme Court were Filipinos. The 1934 Tydings-McDuffi e Act also stipulated that the Philippines would be granted independence by July 1946. The period between the establishment of the Commonwealth and independence would be used to gradually abolish the tariff-free import of Philippine products to the USA, since other nations could regard this bilateral free trade agreement as unfair competition (Larkin 1993:164). In 1935, former lawyer Manuel Quezon was named the fi rst President of the 20 The politics of redress

Commonwealth, largely thanks to the support of the economically powerful and politically inﬂ uential domestic plantation-owning class. The members of this group have been characterized as ‘land-wealthy lawyer-politicians’, a ‘planters’ aristocracy’, and an ‘oligarchy’ (Friend 1988:85; Larkin 1993:81; Steinberg 1967:11). The planters’ support gave Quezon a considerable edge over the other two presidential candidates, Sergio Osmeña and Manuel Roxas. The ‘indigenous’ economic and political elite owed its power, status and wealth to landownership, sugar production and trade, and other economic activities such as rice production and credit lending. This landed gentry of mixed Spanish-mestizo and Chinese-mestizo descent was a minority in the overall population of 16 million (1939), which mostly consisted of smallholders, tenant farmers and a growing number of landless workers. The planters’ elite resided primarily in the two main sugar producing regions, Central Luzon and the island of Negros, but their power and political clout extended to the national and even international level. They had quickly learned to lobby in Washington with the help of former US civil servants who had worked in the Philippines (Larkin 1993:112-3). Quezon, himself a sugar plantation owner, rewarded the planters for their political support by putting them in important public and political positions. This allowed the planters to strengthen their hold on the domestic economy and politics, and by extension on society itself. They also managed to bend legislation to their will, ensuring, for instance, the defeat of a 1910 land reform bill aimed at dividing public estates among landless farmers. Through their knowledge of the legal loopholes, their highly- placed connections in the civil service, and bribes, the landed gentry managed to get their hands on the very estates intended for the landless farmers. The farmers lacked the crucial legal expertise, social contacts and money to bribe civil servants (Kerkvliet 2002:35-6). In the 1930s, Philippine society grew polarized due to the commercialization of agriculture, population pressure and the rationalization of agricultural production, particularly in Central Luzon. A conﬂ ict was emerging between the sugar barons and landed aristocracy on the one hand, and the much larger group of tenant farmers and landless people on the other. The farmers protested the measures rationalizing tenant-owner relationships, such as the abolishment of interest-free loans and the landlords’ claims on a larger share of the sugar and rice harvests. As the landlords’ methods grew more violent, the farmers’ protest movement became more organized and militant. In World War II, the protesting farmers became the core of the Hukbalahap or Huks, one of the main anti-Japanese resistance movements in the Philippines (Kerkvliet 2002:61-108). II Era of change 21

Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

In the 1930s, Japan showed a particular interest in Southeast Asia and its abundant natural resources. Japan’s industry was largely dependent on imported raw materials such as oil and rubber. Initially, its rising demand for raw materials was due to population growth and industrialization, but from 1931 on it also stemmed from Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, which by July 1937 had been widened to all of China (Duus 1996:xi-xlvii). The worldwide Depression of the 1930s prompted Western countries to take protectionist economic measures. This affected the export of Japanese products to Western colonies in Asia. The need for raw materials and the increasing isolation due to Western trade barriers led Japan’s politicians and Army to seek the creation of a self-suffi cient economic bloc in Asia. They conceived a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, in which Japan would play a pivotal role, aimed at counterbalancing the Western colonial powers. In this vision, Japan’s new economic order would encompass the vast natural resources of both northern Asia (China) and Southeast Asia (Peattie 1996: 189-242). Negotiations between the Japanese and Dutch East Indies governments about large supplies of petroleum reached a deadlock in June 1941 (Post 1991:248-50). One month later, the Japanese government decided to annex the territory they called the Southern Regions. Japan regarded the Dutch East Indies, British Malaya and the Philippines as key areas in Southeast Asia. The presence of natural resources, particularly oil in the Dutch East Indies, meant that controlling and protecting this area was paramount (Nishijima 1963:115). Therefore, Japanese economic and military policy was focused primarily on occupying these three colonies in order to exploit their natural resources and export vital raw materials to Japan (Hikita 1997:138). In July 1941, the Japanese government and the French government in Vietnam (Indochina) agreed to have Japanese troops stationed in this territory. Against the backdrop of the Sino-Japanese war and the de facto annexation of Vietnam, the Allies imposed a trade embargo against Japan (Barnhart 1987:263- 5). After Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, on 8 December 1941, the USA, England and the Netherlands declared war on Japan. On 11 December 1941, Germany, Italy and Japan signed a treaty to form the Axis Alliance. On the same date, the Tokyo government decided that Japanese private enterprise was to play an important role in the economic exploitation of the Southern Regions. The Ministry of Greater East Asia gave several companies control of the industries in the occupied territories considered vital to warfare. All of these companies were subsidiaries of the zaibatsu, the monopolistic family businesses dominating banking, trade and industry (Hikita 1997:138). On 21 December 1941, Thailand took sides with the Japanese in an attempt to prevent 22 The politics of redress occupation and retain autonomy. Although Thailand was not occupied, it lost its autonomy anyway (Reynolds 1996:243-73). As soon as the Germans invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, the Dutch East Indies government took measures to deal with enemy activities and economic chaos. On 10 May 1940, the Governor-General declared a state of war and siege, based on the Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indië 1939 No. 582.2 The colonial government decreed emergency ordinances to prevent the fl ight of foreign currencies (Van Horn et al. 2000:24-5). The military was mobilized. The authorities in the Philippines took similar measures. On 26 July 1941, President Roosevelt ordered the Philippine Army and Navy (some 50,000 men) into the service of the US military under the new name of the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). Two days later, Roosevelt appointed Field Marshal Douglas MacArthur commander of the armed forces in the Philippines (Agoncillo 1965:61). In July 1940, the Staatsmobilisatieraad van Nederlands-Indië (Dutch East Indies State Mobilization Council) started preparing for a Japanese invasion. In consultation with the Dutch business community in the colony, the Council drew up a general demolition plan to stop the expected Japanese advance. February 1941 saw the establishment of removal and demolition committees charged with listing which industries, factories, machines and supplies should be destroyed (Touwen-Bouwsma 1995:20-1). In the Philippines no such preparations for pre-emptive demolition were made. The immanent threat of Japanese invasion also prompted De Javasche Bank to take preventative measures. Between 10 January and 20 February 1942, the bank shipped its gold supply to Australia and South Africa. At the same time, all other Dutch banks in Java started registering and storing securities in the war vault of De Javasche Bank in Bandung (Brugmans 1960:259). The Philippines Commonwealth government transferred its funds to the US Treasury Department. The government shipped banknotes and other securities from the Philippine treasury to the island of Corregidor, a military bastion in Manila Bay, where they were registered and destroyed. The gold supply was also brought to Corregidor and from there transported to the USA by submarine (Jenkins 1954:112-3). The speed with which the Japanese Army and Navy invaded Southeast Asia surprised friend and foe alike. The attack on Pearl Harbor coincided with the fi rst offensive action by the Japanese in the Philippines. Chaos reigned in Manila. After the fi rst Japanese air strikes in December 1941, approximately one-sixth of the one million people living in the city fl ed to the countryside. To safeguard the food supply and combat the black market in Manila, the city government regulated food prices. But the black market was impossible

2 Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië (17-05-1940)929-30. II Era of change 23 to control, and matters got even worse when large-scale looting broke out. Manila fell on 2 January 1942, and a day later the city was offi cially occupied. President Quezon, who was suffering from tuberculosis, Vice President Sergio Osmeña, and MacArthur all fl ed to Corregidor. MacArthur left for Australia on 11 March, after making his famous vow ‘I shall return’, meaning that he would one day come back to liberate the Philippines. Quezon and Osmeña left for Australia on 26 March, and from there travelled to Washington to lead the Philippine government-in-exile. Quezon asked Justice Minister José Laurel and Finance Minister Manuel Roxas to stay behind and ensure a smooth transition from Commonwealth to occupied territory. On 26 January 1942, the remaining members of the Commonwealth government, in consultation with the Japanese military authority, established the Philippine Executive Commission. Congress was disbanded and legislative power was transferred to the Commission (Agoncillo 1965:321-6, 332). After the Japanese capitulation, people who had stayed behind such as Laurel and Roxas got caught up in a complicated political and legal battle over collaboration (Agoncillo 1984). On 11 January 1942, Japanese troops landed on Northern Sulawesi and the eastern coast of Kalimantan. The latter area had large oil fi elds and the Balikpapan and Tarakan refi neries. On 15 February, Japanese troops occupied Singapore and on 28 February, the fi rst troops invaded Western Java’s northern shore. A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, ordered a select number of senior offi cials and scientists headed by H.J. van Mook, director of the colony’s Department of Economic Affairs, to leave for Australia on 6 March. In Brisbane, this small group formed a quasi government-in-exile. Although Dutch Prime Minister P.S. Gerbrandy had already appointed Van Mook Minister of Colonies in November 1941, Van Mook’s departure for London to join the Dutch government-in-exile had been hindered by the increasing threat of war in Asia. Since 1 January 1942, Van Mook had served as Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (De Jong 1986, 11a:26). Two months later he joined the Dutch government in London. On 9 March 1942, the Dutch East Indies government in Bandung capitulated. The Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) was no match for the better-equipped Japanese armed forces. Japan’s military success can also be attributed to other factors, such as KNIL’s poor preparation and organization and the lack of Allied support (Nortier, Kuijt and Groen 1994:247-58). The American-Philippine armed forces were practically neutralized by the destruction of the US naval fl eet at Pearl Harbor and the equally devastating Japanese air strikes on Clark Field airbase in Luzon and Cavite Naval Base in Manila Bay. Although seriously debilitated, the USAFFE troops did manage to put up a fi ght, unlike KNIL. The American-Philippine attempt to halt the 24 The politics of redress

Japanese march on Manila resulted in heavy fi ghting in late December 1941. On 26 December, MacArthur declared Manila an ‘open city’, indicating to the enemy that the city would not be defended. The USAFFE troops on Luzon withdrew to the Bataan peninsula and the island of Corregidor where they held out for a few more months. In April 1942 the American-Philippine forces on Bataan and the Visayan Islands capitulated. Corregidor and Mindanao followed suit in May (Rutherford 1991). Initially headquartered in Singapore, the Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army moved to Manila in the spring of 1944 and to Saigon in December of that year. The structure of the Singapore headquarters served as a model for other military administrations in the occupied territories, including Indonesia and the Philippines. The Japanese military authorities in the Southern Regions received instructions regarding administration and fi nances from the ministries in Tokyo. The military authorities issued ordinances in accordance with these instructions. The authorities in Sumatra reported to Japan’s 25th Army headquartered in Singapore, the authorities in Java to Japan’s 16th Army and those in the Philippines to the 14th Army. Sulawesi, the Moluccas, Papua and Kalimantan and Mindanao fell under the command of the Japanese Navy. From August 1942 on, a central military administration called the Gunseikanbu replaced the local military authorities on Java. This new administrative body was led by one military administrator (Gunseikan) and consisted of various departments, including General Affairs, Finances and Justice (Zorab 1954:7, 30). In Indonesia, this administrative pattern would be most clearly established in Java. The military authorities maintained the existing indigenous administrative structure in Indonesia, but did away with the European offi cials: the residents and controleurs (Sato 1994:22-35). The Japanese granted the Philippines more administrative autonomy than Indonesia. The experience the Filipinos had gained in the Commonwealth government was indispensible to the military regime. The Philippine Executive Commission was modelled after the Commonwealth government and was controlled by the military administration. The Philippine leaders manoeuvred between self-interest, national interest and the occupiers’ interests. Some of them collaborated with the Japanese authorities while at the same time supporting the guerrilla movement morally, fi nancially or logistically. In October 1943, Japan granted the Philippines independence. The Japanese military administration appointed a president: the former Supreme Court Judge and Minister of Justice Jose Laurel, whose anti-American rhetoric and Japanese university degree made him the best candidate in the eyes of the Japanese. In Java, the Japanese military administration forced all Europeans to register. From the spring of 1942 until the end of 1943, the military administration gradually interned approximately 100,000 Dutch people in camps. Dutch prisoners of war and Javanese forced labourers (rômusha) worked under II Era of change 25 gruelling conditions building the Burma railway and another railroad in Pekanbaru, Sumatra. Some 200,000 Dutch citizens, most of them Eurasians, were not interned in camps (Kemperman 2002:9-10). In the Philippines, the Japanese authorities also interned all Allied citizens. Approximately three-quarters of these 4,000 people were US nationals, most of whom were interned on the campus of Santo Tomas University in Manila. The Americans had designated this site in advance as an internment camp in the event that Japan were to occupy the islands (Hartendorp 1967). In Indonesia, the Japanese gave the Eurasians the benefi t of the doubt. The military government did not regard this part of the population as Japan’s enemy, which explains why few of them were interned. The Japanese authorities hoped that this group, whom they called ‘Asians’, would switch their political allegiance from the Netherlands to Japan. However, the organizations founded to promote this goal had little success. In general, the Eurasians were pro-Dutch and remained so (Touwen-Bouwsma 1997:31- 50; Meijer 2004:199-204). The legal position of the Chinese community was similar to that of the Eurasians. The Japanese regarded them as Asians as well, and therefore as natural allies. During the Japanese occupation this group was not unequivocally pro-Dutch. Their political loyalties did not change during the later Indonesian revolution.

While the invasion went smoothly, the subsequent military administration in the Southern Regions encountered problems. The Japanese had insufﬁ ciently prepared the occupation and this caused administrative and economic chaos in several regions. The administration was given guidelines, but only on paper. Military headquarters in Tokyo and Singapore expected the military administrations to translate their policy into practical regulations and implement these. This approach was a consequence of a combination of factors: competition between the Army and Navy, the administrative fragmentation of Army and Navy-controlled areas, the diverse economic, social and political structures of the occupied territories in Southeast Asia, and lastly Japan’s gradual change from winning to losing the war and the attending isolation of the countries it occupied.3 This led to a shortage of goods, in particular food, worsened by rice requisitioning, drought and failed harvests, and to a blossoming black market which many people relied on for survival (Kurasawa 1988; Jose 1999). Forced by circumstances, the military administrations started in 1943 to stress the need for self-sufﬁ ciency in the occupied territories. The military administration recruited approximately 300,000 rômusha from Java’s rural communities, who were then used all over

3 For more information on the rivalries within Japanese military administrations in Malaya and Java respectively, see Akashi (1981:46-82) and Sato (1994:10-2). 26 The politics of redress

Southeast Asia to build military defence structures, roads and railways and to work the land. It is estimated that more than half of these Javanese labourers died from exhaustion or disease (Sato 2005). Initially, the Indonesians had welcomed the Japanese Army. But they grew to hate and fear them due to the shortage of goods, the skyrocketing prices, the Japanese sanctions on black market dealings, the forced labour of Indonesians on defence and public works, the recruitment of comfort women to satisfy the needs of the Japanese soldiers and the random and often cruel acts of the Military Police (kempeitai). The requisitioning of rice sparked uprisings in Western Java (Kurasawa 1988:623-71). In the Philippines, the Japanese promise to liberate Eastern peoples from the Western yoke did not strike a chord. At the beginning of the occupation there was an active anti-Japanese resistance, particularly from the Huks in Central Luzon. The Huk guerrillas were based on the local farmers’ interest groups that had existed before the war, and they savagely punished anyone suspected of being a collaborator. The population saw the Laurel government as a Japanese puppet regime. Continuing economic problems also undermined Laurel’s legitimacy as president.

Unlike the Allied forces in German-occupied Europe, the Allies in Asia had a very incomplete picture of what was going on in their part of the world. Slowly, a small-scale Dutch East Indies secret service, initially called the Marine en Leger Inlichtingendienst (Navy and Army Intelligence Service) was set up in Melbourne. On 1 April 1943, this service was renamed Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS) because of its frequent contacts with the English- speaking Allies (Nortier 1985:46, 55-7). For the rest of the war, however, NEFIS turned out to be quite inept at collecting data, due mainly to its lack of experience in intelligence work. The USA did not collect much intelligence in the Philippines either, not for lack of experience, but because it considered this secondary to the destruction of the German Army in Europe. From November 1943 on, the Allies increased their offensive effort in the entire Paciﬁ c theatre. Against the backdrop of Japanese military losses, N.S. Blom, Director of the Justice Department, established the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA) in Brisbane in February 1944. The aim was to re-establish a civil administration in the soon-to-be liberated Indonesian regions (De Jong 1986, 11a:361-4). Between May and June 1944, American troops conquered the Japanese Navy at Hollandia, present-day Jayapura in Papua. In September 1944, the American troops landed in Morotai, Northern Moluccas, followed by an Allied air strike on the Balikpapan oil reﬁ nery in Kalimantan. The Allied forces subsequently carried out heavy bombardments of cities in eastern Indonesia, such as Manado, Makassar, Kupang and Ambon. II Era of change 27

In August 1944, the Americans launched an offensive in the Philippines. MacArthur returned to the island of Leyte, followed by former Vice President Osmeña, who had become President after Quezon’s death on 1 August 1944 in Washington. It would be months, however, before the entire archipelago was liberated. The battle for Manila from 3 February to 3 March 1945 was a dramatic climax. American artillery and Japanese scorched earth tactics destroyed most of the city. An estimated 100,000 civilians died from exhaustion, heavy American bombardments and cruelties committed by the Japanese Army (Aluit 1995:405).

While the Japanese government granted Burma and the Philippines independence in August and October 1943, it was initially opposed to Indonesian political and administrative autonomy since this would jeopardize Japanese control over the economy. Under pressure from the deteriorating war situation, Japan’s Prime Minister Koiso promised independence to the Indonesian nationalist movement in September 1944. On 1 March 1945, the Japanese military administration together with prominent Indonesian nationalists founded an investigative committee to prepare for independence. Members of this committee included Soekarno and Hatta. On 7 August, Chief of Staff Terauchi from the Japanese Army headquarters in Saigon approved the establishment of an Indonesian committee to whom the Japanese Army administration would hand over power. On 11 August, Terauchi assured Soekarno and Hatta who had travelled to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) that Japan would recognize Indonesian independence on 24 August 1945 (Kahin 1952:115, 121, 127-8). In June 1945, oil-rich Tarakan fell into Australian hands and the Americans attacked Japan, starting with Okinawa. The threat of the Russians occupying Japan forced the American Army to quickly take drastic measures that would ensure it won the war. On 6 August, the ﬁ rst atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima; three days later the second was dropped on Nagasaki. The next day, the Japanese Army announced it would accept the Allied conditions of the Potsdam Declaration (Schaller 1985:21). On 15 August 1945, Japan capitulated. Fearing the Soviet Union’s intentions, the American geopolitical interest in Southeast Asia shifted to Japan. Initially, General MacArthur was in charge of reoccupying Southeast Asia, but now British Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten was unexpectedly given command over the Allied South East Asia Command (SEAC). Unprepared for this complex mission, the British supervised the Australian Army in the eastern part of the archipelago and were responsible for the repatriation of the Japanese troops. On 15 August 1945, even before Japan had surrendered unconditionally, President Truman appointed MacArthur Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan, which would be occupied by the Allies. 28 The politics of redress

Philippine independence and the nation’s ‘special relationship’ with the USA

To the relief of the Philippine political leaders, who had feared an extended American military regime and postponement of the country’s independence, MacArthur handed over power to the Commonwealth government soon after reoccupying the island of Leyte. This transfer of power did not solve the country’s problems, however. Cities had been destroyed, an economy left in ruins, and the country lacked suffi cient means and experienced people to address these issues. Domestic political relations were tense because prominent politicians and landlords had supported the Japanese occupiers. With the presidential elections of 1946 in sight, the ‘collaboration issue’ held the Philippines in its grip. President Osmeña was challenged by Roxas, an outspoken proponent of amnesty for all those accused of politically collaborating with the Japanese. Roxas won the elections with the support of the Philippine Congress and the US government. While the Americans had been happy to enlist the help of the Huk rebels in Central Luzon to fi ght the Japanese, their attitude changed when communism gained momentum in Asia. Those who had been domestic allies were suddenly seen by American intelligence as a Red threat. The farmers and former guerrillas grew disillusioned with the attitude of the Americans. Increasingly confronted with organized violence by the police, the Army and militias paid by the landed gentry, they felt forced to take up arms. From the second half of 1946, a civil war raged in Central Luzon. It ended in 1951 because the rebels were physically and mentally exhausted, the Minister of Domestic Affairs introduced a new policy that was favourable towards the farmers, and the Army became more professional and effective in its actions (Kerkvliet 2002:143-7, 237-8). Another burning issue was the promise of independence the US government had made to the Philippines before the war and the conditions under which it was prepared to honour this pledge. The key issue in the transfer of sovereignty was the mutual trade relationship. There were great economic and political interests at stake. Roughly speaking, there were two camps. The fi rst, represented by Senator Millard Tydings, advocated gradually dismantling the special trade ties with the Philippines. Senator Tydings was supported by the State Department and the US agricultural sector, in particular the sugar beet farmers. This camp saw the privileged trade relations as an impediment to free world trade and an obstacle to Philippine economic independence, not to mention unfair competition for American agriculture. The other camp rallied around the mighty Senator Jasper Bell, Chairman of the House Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs, and, paradoxical as it may seem, around the Philippine political and economic elite. They were in favour of continuing the bilateral free trade agreement with the USA. Once he arrived in Washington II Era of change 29 in 1942, President Quezon sought contact with senators to make his views on continued trade privileges known. In Senate debates about the conditions for independence, and about trade relations in particular, President Quezon and Senators Tydings and Bell made war damage compensation a stake in the negotiations. In the end, Bell and the Philippine sugar aristocracy won the struggle (Golay 1998:456-75). The USA continued its ‘special relationship’ with the Philippines largely in accordance with Bell’s proposals. The situation changed so little that critics called it a continuation of the colonial relationship. The nation had gained political independence, but fi nancially and economically it remained tied to the USA. The Philippines seemed far removed from an era of change, at least in economic terms.

Revolution and independence in Indonesia

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese Emperor had announced Japan’s defeat in guarded terms on the radio, nationalist leaders Soekarno and Hatta proclaimed the Indonesian Republic in Jakarta. The Netherlands refused to recognize the Republic, signalling the beginning of a political confl ict that soon mushroomed into a prolonged military battle. The still poorly-organized and undermanned Allied administration was completely unprepared for a new war. Allied, and later Dutch, authority reached no further than the main cities in Java and Sumatra. The Allies had no choice but to recognize the de facto authority of the Republic in large parts of the archipelago. Initially, the Republic was preoccupied with the diffi cult process of building a government and a national army. Late September 1945 saw violent encounters between Indonesian militias (badan perjuangan, lasykar), and Japanese and British troops. The Indonesian militias were of various political persuasions ranging from militant socialist and communist unionists to members of the nationalist youth movement (pemuda) (Lucas 1991; Cribb 1991). The militias would alternately work together, form an alliance with the Republic, or bitterly fi ght each other or the national Army. In addition, the dividing line between revolutionary militias and criminal gangs was a thin one. In the Surakarta region, for example, there was a complex power struggle between various militias, the national Army and the local aristocracy (Ibrahim 2004). The militias were largely responsible for the occupation of plantations, rampok (collective raids), extortion, murder and large-scale destruction of civilian property. The militias were very hard to control, not only for the Allies and the Japanese troops still awaiting repatriation, but also for the central Republican authority. On 5 May 1947, the central government decreed that the militias 30 The politics of redress were to be integrated into the national Army. This was a very diffi cult process and ultimately the effort was only partly successful. The militias presented a serious challenge to the Indonesian government’s authority. They frustrated the Republic’s attempts to present itself to the international community as a nation with respect for the rule of law.

Van Mook returned on 2 October 1945 to Indonesia in the offi cial capacity of Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. In 1948, the post of Governor-General was replaced by the High Commissioner of the Crown (HVK). On 1 November 1948 Louis J.M. Beel succeeded Van Mook. In October 1945, NICA had been renamed the Allied Military Administration Civil Affairs Branch (AMACAB). AMACAB’s scope was limited to a few big cities in Java, Sumatra and South Sulawesi. Its activities included providing necessities to liberated internees, collecting information about the Japanese occupation and many other civilian tasks. In August 1945, the fi rst group of Dutch people from Indonesia was repatriated. Several more waves were to follow (Willems 2001:23-6, 43-9). At the same time, many Dutch citizens remained in internment camps set up by the Republic to protect them from the militias. There were 50,000 to 60,000 internees, most of them Eurasian. Regimes and living conditions varied from camp to camp; the experiences of the internees varied accordingly (Meijer 2004:253-5). The Dutch East Indies government negotiated with the Republic to end the confl ict. On 15 November 1946, representatives of the Netherlands and the Republic met in Linggajati in West Java. They signed a draft agreement ‘to safeguard the good relations between the peoples of the Netherlands and Indonesia through new types of voluntary collaboration’ (Linggadjati 1946:3). Two weeks later, on 30 November 1946, the British left Java and Sumatra and handed over power to the Netherlands. On 25 March 1947, the fi nal accord known as the Linggajati Agreement was reached. The Netherlands recognized the de facto Republican authority in Java, Sumatra and Madura and also recognized that the colony would break away from the Netherlands to become a federal and sovereign state. The new Indonesian Republic would then be part of a federation with the Netherlands. In Article 14 of the Agreement, the Republic guaranteed the protection of foreign property.

In the spring of 1947, both the Dutch and Dutch East Indies governments seriously doubted that the Republic was willing or able to implement the Linggajati Agreement. The Republican government had no grip on the militias. There was a lively trade with Singapore in smuggled agricultural commodities such as rubber (Twang 1998; Yong 2003). The militias occupied plantations. Article 14 of the Linggajati Agreement proved to be worth little in practice. Dutch control over the plantation sector, the main source of foreign II Era of change 31 currency and thus the motor behind the economy, was limited. The Dutch Finance Minister, Piet Lieftinck, was very worried about the colony’s weaken- ing foreign exchange position and budget defi cit. In his view, Dutch control of the plantation sector was urgently needed if the colony was to avert bankruptcy (Maas and Van Oerle 1987:18-20). In 1946, the budget defi cit was ƒ 816 million. In 1947, it grew to ƒ 1.2 billion and by 1948 it exceeded ƒ 1.5 billion (Tervooren 1957:104-5). Lieftinck was therefore in favour of military intervention. Independently of Lieftinck, the Dutch planters’ lobby, represented by the IOB (Dutch East Indies Business Association), also proposed military action. General S.H. Spoor, Dutch commander-in-chief in Indonesia, embraced this plan and predicted military success (Van Doorn and Hendrix 1985:130-1; Groen 1991:81-3). He would be proven wrong. A Dutch ultimatum to the Republic to cease hostilities, respect foreign property and end a food boycott in the Dutch-controlled territories expired on 16 July 1947. The fi rst military intervention, euphemistically called a Police Action (21 July-5 August 1947), was intended to bring the main foreign currency generator – the export-oriented agricultural businesses – under Dutch control (Van Doorn and Hendrix 1985:130-1). Ten days after the launch of this military operation, India and Australia asked the UN Security Council to intervene in order to stop the Dutch violence against the Republic (Taylor 1960:36-7). With the international spotlight turned on the Dutch-Indonesian confl ict, the Netherlands was forced to reopen negotiations with the Republic. This culminated in the Renville Agreement on 17 January 1948, which included not only the details of a ceasefi re, but also proposals for a federal Indonesian state in a union with the Netherlands as previously put forward in the Linggajati Agreement. In the meantime, the Dutch continued making plans to form a federal state. In March 1948, the Dutch East Indies government renamed itself the Interim Federal Government of Indonesia.

Between April and June 1948 the United Nations again urged the Netherlands and Indonesia to return to the negotiating table because both sides were guilty of ceasefi re violations. The ensuing talks in Kaliurang (near Yogyakarta, Central Java) ended in a deadlock. Since the First Police Action had failed to secure complete control over the agricultural sector, the Dutch government again decided to play the military card. The Second Police Action (21 December 1948-5 January 1949) was a short- lived military success. Dutch troops arrested Republican leaders, occupied the Republic’s capital, Yogyakarta, and put a larger number of agricultural businesses under Dutch control. Politically, however, the intervention was a complete failure. The Indonesian resistance was far from broken. Guerrilla warfare and the occupation of plantations continued. To make matters worse, 32 The politics of redress public opinion turned against the Dutch. A UN Security Council resolution forced the Netherlands to observe a ceasefi re with the Republic. The US administration suspended Marshall aid to the Netherlands, though this was no more than a political gesture to placate Congress. The lion’s share of fi nancial aid to the Netherlands had already been allocated (Van der Eng 1988:345).

The Van Roijen-Rum Agreement (7 May 1949) paved the way for a Round Table Conference (3 August-2 November 1949) to settle the transfer of sovereignty. The agreement stipulated that, as a republic and a federal state, Indonesia would become part of a Dutch-Indonesian Union. The delegations also agreed that all the rights and obligations of the Dutch East Indies would be transferred to Indonesia. The biggest hurdle in the talks was the ﬁ nancial and economic accord (Finec). These negotiations largely revolved around the settlement of debt. Indonesia was prepared to accept all rights and obligations, including debts, of its legal predecessor the Dutch East Indies. One exception, which was also the biggest obstacle in the negotiations, was the debt incurred by the Dutch East Indies as a result of the post-war Dutch military expenditure: the Police Actions. A special committee had to be created to solve this debt problem. The committee mediated between the two countries until they agreed that the Netherlands would cancel ƒ 2 billion of Indonesian debt (Tervooren 1957:169- 70). On 27 December 1949, the Netherlands ofﬁ cially transferred sovereignty to the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (USI).4 Faced with growing resistance to the federal model, the Republic declared itself a unitary state on 17 August 1950, becoming the Indonesian Republic. The Republic’s unity was fragile though. Well into the 1950s, there were outbreaks of violence in the Central Moluccas, West Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi due to regional uprisings against the central government (Kahin and Kahin 1995).

The American occupation of Japan

MacArthur arrived in Tokyo on 2 October 1945 in his capacity as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). SCAP came to refer to the ofﬁ ces and staff of the entire occupation organization led by MacArthur. The American occupation lasted more than six and a half years, from August 1945 to April 1952.

4 Resultaten van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie 1949. II Era of change 33

On 1 September 1945, Japan accepted the conditions for unconditional surrender that the Allied powers had drawn up in the Instrument of Surrender. The aggressor acquiesced to the Potsdam Declaration of 26 July 1945 (Takemae 2003:40-1, 46). As it had done in Germany, this declaration served as the basis for the Allies’ policy towards Japan. A week after MacArthur was named SCAP, several thousand soldiers from the US 8th Army landed on Japanese soil to start disarming and demobilizing Japanese troops. The Americans imposed indirect rule on Japan. The Emperor remained part of the political system, but reforms ensured that his power was considerably curbed. Ultranationalist inﬂ uences were to be excluded from politics, education and the economy. A new constitution had to be drawn up and the political and economic clout of the zaibatsu had to be broken. The dismantling of these family businesses came to be known as the ‘zaibatsu dissolution’ (Schaller 1985:43-4; Takemae 2003:334-9).

Political scientist Takemae Eiji has characterized Tokyo in the fi rst months of the US occupation as a city of scarcity. People hoarded every nail and scrap of worn-down clothing (Takemae 2003:76-7). Approximately three million Japanese soldiers and citizens, 3 to 4% of the population of 74 million, had died. Even more had been maimed, though their number is unknown. Allied air raids had destroyed 80% of Japan’s ships, 33% of its machinery and 25% of its rolling stock. Industrial production had been decimated. More than 60 cities had been ravaged by American carpet bombings. Almost half of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been razed to the ground, leaving 30% of their inhabitants homeless. Some 13 million Japanese were jobless and 10 million were starving (Dower 1999:45-8; Takemae 2003:76). The black market fl ourished, with no regard for the offi cially set prices for consumer goods. A wide range of products was available on the black market: from food to factory machinery that had been illegally ‘diverted’ from US Army depots by once highly-placed army offi cials, corrupt bureaucrats and industrialists.

SCAP was headquartered in Tokyo and subdivided into ten special staff sections (Takemae 2003:117-20, 137-42, 196). One of the most important staff sections was the Economic and Scientific Section (ESS). This section’s task was to advise MacArthur on SCAP policy regarding the economy, industry, fi nance, mining and science in Japan and Korea. Another important institution was the Civil Property Custodian (CPC), established by SCAP in the spring of 1946. This management institute was exclusively concerned with Japanese war loot. In August 1946, General MacArthur established a special offi ce whose task was to maintain relations with the Imperial government. This Central Liaison Office (CLO) formally reported to the Japanese Ministry of 34 The politics of redress

Foreign Affairs, but to some extent operated independently. The CLO was charged with translating SCAP’s orders to the Japanese government into concrete policy (Takemae 2003:113-4). In July 1946, the Japanese government established the Holding Company Liquidation Commission (HCLC) to start disbanding the network of Japanese companies and subsidiaries which the Americans initially saw as an obstacle to a free market economy and democracy. The HCLC concentrated solely on businesses established and operating in Japan. SCAP tacitly left it to the Allied powers to investigate and dissolve Japanese subsidiaries and branch ofﬁ ces in formerly Japanese-occupied or controlled territories. SCAP had its hands full simply occupying Japan and had no jurisdiction in the Southeast Asian regions anyway.5 US policy toward Japan changed in the latter half of 1947. Dissolving family businesses became secondary to the economic reconstruction of Japan and the formation of a US-Japanese bloc against communism. The Americans came to realize that the existing businesses would be essential to Japan’s economic reconstruction. Only a half-hearted attempt was made at dismantling the zaibatsu network. In the end, the operation got no further than the top of the zaibatsu pyramid in Japan (Schaller 1985:35). The economic and political power of the Old Order had not been broken.

SCAP received formal advice from the Far Eastern Commission (FEC), established on 27 December 1945 in Moscow. The FEC had delegates from various Allied countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, the USA and the UK. Only the USA, China and the Soviet Union had the power of veto (Blakeslee 1953). The FEC dealt with various issues, including policies for returning property looted by Japan (restitution) and for supplying capital goods to the Allied Powers as part of war reparations, and with individual Allied countries’ war damage claims against Japan. With their own interests in mind, various FEC members did their best to draw out the FEC’s decision-making process. The Japanese public soon began to resist the measures and it became clear that US policy was rife with inconsistencies. It slowly emerged that America and her allies had opposing interests regarding the ﬁ nancial burden of the US occupation of Japan and the economic reconstruction of the defeated nation. Equally importantly, MacArthur often disregarded FEC policy guidelines in

5 86.C1 No. 88: Yokohama Specie Bank – Correspondence, 1946-1951. Folder 10. Topical File, 1946-1951. Economic and Scientific Section (ESS). Director of Finance. General records of general headquarters Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ SCAP). Record group 331.36. U.S. National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) College Park, Maryland. II Era of change 35 favour of his own agenda, infuriating his superiors in Washington (Takemae 2003:105). Eventually, he was dismissed for insubordination. In March 1947, MacArthur for the fi rst time advocated a ‘soft’ peace for Japan. This proposal boiled down to not burdening Japan too heavily with Allied compensation claims for material and immaterial damage. Hence, the US representative in the FEC announced on 12 May 1949 that Japan could halt the interim reparations it had been paying since 1947 to formerly occupied countries. In September 1951, the San Francisco Peace Conference was held. Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs D.U. Stikker signed the resulting Peace Treaty on behalf of the Netherlands.6 On 1 April 1952, the Lower House of Dutch parliament ratifi ed the treaty, which became effective on 17 June 1952 (Van Poelgeest 1999:191-2, 231-4). In the wake of the San Francisco peace talks, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru and Stikker negotiated on war damage compensation. This resulted in the Yoshida/Stikker Accord (1951) in which Japan made a commitment to pay reparations to Indonesia and compensation to the Netherlands for the suffering of soldiers and citizens in the internment camps. Years of diffi cult negotiations on the amount of damages followed. It took until early 1956 for both countries to agree on the compensation of immaterial damage (Van Poelgeest 1999:217-9, 476). Japan offered the Netherlands ƒ 50 million (Bossenbroek 2001:450). From 1951 onwards, the Indonesian government tried to reach an agreement with the Japanese government independently of the Netherlands. Indonesia, too, became mired in long and dragged out negotiations. An agreement was fi nally reached in late November 1957 through president Soekarno’s personal intervention (Nishihara 1976:49-51). The Philippine government faced similar diffi culties in trying to reach a compensation deal with Japan. The government had signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty because the USA had promised to enter into a military pact with the Philippines. This would guarantee the safety of the nation against future Japanese military aggression, at least on paper (Ohno 1986:48-52, 56). Signing the peace treaty did not solve the Filipinos’ fundamental problem of getting Japan to pay reparations. Article 14 of the Peace Treaty, in which Japan agreed to offer its services to war-ruined countries, was too noncommittal for the Philippine government. Disappointed by the termination of the reparations in the shape of capital goods, and strengthened in their resolve by the fact that Japan was regaining its economic might in 1951, the Philippine government stuck to its guns and demanded US$ 8 billion. The Japanese government refused to pay this, arguing that if it paid the Philippines, it would also have to pay reparations to Burma, Vietnam and Indonesia. From 1951 to May 1956,

6 Tractatenblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden 1951, 134. 36 The politics of redress missions shuttled between Tokyo and Manila in the hope of forging an agreement. Japan had a great stake in regaining access to Philippine raw materials, while the Philippines needed access to capital (loans), services and capital goods in order to realize economic projects. On 9 May 1956, Japanese and Philippine delegations signed an agreement in which Japan agreed to pay US$ 550 million in reparations and to lend the Philippines US$ 220 million. On 16 July 1956, Philippine Congress ratiﬁ ed the agreement (Ohno 1986:118, 125). CHAPTER III War damage

On 6 November 1945, Lieutenant Governor-General Van Mook made an ofﬁ cial statement in Jakarta – the centre of Dutch colonial power – announcing his regime’s intention to address the issues of restitution and war damage:

Also, everyone should be restituted, to the extent that this is still possible, in what was his rightful property, if he has been despoiled by either the enemy or anyone else. In this regard, the issue of war damage will be treated separately and solutions to this problem will have to take into account the bearing capacity of society as a whole and of those who are directly involved, while here too, the restoration of the people’s wealth should be the guiding principle.1

The Japanese had capitulated, but the Indonesian revolution had entered a new and violent phase which led to more material and immaterial damage. Van Mook tried to boost the morale of the colony’s citizens by promising restitution of lawful property, by which he meant restoration of property rights. He seemed less resolute in his promises regarding compensation of material war damage. Clearly this was still a moot point. What types of damage were to be deemed war damage? How much war damage was there? What compensation was provided for in legislation? How did the American and Philippine authorities deal with the war damage issue? To ﬁ nd an answer to these questions, we must begin with what transpired in the Volksraad, the colony’s pseudo Parliament, on the eve of the capitulation of the Dutch East Indies government to Japan.

Pre-emptive demolition

The oil ﬁ elds on the island of Tarakan had fallen into Japanese hands on 18 January 1942. Because it expected the impending Japanese invasion of Java to cause extensive material damage, the Volksraad convened on 27 February 1942 to make adjustments to the annual Dutch East Indies budget and to announce

1 Nationaal Archief (NA), ministerie van Koloniën (MvK), Indisch archief, box 14. 38 The politics of redress plans for legislation covering war damage compensation. The 1942 budget had to be increased to accommodate the compensation of any land-based war risk claims, meaning damage caused by acts of war such as shelling. In the colony, there was no legislation for the coverage of such claims. Damage due to acts of war at sea were covered by a marine war risk insurance guaranteed by the government. The government was willing to stand surety because the number of objects to be insured – the ships and their cargo – was relatively small, posing little ﬁ nancial risk to the state. However, the numerous objects on land, from real estate to movable goods, were quite a different matter. To insure objects on land against war risk, the state would have to pay very high premiums. This was because much greater damage could be expected. In short, it was not possible to insure objects against acts of war in the usual way.2 In the 27 February assembly, the Volksraad passed a bill entitled ‘Com- pensation of damage due to acts of war on land’, without giving any indication of the scope of the bill. In other words, it was unclear which acts would be considered acts of war, which objects would be considered for compensation, and how much money would be set aside for this purpose. Estimating that amount in advance was clearly impossible. The explanatory memorandum written by the Department of Economic Affairs to clarify the budget proposal was, in fact, no more than a preliminary exploration of what such legislation could encompass. It presented three options to cover the cost of war damage compensation: the damage could be recovered from the enemy, covered by premiums, or ‘be paid for entirely at the public’s expense’.3 In case of the third option, the state would cover the full cost of war damage compensation. However vague the bill was, it established the Department’s basic principle: that ‘damage due to acts of war on land, whether caused by the enemy or resulting from destruction at the hands of one’s own Government, [should] generally be compensated’.4 One day after the meeting, on 28 February, the ﬁ rst Japanese troops landed in Java. The Dutch East Indies government had run out of time to turn their war damage compensation scheme into solid legislation. This would have far-reaching consequences for those who were to incur material war damage.

The absence of war damage compensation laws did not stop the demolition teams formed before the Japanese invasion from doing their job. Company managers assumed the Dutch East Indies government would eventually compensate them for the damage they were about to inﬂ ict on their own ﬁ xed

2 NA, Ondernemersraad van Nederlands-Indië (ONRANI), inv. 152, 4. Folder 2. 3 NA (ONRANI), inv. 152, 4. Folder 2. 4 NA (ONRANI), inv. 152, 4. Folder 2. III War damage 39 assets. The demolition teams consisted of company employees who, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were placed under the Army’s command (Touwen- Bouwsma 1995:20-1). The Dutch East Indies government ordered the teams to destroy objects of economic value and vital infrastructures such as telephone and telegraph lines, roads, bridges, ports, warehouses, oil installations and airports. The aim was to keep these out of enemy hands.5 The destruction in the Balikpapan oil fi elds (South Sumatra) and Surabaya (East Java) illustrates how extensive the government’s demolition orders were. A full year before the invasion, the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (BPM) had started preparing for a possible Japanese attempt to seize the Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java oil fi elds. In Balikpapan, a 120-man demolition brigade held weekly practice runs (Fabricius 1949:52). On 18 January 1942, after Tarakan fell, the actual demolition in Balikpapan began. Storage tanks, engines, pumps, generators, pipe lines and fl ow lines, turbines, boiler houses and a complete electrical plant were destroyed (Boer 1997:128). Sometimes things went wrong. The planned destruction of the BPM site in Plaju, near Palembang, had to be aborted because of the Japanese Army’s unexpectedly fast approach (Fabricius 1949:106). While the destruction of the Surabaya port was almost complete, the pre-emptive demolition of nearby Norokrembangan airport was not carried out according to instructions.6 After the war, the damage caused by these missions would come to be known as ‘pre-emptive damage’. The issue of compensation for this type of war damage by the Dutch East Indies government and its Indonesian successor became a specifi c topic of discussion within the wider debate on war damage compensation. No estimates were ever made of the total amount of pre- emptive damage. Company management and the government were unable to survey or reconstruct the damage because they were hindered by the war that continued until 1949. It was nearly impossible to estimate the damage to economic sectors such as industry or agriculture. Only a few companies were able to produce a reliable overview, for example the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM). From 15 February to late March 1942, the KPM had lost 77 ships. The company had sunk 34 of the vessels on orders from the Commander of the Naval Forces and the Bureau of Marine Traffi c. Enemy actions led to the sinking of another 39 ships, and the Japanese armed forces commandeered four of them (Le Coultre 1946:61-2). The Americans and the Commonwealth government of the Philippines had no master plan for pre-emptive demolition, but at the very last moment they decided to destroy assets anyway. On 24 December 1941, when the

5 NIOD, Indische Collectie (IC) no. 009348. 6 Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken (MBZ), Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS) archives, inv. 441. 40 The politics of redress

Americans realized Manila would fall, the US Army started negotiations with large international oil corporations that had interests in the port of Manila. The companies reluctantly agreed to destroy their oil reserves (Agoncillo 1965:111). Soon, black smoke clouded the skies over the port and city.

Shortly after the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies, the indeterminate extent of war damage became a stake in a game of psychological warfare between Japan and the Netherlands. In May 1942, Van Mook’s foreign policy commentaries emphasized the ‘total destruction’ of oil wells, refi neries, oil installations and machinery. The Japanese and German media did not deny this, but struck back by announcing the ‘fact’ that Jakarta’s main port, Tanjung Priok, had been suffi ciently repaired just 50 days after the capitulation of the Dutch East Indies. Asia Raya magazine, Japan’s mouthpiece in Indonesia, published similar success stories about the reconstruction of shipbuilding and port facilities at Tanjung Perak port in Surabaya and a railway bridge near Krawang in West Java.7 A Dutch message from Melbourne, dated 16 May 1942 and intended for Prime Minister Gerbrandy and Minister Van Mook in London, reported the rapid reconstruction of the Surabaya port based on Japanese communications. The Japanese propaganda machine was running at full strength. In June 1942, Japanese sources triumphantly declared the ‘Java reconstruction complete’. Reportedly, railroads and factories were back in working order, industrial activities were fl ourishing, and the export of raw materials back to Japan on the increase. The same sources also reported on the ‘amazing reconstruction’ of the Balikpapan oil fi elds and installations and claimed the Bangka and Belitung tin mines were operating at full capacity. The fi rst tin transports had already reached Japan, they said. Amid all the bad news, the Dutch got a glimmer of hope from Nagato, a former Tokyo mayor who was serving as a civilian advisor to the 16th Army in Java. In July 1942, Nagato candidly acknowledged that the Dutch had done ‘a good job’ of destroying facilities that were important to Japan. He also admitted that Japanese claims regarding the restored infrastructure in Java were far from the truth.8 Nagato spoke from fi rsthand experience. He had worked for years on the reconstruction of Tokyo after the major earthquake of 1 September 1923. Japan’s success story about rebuilding the destroyed infrastructure was further weakened by its own contradictory reporting. However, the Dutch and the Dutch East Indies governments had great diffi culty verifying Japanese restoration and reconstruction claims because they had no secret intelligence to speak of.

7 NA, MvK Londens archief inv. 965. See also Asia Raya 23-7-1942. 8 NA, MvK Londens archief, inv. 965. III War damage 41

The extent of the damage due to Japanese shelling and bombardments during the invasion was equally impossible to quantify. However, it is likely that this damage was less extensive than the intentional damage inﬂ icted by the demolition brigades. Although the Japanese bombed the ports of Jakarta and Surabaya in January, they practiced extreme restraint in order to seize vital economic assets unscathed, according to a Japanese source.9 Besides, heavy and persistent shelling was simply unnecessary because the Dutch East Indies Army hardly put up a ﬁ ght. The quick Dutch capitulation and the ineffectiveness of the anti-Japanese resistance meant there were no battles in the cities and rural areas. This explains why there was only limited material damage due to pure acts of war, shelling and bombardments, by either army during the Japanese invasion. Later, in 1944, Allied bombardments in East Indonesia caused particularly extensive damage. The Philippines saw a similar scenario. The Americans declared Manila an ‘open city’, thus averting a battle early on in the war. The worst damage did not occur during the Japanese invasion, but in early 1945 after the start of the American offensive.

Large areas of Manila were destroyed when the Americans drove the Japanese Army and Navy out of the city in February and March 1945 (NIOD 33544)

9 Waseda University. Nishijima collection, inv. JV 36. 42 The politics of redress

The various causes of war damage, whether pre-emptive demolition or Japanese shelling, turned out to be difﬁ cult to distinguish later on. One example of this was an attempt in 1951 by US-owned oil company Stanvac and the Dutch Ministry of Defence to reconstruct events in the port of Jakarta during the Japanese invasion. According to one source, Dutch demolition teams took action on 5 March 1942, setting ﬁ re to rice warehouses and sinking all ships in the harbour and offshore. They destroyed the machines and tools in the workshops of the Droogdok Maatschappij, the KPM and the dredging company, as well as several oil companies’ installations.10 However, other sources report earlier Japanese bombardments, in January and February 1942. In addition, the local population had started looting (rampok) on 3 March. The latter two unrelated events had caused extensive damage before 5 March 1942. By the time the war ended, no one knew who had damaged which assets and when. Yet it was precisely this information that was needed to submit claims. The lack of clarity would lead to long disputes between companies that had suffered damage and the Dutch East Indies government over the government’s obligation to compensate pre-emptive damage.11

Rampok

At this point, we need to explore the phenomenon of rampok (in the sense of collective looting), which was rife during the Japanese invasion. Although rampok was distinct from acts of war and pre-emptive destruction, it did cause enormous immaterial and material damage. Rampok was not a Japanese invention. It is often associated only with the Indonesian revolution, which occurred after the Japanese capitulation. And yet there had been rampok gangs long before the war, mainly in rural Java (Van Till 2006). However, the rampok during the Japanese invasion was quite different from pre-war rampok. This new kind of looting involved not just organized crime, but huge numbers of people (hundreds or possibly even thousands). Unlike the pre-war looting, these were not hit-and-run actions executed by night. The looting happened in broad daylight and could go on for days. Another difference was the extent of the destruction and the use of physical violence. The scale and geographical distribution of this type of looting was also very different from that during peacetime. During the less than two weeks that the Japanese invasion lasted, rampok was the order of the day in large parts of Java and Sumatra. At the

10 Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI), Algemene Secretarie van the Nederlands-In- dische regering en de daarbij gedeponeerde archieven (AS), inv. 299. 11 NA, Nederlands Militaire Missie in Indonesië van het Ministerie van Defensie (NMM), inv. 103. III War damage 43 beginning of the Indonesian revolution, a new wave of this form of collective looting would sweep the country. Across Java and Sumatra, similar situations arose. Large groups of Indonesians went on the prowl, not only looting consumer goods but also stripping houses and offi ce buildings, removing light switches, toilet seats and toilets, doors, window frames and roof tiles. Whatever was too big to carry or of too little value was left behind or destroyed. The owners fl ed with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the cash in their pockets.12 The victims were specifi c groups: Chinese Indonesians, Europeans and Eurasians. Little is known about the perpetrators. The reports mostly describe them as an anonymous mob, the people (rakyat), and sometimes as criminals (orang jahat). Khoe Wie Hin wrote a poem about rampok during the fi rst weeks of the Japanese invasion:

Mendaratnja Djepang soeda terbitkan perampokan Kebanjakan bangsa Tionghoa sadja jang ‘dimakan’ Teroetama di pedalaman dan oedik-oedikan Banjak jang roemah tangganja djadi brantakan !! (Tjoekoer 1948:8.)

Rampok came with the Japanese invasion Mostly ‘devouring’ the Chinese Especially in the back country and the rural areas Many a household driven to confusion !!

Even during the Japanese occupation, Indonesian nationalists like psycholo- gist Slamet Sudibyo and publicist Sanoesi Pane expressed their dismay and embarrassment at this explosion of excessive violence. They tried to ﬁ nd explanations. In a series of articles in Asia Raya, they referred to the Indonesian population’s desire to take revenge on the colonial regime.13 Such an explanation is too simple (Van Doorn and Hendrix 1985:185-6).14 Disruption of the food supply, notably rice, was probably an important common denominator that explains the looting in many areas. This is illustrated well by the situation in West Java. Even before the Japanese Army landed, demolition teams had sabotaged rice-husking plants all over Java (Tan 1946:161-3). This jeopardized the processing of harvested rice (padi) and hence the distribution of polished rice (beras). To make matters worse, the Japanese invasion coincided with the expected rice harvest in March 1942. Stocks were depleted and rice traders held on to whatever rice they still had in anticipation of higher prices (Sato 1994:115). It was no coincidence, therefore, that rice storehouses and markets

12 NIOD, IC, 004713; NIOD, IC, 004839. 13 Asia Raya 18-06-1942. 14 See also Hüsken 1982. 44 The politics of redress were targeted by the looters. A purely economic explanation fails, however, to account for rampok’s extraordinarily violent nature. Various eyewitness accounts of the violence and damage suggest that there were signifi cant local variations in these, thus underscoring the limitations of a single explanation for the excesses. Even before the Japanese invasion, shortly after the fi eld police and the Army garrison fl ed to Sumatra on 13 February 1942, large groups of unemployed Chinese workers from a rubber plantation started looting in the town of Tanjung Pinang, on the island of Bintan in the Riau Archipelago. They emptied opium warehouses and army depots. More lootings followed after the fi rst Japanese troops landed in Tanjung Pinang. Chinese traders hoarded their goods in hiding places. Whether this prevented them from being robbed is unknown.15 Reports on Tanjung Pinang make no mention of violence against owners, destruction of property or a crackdown by the Japanese. Such incidents were reported elsewhere, however. The Japanese Army closed down the rice storehouses in Jakarta’s Tanjung Priok port in the fi rst days of the occupation. This led to an acute rice shortage. In order to secure the basic necessities of life, the population started looting. Japanese soldiers opened fi re on the crowds, killing an unknown number of people. The fate of the few looters arrested by the Japanese was certain. They were summarily beheaded.16 The rampok on the private estates of West Java shortly after the Japanese invasion stand out as particularly violent and highly organized. On an estate in Bekasi, east of Jakarta, a rampok ‘professional’ (a gang member or leader) mobilized hundreds of residents. Armed with machetes (golok) and knives, they initially raided the rice storehouses and then stormed the country house. This was literally razed to the ground, with only a few iron poles left standing.17 The looters brutally murdered the Chinese landlord, his family and the Chinese servants. One Javanese housekeeper survived and her experiences were recorded by others. The landlords and their families on the other private estates around Jakarta, such as in Krawang and Tangerang, met the same fate.18 These events near Jakarta can be explained by the specifi c position private estates occupied in the colonial system. They were miniature states-within-the-state, exacting their own system of forced labour and levies. The inhabitants indeed seemed to be taking revenge on the land-owning class and their representatives for decades of exploiting their labour and making them pay (exorbitant) taxes. In the temporary power vacuum created by the

15 NIOD, IC, 003532. 16 NA, MvK Londens archief, inv. 136. 17 NIOD, IC, 004720. 18 Asia Raya 18-06-1942, 22-06-1942. III War damage 45

Japanese invasion, this retaliation coincided with what appears to have been a power struggle between local gangs and the landlords (Cribb 1991:16-21, 38-43). The looting in the town of Surakarta in Central Java might have been less violent than on the private estates, but it was no less premeditated. A few days before the Japanese commandos invaded the city, the population started looting.19 ‘Native scouts’ supposedly played a leading role in this.20 Looting did not happen everywhere. The situation in Yogyakarta differed signifi cantly from Surakarta. No large-scale rampok took place in this Central Javanese city. This was probably due to smooth cooperation between the Dutch East Indies administrators, the sultan of Yogyakarta and Japanese Army offi cials.21 The situation in Kedu (Central Java) resembled that of Yogyakarta. The former Dutch resident commended the discipline of the Japanese commandos. The Japanese Army command immediately quelled looting by locals and Japanese troops.22 Local Japanese military authorities did not react consistently to the rampok. Their responses varied from tacit approval to zero tolerance. In Solok (West Sumatra), Japanese soldiers and Indonesian fi eld police, armed with rifl es, bayonets and klewang (sabres), went on the offensive against a looting mob. One looter died in hospital and many more were injured. They hid in the kampong, fearing arrest and execution. On 17 February 1942, the Japanese command in Palembang even established a special militia, the Jikei dan, to keep the peace and prevent the rampok. The Jikei dan consisted of Japanese military police and Indonesian civilian police. On 10 March, the organization was disbanded because calm had been restored.23 In Central Java, the local Japanese military authorities ordered European police and Indonesian citizens to put a stop to the looting (Brugmans et al. 1960:126-8).24 But in Pematang Siantar (Northeast Sumatra) the Japanese took a different approach. They stood by and watched looters ransack Chinese-owned shops and the homes of Europeans.25 The beheadings in the port of Jakarta were no exception. Summary executions occurred all over Java. Only the style and method of execution varied. Sometimes, the local Japanese authorities summoned the population by tong tong (signal blocks) to attend the executions. In some cases, the looters were tied half standing, half hanging, to trees or electricity poles, along with

19 NIOD, IC, 003437. 20 NIOD, IC, 037971. 21 NIOD, IC, 0037965. 22 NIOD, IC, 003546. 23 Asia Raya 5-5-1942. 24 NIOD, IC, 003440. 25 NIOD, IC, 003400; NIOD, IC, 003660. 46 The politics of redress a notice explaining that they were perampok (plunderers, looters). After a few days, when they were exhausted from lack of water and food, their legs would give out and they would hang themselves. Another way of punishing looters and deterring others from such crime was hacking off hands.26 May 1942 saw the end of mass lootings, probably because the Japanese military authorities had by then taken control of large areas of Java and Sumatra. Yet, the ‘professional’ gangs were not deterred by punitive measures. They organized ‘conventional’ rampok on plantations in Bogor and Cirebon (both in West Java), in May and September 1942, respectively. Irregularities also continued on the private estates in Bekasi, near Jakarta.27 That the looting mobs created enormous material damage is apparent from later accounts by the Japanese military. In 1976, former members of the Japanese kempeitai described the lootings just as Sudibyo and Pane had done 30 years earlier, saying the Indonesian looters ‘ran off with all items of value, as though they were avenging hundreds of years of resentment in one terrifying sweep’. (Shimer and Hobbs 1986:25). In the eyes of these Japanese veterans, the destruction due to rampok was far greater than the damage caused by their own acts of war.28 This conclusion seems to be corroborated by the many fragmented Dutch reports on looting at the time of the Japanese invasion.

The Philippines, and Manila in particular, were not safe from plundering either in the early days of the Japanese occupation. The impossible task of defending the entire coastline, coupled with the destruction of the American airbases on the Philippines, forced MacArthur to evacuate the American-Philippine troops to the mountains on Bataan Peninsula, northwest of Manila. Cut off from food supplies and reduced to half rations, the troops started looting. The farming population were their victims (Agoncillo 1965:70, 74, 92, 109). To keep supplies out of Japanese hands, port authorities unlocked the warehouses, giving the population a chance to stock up on food. When large numbers of people showed up at the port and fi ghts broke out, this ‘legal plundering’ descended into anarchy. Children were trampled. Fearing a violent occupation of Manila and confi scation or plundering of their stock, shopkeepers all over town closed down their businesses. In response, civilians and even police offi cers broke into the shops to steal food supplies. The Japanese command rearmed the police to help restore order and then imposed a curfew (Agoncillo 1965:304-6). By reinstating the local administration, taking emergency measures, and deploying army patrols in the streets of Manila as

26 NIOD, IC, 004720, 20-5-1942. 27 Asia Raya 21-5-1942, 22-6-1942. 28 Waseda University, Nishijima collection, inv. JV 36. III War damage 47 a deterrent, the Japanese managed to put a stop to mass looting. Just like the Indonesian intellectuals, Philippine critics regarded looting as a sign of moral decay. However, there is a better explanation for the widespread looting that occurred in the days leading up to the formal Japanese occupation of Manila, on 3 January 1942. It was brought on by the combination of a temporary administrative crisis, anarchy in the port, and insecurity about the supply of daily necessities.

Brisbane plans

In August 1945, on the eve of the Indonesian revolution, the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA) in Brisbane was optimistically preparing for the restoration of Dutch power in the colony. Among the issues the council of department heads discussed was compensation for war damage. NICA’s manual on legal affairs devoted a separate chapter to this topic.29 This chapter reveals that NICA lawyers made no distinction between material and immaterial damage. They mentioned compensation for damage to property in one breath with liability for death or injury. The Dutch East Indies ofﬁ cials in Australia also failed to distinguish between compensation and restitution. They were unaware of the work that London-based Dutch restitution specialists had been doing (see Chapter VI). The department heads in Brisbane had no access to the parliamentary record of the Volksraad from February 1942. The Volksraad had run out of time to publish the explanatory memorandum on compensation of damage due to acts of war on land; archival copies had been left behind in the rush to escape the Japanese Army. NICA lawyers had to make do with whatever the department heads could recall of the bill and oral explanations given before the Volksraad. The lawyers felt the Dutch East Indies government should, in principle, distinguish between damage caused by enemy acts, by their own army’s acts, and by intentional demolition on government orders. This, they believed, would simplify the settlement of compensation claims. In NICA’s view, the deciding factor in assessing claims should be whether the damage was a direct consequence of the war. According to the Brisbane-based ofﬁ cials, the Dutch East Indies government had established in its statement of 27 February 1942 that the government would not accept any legal obligation to compensate war damage. It had, however, conceded:

29 NA, MvK Indisch archief, inv. 83. Folder I A 209. 48 The politics of redress

that it is in the interest of Dutch East Indies society that the damage to goods as a direct consequence of the war should be repaired as best as possible and that legislation is therefore required, in order to distribute the costs of such repairs fairly between those with a direct interest and society as a whole.30 The government’s statement also made clear what was deemed ‘fair’:

Since it must be considered out of the question that society, impoverished as it is by the war, could bear the total cost of damages, certain limitations must also be taken into account. In the ﬁ rst place, one will necessarily have to accept the limitation of reparations to an extent that will be commensurate with the bearing capacity of society.31

For the time being, the words ‘limitation’ and ‘bearing capacity’ could be taken to mean different things; this was not detrimental per se to the interests of the war victims. It appeared the government was going to come up with some form of war damage compensation. The same tone and almost identical phrases can be found in Van Mook’s statement of 6 November 1945 quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The ofﬁ cial debate on the issue of war damage claims was resumed in January 1946, in Jakarta. At that time, however, Jakarta was hardly a stable, tranquil place where ofﬁ cials could discuss these matters in peace.

New war, more damage

Although we can get a general idea how the Indonesian revolution transpired in various parts of Java and Sumatra, for instance the battle of Surabaya in October and November 1945, most reports fail to paint an accurate picture of the damage done.32 However, there are some examples that illustrate how much damage was caused by the Indonesian revolution. On 4 October 1945, Van Mook arrived in Jakarta. Five days later, on 9 October, rampok were held in the nearby town of Depok, known for its European community and its Indonesian Christian residents who were, in the eyes of other Indonesians, equal to Europeans. The rampok was begun by a relatively small band of looters who targeted a limited group of victims: ﬁ ve so-called ‘European’ families. This would be dwarfed by the events of the next few days. On 11 October, an estimated 4,000 people entered Depok, ransacked and destroyed houses and killed at least ten ‘Europeans’. On 13 October, a Republican militia called the Badan Keamanan Rakyat (BKR)

30 NA, MvK Indisch archief, inv. 83. Folder I A 209. 31 NA, MvK Indisch archief, inv. 83. Folder I A 209. 32 On the events in Surabaya, see Meelhuijsen 2000 and Frederick 1989:230-67. III War damage 49 herded together the entire ‘European’ population of Depok and transported them by train to Bogor (Buitenzorg) for internment. According to Dutch sources, the events in Depok had been orchestrated by pemuda (members of the nationalist youth movement) in collaboration with the BKR and the local Republican administration.

The looters worked with tong tong signals, light signals, and by knocking on telephone poles, which, together with the transports by train, car and grobak [ox-drawn carts], gave the distinct impression that the plundering had been carefully prepared to the last detail.33

By January 1946, the outskirts of Jakarta bordering on the private estates had become a no-man’s land. The kampongs on both sides of the road between Pasar Minggu, in the south, and Kebayoran, a satellite town to the north, were practically deserted. Kebayoran itself was a complete ghost town. The pasar (market) had been burned down by ‘terrorists’ and the surrounding houses and shops had been looted. Kebayoran had become a town on the front line.34 In the Meester Cornelis district, today’s Jatinegara, war raged in the city streets. British and Dutch troops in the district used the same scorched earth tactics as the Indonesian militias. To foil the persistent Indonesian attacks on the British outpost, Dutch troops set ﬁ re to houses, effectively burning part of the Tanahrendah kampong to the ground.35 None of the Dutch sources mention the fate of those who lived in this district.

Europeans and Eurasians were not the only ethnic groups targeted. Among those who bore the brunt of the rampok were the Chinese Indonesians. The victims were small farmers who were mainly from the rural areas around the capital, labourers and rich entrepreneurs. Chinese businesses were not only looted, but also subjected to extortion by militias and gangs. Those who refused to ‘contribute’ to the anti-colonial struggle or to pay ‘protection money’ risked ‘confi scation’ of their supplies or saw their homes, factories or offi ce buildings go up in fl ames. In some cases, they were even killed.36 Violence against the Chinese population of West Java increased in the fi rst half of 1946, when the Indonesian Army withdrew from the area. The militias became especially active in areas left vacant by the Army. In February 1946, the Komite Tionghoa Pembantoe Keamanan Oemoem Djakarta (Chinese Assistance Committee for General Safety in Jakarta) sounded the alarm, warning the Republican Prime Minister Sjahrir of the rampok in Jakarta and its

33 ANRI, AS, inv. 153. 34 ANRI, AS, inv. 153. 35 ANRI, AS, inv. 153. 36 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 50 The politics of redress surroundings.37 One report sent by this Chinese interest group to the Republican Minister of Communications was intercepted by the Dutch authorities. It describes the precarious situation of Jakarta’s Chinese population from April through August 1946. The report documents 50 cases of rampok and over 2,000 cases of murder and arson.38 The many reports on sexual assaults on Chinese women, molestations, kidnappings and disappearances fall outside the scope of this study. Those who assumed the perpetrators were to be found only in the militias were sadly mistaken. British and Dutch soldiers were also guilty of those acts. The central Republican authorities were too weak to offer the victims any real protection. The still poorly-organized Indonesian Army could only occasionally take action against the perampok and militias (Kawilarang 1993:61-2).39 Other Chinese groups in West Java asked Sjahrir and the Chinese consul in Jakarta to press the Republican authorities for protection of their property. The Republicans responded with well-meant pledges but little action (Keppy 2001:99-100). Similar scenes and pleas occurred in Sumatra, in the cities of Bagan Siapiapi, Medan and Palembang.40 In early 1946, Allied troops had started torching homes and even entire districts and hamlets. Soon Indonesian militias joined suit, in and around Bandung, for instance, in March 1946. This event – the pillage of the city by Indonesian militias as they retreated in the face of a British ultimatum – has gone down in Indonesian history under the heroic motto of Bandung Lautan Api (Bandung sea of fi re). Bandung Lautan Api was the culmination of a series of escalating skirmishes between the British and the militias which had started in December 1945. The city of Bandung was divided by railway tracks into an Allied zone in the north and a Republican zone in the south. On 1 February 1946, a British offi cer described the situation as a ‘very uncomfortable rest’. He compared the concentration of Indonesian militias south of the railway tracks with a large army garrison.41 In the hope of ending the clashes, the British commander ordered the militias to leave. The standoff reached its climax with an extremely violent confrontation in late March 1946 that forced the Indonesians to pull out. In revenge, the militias burned public buildings, warehouses, factories and homes on their way out. In the wake of Bandung Lautan Api, the confl ict shifted from the city to the countryside. From April through June 1946, considerable damage was done in the vicinity of Bandung. Local bureaucrats working for the Dutch East Indies government started taking stock of the material damage in May. They hoped

37 NA, AS, inv. 5520. 38 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 39 See also Cribb 1991:89-124. 40 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 41 ANRI, AS, inv. 153. III War damage 51 such ‘hard’ evidence would convince their superiors in Jakarta that the Dutch East Indies administration was losing its grip on West Java. As far as we know, their lists are the only quantitative data on the material damage infl icted before the Police Actions. Incidentally, the Dutch East Indies authorities did not take stock of the damage in Bandung, which must have been enormous. The only indication we have is American historian John Smail’s description of the situation. He characterized South Bandung 18 months after the destruction as ‘a dead city with grass growing in its streets and its back yard fruit trees growing untended, visited occasionally by men who [come] to pick a load for sale in the markets of the north’ (Smail 1964:151). It is diffi cult to interpret the existing data on the damage because it is unknown whether Dutch East Indies offi cials were willing or able to make an exhaustive and accurate estimate of the damage in the countryside around Bandung. They listed the date of the event, the village affected, the object destroyed and the method of destruction. A rough calculation tells us that – in 83 villages – some 4,500 homes, six mosques and 15 factories were destroyed. Most had been burned down, some had been blown up.42 The offi cials say nothing about the perpetrators. However, the destruction fi ts the pattern of deliberate scorched earth tactics regularly employed by various Indonesian militias. In these early days of the Indonesian revolution, AMACAB made attempts to document and even compensate the damage. This is apparent from a confi dential report on the economic situation in a small area near Surabaya (East Java). In August 1946, a large-scale Dutch military expedition took place in the Sidoarjo sugar delta near Surabaya, followed in January 1947 by the so-called Porong action. These assaults were aimed at regaining control of the sugar companies in this area. They were also an overture to the First Police Action. The secret report mentions that the population was to be compensated for war damage. Compensation, in the shape of rent, would be paid for the occupation of premises by Dutch military personnel, for the destruction and commandeering of property for defensive structures, and for destruction caused by military acts of war. The writer drily, but unambiguously, concluded this list with the observation that the population had so far ‘received no damage compensation of any kind’.43 Clearly, the Dutch did no more than document the damage. There must have been countless unregistered cases where Dutch troops, Indonesian militias and the Republican Army commandeered goods and destroyed homes in Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Similarly, a swath of undocumented violence and destruction took place in Central Luzon in the

42 NA, AS, inv. 3026. 43 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1761. 52 The politics of redress

Philippines. The Huk rebellion that had broken out in Central Luzon after June 1946 escalated into a civil war. The police, the military police and the private guards set up by the landlords all resorted to violent and random measures against the rebels: kidnapping, murder, molestation, rape, arson, and pillage of poultry and rice supplies (Kerkvliet 2002:157-9). Apparently, neither the Philippine government nor the Huk rebels made any attempt to document the extent of the material damage incurred by the rural population.

The Hens Committee

In January 1946, while the Indonesian revolution was in full swing, the Dutch East Indies government asked Auditor General A.P.G. Hens in Jakarta for advice on the war damage compensation issue. Was the government legally bound to compensate material war damage? If so, who should be compensated and for what damage? Did this include the damage incurred after the Japanese capitulated? Did the state have suffi cient funds to cover this compensation? And if the government was not bound by law, how should this problem be tackled? These urgent questions prompted the Director of the Department of Finance, L. Götzen, to convene the representatives of the various departments on 17 January 1946. The idea was to discuss the issue of material war damage and to establish a Reconstruction Council that would focus on the economic reconstruction of the colony, in particular the rebuilding of companies. The latter council falls outside the scope of this book. In February 1946, the Governor-General founded the Werkcommissie Molestschade (Working Committee on Damage due to Acts of War).44 This ad-hoc working committee seemed to fi t a familiar mould, teaming up the colonial government and the large Dutch trading companies. The committee was chaired by Auditor General Hens. The other seven committee members included Chief Treasurer W. Alons and V.H. den Hertog, managing director of Internatio, one of the dominant Dutch trading companies in Indonesia known as the Big Five.45 The fundamental question the working committee grappled with in its fi rst meeting was whether the government was bound to the promises made by the Volksraad in 1942 to pay compensation for damage due to acts of war on land. The committee concluded that ‘the Government, in a strictly legal sense, was not bound [to compensate], since their promises [...] had not yet been laid down

44 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 45 ANRI, AS, inv. 300. III War damage 53 in legislation’.46 Still, the committee did view the government’s explanatory memorandum on ‘Compensation for damage due to acts of war on land’ as ‘a positive pledge that, with some limitations, war damage would, in general, be compensated’. A majority of the committee felt that this pledge, however vague, was a commitment to which the government was at least morally bound.47 This point was emphasized in particular by representatives of the Dutch East Indies Business Association (IOB), an organization representing mainly Dutch business interests on the working committee.48 The committee also felt the government should reassure the public that, subject to ‘certain restrictions’, war damage would be compensated. On 14 March 1946, the working committee was renamed the Studie- commissie Materiële Oorlogsschade (Research Committee on Material War Damage); it was to become known as the Hens Committee. On 10 April 1946, Governor-General Van Mook granted the committee formal status.49 It should be noted that the committee did not receive a written mandate. The Governor- General merely indicated that it was a research committee whose role was to ‘determine material war damage’. A few weeks later, at a 29 May meeting of the Hart Committee, a body set up to assess Dutch East Indies war claims against Japan, Chairman Hens admitted that the absence of a mandate had been politically motivated.50 The government did not want to commit itself to anything. This did not bode well for the war victims.

The Hens Committee, made up of high-ranking government ofﬁ cials and representatives of the business community, was expanded with three new members from Dutch and Chinese organizations in the East Indies. These were the Algemene Werknemers Associatie (AWA, General Employees’ Association), the Nederlands-Indische Bond van Ex-Krijgsgevangenen en Ex- Geïnterneerden (NIBEG, Dutch East Indies Alliance of Former Prisoners of War and Internees), and the Chung Hua Thung Hui (Federation of Chinese Organizations).51 Representatives of Indonesian organizations remained conspicuously absent. Thus, compensation was reduced to a Dutch issue, and so it would remain. Because Jakarta was devoid of any literature on war damage compensation in the Netherlands or elsewhere, it was several months before the Hens Committee had anything substantial to discuss or to commit to paper. Hens was not aware of the NICA plans made in Brisbane in August 1945. He was

46 NIOD, IC, 081286; NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 47 NIOD, IC, 081286; NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 48 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 49 NIOD, IC, 081286. 50 Bank Indonesia (BI), Javasche Bank archives (JB), inv. 2993. 51 NIOD, IC, 081286. 54 The politics of redress under the mistaken impression that the civil servants in Australia had not been working on the war damage issue.52 The committee initially pinned its hopes on existing legislation from the Netherlands, the Malayan Union and the Philippines, but was ultimately unable to borrow the concepts found in the foreign laws. We can see why if we look at the discouraging signals that had come from government ofﬁ cials in Jakarta and the Hague and information revealed during the Hens Committee’s meetings. Dutch Finance Minister Lieftinck had informed the Second Chamber of Dutch parliament in December 1945 that he did not intend to provide comprehensive war damage compensation to war victims in the Netherlands, and that he would aim for reconstruction and rehabilitation instead (Van de Garde 1946:167-8). In other words, the compensation of damage incurred by individuals was subordinated to the greater good of economic reconstruction. The representatives of the Dutch East Indies government embraced Lieftinck’s view. Both Van Mook and Götzen, in December 1945 and January 1946 respectively, had informally indicated to the representatives of the East Indies Business Association that they stood little chance of receiving any money in compensation.53 And so the concepts of ‘reconstruction’ and ‘rehabilitation’ had been introduced and would soon start to dominate and obfuscate the debate on compensation. By making these statements, Van Mook, Götzen and Lieftinck rendered all foreign laws, such as the April 1946 Philippine War Rehabilitation Act, irrelevant and unsuitable models for the Indonesian situation. This is conﬁ rmed by later developments.

In late May 1946, a committee member ‘leaked’ information on a letter written by Van Mook in 1943, in which the Governor-General opined that the government was not legally bound to compensate war damage. The government’s commitment, Van Mook had written, was subject to further consideration.54 This signalled to the Hens Committee that the Governor-General and the government were strongly inclined to reject any obligation to pay damages. Hens played along with this political game. In May 1946, he told the Hart Committee that the Hens Committee disagreed with the Dutch East Indies government regarding the obligation to compensate war damage. He deplored the fact that the London-based government had not prepared any legislation. Hens also pointed out that Van Mook had indicated as early as 1943 that the Dutch East Indies government had no obligations whatsoever. Hens predicted that this difference of opinion could become ‘a bone of contention’. H.M.J. Hart, head of the statistics ofﬁ ce and chairman of the committee that bore his

52 BI, JB, inv. 2993. 53 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 54 BI, JB, inv. 2993. III War damage 55 name, conceded that the government’s views on war damage compensation in 1942 had been ‘very simplistic’.55 A week later, on 6 June 1946, Hens decided to ask the government directly for its views on the war damage issue. He sent a letter to the Dutch East Indies government in which he posed this question and pointed out the government’s moral responsibility to come up with a settlement. He hoped to receive an immediate and positive response, he wrote, ‘in order to determine the amount of war damage compensation as quickly as possible’.56 The department heads discussed his message when the council convened on 19 June 1946. The minutes of this meeting conﬁ rm yet again that the government had already decided, not long after the Hens committee was set up, that it was neither in favour of drawing up war damage compensation legislation, nor inclined to reassure the ‘public’:

The Council is of the opinion that the proposed statement is of little use and would even be undesirable, since, even if the Government were to announce that war damage would in principle be compensated, the question remains whether it is able to pay this compensation. Moreover, there is the complication that the people who have suffered the most, namely the representatives of business, would be the ﬁ rst to whom we would turn to raise the national means from which these damages would have to be paid. The Hens committee’s proposal is probably intended to reassure the man in the street rather than to announce [our intentions] to the business community.57

The controversy Hens predicted had become reality. On 8 July, the government, by word of the Finance Department, put the ball back in Hens’s court. The department reminded him of the ‘longstanding conﬂ ict with part of Indonesia’ and ‘continually changing aspects’. In non-bureaucratic language this would translate as: we are involved in another war which is costing us too much to resolve the war damage compensation issue. The Hens Committee was asked once again whether the government was bound to the promises it had made during the war with Japan; and if so, to what extent? This time the question referred to the government’s verbal promises to compensate entrepreneurs, which were made during the short time span between the declaration of war on Japan and the Japanese invasion. The Dutch East Indies government did not inform the ‘public’ as the Hens Committee had urged. However, the war victims got wind of the government’s point of view through another channel. In June 1946, even before Hens had sounded out the government’s mood, Treasurer General Alons of the Finance

55 BI, JB, inv. 2993. 56 BI, JB, inv. 2993. 57 NA, AS, inv. 2290. 56 The politics of redress

Department in Jakarta (himself a member of the Hens Committee), had expressed his views in the Economisch Weekblad van Nederlands-Indië. Without openly declaring himself against compensation, his seemingly down-to-earth, simple calculations of the national debt and the expected national income spoke volumes. This high-ranking ofﬁ cial saw no ﬁ nancial slack to pay compensation (Alons 1946:90). Alons had a staunch supporter in Van Mook, who in October 1946 also advocated a ‘policy of limiting expenditure across the board, from salaries over the period of imprisonment during the war to the compensation of war damage’ (Van der Wal 1976:21-3). Thus Van Mook and Alons, each in their own way, let it be known that war damage compensation was out of the question. At the same time, the Dutch East Indies government used the Hens Committee as window dressing, so it would not have to take the unpopular step of explicitly ruling out compensation altogether.

The committee made little progress in the months following June 1946. This was mainly due to the government’s ambivalence regarding compensation. This had a paralyzing effect on the committee. In September 1946, the chairman of the General Board of the Dutch East Indies Business Association (IOB) expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of progress. 58 In March 1946, the IOB had decided to set up its own Internal War Damage Committee, consisting of engineers and lawyers from various industries.59 This shows how seriously the IOB took the compensation issue and the Hens Committee. Of course, the IOB committee soon concluded that everyone was entitled to compensation.60 NIBEG, the association of Europeans interned during the Japanese occupation, was also closely following the Hens Committee’s activities. The lines between NIBEG and Hens’s committee were short. There were several high ofﬁ cials and representatives of the business community on NIBEG’s central board in Indonesia. Den Hertog, for instance, was not only president of Internatio but also the importers’ representative on the Hens Committee and chairman of the NIBEG central board. NIBEG’s central board was represented on the Hens Committee by G. Rodenburg, head of the Sugar Board in the Department of Economic Affairs.61 In the November 1946 issue of its periodical Bondsmededelingen van de NIBEG, the central board forecast how the chips would fall when the Hens Committee made its recommendations to the government. The NIBEG board pointed out that the scarcity of government funds had prevented the

58 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 59 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 60 NA, ONRANI, inv. 154. 61 Bondsmededelingen van de N.I.B.E.G. Nov. 1946. III War damage 57 committee from considering material war damage independently of the issue of back pay: the salaries and pensions owed to Dutch East Indies civil servants for the period of the Japanese occupation. According to the NIBEG central board, the aim of war damage compensation was to rebuild companies and rehabilitate individuals.62 Aware of the consequences of this new interpretation of policy, the NIBEG central board regretfully concluded that the Hens Committee had been overtaken by fi nancial reality. This statement by the NIBEG working group can be read as subtle criticism of the Dutch East Indies government, which had substituted war damage compensation with reconstruction and rehabilitation. To encourage the government to take compensation measures seriously, NIBEG surveyed members who had been repatriated to the Netherlands concerning the damage done to their Indonesian homes, furnishings and industrial and offi ce equipment.63 It is unclear whether the survey, conducted between November 1946 and 15 March 1947, asked about the damage incurred only during the Japanese occupation or also in the period afterwards. NIBEG intended to present the survey results to the Dutch East Indies government. However, the results were never published because the researchers ran into classifi cation and calculation problems with this seemingly simple set of ‘hard’ data. The great variety of home furnishings frustrated NIBEG’s attempt to defi ne an ‘average household’ in terms of value. The surveyors were also hindered by a lack of reliable data.64 Calculating the war damage turned out to be impossible. The NIBEG survey results disappeared into a drawer where they would remain until 1952, when the Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen (CAB, Back Pay Committee) reassessed them, only to reach the same conclusion.

As NIBEG had predicted, the compensation issue indeed shifted from compensation of material damage to rehabilitation and economic reconstruction. In November 1946, Hart hammered this point home in a memo to the Dutch East Indies government.65 In February 1947, Van Hoogstraten, director of the Department of Economic Affairs, echoed Hart in his assessment that ‘the war damage problems and reconstruction problems shared a great deal of common ground’.66 The government had made up its mind before even receiving Hens’s advice. Before Hens even had a chance to advise the government, he and the IOB were taken by surprise when Van Mook urgently requested the committee’s advice on compensation for the importers. The importers, in Van Mook’s

62 Bondsmededelingen van de N.I.B.E.G. Nov. 1946. 63 Bondsmededelingen van de N.I.B.E.G. Feb. 1947. 64 10,000 repatriated Eurasians took part in the survey. NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 4505. 65 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 66 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 58 The politics of redress vocabulary, were the Big Five Dutch trading companies. Just before the Japanese invasion, the government had ordered these companies to stockpile goods. The Japanese authorities had conﬁ scated and used these stocks. Unwilling to wait for the committee’s advice, Van Mook granted compensation to a few importers to strengthen their liquidity position. Hens felt caught off guard and sidelined, as we can see from a March 1947 letter to Van Mook.67 The IOB regarded the payment of compensation to these importers as a form of discrimination against other sectors.68 It is hard to imagine that two other members of the Hens Committee – Alons as government treasurer and Den Hertog as representative of the importers – were unaware of this private deal between Van Mook and the Big Five. They had a direct interest in it. Moreover, this deal appears to have been discussed in detail in the December 1946 and January 1947 meetings of the Temporary Council for the Restoration of Rights set up in October 1946. Hens had been kept out of the ballgame altogether.

On 18 March 1947 the Hens Committee advised the Dutch East Indies government. Hens again referred extensively to the bill in which changes to the 1942 budget were proposed. Again, he reminded the government of the intentions stated by the Volksraad and the government in February 1942. He concluded with the painful fact that if Java had been defended for a few more months, the changes to the budget would have been ratiﬁ ed by governmental decree, and, pending legislation, the expenditure would have been ordered. But bureaucracy had lost the race against the quickly advancing Japanese Army. Hens again stressed the government’s moral duty to draw up war damage compensation legislation. However, Hens’s recommendations did not amount to much. In the cover letter of his advice to the Lieutenant Governor-General, Hens stated that the committee had come up with a settlement:

which, in light of the Nation’s Finances and out of fairness, has been kept as low as possible, in any case much lower than the corresponding settlement in the Neth- erlands. It is very difﬁ cult to make even a rough estimate of the cost involved in this, since no correct data are known and it is impossible to predict the cost of the damage to the non-European community seeing as their situation is still uncertain. As regards the European group, which was hit hardest, the interim Head of the Central Statistics Ofﬁ ce has very roughly calculated the compensation at no more than 250 million guilders.69

67 NIOD, IC, 081286. 68 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 69 NIOD, IC, 081286. III War damage 59

In a roundabout way, the committee had reduced the material damage compensation settlement to a sparse arrangement to compensate the damage to household goods. The cost of compensating the business community had been eliminated. The committee reasoned that businesses would beneﬁ t from the economic reconstruction. Based on the argument that the European group had been hit hardest by the war, the committee drastically and randomly restricted entitlement to compensation to European civilians only. Indonesians were silently excluded. It was a considerable money-saving measure, and, in the context of the Dutch-Indonesian conﬂ ict, an easy choice to make. As NIBEG had predicted months earlier, Hens exchanged the term ‘war damage compensation’ for the term ‘rehabilitation’. In his view rehabilitation meant that the individual would (a) regain the basic conditions of existence; (b) be able to modestly furnish his home; and (c) be relieved of debts incurred during the occupation. The committee concluded that points (a) and (c) were really social security issues, leaving only point (b) to consider. These were not the only restrictions that applied. Compensation of material damage referred only to damage to household goods. This raised the same problem the NIBEG survey had also run into, namely: what constituted household goods and how should their value be assessed? The committee based itself on the furnishings in an upper-class European home in the colony, calculating a maximum of ƒ 11,250 per family. The committee did not limit compensation to the period between the Dutch declaration of war on Japan in December 1941 and the Japanese capitulation on 2 September 1945. It did recognize damage due to ‘post-war disturbances’, a euphemism for the revolution. A yet to be established War Damage Council would function as an appeals board where claimants could argue against committee decisions. None of this needed to be laid down in ordinances, because the government was not legally bound to pay damages. The committee never followed through on its intention to advise the government on damage to company real estate. The complexity of assessing this damage must have been too daunting to Hens and his committee members. In any event, the lack of personnel and the continuing war would have made assessment impossible.

The Hens Committee’s recommendations did not provide any new insights into resolving the issue of war damage compensation. It had become a thorny issue in the legal, political, ﬁ nancial and moral sense. The key players in the Dutch East Indies government, Van Mook and Alons, had set a course they were unwilling to change, even when advised to do so by the committee they themselves had set up. They did not want to pay damages, but continued to keep up appearances. The committee resigned itself to the losing role in a battle that was lost before it had even begun. 60 The politics of redress

While the Hens Committee was still considering possible recommendations on damage to businesses, H.M.J. Hart took inventory of the war damage due to the Japanese occupation. With his own committee, he prepared the Dutch claim on Japan. For the purposes of this study, it is relevant to ask what the Hart Committee had to say about material war damage, what it included in its deﬁ nition and what the Dutch claim on Japan ultimately consisted of.

The Hart Committee

In July 1946, Van Mook set up a second ad hoc committee, chaired by Hart, to estimate the war damage the Dutch East Indies had suffered.70 Offi cially named the Commissie tot Taxatie van Oorlogsschade (War Damage Assessment Committee), it was generally known and referred to as the Hart Committee. Its main objective was ‘to produce more reliable data for the claim that the Dutch East Indies [would] submit to the Far Eastern Commission’, in other words, to prepare the defi nitive claim against Japan.71 The committee had been meeting informally since 10 May 1946. Its members included Professor J.H. Boeke, an economist known for his analysis of Indonesia’s ‘dual economy’ and Hens, who, at Hart’s request, attended all meetings from 29 May 1946 onwards. Hart had accidentally become aware of the existence of the other war damage committee and understandably feared duplications.72 This fact can be seen not only as a sign of poor bureaucratic coordination, but also as a confi rmation that the Dutch East Indies government did not take the Hens Committee seriously and used it merely as a political facade. In the spring of 1946, before the Hart Committee had been set up, preliminary work had been done by Van Mook himself, by J.B.D. Derksen of the Dutch Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Central Bureau of Statistics), by Alons, and by the Ministry of Overseas Territories. Remarkably, Derksen and Alons seem to have arrived at their fi ndings independently of each other. March 1946 was ‘harvest time’. Lieutenant Governor-General Van Mook calculated total war damage at approximately ƒ 12 billion.73 Overseas Territories estimated ƒ 9 billion (Van Poelgeest 1999:176). Derksen presented calculations amounting to ƒ 15.5 billion.74 His calculations were actually a blueprint of how the claim against Japan could be structured rather than a defi nitive assessment. His fi gures were based on the direct consequences of the threat of war with Japan

70 ANRI, AS, inv. 300. 71 ANRI, AS, inv. 300. 72 BI, JB, inv. 2993. 73 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 9609. 74 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2243. III War damage 61 and the ensuing occupation and he made no distinction between sections of the population or nationality. He based himself on the national wealth in 1938, the sum value of agriculture, industry, stock in trade, public property, housing stock, property of public utility companies, and infrastructure (railways). Subsequently, he estimated the probable reduction in national wealth as a consequence of the war.75 Alons also made his calculations in March 1946, which most likely formed the basis for Van Mook’s ƒ 12 billion estimate. Soon after, Alons produced in record time a more extensive, but still very general, estimate for the claim on Japan which the Dutch East Indies government wished to submit to the United Nations’ Temporary Sub-Commission for Economic Reconstruction of Devastated Areas.76 As its name indicates, this body focussed on the economic reconstruction of countries hit by the war and not on Japanese payments to compensate individual war victims. The Allied claims would be discussed at the UN in August 1946. The Dutch East Indies government was late to discover this commission’s existence and was not represented on it. Alons did a rush job in order to provide the UN with the data on time. His estimate, which he presented to the Dutch East Indies government on 1 April, amounted to a claim of approximately ƒ 16 billion.77 Unlike Derksen, Alons excluded loss of income, forced labour, loss of human life, and the value of pensions and other beneﬁ ts from his assessment.78 The Hart Committee continued Alons and Derksen’s work from May 1946.

The Hart Committee followed the guidelines that the Far Eastern Commission issued in the spring of 1946 informing the Allies how to structure their claims. Hart included damages due to plundering and forced labour in his defi nition. Just like Alons and the FEC guidelines, the committee included all war damage infl icted until 2 September 1945, the offi cial date of the Japanese capitulation. Ultimately, the Dutch Kingdom’s claim against Japan was approximately ƒ 24.5 billion (1938 value), subject to reduction by an amount equal to the value of any goods Japan had despoiled and returned. Unlike Hart, Alons and Derksen had not fi gured restitution of goods into their calculations.79 Dutch diplomats in the USA submitted the claim to the State Department for discussion in the FEC, the body which would determine Japanese reparations to the various Allied nations (Van Poelgeest 1999:176). Just like NIBEG and the Hens Committee, the Hart Committee found it extremely diffi cult to defi ne war damage and to quantify the damage caused

75 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2243. 76 ANRI, AS, inv. 300; ANRI, AS, inv. 922. 77 ANRI, AS, inv. 300. 78 NA, MVK Dossierarchief, inv. 2243. 79 MBZ, code 3, folder 3619. 62 The politics of redress by the war with Japan. Incomplete and unreliable data threw off the calculations made by Van Mook, Alons, Derksen and the Hart Committee. In some areas, there was no information available because they were controlled by the Republic or because it was too unsafe to do research. For this reason it was also impossible to assess total industrial war damage (Valken 1946:280-1). But with an eye to possible fi nancial support from the UN, the Dutch bureaucrats persisted. Alons, and later the Hart Committee, had based their calculations partially on reports drawn up by NEFIS since October 1945.80 The secret service itself admitted its data were incomplete. For exact numbers on war victims, for instance, it referred Alons to the Red Cross. For information about the sugar industry, it referred him to the Sugar Offi ce of the Department of Economic Affairs. In this way, Alons gathered bits of information from different sources. The Hart Committee did the same in the months that followed. Time pressure was another important reason why their information was incomplete. The August 1946 deadline issued by the UN forced the Dutch East Indies government to settle for a rough estimate. The Dutch government was also in a rush to make use of the reparations policy formulated by the FEC to submit well-founded claims on capital goods to SCAP. The Dutch authorities suspected SCAP would try to fob them off with second rate machinery from the Japanese (war) industry once other candidates had taken the high-quality goods. Claims substantiated with facts and fi gures would decrease the odds of ending up last in line.81 The researchers and other bureaucrats accepted the incompleteness and potential unreliability of the fi gures they had come up with because they were under time pressure to submit their claims to the UN and the FEC. Like Van Mook, Hart, Alons and Derksen, the UN experts could only produce a rough estimate of the total war damage.82 Not only were their data incomplete, the researchers also used different defi nitions of war damage and hence included different components. These factors, combined with a lack of coordination, explain why they ended up with different estimates. While one researcher would include immaterial damage and the Indonesian population, another would leave these out. And while Derksen’s and Alons’s claims against Japan were at least somewhere in the same neighbourhood (approximately ƒ 16 billion), they were far exceeded by Hart’s estimate of nearly ƒ 25 billion. The UN Temporary Sub-Commission for Economic Reconstruction of Devastated Areas came nowhere near these fi gures, estimating ƒ 4 billion in total war damage in Indonesia. A closer look at the estimates of ‘material damage incurred by civilians’ shows the discrepancies between the various researchers’ fi gures even more clearly. Alons estimated

80 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1761. 81 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2243. 82 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. III War damage 63 the loss of movable property at ƒ 825 million, Derksen at ƒ 500 million and the UN at ƒ 410 million. Hart came to ƒ 327 million. Derksen and the UN were the only two to include the Indonesian population in their calculations.83 These widely divergent statistics show that the various researchers were simply unable to calculate or even estimate the amount of civilian material damage. Such discrepancies and shortcomings again illustrate the complexity of the war damage issue.

Reparations?

What was the relationship between the Dutch claim against Japan and the war damage compensation claims on the Dutch East Indies government? Neither the Potsdam Declaration nor the policy formulated by SCAP and the FEC mentioned the possibility of Japan paying damages to individual war victims for material war damage. War reparations as a partial indemniﬁ cation of a nation’s material war damage were mentioned explicitly, however (Martin 1948:22-32). Most civilians were still unfamiliar with the concept of reparations. Negotiations between Japan and the Allies were not going smoothly and were conducted mainly behind closed doors. These factors fuelled speculation about the objective, the shape and the extent of Japanese reparations. The war victims in Indonesia were not the only ones to speculate. Among the Philippine population, for example, there was a powerful rumour that the reparations would consist of a lump sum to be divided equally by the Philippine government among all its citizens (Ohno 1986:69). A similar misconception reigned among the board members of the Dutch East Indies Business Association in Jakarta. The IOB assumed there would be a direct link between a Japanese payment of the Dutch claim and the payout of war damage compensation to individuals and businesses. Because of the dire situation of the Dutch East Indies treasury, the IOB reasoned, the Dutch government would distribute the Japanese payment – which the IOB had calculated at ƒ 14 billion – among the war victims.84 The IOB was expressing the expectation held by the majority of Dutch East Indies war victims that they would be compensated with Japanese reparations money.85 From the victims’ point of view this was sound reasoning. The Dutch East Indies government had already made it clear in various indirect ways that the nation’s depleted ﬁ nances would not allow for war damage compensation of individual

83 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2243. 84 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 85 NIBEG-orgaan 24-10-1947. 64 The politics of redress citizens. It is understandable that many war victims believed the Japanese government would be willing to part with the money. However, neither the Dutch East Indies government nor the Philippine government were at liberty to link the reparations and war damage compensation to individual citizens and companies.

On 24 July 1948, the Dutch East Indies government transferred the Hart Committee’s mandate to the newly established Japan Commissie (Japan Committee) in Jakarta, which was doing its part in preparing the Peace Treaty with Japan. This task included preparation of the war damage claim against Japan. Once the new body was established, the Hart Committee became redundant. Ultimately, the Dutch claim on Japan was never put to the test. Despite all the preliminary research and calculations of the colony’s material damage, the Netherlands never submitted its claim against Japan to the FEC. The claim had become irrelevant once the Americans halted interim Japanese reparations to Allied countries on 10 May 1949.86 The Japan Committee saw no further benefi t in calculating the war damage Japan had infl icted on Indonesia. At a sitting on 21 December 1949, 18 months after the committee began its work, the minutes noted with a considerable measure of understatement that ‘submitting this claim was currently less urgent’. The committee had also failed to come up with a satisfactory new estimate of the damage, because information had only ‘trickled’ in and exact data were in many cases unavailable.87 This was a major blow to the offi cial Dutch effort to mount a claim against the Japanese government for overall material war damage.88 The 1951 Peace Treaty with Japan closed off that possibility for good. Having run up against the reality of American dominance in policymaking vis-à-vis Japan, the Japan Committee threw in the towel. Even if the Committee had intended to link the claim on Japan with payment of individual damages, any hope for that option was now dashed. The Indonesian Republic would eventually, after years of deadlock with Japan, succeed in getting Japan to pay reparations.

The War Damage Council and Bureau

In November 1946, government circles in the Dutch East Indies were still moderately optimistic that a solution would be found to the material war

86 MBZ, code 9, folder 3711. 87 MBZ, code 9, folder 3711. 88 For an overview of Japanese reparations to the countries in Southeast Asia, see Mendl 2001:18-29. III War damage 65 damage issue. There were calls for the creation of a new body to better coordinate this effort. On 3 June 1947, the Lieutenant Governor-General issued a governmental decree establishing the Raad voor de Oorlogsschade (War Damage Council). Its chairman was Van Hoogstraten, head of the Department of Economic Affairs. Apart from the heads of department, the War Damage Council included a few extraordinary members (representatives of Dutch and Chinese businesses) and a secretary.89 The Governor-General set up a Bureau voor Oorlogsschade (War Damage Bureau) which was to implement the council’s recommendations and would be accountable to the Council. On 12 January 1948, approximately six months after the council had been set up, Van Mook named J. Oberman, former Resident of West Kalimantan (West Borneo), temporary director of the Bureau. The ofﬁ cial tasks of the War Damage Council were extensive and legally complex. The Governor-General put the Council in charge of handling restitution of plunder taken from Indonesia and found in Japan or other parts of formerly Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. The Council also had to arrange for the distribution of reparation goods from Japan, assess the war damage claim against Japan, draft an arrangement for war damage compensation, and register war damage claims.90 However, neither the Council nor the War Damage Bureau were authorized to pay damages. This wide scope, with tasks that would soon turn out to be contradictory, would paralyze the Council. The main contradiction was already apparent in the institution’s mandate to draft a war damage compensation settlement. After all, the Hens Committee had unambiguously concluded just a few months earlier that the colonial government was not legally bound to compensate its citizens. Hens and other insiders were keenly aware that the government would never consent to wholesale compensation. Yet, the same government had once again saddled a council with the task of exploring the options. Oberman, temporary director of the War Damage Bureau, made no secret of his opinion on this mandate. In March 1948 he reported to his superiors that ‘it [makes] little sense to put a great deal of time and effort into drafting regulations that will never be implemented’.91 By then, Oberman had already become convinced that the Allies’ demands were no longer a priority to Washington. The economic reconstruction of Japan far overshadowed the importance of Allied compensation claims. Oberman reasoned, and history proved him right, that the Dutch claim calculated by the Hart Committee was unlikely ever to be paid. Therefore, he was hardly motivated to put anything

89 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 90 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 91 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 66 The politics of redress on paper concerning this issue.92 However, higher offi cials were not yet ready to accept his doom and gloom scenario. And the newly reinstated IOB Material War Damage Committee did not wish to bow to what it felt was a defeatist attitude.93 Whether out of desperation or silent protest against government policy, Oberman did not do his job. He failed to inform his superiors in the War Damage Council and other offi cials. He also failed to implement council decisions. As a consequence the heads of department could not get a clear idea of the restitution and reparation issues. They used this as a reason to transfer Oberman, who was seen as an obstinate bureaucrat.94 On 24 July 1948, the Governor-General reassigned these issues and the task of assessing war damage to the newly established Japan Committee.95 The War Damage Council would be reduced to providing incidental and marginal advice regarding reparations and the restitution of plunder from Japan. Once the council had been relieved of most of its tasks, its main function was to receive and register individual war damage compensation claims. Registering and responding to claims must have been an enormous amount of work. This became clear in January 1948 when the council was swamped by claims from repatriated Dutch citizens. The wave of claims was the result of a misleading newswire from the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP, General Dutch Press) that had found its way into several Dutch newspapers. The wire about war claims in Indonesia gave the incorrect impression that the Dutch East Indies government was going to pay damages. Claimants had no trouble fi nding the Jakarta-based War Damage Council. Although the council was not the source of the misunderstanding, it was forced to send a great many written responses to claimants explaining that it was all a mistake.96 This example shows that communication between the council and other Dutch government institutions left something to be desired. It also illustrates the hopes and expectations among Dutch war victims from Indonesia.

Van Mook replaced Oberman in October 1948 with E.A. Zorab, a lawyer well respected in bureaucratic circles. Zorab was the former vice president of the Raad van Justitie (Justice Council) in Batavia, chairman of the board of the Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (Council for the Restoration of Rights) in Indonesia and a member of the Japan Committee.97 The Governor-General appointed Zorab member extraordinaire and chairman of the War Damage

92 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 93 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-1. 94 NIOD, IC, 081.286. 95 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 96 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. 97 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. III War damage 67

Council on 19 October 1948, issuing a decree that combined this position with the tasks and powers of the director of the War Damage Bureau.98 In his new position, Zorab would try to convince the Dutch East Indies government to consent to war damage compensation after all. To the Ondernemersraad the new chairman spelled hope. The Dutch East Indies business community feared the issue of war damage compensation would be snowed under by the transfer of sovereignty and that the Republic would default on the transferred debts and liabilities.99 In late 1948, Zorab and the Dutch East Indies business community made sure the issue of material war damage was put on the political agenda of the Interim Federal Government of Indonesia. However, a resolution of the war damage problem remained as remote as ever, and would only be further complicated by the Dutch military interventions of 1947 and 1948 and the Indonesian response to these. By comparison, the US-Philippine solution to the war damage issue was very successful.

The 1946 Philippine War Rehabilitation Act

While the Dutch East Indies bureaucrats gradually became mired in legalistic hair-splitting, allowing administrative and political paralysis to take hold, the Americans and Filipinos tackled the problem in no time. Less than a year after the war ended, the US Congress approved a war damage compensation law. The Philippine War Rehabilitation Act went into effect on 30 April 1946 and offered a host of measures to promote the economic reconstruction of the Philippines, which explains the term ‘rehabilitation’. Despite its name, the act did emphasize compensation of property. It restricted compensation to property lost between 7 December 1941 and 1 October 1945 due to one of the following causes:

(1) enemy attack; (2) action taken by or at the request of the military, naval, or air forces of the United States to prevent such property from coming into the possession of the enemy; (3) action taken by enemy representatives, civil or military, or by the representatives of any government co-operating with the enemy; (4) action by the armed forces of the United States or other forces co-operating with the armed forces of the United States in opposing, resisting, or expelling the enemy from the Philippines; (5) looting, pillage, or other lawlessness or disorder accompanying the collapse of civil authority determined by the commission to have resulted from any of the other perils enumerated in this section or from control by enemy forces. (Schein 1951:526.)

98 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 99 NIOD, IC, 081.286. 68 The politics of redress

The deﬁ nition of war damage was broad and emphasized the loss of property. The act covered not only compensation of damage due to various enemy acts of war and pre-emptive demolition, but also compensation of property loss due to looting. Restitution of spoliated property and mediation in property disputes were not included in the act. The War Rehabilitation Act consisted of three components and three corresponding budgets. The ﬁ rst component dealt with the damage to private property in the Philippines, for which the US government earmarked US$ 400 million. The second concerned compensation of public property (bridges, roads, harbours) and improvement of public services. For this category, the Philippine government would receive US$ 120 million. The Rehabilitation Act’s third component related to various goods the US Army would leave behind for use by the Philippine government. The value of these war surplus goods amounted to US$ 100 million. These goods were intended to help rebuild the provinces, municipalities and public institutions.100 The Manila-based War Damage Commission was charged with implementing the Rehabilitation Act. Its board consisted of three members: two Americans and one Filipino lawyer by the name of Francisco Delgado. The commission was charged with processing claims about goods that had been lost, destroyed or damaged during World War II in the Philippines. It was also authorized to make payments. Collaborators and ‘disloyal persons’ were excluded from compensation. Exclusion of these groups seemed to be based on transparent criteria, but the implementation was often impracticable, as we will see. The commission only processed claims submitted between 1 March 1947 and 29 February 1948. The commission was also the appeals institution; decisions could not be contested in court. The commission had a large publicity department which informed the public through various media including newspapers, radio and trucks mounted with loudspeakers that toured the rural areas. Once approved, claims for compensation of damage not exceeding US$ 500, were quickly processed by the commission and paid in a lump sum. Larger amounts were reduced by 25% (Schein 1951:526-8). By the closing date, the War Damage Commission had processed no less than a million claims for compensation of private property. It honoured about half of these. Most fell into the category known to the Commission as claims from ‘the little man’, people who sought compensation of damage under US$ 500.101

100 Estimates of Philippine War Damage, 1948-1951. Folder 8. Reparation File, 1848-1951. Civil Property Custodian (CPC). Executive Division (ED). Field Service Branch (FSB), Reparations Service Unit (RSU). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 101 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 4504; Schein 1951:531. III War damage 69

Although everyone agrees that the act was a great feat considering the enormous problems the Philippines faced, it must be said that those same problems also affected its implementation. One problem was the likelihood that the commission was also processing claims from Filipinos who had collaborated with the Japanese occupation force. The collaboration issue was politically sensitive and legally complex. Prominent politicians and many landowners had lent the occupier a helping hand and were awaiting – in some cases in prison – the verdict of a special court set up in 1946. It was unclear who would be found guilty and on what grounds. This had not stopped a number of the suspects from submitting claims and in all likelihood some of these had even been honoured. This dilemma caused Francisco Delgado, the lone Philippine member on the commission, to make a comparison with the many ‘communists’ who had either not dared to submit a claim, or had submitted a claim only to fi nd themselves fl eeing the Philippine Army and hiding out in remote mountain ranges (Meyer 1965:86-7). By ‘communists’ Delgado meant the Huk rebels in Central Luzon. This stigma should be understood in the context of the farmers’ revolt. In order to secure American military aid and put a stop to the rebellion, the Philippine oligarchy had every interest in portraying the Huk rebellion as a communist plot. As the American political scientist Benedict Kerkvliet has shown, the Philippine Communist Party was hardly involved or even infl uential in the rebellion; political ideology played a minor role in the farmers’ struggle. The battle revolved around local grievances, particularly the farm tenancy system to which the tenant farmers were so strongly opposed. That struggle had taken on a new dimension during the occupation because many landowners supported the Japanese (Kerkvliet 2002:49-50, 178-88). The Huks had fought the Japanese and had actively helped the Americans to chase out the occupier. These farmers had suffered both immaterial and material damage. However, as so-called ‘communists’ they were now prevented by circumstances from benefi tting from the war damage compensation act. Delgado seemed as embarrassed about these communists as about his compatriots who were accused of collaboration. Another complicating factor – a recurring theme in analyses of Philippine political culture – was the misuse of public money. The procedure specifi ed in the Rehabilitation Act for dealing with the war surplus goods left behind by the Americans could not prevent an extensive corruption scandal. Goods worth US$ 300 million disappeared and were sold on the black market, depriving the Philippine government of revenue from the sale of these goods (Jenkins 1954:51-3). These implementation problems did not alter the Americans’ view of the War Rehabilitation Act as an important humanitarian success. This masked the fact that the Philippine act had not exactly come about without a fi ght. 70 The politics of redress

War damage compensation had been but one of the stakes in a political poker game between the USA and the Philippine government about the conditions under which independence would be granted.

USA: beacon to follow

American politicians and lawyers regarded the Philippine Rehabilitation Act as a model to be emulated by other countries struggling with war damage issues, invoking the familiar image of the USA as a beacon for other nations to follow. In 1951, for instance, the American lawyer Schein applauded the Philippine act as a ‘historical accomplishment, as well as a guide for future undertakings of other interested states’ (Schein 1951:522). Even the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act fi lled Schein with pride. The board of the War Damage Commission had deliberately been kept small, and the benefi t criteria and procedures kept simple. This had been done to restrict red tape to a minimum and to serve claimants quickly and effi ciently. Moreover, the commission also took pains to inform the Philippine people that it was US taxpayers and not Japanese who had made the act possible. Every rebuilt building bore a bronze plaque with the name of the American sponsor as a sign of American goodwill (Meyer 1965:88). All this must have fi lled those Dutch East Indies bureaucrats who had honestly tried to devise a settlement in Indonesia with envy. The Philippine act takes on a different hue in light of the political and economic motives underlying its inception, and its consequences. The accolades it received belie the vast economic interests that were at stake for the US government and the American and Philippine business communities. The war damage issue played out against the backdrop of a harsh political and economic reality: the USA had, in 1935, promised to grant the Philippines independence in the year 1946. Closely related to this promise was the continued but as yet undefi ned bilateral trade relationship. Initially, the US government had not taken any measures to compensate war damage outside its own continental territory. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a painful wake-up call: war damage clearly would not be limited to the continental US. Although the Reconstruction Finance Corporation had on 17 March 1942 established a War Damage Insurance Corporation, it only honoured claims concerning damage to US property in the Philippines incurred before 1 July 1942. Damage incurred to private property between July 1942 and October 1942 was not provided for (Meyer 1965:86). In February 1943, President Roosevelt ordered the Philippine president-in-exile Quezon to study the issue of economic reconstruction and the rehabilitation of the Philippines (Meyer 1965:4). It was no accident that III War damage 71

Roosevelt’s mention of reconstruction coincided with public statements by Quezon urging the US to free up funds for the reconstruction of his country. Quezon had hinted at possible Philippine discontent, at protest and resistance to the return of the Americans after the Japanese capitulation if funds to cover war damage compensation failed to materialize (Golay 1998:430-3, 436). In June 1943, the US Congress amended the 1934 Tydings-McDuffi e Act by adding a section on rehabilitation and reconstruction. An American-Philippine commission was set up right away and charged with studying the colony’s post-war economic reconstruction. Disagreement between the American and Philippine commission members about the continuation of the trade relationship scuppered any concrete plans for war damage compensation (Jenkins 1954:45-6). By September 1944, the US government had received approximately 400 claims for compensation of damage incurred due to the war in the Philippines. They represented a total amount of more than US$ 135 million. The American War Damage Corporation did not honour any of these claims however, as it was not authorized to compensate damage in the Philippines incurred after 1 July 1942. In December 1944, Chairman Jesse Jones of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs of the United States, advocated drawing up a separate act for war damage compensation in the Philippines (Schein 1951:523-4). This was the same Tydings who had since the mid-1930s been pushing for Philippine independence and a gradual discontinuation of the free trade agreement with the colony. In May 1945, President Truman ordered Tydings to travel to the newly liberated Philippines as head of a fact-fi nding mission investigating war damage and advising the government on reconstruction. Tydings returned unexpectedly soon. Instead of staying for a month, he broke off his travels after six days. The ruins of the city of Manila must have symbolized the extent and complexity of the problems the Philippines faced. Independence was approaching fast; there was no time to acquire a realistic impression of the extent of the damage. In a preliminary report, the senator estimated the war damage at US$ 800 million (Golay 1998:471). According to another US report, the Philippine government’s initial estimate of the damage ran to more than US$ 1.2 billion, three quarters of which (US$ 900 million) was incurred by private citizens. American research had been restricted to a few large and medium-sized cities in Luzon and the Visayan Islands (Jenkins 1954:46- 7). In 1947, the US offi cials estimated that hundreds of thousands of homes across the Philippine archipelago had been destroyed. Investigations in the city of Manila showed that at least 60% of all housing had been wrecked by 72 The politics of redress bombardment, shelling and fi re.102 With the exception of Manila, calculating the damage in the Philippines was a guessing game, just as it was in Indonesia.

Filipino couple posing for a photograph amid the devastation in Manila. Much of the damage was caused by Allied bombardments (NIOD 51076).

The political and economic problems were too big and independence too close to wait for a sound reconstruction and compensation plan based on solid research. Jenkins has paraphrased the US response to the problems as follows: ‘[L]et’s do something, but do it quick’ (Jenkins 1954:21). Tydings urged the US government and Congress to provide the Philippines with a loan to reconstruct the country. On 18 October 1945, this proposal was turned into a reconstruction bill. This bill would form the basis for the ultimate Rehabilitation Act (Meyer 1965:6-7). Tydings linked war damage compensation to a phasing out of the bilateral free trade agreement. Initially, he was opposed by Senator Jasper Bell, who had succeeded Tydings as the chairman of the Committee on Territories and Insular Affairs, and by US and Filipino business people with interests in the sugar industry. These groups strongly opposed the relinquishing of the free

102 Estimates of Phillipine War Damage, 1948-1951. Folder 8. Reparation File, 1948-1951. CPC. ED. FSB, RSU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. III War damage 73 trade deal. Bell proposed a trade agreement known as the Bell Trade Act, which advocated the continuation of the existing tariff-free trade agreement for a period of eight years after independence, followed by 25 years of phased withdrawal. In order to protect American investors against ﬁ nancial loss due to the unfavourable dollar-peso exchange rate, Bell stipulated that the Philippine government had to maintain the existing parity rights. Just like Tydings, Bell linked war damage compensation to the free trade agreement. In his attempts to get his trade act approved by the US House of Representatives, Bell substantially increased the amount of money to be set aside for war damage compensation. While the Senate had earmarked US$ 330 million for this purpose, under Bell the Committee on Insular Affairs raised this amount to US$ 400 million. At the same time, Bell informed the Senate he would not deal with Tydings’ proposals for reconstruction of the Philippines until his own trade bill had been accepted (Golay 1998:458, 474). He also managed to tack on a condition to the War Rehabilitation Act that claims exceeding US$ 500 would only be processed if ‘his’ trade act had been accepted by the Philippine government. This condition was a way of putting pressure on the Philippine government to agree to a particular stipulation in the trade act, namely equal rights for American and Philippine companies, in other words no discriminatory measures against US companies operating in the Philippines, and continuation of the parity rights (Golay 1998:463, 474). In the end, pressure from the US State Department and the House of Representatives forced Bell to ease his demands concerning the trade act. He reduced his proposed transitional period from 25 to 20 years and lowered the generous Philippine sugar quota he had earlier proposed. Another concession was his adjustment of the parity rights clause. The Philippine government would be allowed to adjust the exchange rate of the peso, subject to the US president’s approval. The Bell Trade Act formally became law on 30 April 1946 (Golay 1998:460, 462-3). The US$ 400 million Bell had earmarked for the reconstruction of the Philippines, including the compensation of individual war damage, remained untouched. Incidentally, delaying Tydings’ war damage compensation bill gave Bell enough time to persuade the Philippine elite to accept the trade agreement by amending Tydings’ act to include compensation of private cars and yachts, for instance. Likewise, Bell increased the value of the war surplus goods the US government had promised the Philippines from US$ 30 million to US$ 100 million (Golay 1998:473-4). The War Rehabilitation Act was subsequently approved by the US House of Representatives with remarkable speed, thanks to the highly unusual procedure that was followed. Amendments were not allowed and the debate lasted merely one hour. Frank Golay, an American economist who has meticulously analyzed the political decision-making process that led to this act, characterized this legislative hour sarcastically as an ‘unrelieved tribute 74 The politics of redress to American altruism in providing for the rehabilitation of war damage to the Philippines’ (Golay 1998:474).

Summary

The Dutch East Indies government was late and incomplete in its preparation for legislation to compensate material war damage. The Japanese military threat had been palpable for months, ever since the attack on Pearl Harbor in early December 1941. By the time the Dutch East Indies government got around to the preliminary stages of war damage compensation legislation at the end of February 1942, the Japanese invasion in Southeast Asia had already been underway for weeks. When a bill was fi nally ready and the Volksraad had approved it, the Japanese invasion of Java prevented the fi nal drafting and issuing of an ordinance. Lieutenant Governor-General Van Mook had already made up his mind in 1943 that the Dutch East Indies government was not legally bound to pay war damage compensation. What that meant was initially made clear in the plans drawn up in Brisbane in August 1945. Shortly before the formal ending of World War Two in Asia, the Brisbane-based NICA started thinking in terms of rehabilitating war victims rather than compensating them for the damage incurred. Rehabilitation consisted of a set of meagre fi nancial measures aimed at providing Dutch war victims with a new basic existence. For fi nancial and political reasons, Indonesians were not eligible for this Dutch scheme. The Dutch East Indies government followed this line and, soon after the Japanese had capitulated, carefully and quietly distanced itself from the pledge it made on the eve of the Japanese invasion to pay damages. The Governor-General and the Chief Treasurer informally tipped a few business representatives in the Dutch East Indies about their idea to replace war damage compensation with rehabilitation. Publicly they did not yet reject compensation. Their ambivalent policy fuelled an increasing bureaucratization of the compensation issue. One ad hoc committee after another was formed, culminating in the founding of a War Damage Council and Bureau, all charged with solving the war damage problem. These institutions all became ensnared in a mission impossible. The untransparent decision-making process and the red tape would almost make one forget that the Dutch East Indies was dealing with large-scale destruction. Material damage had been caused by Dutch demolition teams, Indonesian looting sprees (rampok) and Japanese and Allied acts of war. By contrast, the war damage issue in the Philippines was settled in record time. However, this did not mean that the issue was free of economic confl icts of interest and political compromise. The Americans tended to stress altruism, III War damage 75 humanity and moral obligation when referring to war damage compensation. But at the same time, the rehabilitation act gave the US leverage to force the Philippines to accept economic measures benefi ting US business. The Philippine government agreed to such changes to the trade agreement in exchange for a generous American war damage compensation act. Differences in opinion between Americans and Filipinos about obligations, entitlement and amount of the damages were swept aside when the Bell Trade Act was accepted.

CHAPTER IV Scorched earth, soft peace

The First Police Action – and Indonesia’s violent response to it – left deep scars of destruction across Java and Sumatra. Even before the Dutch troops launched their assault in Sumatra, Indonesian militias and Republican Army units did heavy damage to rubber plantations. They cut down and ringed trees, leaving them dried out and useless for production.1 Abdul Nasution reported on the destruction of approximately 300 coconut, tea, tobacco and other plantations in the North Sumatran Asahan region.2 It would take years for these enterprises to become productive again. Nasution reported that just seven of the plantations were occupied by Dutch troops. As it happens, only a tiny minority of them were Dutch-owned (Nasution 1978:591-2). Both the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, Indonesian National Army) and Indonesian militias deployed scorched earth tactics. They burned down vital infrastructure, factories and other economic targets. Many plantations, shops, offi ces and storage facilities were reportedly destroyed by the Sarekat Boeroeh Perkeboenan Republik Indonesia (Sarboepri; the Union of Agricultural Workers), an organization linked with the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI, Indonesian Communist Party).3 The acts of destruction in Java are casually mentioned in reports on the First Police Action written by the Dutch Army and Dutch East Indies Army. These documents frequently mention the demolition of bridges, and, in passing, civilian objects such as houses. A report dated 24 July 1947, for example, describes how the Dutch infantry after initial artillery fi re occupied ‘the towns of Tjitjalengka and Madjalaja which had already been torched by the enemy’ (Zwitzer 1983:103). Indonesian sources confi rm that the local TNI battalions had indeed started burning down buildings in and around

1 NA, AS, inv. 3026. 2 Abdul Haris Nasution was an important Indonesian source of information on the actions of the Dutch troops. Nasution had been a cadet at a Dutch colonial military academy in Bandung, but he later joined the revolution and was named regional commander of the Indonesian Army in West Java in 1946. A brilliant military theorist, he was appointed to the ﬁ rst of two terms as Army Chief of Staff in 1950. 3 NIOD, IC 080.237. 78 The politics of redress

Majalaya, the centre of the Indonesian weaving industry in West Java (Keppy 2001:100). On the Dutch occupation of Brebes, on Central Java’s northern coast, a Dutch offi cer cryptically reported: ‘Brebes was taken at 14:30 hours. Extensive damage in Chinese district’ (Zwitzer 1983:136). The destruction in nearby Tegal is not mentioned in Dutch sources. The TNI took the port out of commission by sinking or burning ships and torching warehouses and workshops. The Indonesian Army damaged locomotives, machines and stock of the Java Textiel Maatschappy (Java Textile Company), one of the largest pre-war Dutch textile factories (Nasution 1978:215). Military reporting on the state of Sumatra’s oil fi elds, particularly near Palembang, was downright fuzzy. According to Nasution, the Keluang oil fi elds nearly burned out after a Dutch bombardment. Dutch reports do not mention these incidents; they speak only of repeated sabotage at the Pendopo oil fi eld and the igniting of the Talangkar fi eld on 31 July (Zwitzer 1983:149-50). Nasution also reported that Dutch troops had razed an unspecifi ed number of villages on the river Musi near Palembang (Nasution 1978:193-5, 566). Again, Dutch military reports say nothing of these events.

The First Police Action did not halt the lawlessness, terror or Indonesian destruction. To the contrary, the operation only fuelled the violence.4 In late October 1947, the Resident of Bogor confi dentially informed the West Java Government Commissioner for Administrative Affairs (known in Dutch as the ‘Recomba’) that ‘since calling off the Police Action, cases of rampok, arson, kidnapping and killing [...] had only increased in number and audacity’.5 In the rural areas surrounding Jakarta, nationalist militias took revenge on pro- federalist Indonesians. The nationalists killed and kidnapped hundreds of people and set fi re to their homes.6 The Chinese Indonesian section of the population in Java and Sumatra again suffered heavily at the hands of the militias and undisciplined Dutch troops. A poem by Khoe Wie Hin refl ects the bitter sentiments of the Chinese Indonesians about the consequences of the Dutch military intervention:

Koetika ddo 21 July 1947 belanda menjerboe Tapi akibatnja orang Tionghoa jang diraboe Iaorang dipenoe miliknja didjadijan aboe Tida taoe kapan ini ‘loeka’ aken semboe? (Tjoekoer 1948:47.)

4 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 5 NA, AS, inv. 3026. 6 NA, AS, inv. 5516. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 79

The Dutch attack on 21 July 1947 resulting in the Chinese being robbed property reduced to ashes When will this ‘wound’ heal?

Various Chinese interest groups in Java and Sumatra, including the Federation of Chinese Organizations (CHTH) and the Chinese Chambers of Commerce (Sianghwee), repeatedly appealed to the Dutch East Indies and Republican governments and the Chinese consuls in several Indonesian cities to protect the property of Chinese citizens. On 8 August 1947, for instance, 20 Chinese organizations and companies in Surabaya asked the local Chinese consul to take steps at the United Nations, to lodge a protest with the Indonesian government, and to inform the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Ambassador in Washington of the violence.7 In Palembang, it was not only the Chinese who were affected by the hostilities between Dutch and Indonesian troops. The Indonesian Arab population, the traders in particular, were also hit hard. As a result of shelling and rampok, the kampong inhabited mainly by this group burned to the ground. The pasar, the shops, and the stored goods were badly damaged. Family and friends who escaped the violence donated rice and clothing to the victims.8 Although little evidence can be found in offi cial Dutch military reports, it is certain that Dutch troops caused major damage to the villages in rural Java. In reprisal for earlier losses, the Marines carried out deliberate arson attacks (Van Doorn and Hendrix 1985:266, 269, 287). This also occurred in the period between the two Police Actions. On 17 September 1947, for example, six weeks after the fi rst action, Dutch troops burned 160 homes during ‘cleansing operations’ in the villages of Curahmalang, Dukuh, Kencok and Berut, near Lumajang in East Java (Nasution 1978:548). Nasution listed numerous other cases of Dutch troops torching civilian targets (Nasution 1978:487, 493-4, 503- 7, 542-3, 545-6, 551, 577). Other Indonesian sources corroborate these reports of homes and entire villages (desa) set alight by Dutch units. The Dutch, the Indonesian military and the Republican police all reported on the destruction in East Java, but only the police reports refl ect the impact on the local population. The Republican police chief in Malang listed the individuals injured and killed by shelling as well as the objects destroyed between 12 and 31 December 1947. His report mentioned four houses in desa Pekiringan destroyed by Dutch cannon fi re on 12 December. That same day, Dutch troops entered the village of Karangmalang and torched 193 houses. Four days later, in desa

7 ANRI, AS, inv. 148. 8 ANRI, AS, inv. 148. 80 The politics of redress

Revolution in the city of Pemakasan, Madura: Chinese shops and homes looted and destroyed by the TNI (NA, Dienst Legercontacten 1729).

Bungkanel, Dutch troops laid waste to another four homes including the residence of the village head. On 21 December, the Dutch set ﬁ re to another 300 homes in retaliation for the discovery of two landmines in the village. A rough tally shows the Dutch destroyed more than 500 houses in less than two weeks’ time.9 On 19 January 1948, the Dutch troops assaulted desa Pronojiwo and neighbouring villages in the district of Lumajang, probably with the aim of dislodging the Republican Army troops stationed there. The police reconstructed the attack based on eyewitness reports from people in the village. The assault began with Dutch shelling, most likely mortar ﬁ re, that levelled 120 homes. The troops then destroyed the Republican Army food stocks they found in the villages. The Republican units, which had already retreated from these villages, hit back by burning all Dutch plantations in the vicinity and demolishing every building on these properties including homes. They also blew up a few bridges. When plantations like these were torched, nearby homes were often destroyed as well. Villagers not only complained to the Republican police about Dutch actions but also about the Indonesian

9 ANRI, Arsip Kepolisian Negara RI Yogya, inv. 519. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 81

Army’s scorched earth tactics (bumi hangus). The need for such tactics was not always clear. An additional grievance was that the Indonesian troops often gave locals very little time to evacuate. In the case of Pronojiwo, they were given just one hour.10

The First Police Action did not put an end to the pattern of violence and destruction; the mayhem continued even after the Second Police Action, which offi cially began on 19 December 1948 and lasted until 5 January 1949. A major difference was that the Indonesian Army was better organized and prepared after the fi rst action. According to a Dutch source, the Republican Army and militias in South Sumatra were able to wreak tremendous havoc because there were too few Dutch troops stationed in the region. Oil wells belonging to BPM paid a heavy toll, as did bridges and factories for the production of rubber, quinine and tea.11 According to Nasution, however, the Second Police Action left much less scorched earth damage in South Sumatra than the fi rst. Several oil fi elds were set alight around the city of Jambi, but many fi elds fell into Dutch hands intact and it was reported that drilling resumed fairly quickly. Damage to the city of Jambi was considerable according to Dutch sources (Groen 1991:188). Nasution refers to one Dutch source who reported that followers of the TNI and PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) set fi re to the city and the BPM fi elds. The PKI demolished an electrical power plant, offi ce buildings, warehouses, the marketplace, and two-thirds of the Chinese district. About 7,000 ‘Chinese’ and 500 ‘Indiërs’ (Indonesians of Indian descent) lost their homes (Nasution 1979:272-3). Nasution disputes the claim by an unnamed Dutch source that Dutch troops had captured the port of Telukbetung and nearby Tanjungkarang intact. The TNI set fi re to warehouses belonging to the Dutch East Indies trading companies, destroying their rubber and oil supplies. It also torched post offi ces, railway stations, a tax offi ce and other government buildings (Nasution 1979:272-3). These accounts are corroborated by other Dutch sources.12

Apparently, a TNI plan to demolish Yogyakarta before retreating from the Republican capital was foiled by the rapidly approaching Dutch troops. However, Indonesian sources do make mention of considerable destruction in neighbouring villages, attributing the damage entirely to the Dutch.13 Power plants, post ofﬁ ces, sugar factories and Dutch East Indies government buildings went up in ﬂ ames in the East Javanese localities of Jombang, Kediri and

10 ANRI, Arsip Kepolisian Negara RI Yogya, inv. 516. 11 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 12 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 13 Arsip multi subyek pemerintah propinsi Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DI Yogyakarta archives), inv. 130. 82 The politics of redress

Tulungagung. Almost all the sugar factories around Kediri were destroyed by Indonesian troops (Nasution 1979:253-4, 257-8).

Local militiamen in Jember, East Java, armed with bamboo spears to deter looters. The militias were set up during the revolution on orders from KNIL (NA, Dienst Legercontacten 2680).

Between January and April 1949, the TNI and local elements caused extensive damage in Wonogiri, Central Java. They reduced the homes of Chinese Indonesians, wealthy Indonesians and native administrators to ashes (Ibrahim 2004:195-6). The chaos and damage were exacerbated by the actions of militias and gangs. The Sino-Malay newspaper Sin Po reported on 28 September 1949 that Kampong Sudimampir in Sumedang, West Java was burned to the ground by a 250-strong armed gang (gerombolan bersenjata). When it was over, 130 homes were in smoking ruins.14

14 Sin Po 28-9-1949. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 83

The violence affected all of Java. Neither its true extent can be reconstructed nor the perpetrators identiﬁ ed. These were not just incidents, however. The colony had fallen prey to a cycle of violence and destruction. The tragedy was that civilians, especially those in rural areas, were literally caught between two ﬁ res. Although the examples cited here are often biased and incomplete, the mainly military sources do indicate that the material damage was greater than any party knew or was willing to admit for political and strategic reasons. The Dutch business community, the Federal Government and even the Republic tried to record and document the damage done during the Police Actions. However, their efforts were not made for the purpose of paying damages to the victims.

Damage registration

The Dutch were jubilant that in the First Police Action they had re-established Dutch control over 70% of the total acreage of rubber plantations in Java and 60% in Sumatra. However, these numbers belie the enormous destruction that had taken place around the time of the Dutch military intervention. Only the damage to the rubber sector is known. Figures on other cash crops like tea and tobacco are incomplete. In December 1947, 73 of Java’s 184 upland companies – the plantations at high altitudes suitable only for growing rubber and tea – were completely ruined. Twenty were badly damaged. The damage done to tobacco plantations near Besuki (East Java) and the tea plantations in Deli (East Sumatra) was far more extensive. In Besuki, most of the tobacco factories had been laid to waste; 1,300 curing barns were lost. In Deli, only one tea factory had been spared (Van Doorn and Hendrix 1987:48). It appears the agricultural corporations in their assessments seldom distinguished between damage left behind by the revolution and destruction stemming from the Japanese occupation. For example, the Handelsvereniging Amsterdam (HVA) judged the damage to the various rubber, sugar, tea and oil palm plantations on the Sumatran eastern seaboard – including those caused by the Indonesian militias after the Japanese capitulation – to be ‘relatively insignifi cant’. Their rubber businesses in Aceh (North Sumatra) were hit hardest. The intensity of rubber tapping had damaged the trees so badly that one rubber factory had to be closed down (Goedhart 1999:144). However, it is unclear when the destruction took place and who should be held accountable. The events at the Tjoeroek rubber plantation in West Java illustrate how diffi cult it could be to assess the damage. Dutch troops occupied the plantation in July 1947. The factory on the premises had made it through the Japanese occupation and the First Police Action relatively unscathed, but a large number 84 The politics of redress of rubber trees had been burned down. Whether the latter was the result of Indonesian or Dutch military action is uncertain. The management resumed operations in August 1947, but Indonesian demolitions in December of that same year foiled all plans. Offi ce buildings, the rubber smoking chamber and houses in the nearby kampong burned to the ground. Nearly a quarter of the newly harvested rubber stock was lost in the fi re (Van der Zwaag 2002:158). The ongoing war meant damage could not be assessed because several plantation owners were unable to visit their properties, particularly in East Java and North Sumatra. In late 1949, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture reported on the state of the rubber enterprises. However, due to the shroud of uncertainties mentioned above, this report should be read with some caution. The report provides an overview of the material damage to Javanese and Sumatran rubber businesses resulting from both Police Actions. It cannot be ruled out, however, that these estimates also include damage directly caused by the Japanese occupation.

Table 1: State of the surveyed factories at the time of owners’ reoccupation. Figures have been rounded down. (Source: Kementerian Pertanian 1950:13.) Area/Region Number Irreparably Reparable Intact assessed/ damaged surveyed Java 218 77 (33%) 44 (20%) 97 (45%) Sumatra 142 33 (24%) 32 (22%) 77 (54%) Total 360 110 (31%) 76 (21%) 174 (48%)

Civil servants at the Ministry of Agriculture concluded that the damage to the rubber plantations from the Japanese occupation was ‘relatively small’ compared to the ‘post-war years’. The report describes this as follows:

This regrettable loss was however considerably magniﬁ ed in the post-war years by the new, deliberate damage to trees and factories, especially in the Malang and Kediri residencies in East Java, where more than half of the plantations and virtually all the factories were lost (Departement Landbouw en Visserij 1950, III:10).

According to the civil servants who wrote this report, the Police Actions caused much more damage to the rubber plantations in East Java than the Japanese invasion and occupation. It should be noted, however, that this damage assessment was probably intended to lobby for either ﬁ nancial support for the rubber sector or better protection of the plantations to prevent theft and arson. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 85

The Dutch East Indies government and the Dutch business community never got a complete overview of the damage the Police Actions had caused the agricultural enterprises (Groen 1991:192). It is clear, however, that the Dutch military actions and the scorched earth tactics of the Indonesian troops left deep scars. The Dutch government also tried to document and quantify the material damage caused by the Police Actions. On 5 August 1947, the date on which the Dutch government formally ended the First Police Action, the top Far East offi cial at the Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the Head of Political Affairs in the army commander’s cabinet in Jakarta. With a view to the impending arrival of an investigative UN commission, Foreign Affairs asked the army commander in Indonesia to survey the consequences of Indonesian- perpetrated demolitions. In his letter, the Far East offi cial stressed that it ‘[would] be of great importance if it could be shown that this so-called scorched earth policy was mostly applied to Dutch and foreign property rather than Indonesian possessions’.15 The Dutch government hoped this ‘evidence’ would show the world that the Republic had no respect for the rule of law and could not control the militias. The idea was to undermine the legitimacy of the Republican government and to provide an ex post facto rationalization for military intervention. On 12 August 1947, Raden Abdulkadir Widjojoatmodjo, the West Java Government Commissioner for Administrative Affairs (‘Recomba’) and Van Mook’s confi dant, suggested that a list of important municipalities that had suffered damage would probably impress the UN Security Council more than a fi gure indicating the number of damaged homes.16 A specifi c instruction for assessing the damage was not issued. One day after Widjojoatmodjo’s recommendation, the Lieutenant Governor-General’s cabinet sent a telegram to the army commander in Sumatra and to NEFIS, stressing, for the sake of ‘government policy in a political crisis’, that the list must be sent as quickly as possible.17 Destruction of Indonesian property did not fi t in with the image the Dutch government wished to project and was therefore not taken into account when the damage was eventually tallied. It took two weeks for the Dutch East Indies government secretary to offi cially send a request to the Director of Economic Affairs and the Director of Transport and Communication to gather damage fi gures.18 A short, undated report by an anonymous Federal offi cial in the Transport and Communications Department in Jakarta succinctly refl ects the kind

15 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 16 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 17 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 18 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 86 The politics of redress of problems the offi cials encountered while trying to collect information. Available data were incomplete and sometimes even inaccurate. The offi cials found nearly no information at all about Sumatra.19 This did not deter the Dutch East Indies government. It had already stated in August that speedy supply of rough estimates to the Security Council was more important than exhaustiveness.20 Impressive though they may be, the lists of damaged ports, utility companies and agricultural businesses in Java are actually no more than a snapshot and by no means refl ect the true extent of the destruction.21 Whether full information ever reached the UN is unclear. Though daunted, the Dutch government did not allow itself to be dissuaded from assessing the damage. On 1 February 1949, a month after the Second Police Action in Java offi cially ended, the High Commissioner of the Crown in Indonesia (HVK) ordered local administrators to document the damage due to the Police Actions.22 This information was gathered for the dual purpose of informing the Dutch cabinet and proving to the UN Security Council that the Republic had no respect for the rule of law. Although the local administrators produced about 100 reports, their damage assessment was a fi asco. The civil servants did not have a clear idea why the assessment was taking place; this is evident from their failure to systematically report on the perpetrators and causes. Most reports referred to vague categories of people such as rebels (pen- gacau) and gangs (gerombolan).23 The offi cials frequently cited rampok as the cause of the destruction, but left the party responsible for the lootings, whether Indonesian or Dutch, unidentifi ed. People who burned down homes or villages also remained unnamed.24 While information on Java and Sumatra was sketchy, there was no information at all on Sulawesi and Kalimantan. Just like the reports on the First Police Action, those on the second give a lopsided and quantitatively biased impression of the material damage.

Although the reports are statistically incomplete and unreliable, they do make it clear who the owners of the damaged property were. In the rural areas, the victims were Indonesian, in the cities they were the Chinese Indonesians.25 Europeans and Eurasians were absent from the damage reports, with the exception of a villa park in the village of Pecalukan near Surabaya which had been torched on 24 January 1949.26

19 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 20 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 21 NA, AS, inv. 2841. 22 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 23 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 24 NA, AS, inv. 3781. 25 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 26 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 87

Whether incomplete or unreliable, the effort to report on the damage ultimately proved to be immaterial because it was aborted before completion. In a letter dated 26 April 1949, two months after giving the order, the High Commissioner of the Crown in Jakarta notiﬁ ed the Minister without Portfolio in The Hague that he would discontinue the endeavour. The reasons he gave were: a lack of manpower to assess the damage, unreliable damage estimates and incomplete data.27 Another important reason for halting the damage assessment was never acknowledged: the Dutch authorities in Jakarta must have realized that the Republic’s independence was inevitable. Rapidly unfolding political developments had rendered further damage assessment useless. The Van Roijen-Rum agreement was signed less than two weeks later, on 6 May 1949, paving the way for the Round Table Conference and the transfer of sovereignty. This political and military sea change was probably the very factor which led Republican authorities in the district of Yogyakarta to begin damage assessment. They may have hoped to make substantiated claims against the Netherlands. In early May 1949, various Javanese subdistrict heads eagerly set about collecting information on damage due to rampok and arson in the district of Yogyakarta. The damage was said to be a direct result of the Second Police Action; in other words Dutch troops were held responsible.28 This attempt to assess damage was naturally dogged by the same weakness as those made by the Dutch: unreliable and incomplete information. The Indonesian assessment, like its Dutch predecessors, came to naught. Civil servants of the Mangkunegaran kraton (palace) in Surakarta also collected information on the damage caused in that region in early 1949 by the TNI and Dutch troops (Ibrahim 2004:313-5). It is unclear why this information was being gathered. Unlike the data collected in Yogyakarta, the documentation in Surakarta provides a clear, though not necessarily reliable, picture of the perpetrators. This assessment states that Republican, not Dutch troops, were responsible for the lion’s share of the destruction. From March 1949, the Interim Federal Government lost interest in the war damage compensation issue altogether, as we see from the affairs of the War Damage Council and its new director, Zorab.

Zorab’s rearguard action

Unlike his predecessor Oberman, and unlike Hens, Zorab did not sit back and accept the absence of war damage compensation legislation. Two months after

27 ANRI, AS, inv. 1489. 28 Arsip multi subyek pemerintah propinsi Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, inv. 130. 88 The politics of redress he was named Director of the War Damage Council, on 31 January 1949, he wrote a memorandum to the council members explaining what they should be working to achieve.29 The memorandum was an appeal to draw up war damage compensation regulations. Zorab also sent various government institutions an update on the latest developments in the fi eld of war damage compensation. This was no luxury; the War Damage Bureau was being fl ooded with claims from war victims and many claimants did not know the difference between restitution and war damage compensation.30 Aware of this problem, Zorab recognized the need for clear communication. Educating the public was an important means to avoid unnecessary correspondence between war victims and the War Damage Council. Like former Chairman Hens of the Research Committee on Material War Damage, Zorab acknowledged in his January 1949 memorandum that the Dutch East Indies government was not legally bound to indemnify its citizens. And like Hens, Zorab felt the Dutch East Indies government was nevertheless morally obliged to reach a settlement, although he chose a different way of saying it. In a seemingly prophetic passage, Zorab pointed out that the sheer act of reaching a settlement actually surpassed the material compensation, because ‘[p]ractising fairness [...] should be seen as a step towards restoring healthy social relations, hence as a rehabilitation of society and its members’.31 Clearly, Zorab was not primarily out to secure material compensation, but to gain the government’s recognition for how the war victims in Indonesia had suffered. Zorab knew what he was talking about; he had been interned during the Japanese occupation. When it came to concrete plans for a settlement, Zorab, like Hens, was unable to move beyond generalities. This is clear from his defi nition of damage, his vague demarcation of the period in which war damage was infl icted, and his thoughts on how compensation should be paid for. As regards funding, Zorab emphasized that partial indemnifi cation of war damage should, in principle, be paid for by society as a whole. War damage compensation could additionally be funded by either revenues in the shape of Japanese war reparations, or revenues from the sale of: a. Indonesian plunder of unknown origin; b. Japanese (or ‘enemy’) assets in Indonesia; c. goods of unknown origin found in Indonesia; and d. rolling stock in Thailand.32 His proposals were not accepted.

29 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 30 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 31 NIOD, IC, inv. 081286. 32 NIOD, IC, inv. 081286. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 89

The reactions to Zorab’s memorandum provide a peek into the attitudes and decision-making process of the Dutch East Indies government and other members of the War Damage Council, the department heads. The fi rst sign that Zorab’s appeal would be rejected came from Alons, the State Secretary of Finance and former chief treasurer. Aside from the fact that Alons disagreed with Zorab’s recommendations – without indicating on which points exactly – he disclosed that the government ‘halfway through last year [had] made it clear that no general war damage legislation [would] be drawn up. This standpoint was brought to the attention of Minister Lieftinck in response to a question he posed’.33 In other words, an informal decision had already been made in the summer of 1948. On 31 March 1949, that same government defi nitively scrapped Zorab’s plans. While discussing the country’s fi nancial situation, the government had ‘made [...] a statement of principle that no compensation of war damage can be granted beyond that which has already been decided upon’.34 The latter referred to the rehabilitation regulation, an ordinance providing fi nancial assistance to give Dutch war victims from the colony a chance to start life anew in the Netherlands (Meijer 2005:28- 32). However, this clause had not made clear whether comprehensive war damage compensation had been defi nitively ruled out, nor had it indicated whether damage to household items and pre-emptive destruction would still be compensated. Uncertainty and ambiguity reigned supreme; even the High Commissioner of the Crown, Louis J.M. Beel, did not yet dare to dismantle the War Damage Council and Bureau.35

What motivated the department heads to reject war damage compensation on 31 March 1949? The decision-making process is not transparent, but the government’s ultimate stance is clear. A brief summary of the 2 March meeting of the Interim Federal Government (the council of department heads) illustrates that the department heads were loathe to hold out the idea of war damage compensation.36 Oddly enough, in a meeting four weeks later the Interim Federal Government mentions neither a debate nor a decision on this issue. The only explicit reference to the issue concerned a possible tax measure, a capital levy, which the government considered too heavy a burden for the citizens since no war damage compensation would be paid.37 This is all the department heads said on the issue of material war damage compensation at this meeting, conﬁ rming that the department heads and the Dutch Finance minister had made up their minds on the issue much earlier, halfway through

33 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 34 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 35 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 36 NA, AS, inv. 2293; NIOD, IC, 081286. 37 NA, AS, inv. 2293. 90 The politics of redress

1948. The cash-strapped national coffers would not allow compensation. Presumably, the East Indies government’s timing in publicly announcing its decision was closely tied to the Dutch government’s realization that a transfer of sovereignty was unavoidable. For Zorab, the decision was most painful because he had been given no offi cial notice or explanation of the move; he had found out through unoffi cial channels. In a personal letter, Zorab told the High Commissioner he was ‘taken aback, and even highly aggrieved’ by the way things had been handled.38 Zorab had no option but to dissolve the Council. It had become useless for him to remain chairman of what he called a ‘War Damage Council rendered anaemic’. He also felt it would be fundamentally wrong to maintain the Council and Bureau as this would give the public the impression that war victims could expect some form of compensation after all. On 4 May 1949, the Council decided to close down the War Damage Bureau. Staff cuts were the fi rst step.39 However, Zorab conscientiously continued to perform his duties as chairman until the offi cial dissolving of the War Damage Council on 1 January 1950. The Council did not have a successor in independent Indonesia; this had been rendered superfl uous by the decision of 31 March 1949. With no settlement, there need be no executive institution. This was entirely in line with the agreements made at the Round Table Conference (RTC), where the Netherlands and Indonesia had agreed that the Verenigde Staten van Indonesië (VSI, United States of Indonesia) would assume the rights and obligations of its legal predecessor. The Federal Government’s decision not to compensate war damage was passed on to the fl edgling nation. The subject was not on the agenda of the Round Table Conference; the Dutch and Indonesian delegations felt it unnecessary to touch upon it. A passage from a report by the second advisory committee on the Financieel-Economische Overeenkomst (Finec, Financial and Economic Agreement) between the Netherlands and the VSI, dated 8 April 1949, expresses the Dutch standpoint rather cryptically:

if war damage compensation is considered desirable and possible, then this must be recognized before sovereignty is transferred, because only then will the obligations involved [in the settlement] be passed on to the VSI. Failure to recognize obligations pertaining to this matter will mean that later no settlement will be possible any longer.40

This closed the book for both the Netherlands and Indonesia.

38 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 39 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 40 NA, Nederlandse en VFR delegatie, box 6. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 91

No compensation?

‘The public’, as federal bureaucrats offi ciously referred to the war victims, did not respond immediately to the Interim Federal Government’s decision. Even a week later, the Dutch Alliance of Former Internees, NIBEG, basing itself on Zorab’s memorandum of 31 January 1949, was still under the mistaken impression that the War Damage Council had devised a war damage compensation regulation and would implement this.41 It took months for the Government announcement to sink in, as if NIBEG’s board could not comprehend the bad news.42 When NIBEG fi nally understood that the Federal Government had eliminated any chance of receiving war damage compensation, the alliance changed tack, turning to the Dutch government and showing more assertiveness. In late June 1949, NIBEG submitted a request to the Dutch cabinet to include Indonesian damage in the Dutch material war damage legislation being drafted.43 The Hague-based federation of Dutch East Indies government employees jumped on the bandwagon, submitting a request to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs and Dutch Parliament in October of the same year. The special interest groups advocated amendments to the Dutch war compensation bill.44 Lieftinck rejected the request because the material war damage bill for the Netherlands was already putting a strain on the nation’s fi nances and the additional Indonesian problem would pose insurmountable fi nancial consequences.45 The issue had simply been moved from the Indonesian to the Dutch political arena. NIBEG and other East Indies interest groups did receive support from a few MPs when the Dutch bill was discussed in parliament in October 1949. As a result, yet another special committee was created to reassess the settlement of various obligatory payments including war damage compensation. This was the Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen (CAB, Back Pay Committee). Compared to NIBEG, Dutch businesses in Indonesia responded mildly. Three weeks after the Interim Federal Government decided against compensation, the Ondernemersraad voor Indonesië (Council for Dutch Businesses in Indonesia) in The Hague received the bad news, but appeared unfazed. The association had no illusions, having paid heed to earlier statements by Dutch cabinet members and Dutch East Indies department heads about the very tight national budget. They also reasoned that urging the government to compensate war damage would not be in their best interests. The businesses in the

41 NIBEG-orgaan 8-4-1949. 42 NA, archief directie Verre Oosten (DIRVO), inv. 158. 43 NIBEG-orgaan 8-7-1949. 44 MBZ, code 3, folder 584. 45 NIBEG-orgaan 14-10-1949. 92 The politics of redress colony feared they would have to bear most of the cost of war damage compensation through taxation. Therefore, war damage compensation would ‘hit Western business [...] like a boomerang, to the extent that we will be out of the frying pan and into the fi re, if war damage compensation costs us more than we will benefi t from it’.46 The business community hoped the government would fi nd other ways to pay for it. They pinned their hopes on Marshall Aid from the US.47 The Federal Government’s decision on 31 March 1949 put a fi nal stop to all the options the IOB in Batavia and the Ondernemersraad in The Hague had been considering. There is another reason why the business community did not confront the Dutch East Indies government. As early as July 1948, the government had created two government-guaranteed war risk insurance funds for agricultural enterprises in Java. One of these covered Java’s lowland agricultural enterprises, the other its upland enterprises and tobacco (Departement Landbouw en Visserij 1949, I:39-41). Just like in other mutual insurance funds, the companies paid premiums to cover themselves against damage due to ‘domestic troubles, irregularities of a political or other nature, disturbances, civil war, strike actions [and] sabotage’. As guarantor, the federal government probably contributed to the fund as well. In 1949, the Dutch East Indies government paid several million guilders in damages to rubber companies.48 This war risk insurance benefi t took the sting out of the debate on the damage due to the Dutch-Indonesian confl ict, at least for the agricultural companies which had joined these insurance funds. The insurance benefi ts eased the planters’ fi nancial burden. In the absence of war damage compensation legislation, the Dutch East Indies government regarded the war risk insurance funds as one of several measures to help revive the agricultural sector. This provided the government with an answer should it ever be accused of failing to help the agricultural companies.49 Remarkably, the oil companies did not join the debate on war damage compensation, even though demolition and Allied bombardments had caused tremendous damage to their fi elds and refi neries. Perhaps even more so than the Ondernemersraad and the IOB, they were convinced that they were entitled to compensation of pre-emptive destruction.50 Several oil companies submitted claims worth hundreds of millions of guilders to the federal government. The BPM claimed more than ƒ 400 million in compensation for pre-emptive demolition, the Nederlands-Indische Aardoliemaatschappij (NIAM, Dutch East Indies Oil Company) more than ƒ 51 million, and the

46 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-II. 47 NA, ONRANI, inv. 152. 48 NA, archief Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR), inv. 862. 49 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 50 NA, Archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 43. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 93

Nederlandse Nieuw-Guinea Petroleum Maatschappij (NNGPM, Dutch New Guinea Petroleum Company) more than ƒ 8 million.51 Based on the Interim Federal Government’s decision of 31 March 1949, the Ondernemersraad in The Hague advised the IOB not to insist on a comprehensive war damage compensation regulation, but to urge the government to compensate pre-emptive destruction. The Ondernemersraad felt there were solid legal grounds for compensation of this type of damage.

Legal hair-splitting

As described in Chapter III, dedicated demolition squads destroyed stock in trade, ships, warehouses, factories and oil ﬁ elds shortly before and during the Japanese invasion. Various businesses were ordered by the military authorities to cooperate with these operations. They assumed the government would compensate them for the loss of stock and the damage to their property and premises as soon as the war had ended. After Japan had capitulated, the businesses referred to Article 13, Paragraph 8 of the 1939 colonial regulation on the Staat van Oorlog en Beleg (SOB, State of War and Siege).52 The business interpreted this regulation to mean the military authorities were bound to compensate damage due to the pre-emptive demolition they had ordered. This ended in legal hair-splitting between the government and the business community. The joint claim submitted by the British American Tobacco Company Ltd (BAT) and the Java Tobacco Leaf Development Company Ltd is a prime illus- tration of the problems involved in the compensation of pre-emptive demolition. On 11 November 1947, the two tobacco companies submitted claims of ƒ 3 million and ƒ 12 million respectively to the Royal Dutch East Indies Army for the buildings, tobacco stock and machines destroyed on military order in Cirebon, West Java during the Japanese invasion. The companies’ lawyer invoked the SOB.53 The Adjutant General of KNIL headquarters denied the claim on the grounds that the destruction of tobacco stock had not taken place after previous conﬁ scation or sequestration as intended in Article 13 of the SOB regulation. Therefore, compensation based on Article 13 was out of the question. The Adjutant referred the case to the War Damage Bureau.54 The tobacco companies’ legal counsel protested this interpretation of the law and questioned the competence of the War Damage Bureau to rule on the matter.

51 NA, Archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 43. 52 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1939 no. 582. 53 NIOD, IC, 081286. 54 NIOD, IC, 081286. 94 The politics of redress

The lawyer pointed out that the Regulation on the State of War and Siege assigned the task of judging such defensive damage claims to an assessment committee and not to the War Damage Bureau.55 The military authorities had indeed set up an assessment committee in 1940, but the committee existed in name only because its members had been busy with what the tobacco companies’ lawyer called ‘other urgent matters’. The military authorities disputed claims from other companies too, including the oil companies mentioned above. The settlement of claims was actively frustrated by the army commander, who refused to pass the claims on to the assessment committee. This is proven by a letter from an insider, Chairman Zorab of the War Damage Council, in which he calls the commander’s attitude ‘unreasonable, undesirable and unjustiﬁ able’.56 It was probably the ﬂ ood of claims and the far-reaching consequences they would have had for the Army that prompted the commander to refuse. Lawyers representing the umbrella organizations for business also failed to reach a consensus with the federal government’s legal counsel on the interpretation of Article 13.57 In order to convince the Dutch East Indies government of their duty to compensate pre-emptive demolition, the business organizations pointed to the July 1949 British initiative announcing a damage compensation regulation for the Malayan Union and Singapore.58 The Association of Employers in Indonesia asked Minister Götzen on 31 August 1949 to put the issue of pre-emptive demolition on the agenda of the Round

Table Conference. 59 They also wanted the government to widen the rehabilitation regulation.60 Pending a decision concerning pre-emptive destruction, the federal government decided not to dissolve the War Damage Council yet, but to scale it down. When the ﬁ nancial and economic issues were discussed during the Round Table Conference, on 9 September 1949, the delegates only discussed the issue of pre-emptive demolition in passing. The former federal government promised to see whether it had any outstanding commitments to private companies with regard to pre-emptive damage.61 The discussion did not yield any new legal interpretations. However, on 22 December 1949, the High Commissioner did consider it necessary to revive the assessment committee and to appoint new members.62 The transfer of sovereignty was ﬁ ve

55 NIOD, IC, 081286. 56 Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG), Collectie Henri Aa, portfolio 3, folder Rechtszaken. 57 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-II. 58 NIOD, IC, 081286. 59 NA, Archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 43. 60 NA, ONRANI, inv. 152. 61 NA, Archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 45. 62 NIOD, IC, 081286. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 95 days away at that point. The High Commissioner hardly treated pre-emptive damage as a priority issue, as illustrated by a letter he wrote to the chairman of the IOB General Board on New Year’s Eve. He informed the chairman that the government had opted not to make a decision on pre-emptive demolition.63 The ambiguity this created put the entrepreneurs in a hopeful mood for the new year. After all, the High Commissioner had not yet ruled out compensation of pre-emptive damage. Although the federal government had refused to compensate war damage, it had not yet decided on the compensation of pre-emptive destruction. Compensation policy remained equally fuzzy after 31 March 1949 and 27 December 1949.

Claims

Fuzzy policy went hand in hand with unclear claims, as illustrated by the dozens of claims discovered in archives. For lack of a clear deﬁ nition of war damage, claimants applied their own interpretations of the concept, seldom distinguishing between material and immaterial damage. Few made a distinction between war damage compensation and restitution. From this wealth of compensation claims, I have selected some representative examples. Some were approved, some rejected, some were never resolved or had no known outcome. Needless to say these examples give a biased impression of how the War Damage Council dealt with most claims. Generally, the council tended to send claimants a form letter regretfully informing them that the Dutch East Indies government had as yet made no decision and that the Council would keep the claim on ﬁ le. It should also be noted that the Council was not authorized to pay any damages. The following examples give an impression of what the claimants regarded as war damage and what they expected the Dutch East Indies government to take responsibility for. They also indicate what kinds of claims were rejected and on which grounds, as well as exceptions to the rule. On 18 September 1948, Haji Matnoer, an Indonesian coal merchant from a village near the town of Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan) submitted a claim on behalf of himself and some 20 fellow villagers to the Resident of South Borneo. During the occupation, the villagers had been forced by the Japanese authorities to supply cattle, car parts, steel wire, coal, and food for little or no money, and to work in a local coal mine. Haji Matnoer had been named supervisor in the mine. Those who worked there during the occupation had received meals but no pay. In addition, the Japanese Navy had commandeered

63 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-II. 96 The politics of redress

1,500 tonnes of coal, including all of Matnoer’s stocks, paying nothing in return. The Resident of South Borneo referred the villagers’ claim to the War Damage Bureau. Their reply to Haji Matnoer read:

We are sorry to inform you that we cannot help you at the moment, since the entire issue of damage incurred in or as a consequence of the war, is still under review at the E.I. Government. The guidelines to be followed concerning this [issue] will be announced in the newspapers in due course. Your claim will be kept on ﬁ le at our Bureau.64

The handling of Haji Matnoer’s claim can be considered typical of the Bureau’s approach.65 But his example is interesting for another reason. It shows that some claimants had no knowledge of the existence of the War Damage Council. The council was literally and fi guratively far removed from the citizens, an abstract bureaucratic apparatus. Haji Matnoer’s claim can hardly be characterized as a clear-cut case of war damage compensation. The villagers’ property had not been destroyed by acts of war, but had been stolen by the Japanese Navy. Non-payment of wages was a different problem altogether. However, the offi cials at the War Damage Bureau did not make such fi ne distinctions. They simply fi led claims without assessing their legal viability. As in Haji Matnoer’s case, the next illustrates that claimants had no clear notion of the type of damage eligible for compensation or how their claims would be handled. It is also a prime example of the complex relationship between war damage compensation and restitution. On 18 March 1948, raja Ide Anak Agung Ngurah Agung – a retired autonomous ruler from Gianyar, Bali – informed the Dutch military authorities in Bali that Japanese troops had stolen jewels and gold coins from him during the occupation. Among the stolen goods was a large diamond removed from the hilt of a keris (ornamental dagger). The raja hoped with all his heart that his possessions would be returned as they were important heirlooms (pusaka). Such heirlooms are priceless because of the mystical powers attributed to them. However, the Dutch military authorities did not reply. After a ten-month wait, the native ruler turned to the local restitution representative in Bali, who contacted the Council for the Restoration of Rights in Jakarta. The local representative then informed the raja that he was entitled to damages equal to the value of the missing goods. For several months longer, the raja waited for either the Council or its representative to inform him of a decision. Because no decision was forthcoming, he travelled to Jakarta and asked to speak to

64 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 65 ANRI, AS, inv. 301; ANRI, AS, inv. 299. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 97 the chairman of the Council for the Restoration of Rights. As it turned out, the goods had not yet been tracked down. The raja then wrote a letter to the High Commissioner of the Crown, asking to be paid damages for the jewellery.66 The High Commissioner in turn sought advice from the Secretary of State for Domestic Affairs. The secretary in turn asked the War Damage Council for advice and pointed out to the claimant that the Interim Federal Government had on 31 March 1949 decided that no war damage compensation would be granted. The Secretary of State was of the opinion that no exceptions could be made, not even for the raja. He advised the High Commissioner to tell the raja to submit a restitution claim through the War Damage Bureau to the Civil Property Custodian (CPC), the SCAP’s custodian in occupied Japan (see Chapter VIII).67 The Secretary of State apparently assumed that the jewellery had been taken to Japan during the war. The raja did not take this advice. There is no restitution claim bearing his name on the CPC’s claims lists. The former ruler did, however, ask the Council for the Restoration of Rights in September 1949 to fi nd out whether its local representatives happened to be custodians of his jewels.68 Of all the offi cials and institutions involved in his case, none was able to offer a real solution. Another claim, submitted to the Resident of the South Moluccas by a number of locals from Ambon in May 1948, also ended up in the War Damage Council’s offi ces. This claim is interesting because of war damage compensation promises given in writing and alleged promises made by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. In August 1944, several villagers on the island of Ambon destroyed or hid their boats in response to an Allied call to resist the Japanese occupying force. In leafl ets dropped over the island, the Allies promised that any damage would be compensated. After the war, confusion reigned about the origin of the leaf- lets. A number of villagers believed they had been dropped by the US Air Force, because in September 1944 an American bombardment had destroyed an unknown number of houses in and around the city of Ambon. However, the American military authorities denied responsibility for the fl yers. The case became even more complex when one claimant asked the Lieutenant Governor-General to ensure that his home and household goods, which had been destroyed by American bombs, would be compensated. He did not base his claim on the fl yers, but on a radio address allegedly given by Queen Wilhelmina on 10 March 1942. In this address, the claimant averred, she had promised compensation of material damage.69 Research at the

66 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 67 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 68 NA, RvR, inv. 870. 69 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 98 The politics of redress government information service revealed that the Queen had not given a radio speech on that date, and that none of her wartime addresses contained any passages promising compensation. The leafl ets, on the other hand, were hard evidence. The Ambonese villagers and the Resident of the South Moluccas used them to substantiate their claims. The Resident explicitly advocated fulfi lment of the compensation promises made in the fl yers.70 In the autumn of 1948, the Ambonese boat owners’ claim landed on the desk of the Chairman of the War Damage Council. Zorab advised the High Commissioner not to pay damages in the absence of any uniform legislation. Zorab was afraid to set a precedent. As a compromise, he supported a proposal by the head of the Shipping Department to sell the claimants some newly built boats at a very low price.71 It is not known whether this actually happened. In any case, no compensation was granted for the demolished boats or for homes destroyed by US bombs. This goes to show that even written promises turned out to be worthless. Queen Wilhelmina’s alleged radio address would continue to haunt war victims and their surviving relatives for decades to come, and would become the subject of further investigation. The Dutch East Indies government did not just sit back and wait, however. It was considering rebuilding the ports in East Indonesia that had suffered extensive damage during Allied bombardments, such as Makassar, Ambon, Ternate, Tual, Manado and Kupang. The head of the Transport and Communications Department referred to the serious war damage in these cities in an offi cial memorandum about the reconstruction plans. From a city planning point of view, he regarded reconstruction an easy task because ‘so much has been destroyed that we can start from scratch’.72 However, the rebuilding plans took long to develop and implementation lagged behind because of extensive preparation and legal, budgetary and logistical problems. One problem was a lack of local private investors, which was understandable in light of the uncertain investment climate during the Dutch-Indonesian confl ict. In January 1948, the president of De Javasche Bank put it succinctly, in the spirit of the post-war East Indies government: ‘[Our] priority is the reconstruction of agriculture and industry to increase exports. Money cannot be spared for housing.’73 There were major housing shortages in cities such as Makassar. The inhabitants of these cities naturally could not wait for the government and started rebuilding their own houses, either ignoring or oblivious to the zoning plans devised by the Transport and Communications Department.

70 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 71 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 72 ANRI, AS, inv. 926. 73 ANRI, AS, inv. 920. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 99

The city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, shortly after it was hit by Allied bombardments (NIOD 52378-1)

It is relevant at this point to return to the American acts of war that had wreaked such havoc in East Indonesia. As illustrated by a claim submitted by Tjia Sien Bien, the US armed forces had insured themselves against damage claims. In September 1944, the US Air Force bombarded Tjia’s coconut palm plantation in Morotai (North Moluccas). Afterwards, US troops landed and levelled the terrain to build a military camp there. On 29 November 1947, Tjia submitted his claim to the US Consulate in Jakarta, which referred him to the Dutch government.74 The US government based its rejection on the lend- lease agreement it had concluded with the Netherlands on 28 May 1947.75 As part of this agreement, the United States indemniﬁ ed itself from compensation claims by Dutch citizens and inhabitants of Indonesia for damage done by its forces in Indonesia. Tjia was left empty-handed because the Dutch East Indies government had made no war damage compensation arrangements of its own.

74 MBZ, code 3. 75 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 6-7-1948, no. 143. 100 The politics of redress

Kupang, Timor, destroyed by the Allies, ca. 1946 (NIOD 56380-1)

It would be an overstatement to say that none of the compensation claims stood a chance, but it is true that when they did succeed it was often due to political motives, personal intervention by high offi cials, the involvement of foreign subjects, or the existence of special military provisions – as we see from the following examples. On 29 September 1947, Tjoa Ing Tjhioe, the owner of an ice factory in Surabaya, submitted a claim to the Lieutenant Governor-General. His case was both a claim for compensation and a request for economic rehabilitation. Instead of asking for compensation directly, Tjoa requested an advance that would keep his company afl oat. However, this was a veiled claim for compensation. Tjoa asked to be paid for foodstuffs he had supplied to the Dutch Navy shortly before the Japanese invasion. He had no written proof of the deliveries. During the investigation that followed, Vice Admiral Commander K.O. Landzaat confessed to the Lieutenant Governor-General that the Navy had provisioned its fl eet under abnormally urgent circumstances on the eve of the Japanese invasion. The Navy had ordered supplies by telephone. Traders IV Scorched earth, soft peace 101 had delivered them in good faith, without even issuing receipts.76 The naval command decided to compensate Tjoa for the goods supplied, except for items not covered by legal regulations such as a delivery van which had been stolen during the Japanese occupation. The inclusion of this van in the claim shows that the claimant was indeed trying to secure compensation rather than mere payment for advanced supplies. Tjoa accepted the settlement. The department considered this a pre-war account receivable to be debited to the national treasury. Tjoa received nearly ƒ 8,000 in May 1949.77

Another claim, by K. van Twisk, helmsman on the HMS ‘Tan 4’, also shows that damages were sometimes paid. On 2 March 1942, the Dutch East Indies Navy sank the HMS Tan 4 in the port of Surabaya. When the ship went under, the offi cer lost his kit and personal effects, including money. In January 1947, the Navy granted Twisk compensation based on three Navy circulars: 679, 1400 and 1406.78 Twisk’s case proves that the Navy had made provisions to compensate material damage incurred by its personnel, on condition the damage was incurred on duty. As it turns out, the Royal Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) and the Royal Dutch Army (KL) also took measures to compensate damage. Compensation was possible if the claimant could prove the damage was not due to acts of war such as shelling, but to unlawful acts by the KNIL or the KL. In the army commander’s defi nition, such unlawful acts were those not ordered by the military command or those carried out under conditions other than those specifi ed in the colonial Regulation on the State of War and Siege.79 Such a provision proved to be necessary because the Army was fl ooded with compensation claims, doubtlessly as a result of the First Police Action. As we see from the case of Tjang Wei Chang, war victims made use of the provision and claimed compensation not only for acts of war, but also for unlawful confi scations. Tjang Wei Chang was a batik manufacturer from Bekasi, West Java, whose factory had been badly damaged by British troops. Without informing Tjang, Dutch troops later completed the demolition and reused the building materials from his factory without paying him. The army commander honoured Tjang’s claim for compensation of the building materials. However, the claim’s success was probably at least partly attributable to direct mediation by the Chinese Consul General in Jakarta. The army commander granted the batik manufacturer damages in the amount of ƒ 3,600 for the building materials confi scated by Dutch troops.80

76 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. 77 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. 78 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. 79 IISG, Collectie Henri Aa, portfolio 3, folder Rechtszaken. 80 ANRI, AS, inv. 149. 102 The politics of redress

Another successful claim was made by Hadu Doea, an Indonesian who lived on the small island of Raidjua near Savu, in the Nusa Tenggara region. His material ‘damage’ was also compensated. As in the case of the batik maker, the damage was not due to shelling. During the Japanese occupation, Doea had helped several KNIL soldiers ﬂ ee to Timor and from there to Australia. He had put his proa, himself, his crew and his food supplies at the disposal of the refugees. The army commander, Lieutenant General S.H. Spoor, personally took pains to secure a new proa and compensation for the loss of income Doea had suffered. Spoor believed the government position – that it would not pay ‘because there is no legislation’ – did not apply because this was not a ‘regular case’ of war damage. Spoor asked the Governor-General for authorization to pay damages.81 No further information is available. However, it can be assumed that damages were paid and that the costs were debited to the KNIL budget. It appears that personal intervention by the highest military authority was the decisive factor in granting compensation in this case. In some cases, a decision to pay damages was politically motivated. Two examples illustrate this. In January 1947, Governor-General Van Mook received a letter from the British Consulate in Jakarta concerning damage done to a boat. The Dutch Navy had ﬁ red upon and damaged a motorboat presumed to be run by smugglers, near Tanjung Pura, Sumatra. As it turned out, the boat belonged to Tan Swan Tong, a Chinese trader and British citizen from Penang. The British Consul considered the incident a breach of international treaty agreements on commercial shipping.82 The Attorney General of the Supreme Court in Jakarta advised Van Mook to try to settle out of court. This suggests that the Dutch East Indies government feared it might lose in court or that litigation would generate bad publicity for the Netherlands. In the meantime, the Chinese Consul General in Penang had also become involved. The Dutch authorities launched a diplomatic offensive. An ad hoc British-Chinese-Dutch committee proposed a compromise on 23 December 1947.83 In June 1948, the Dutch East Indies Department of Finance transferred a total of Straits $ 5,000 to the account of the Dutch Consul General in Singapore, who in turn transferred the money to the British authorities. Just when everything had been arranged, it turned out Tan Swan Tong had not been informed of the committee’s decision. He lodged a complaint with the Chinese Consul General in Penang about the amount of the settlement.84 The Chinese consul protested on his behalf, but the Dutch authorities waved this off because they regarded Tan as a British citizen, not Chinese. The Dutch authorities considered the

81 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 82 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 83 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 84 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 103 arbitration committee’s decision binding. The case came to an anti-climactic close when, on 8 December 1948, the claimant died at sea. A second case infl uenced by political motives was a fi re that destroyed the village of Singajaya, near Garut in West Java, in June 1948. This time, the decision to pay damages seems to have been motivated by domestic politics. The mosque and almost all the houses in the village were destroyed by a KNIL signal fl are gone astray. The top native ruler, the Regent of Garut, estimated the damage at ƒ 83,000 and turned to the War Damage Council. The chairman of the Council sought advice from the KNIL Adjutant General, who in turn advised the Lieutenant Governor-General to quickly pay damages. This uncharacteristically prompt reaction may have been partly inspired by a desire to ease the poverty of the villagers, but the deciding factor was political, as we learn from the Adjutant General’s letter to the Governor- General, when he points out that the ‘population […] had been neither hostile nor bitter during or after the fi re’.85 He clearly feared that a refusal to grant compensation would drive the villagers into the arms of the Republic.

The claims that led to compensation were few and far between. By and large, the government of the Dutch East Indies took no legislative action to ensure compensation of war damage and in practice seldom paid any. This did not stop war victims from submitting claims. Perhaps some of them knew better, but most had no idea what the federal government’s policy was on war damage compensation. The examples also show there was great confusion about what constituted war damage. Claimants had their own notions of war damage, sometimes substituting the concept of restitution for compensation. To make matters worse, they often lacked a clear understanding of the difference between material and immaterial war damage. The fact that war victims were given an opportunity to ﬁ le claims unintentionally raised their expectations. At some point in the future, they reasoned, compensation would be granted. Most war victims’ hopes for compensation died on 31 March 1949 when the federal government announced that it would not pay damages. Another sobering moment came when sovereignty was transferred to the Republic. For some, however, a glimmer of hope remained that particular types of war damage might be compensated after all.

Indonesian viewpoints

On 31 January 1950, at one of the ﬁ rst IOB board meetings after the transfer of sovereignty, a company lawyer summarized the status concerning pre-emptive

85 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 104 The politics of redress demolition – an issue the business community still felt strongly about. He pointed out that 1. there was a stalemate as to whether the government was bound to compensate pre-emptive demolition; 2. the state had no funds to do so; and 3. the army command was refusing to put claims to the assessment committee.86 Nothing more could be expected of the Dutch civilian and military authorities.87 A week later, on 7 February 1950, the Indonesian government ended all hopes for compensation of pre-emptive destruction. By approving Emergency Law no. 8 of 1950, the Indonesian government rejected once and for all the obligation to pay damages.88 The government feared claims from the oil companies that had been hit hard by pre-emptive demolition. Recognition of those claims would open the gates to huge damages claims which would further deplete a cash-strapped national treasury.89 The Round Table Conference agreement had been non-committal about whether such claims would be honoured. The Indonesian government was quick to use the instrument of emergency legislation to close any loopholes left by the RTC agreement.

For the sake of completeness, it is important to mention the KNIL Military Settlement Command, which was created to facilitate the disbandment of the KNIL itself. The Bandung-based body handled claims concerning material damage the KNIL had caused to third parties during the Indonesian revolution. What this meant in practice is best illustrated by a newspaper story about the Settlement Command, which appeared in the Indonesian daily Merdeka on 20 March 1951. The article reported that the municipality of Surakarta, with the help of the Indonesian Army’s Diponegoro division, had submitted a claim to the Settlement Command. The local administration asked for compensation to rebuild 700 houses destroyed in the city by ‘recent’ ﬁ ghting, in other words during the Indonesian revolution.90 It is not known whether the claim was granted. The Settlement Command stopped its work on 1 March 1951. After this date, the Indonesian Ministry of Finance agreed to ﬁ le the claims, but undertook no further action. Claimants were sent a form letter stating that the Indonesian government would postpone dealing with such claims until it had reached an agreement with the Netherlands, and that the Netherlands was responsible for paying damages.91 As far as we know, no discussion was ever initiated with the Dutch government and hence the claims were never honoured. An explanation for this impasse may

86 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-II. 87 MBZ, code 3, folder 586. 88 Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia Serikat no. 10, 1950. 89 MBZ, code 3. 90 Merdeka 20-3-1951. 91 MBZ, code 3. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 105 be that it had not only been Dutch troops, but also Indonesian Army units that were guilty of burning down houses, neighbourhoods and villages. Considering the enormous problems the Republic faced in turning itself into a uniﬁ ed state and creating a disciplined national army, it is imaginable that the Indonesians felt little inclination to reopen this particular can of worms in Dutch-Indonesian relations.

Article 14b of the Peace Treaty

Not only did the war victims dream of war damage compensation from the federal government and its legal successor, the Indonesian state; they also pinned their hopes on the Japanese government. After the Japanese surrender it was unclear whether Allied war victims could submit claims to SCAP for material and immaterial war damage compensation from Japan. SCAP had not yet developed a policy on this, so the matter would remain unclear for quite some time. In March 1946, SCAP set up the Civil Property Custodian (CPC) which from then on kept all claims on fi le. In the meantime the claimants were told by their respective diplomats in Japan that their claims would remain on hold pending SCAP policy guidelines.92 In 1947, SCAP toyed with the idea of establishing an international tribunal to deal with the war damage claims against the Japanese government. In January 1948, however, MacArthur and General W.F. Marquat, the head of SCAP’s Economic and Scientific Section (ESS), backtracked. Marquat explained their objections to such a claims tribunal in a confi dential memorandum to the Department of Army in Washington. Forcing Japan to compensate the Allied countries for war damage would run counter to the aim of a balanced Japanese budget. Marquat feared that if a tribunal pursued Allied claims, the American taxpayer would end up bearing the burden of Japan’s economic reconstruction. Accordingly Marquat argued that war damage compensation would slow down economic reconstruction and scare off Western investors who were sorely needed to boost the Japanese economy.93 MacArthur repeated this circular reasoning in April 1948, predicting that war damage compensation would be detrimental to Japan’s economic rehabilitation.94 In the face of such resistance from high-ranking US offi cials, SCAP had in January 1948 already referred all Allied war damage claims back to their

92 150 Claims & Accounts, Vol. II-B (10 Nov 1947-2 Feb 1948) 1945-52. Folder 8. Decimal File, 1945-1952. CPC. ED. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 93 Restitution of Property to U.N. Nationals, April 1946-August 1948. Folder 16-2. United Na- tions Property File (UNPF), 1946-51. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 94 Restitution of Property to U.N. Nationals, April 1946-August 1948. Folder 16-2. UNPF, 1946- 51. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 106 The politics of redress respective diplomatic missions in Japan, forbidding the submission of any new claims.95 SCAP’s ﬂ at refusal to handle any war damage claims effectively killed a debate on the issue in the Far Eastern Commission (FEC), SCAP’s Allied advisory body. Employees at the CPC regretted the stance taken by ESS and MacArthur. They felt that SCAP had done a disservice to Allied war victims.96 The question now was how to ensure that the issue of war damage compensation would be included in the FEC debate about the Peace Treaty with Japan. The drafting of this treaty took much longer than foreseen because of divisions both within the American camp (State Department vs. the Pentagon) and among the Allied powers. In any case, SCAP’s rejection of a claims tribunal did not bode well for those who wished to see a war damage compensation clause included in the imminent Peace Treaty between the Allies and Japan. In the run-up to the San Francisco Peace Conference of September 1951, the Dutch government – represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – objected to Article 14b of the Anglo-American draft version of the treaty. The article, which dealt with claims on property, excluded many types of claims by Allied citizens on the Japanese state. The Dutch government did not disagree in principle, but did fear that if it signed the treaty, the Dutch state could be sued by war victims in a civil court for waiving private claims on Japan without the claimants’ permission.97 The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, D.U. Stikker, argued that Article 14b had to more clearly state that Allied citizens were free to submit claims, but would not be supported in these claims by their governments. During the conference, President Truman’s Special Representative John Foster Dulles thought the Netherlands might be able to effect a favourable interpretation of Article 14b by exchanging memorandums with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida. Stikker had little faith in this prospect.98 He was proven right. Ultimately, all that could be achieved was the change he had already proposed in the wording of Article 14b; this change was approved by the American and Japanese governments. The Dutch-Japanese exchange of memorandums did, however, lead to the Yoshida-Stikker Agreement, whereby Japan paid compensation for the immaterial damage suffered by Dutch civilians and soldiers interned in Indonesia during the Japanese occupation (Van Poelgeest 1999:219, 258-77).

95 Reports on Claims, 1946-1950. Folder 1. General Accounting Records, 1946-50. CPC. Ac- counts Division (AD). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 96 Restitution of Property to U.N. Nationals, April 1946-August 1948. Folder 16-2. UNPF, 1946- 51. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 97 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 9602. 98 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 9602. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 107

The deﬁ nitive version of Article 14b of the Peace Treaty stipulated the waiving of compensation claims:

Except as otherwise provided in the present Treaty, the Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied powers, other claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any actions taken by Japan and its nationals in the course of the prosecution of the war, and claims of the Allied Powers for direct military costs of occupation.99

In his Explanatory Memorandum about the Peace Treaty, Stikker explained that he had received assurances from the Japanese Prime Minister that the Netherlands, in signing the treaty, had not relinquished private legal claims. In other words, Dutch war victims were free to submit their claims to a Japanese civil court. Stikker added, however, that their chances of success were very slim. His American counterparts shared this opinion.100 Stikker and US offi cials may have reasoned that the claimants would be dissuaded from fi ling lawsuits in Japan by the lack of legal, consular and fi nancial support from their government. If this was their reasoning, they were right. NIBEG, the Alliance of Former Prisoners of War and Internees, was disappointed in the Peace Treaty but took no political or legal steps against it (Van Poelgeest 1999:225). There are no known test cases of citizens from former Allied countries who sued the Japanese state for the material damage they incurred in Japanese-occupied territories. Another reason for this is that the existing evidence was often too weak to hold up in court; many documents had been lost during the war and the revolution.

The newly independent state of Indonesia focussed solely on the war reparations expected from the Japanese government. Like their Dutch counterparts, the Indonesian negotiators were unhappy with the US-written draft of the Peace Treaty with Japan. Indonesia put forward fi ve demands before the conference even started. One demand made by both Indonesia and the Philippines was that a clause on entitlement to reparations be added to the Treaty. The Americans honoured this and adapted the text accordingly. At the conference, Yoshida reacted publicly to the Indonesian demands and affi rmed the entitlement to reparations without going into detail. Apparently satisfi ed for the time being, the Indonesian delegation signed the Treaty. Between December 1951 and January 1952, the Indonesian delegation and the Japanese government tried to settle on the amount of war reparations to be paid. These talks stranded. Indonesia demanded US$ 17.5 billion from Japan

99 Treaty of Peace with Japan 8-9-1951. San Francisco, CA. 100 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 9602. 108 The politics of redress in the form of capital goods and services, basing its claim on an inventory of the war damage it had made in 1950. The fi ndings were recorded in a report entitled ‘Outline of Reparations Claim of Indonesia against Japan’, which remained classifi ed at least until 1976. Japan rejected the Indonesian fi gure of US$ 17.5 billion as excessively high; the claim was nearly equal to Japan’s GNP. Japanese diplomats also tried to undermine the claim by trotting out arguments based on international law. They took the overly formalistic position that Indonesia was not entitled to war reparations because Japan had never been at war with Indonesia. The fact that the issue reached an impasse, however, was mainly due to Indonesia’s political instability and the frequent changes of government, which hampered the pursuit of a consistent foreign policy (Nishihara 1976:37-40). The parties reopened negotiations two years later, in late January 1954. In the meantime, Jakarta had held off closer trade and investment ties with Japan, hoping this could serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations over war reparations.101 However, Indonesia’s position weakened when Japan reached a settlement with Burma in 1954 and with the Philippines in 1956. Both countries accepted far less than what Indonesia was demanding; Burma settled for US$ 200 million and the Philippines for US$ 550 million. In 1955, the Indonesians drastically reduced their claim from US$ 17.5 billion down to 1 billion, and later that year, to US$ 800 million. The latter amount was broken down into (1) capital goods to the value of US$ 200 million; 2. consumer goods worth US$ 300 million; 3. services totalling US$ 50 million; 4. a loan of US$ 70 million; and 5. cancellation of Indonesian trade debts (US$ 180 million). A dispute on debt cancellation would yet again delay the negotiations. In 1957, Indonesia’s declining economy and the impending confrontation with the Netherlands over New Guinea put Japan in a relatively strong position. More than ever, Indonesia needed Japan’s help to revitalize its economy and to realize Soekarno’s nationalist political aspirations: to nationalize Dutch companies and incorporate New Guinea into the Republic. On 8 December 1957, as the economy slumped and Soekarno became increasingly autocratic, Indonesia reached an agreement with Japan. Japan agreed to cancel Indonesia’s trade debt; this concession was meant to ensure that Japanese companies would have continued access to Indonesia’s natural resources. On 20 January 1958, Japan and Indonesia formally signed the war reparations agreement (Nishihara 1976:45-55). That same month, Indonesia nationalized all Dutch companies, a move that was doubtlessly connected to its newly established aid relations with Japan. Meanwhile, the Dutch East Indies war victims were clinging to their last hope of getting the Dutch government to pay damages, by way of the Back

101 Commercial Weekly 1-2-1954. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 109

Pay Committee (CAB) established in December 1951. The CAB’s story is useful because it neatly reﬂ ects that war damage had become a thorny post- colonial issue.

The Back Pay Committee

In June 1951, the Second Chamber of Dutch parliament discussed the Union Affairs budget. Two MPs seized the opportunity to call attention to a delay in Indonesia’s debt payments to the Netherlands. The two parliamentarians argued for the creation of a fact-ﬁ nding committee that would look into the many bottlenecks holding up these payments, including the issue of material war damage (Meijer 2005:143-4, 151-5). The government cautiously welcomed the proposal. In order to avoid raising unrealistic expectations, Minister Lieftinck of Finance immediately emphasized that the committee’s mandate regarding material damage compensation would be exploratory only. The Second Chamber approved the proposal.

It later appeared that the establishment of a fact-fi nding committee did not sit well with the Dutch government. Neither did the possibility that the committee’s fi ndings might turn out to be unfavourable to the government. This is clear from an investigation conducted by the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (RIOD, Royal Institute of War Documentation) in October 1951. The investigation began when the government asked Prime Minister Gerbrandy whether he had given a wartime radio address from London in which he had promised compensation of war damage incurred in Indonesia. Because Gerbrandy did not dare trust his own memory, he turned to Lou de Jong, RIOD’s managing director. Gerbrandy suspected the address had not been his, but Queen Wilhelmina’s. He asked De Jong to ascertain whether he was right.102 The Dutch government was off the hook when De Jong informed them that neither Gerbrandy nor the Queen had made any promises.103 In late October 1951, the Dutch government analyzed the information collected by RIOD, the data supplied by the former director of the Dutch East Indies Department of Justice (N.S. Blom), and the radio addresses of various high-ranking Dutch and Dutch East Indies offi cials. They concluded that the Dutch government had never promised that material war damage would be compensated.104 These fi ndings did little to dispel the belief still held by war victims and their surviving kin

102 NIOD Correspondentiearchief, 1951, P.S. Gerbrandy. 103 NIOD, Correspondentiearchief, 1951, P.S. Gerbrandy, L. De Jong. 104 NA, MvK Indisch archief, inv. 14. 110 The politics of redress that Dutch government representatives had promised them war damage compensation.105

On 4 December 1951, the Secretary of State for Union Affairs and Overseas Territories decreed the establishment of the Back Pay Committee. On 18 December, he appointed a committee consisting of civil servants and others, including a NIBEG representative.106 Once informed of the Back Pay Committee’s mandate, the IOB immediately concluded that the committee would be of no help to Dutch private enterprise in Indonesia and could only serve the interests of Dutch returnees. In March 1952, Dutch private enterprise abandoned all further efforts.107

The Back Pay Committee, acting against the wishes of the Finance representative on the committee and his boss, Finance Minister Lieftinck, instituted a separate sub-committee to investigate the material war damage issue. The Finance Ministry was strongly opposed to a broad investigation of this issue and feared being faced with recommendations to set up a legally binding compensation scheme (Meijer 2005:153-4). The ministry’s resistance was reminiscent of the way the Hens Committee had been obstructed in 1946 and 1947. The Back Pay Committee, basing itself on the Hens Committee’s partial advice from the spring of 1947 and on compensation schemes from the Malayan Union and the Philippines, ran aground trying to formulate recommendations on the compensation of damage to household goods.108 The Committee agreed on the fi gures. As the heading in their report aptly put it: individual assessment was impossible.109 The Committee had tried to use the numbers from the NIBEG survey of 1947, but had rapidly deduced that those data were unreliable and unusable. The Committee estimated the total collective damage to household goods at more than ƒ 77 million.110 On 29 December 1952, the Back Pay Committee had fi nalized its recommendations, but these were not made public and the parliamentary debate on the Committee’s fi ndings would not be held for some time. The Federatie van Ambtenarenorganisaties uit Indonesië (FAI, Federation of Civil Service Organizations from Indonesia) grew tired of waiting and in April 1953 pub-

105 NIOD, Correspondentiearchief, 1967, L. de Jong. 106 Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 1952:5-6. 107 NA, ONRANI, inv. 152. 108 Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 1952:58-64. 109 Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 1952:58-64. 110 This total amount consisted of ƒ 61,250,000 in additional rehabilitation payments to civil servants and private employees to cover damage to household goods; ƒ 8,500,000 for retired people; ƒ 7,500,000 for self-employed people. Incidentally, ƒ 14 million of this total amount had already been advanced by the social welfare service (Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 1952:76). IV Scorched earth, soft peace 111 lished its own report in response to the still conﬁ dential recommendations of the Back Pay Committee. The Federation, which was only able to do this because one of its members also sat on the Back Pay Committee, felt the Committee’s recommendations did not go far enough. The FAI had assessed the damage at more than ƒ 400 million, far more than the Committee’s ƒ 77 million estimate; the FAI’s ﬁ gure included not only compensation of damage to household goods, but also to other movable and immovable goods. The former colonial civil servants repeated the whole debate on the Dutch government’s moral and legal obligation to pay compensation: they disagreed with Minister Lieftinck’s ideas on the ‘territoriality principle’. Lieftinck considered the Netherlands not legally liable for damage suffered by inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies. The civil servants pointed out that the Dutch rather than the Dutch East Indies government had declared war on Japan. Dutch citizens residing in the colony had been the victims of this declaration of war, the FAI stated, describing Lieftinck’s doctrine of separate jurisdictions as ‘a fantasy’.111 On 11 September 1953, the government sent a written response to the Back Pay Committee’s report, adopting grosso modo the Committee’s recommendations. On the subject of war damage compensation, the government maintained its position that the Netherlands was not legally bound to pay damages. It did, however, recognize its moral obligation, and not only in reference to the material war damage issue.112

All of NIBEG’s attempts to secure compensation after October 1953 were an exercise in futility. NIBEG continually stressed the government’s legal and moral obligations, asked for more compensation and wrote more letters to the relevant Dutch ministers explaining its demands.113 The debate in the Second Chamber in March and April 1954 focussed mainly on the civil servants’ back pay and the devaluation of the Indonesian currency (Meijer 2005:200-2). Parliament’s main criticism of the government proposals was that they lacked coherence and consistency. One example was the move to incorporate the compensation of household goods into the rehabilitation regulation, thereby eliminating a separate regulation for compensation of material war damage.114 Some MPs were also upset that the Committee’s proposals had not yet been laid down in legislation. However, their criticism was only backed by a minority in the Second Chamber. The Dutch government did not want to anchor the rehabilitation

111 Rapport van de Federatie van Ambtenarenorganisaties uit Indonesië (FAI) 1953:59-60. 112 Handelingen der Tweede Kamer (HTK), 3107, no. 1. 113 For example, see NIBEG-orgaan 26-3-1954. 114 HTK 30-3-1954:887-9. 112 The politics of redress scheme in legislation because this would only delay its implementation. A majority in the Chamber supported the government’s standpoint.115 The government decided that the Department of Rehabilitation of Dutch East Indies War Victims at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would implement the rehabilitation scheme. Following this debate, NIBEG’s protests against the government plans died down. Resistance had been broken, or rather worn down. In step with the political developments, two people sued the Dutch state. In 1951, the widow of Masdoelhak Hamonangan Nasoetion gelar Soetan Oloan, Mohamad Hatta’s former secretary and advisor, successfully claimed compensation. During the Second Police Action in Yogyakarta, KNIL soldiers had taken Nasoetion captive in front of his wife and very young children. The soldiers plundered the house and partly destroyed it. Nasoetion then died under very suspect circumstances (Nasution 1979:217-20).116 In 1951, Nasoetion’s Dutch-born widow asked the Dutch Ministry of War for compensation of the material and immaterial damage caused by the Dutch troops. In 1953, the state decided to settle out of court, granting compensation of material damage to the claimant. The Ministry of War maintained that Nasoetion’s murder was not proven.117 The Ministries of War and Foreign Affairs took pains to keep this case under wraps, to avoid setting a precedent and eliciting more lawsuits. In December 1954, Hendrik van Hecking Colenbrander demanded compensation for property the military authorities had conﬁ scated and demolished in February 1942. He seemed unaware of the favourable outcome of the Nasoetion case. Demolition squads had sunk Colenbrander’s proas in the Cimanuk and Cipunegara river deltas in West Java, tugged off his motor- boats, sabotaged his cars and conﬁ scated a large supply of rice and oils. He lost about ƒ 188,000 worth of property. The plaintiff argued that the Dutch government had declared war on Japan and was therefore legally bound to indemnify him. The court in The Hague dismissed the claim for three reasons: 1. the Netherlands was not responsible for acts of the Dutch East Indies government; 2. the claim was barred by the lapse of time in accordance with the 31 October 1934 Act as published in Staatsblad no. 482; and 3. according to the Transfer of Sovereignty Act, Indonesia was the colony’s legal successor, and the case therefore bore no relevance to the Netherlands.118 The archives contain no records of court cases concerning war damage after December 1954, only lawsuits claiming back pay (Meijer 2005:223-4).

115 HTK 1-4-1954:922-29. 116 On the death of Nasoetion, see also Bank 1995:34. 117 MBZ, code 3. 118 IISG, Collectie Henri Aa, portfolio 4, folder Rechtszaken. IV Scorched earth, soft peace 113

War damage cases were doomed to fail because the war victims had no legal leg to stand on.

On the issue of material war damage, the Back Pay Committee covered the same ground as the Hens Committee, the Hart Committee and the War Damage Council. The damage turned out to be unquantifi able; in lieu of a legal obligation to pay damages, the Back Pay Committee merely affi rmed the Dutch government’s moral responsibility. The Committee narrowed the defi nition of war damage to ‘damage to household goods’ and replaced full compensation with partial indemnifi cation of rehabilitation costs. A parliamentary majority voted in favour. Although the Dutch parliamentary debate on war damage compensation had reached a dead end in 1954, an interdepartmental working group was still studying the legal aspects of material war damage caused by Dutch and Dutch East Indies troops as late as 1956. This study was prompted by various claims from individuals and legal entities abroad.119 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected all claims, arguing that all Dutch East Indies rights and obligations now applied to the Indonesian Republic, to which it referred all claimants.120 The interdepartmental working group had considered settling out of court, but was dissuaded by the likelihood of attracting publicity and creating a precedent. The government wanted to avoid being sued.121

Summary

In February 1942, the Dutch East Indies government had indicated to the Volksraad that damage due to acts of war on land would be compensated by either the enemy or the national government. In August 1945, the high- ranking Dutch East Indies offi cials who had fl ed to Brisbane changed their mind. In their view, the government had never intended to fully compensate material war damage to individual war victims and would never have enacted legislation obliging itself to do so. Furthermore, economic reconstruction of the colony was the top priority. The offi cials felt that these legal and economic arguments absolved the government of any liability to pay damages. Lieutenant Governor-General Van Mook and the Dutch East Indies heads of department would continue to repeat this viewpoint in the years to come.

119 The MBZ Codearchief, code 3, under the heading of ‘Juridische Aangelegenheden (Legal Affairs) 1955-1964’. 313.211 contains dozens of reports about KNIL and Air Force liability for damage done. 120 MBZ, code 3. 121 MBZ, code 3. 114 The politics of redress

From early 1946 to 1953, the terms ‘rehabilitation’ and ‘reconstruction’ would dominate the debate on war damage compensation. The Dutch East Indies government did not debate war damage compensation until late February 1942. By that time Japan was already knocking on the door; the Netherlands had declared war on Tokyo in December 1941 and Manila and Singapore had already been conquered by the Japanese. It appears, from the government’s sluggishness on this issue and the actual content of its war damage compensation proposal, that the Dutch East Indies misjudged the situation. The government may have assumed the colony would not be occupied by Japan, or perhaps it expected the occupation to end quickly and have a limited impact. The latter seems more likely, as various other preparations for the war with Japan were underway. Further support for this interpretation can be found in a statement made by committee chairman Hart in the spring of 1946; he said the government’s concept of the war damage issue in 1942 had been too simplistic. The US and Philippine Commonwealth governments had made a similar miscalculation, the major difference being that the Americans were willing to pay compensation. After the Japanese capitulated, the Dutch East Indies government had to take some kind of action. It had raised expectations with its statements in the Volksraad in 1942 and it was also under pressure from public opinion and the continued state of war. This led to half-hearted policymaking. The government substituted rehabilitation for compensation, taking measures that amounted to no more than a partial indemnifi cation to help people back on their feet. The Dutch East Indies government then descended into wholesale bureaucracy, inventing one committee after another to study war damage issues and to draft legislation that would never be enacted. The government failed to coordinate any of these activities. In the Hens Committee, the Hart Committee, the War Damage Council and the Japan Committee, it became painfully obvious just how stagnant the issue of war damage had become. The Dutch East Indies government saddled these institutions with a mission impossible and raised false expectations among the war victims. The fi ndings of these committees made clear just how complicated the war damage issue was. No consensus was ever reached on what constituted war damage. None of the institutions could reliably reconstruct and quantify the material damage that had been done. This was not just a consequence of the incompleteness and unreliability of information. Manpower and money shortages also hindered the committees from reaching their goal and made legislation increasingly unlikely. The same applied to the claim against Japan which had been calculated by the Hart Committee and was later adopted by the Japan Committee. The claim stranded due to American unwillingness to burden the Japanese economy with Allied claims. It could be argued that there were good reasons why war damage legisla- IV Scorched earth, soft peace 115 tion failed to get off the ground. The fi rst and most obvious reason, frequently cited by the Dutch East Indies and The Hague governments, was that the state simply lacked suffi cient funds to compensate the war victims. The colony was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of World War II. The export of agricultural commodities – the motor behind the colonial economy – had shrunk considerably. Income had decreased while the Dutch-Indonesian confl ict had led to a rise in military spending. Another reason the Dutch government gave for refusing to pay war damage compensation was that it did not want to be held accountable for the colony’s new debts. Therefore, the mother country invoked the notion of separate jurisdictions and the colony’s fi nancial autonomy, which The Hague called the ‘territoriality principle’. Formally, the principle of the colony’s fi nancial autonomy was correct. In practice, however, the Dutch Finance Minister and Dutch parliament had held the purse strings. In short, the arguments used to justify not paying damages were opportunistic, and were posed to mask the miscalculations made on the eve of the Japanese invasion.

On 31 March 1949 the Dutch East Indies government stated it would not pay war damage compensation. This announcement was ambiguous and caused confusion among war victims. The issue of whether companies were entitled to compensation of pre-emptive damage remained undecided. The federal government deferred its decision, leaving it to the United States of Indonesia. The new government acted decisively. Fearing claims from oil companies, Indonesia defi nitively ruled out compensation of pre-emptive destruction. The move was not elegant, but the Indonesian government was at least clear in its intentions. By the time the recommendations of the Back Pay Committee (1951- 1954) were debated, the war damage problem had become a tangle of highly technical issues such as refurnishing costs and back pay. The issue of damage due to acts of war, as discussed during the Volksraad meeting in February 1942, seemed forgotten. The restriction of the concept of war damage went hand in hand with a narrower defi nition of the victims. While Dutch East Indies offi cials and experts had in the spring of 1947 reluctantly discussed including Indonesians in a possible settlement, by 1949 this item had been dropped from the agenda for political reasons. It is diffi cult to say whether, or how, the Dutch government could have fi nanced and implemented a compensation act. The US Congress’s 1946 Philippine Rehabilitation Act certainly contained elements that could have been applied. The War Damage Commission, the body responsible for implementing the Act in the Philippines, used a broad defi nition of the term war damage and included damage due to confi scation, sequestration and destruction as a consequence of direct hostilities. This could have been implemented in the Dutch East Indies as well. 116 The politics of redress

The politically motivated unwillingness of the Dutch East Indies, Dutch and Indonesian governments to fi nance compensation was the biggest obstacle. This is also what set Indonesia’s situation apart from that of the Philippines and the rest of the region. Without US fi nancial support, the Philippine Rehabilitation Act would not have been possible. In contrast with the US government, the Netherlands refused to take on the fi nancial problems of its colony. It should be noted that the Americans’ motives for fi nancially supporting the Philippines had little to do with compassion for the war victims. The aid was a political instrument to accommodate the Philippine political and economic elite, with the aim of securing economic privileges for American business in the Philippines as the country approached independence. Like the federal government which preceded it, Indonesia was unable to independently cover the cost of war damage compensation. After the September 1951 Peace Treaty, Allied war victims could not hope for any compensation from Japan either. The Indonesian government had no interest in compensating individual war victims, but rather in receiving Japanese war reparations. In this sense, the Indonesian government displayed the same attitude as its predecessor. This may have been compounded by the fact that, after 1949, many parts of Indonesia remained in the grip of civil war in which rebels and government troops caused material damage. This made the war damage issue even more complicated for the Indonesian government than it had been for the Dutch. All the more reason for Indonesia to disregard the issue of individual damage wherever possible. CHAPTER V The spoils of war

By the end of World War II, the Dutch government in London suspected that the Japanese occupying forces had most likely despoiled property of Dutch East Indies inhabitants. Since the same fate had befallen Dutch property at the hands of the German occupiers in the Netherlands, it was assumed that similar practices had taken place in the colony. This remained an unconﬁ rmed suspicion, however, because the government-in-exile scarcely knew what had gone on during the Japanese occupation. In order to restore German and Japanese plunder to its rightful owners, the Dutch and Dutch East Indies governments drew up special legislation. The return of goods to their owners and the legislation facilitating this process are known as ‘restitution’. Before discussing restitution, however, we need to explore how and to what extent property rights were violated in Indonesia and the Philippines during the Japanese occupation.

Enemy property

In their description of the types of theft carried out by the Japanese during the occupation, the Americans distinguished between two different types of looting.

Between 7 December 1941, and the end of the hostilities the Japanese looted im- mense quantities of merchandise, equipment, precious gems and metals, art objects and other valuable items, estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars. Most of those items were seized in China, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies and the Philippine Islands and were taken to Japan. Some of the looting, such as the conﬁscation of copper coins in China, seemed to be the result of widely organized efforts by Japanese army and naval units. In the Netherlands East Indies, there was organized looting of copper and nickel coins which were shipped to Japan presumably for use in manufacturing armaments. The looting of many other items, however, was unplanned and sporadic, and the government records of such items were fragmentary and incomplete.1

1 History of the Nonmilitary Activities of the Occupation of Japan – Foreign Property Ad- 118 The politics of redress

The distinction made by the Americans between organized and unplanned looting is but a ﬁ rst crude attempt to differentiate between methods of property seizure. However, many of these appropriation methods are neither looting nor spoliation, and may even bear the semblance of legal transactions. One such method in occupied countries was the imposition of Japanese custodianship of enemy property. The belligerents did not take control of enemy property randomly. They did so in accordance with the Hague Convention regulating War on Land, better known as the Rules of War. This convention was originally drawn up by various countries in 1899 and amended in 1907 to protect civilians during war and occupation from random acts of cruelty by enemy and occupying forces.2 The convention outlined the basic rules that an occupying forces had to follow regarding the use of state and private property. Article 55 of the Hague Convention authorized the occupying forces to control enemy property:

The occupying State shall only be regarded as administrator and usufructuary of the public buildings, real property, forests, and agricultural works belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must protect the capital of these properties, and administer it according to the rules of usufruct.3

However, the Rules of War neither specifi ed how the occupying forces was expected to ‘administer’ this property, nor named any sanctions for abuse of the privilege. Occupiers imposed custodianship with two aims: to cut off (potential) enemies from their assets in order to prevent enemy activity, and to enable their own forces to use enemy property in their war efforts. Most countries considered the implications of enemy property control and embedded it in their own legislation. For example, the Dutch East Indies applied the Verordening Rechtsverkeer in Oorlogstijd (Legal Transactions in Wartime Ordinance) to put the property of Germans and Italians under the custodianship of the Commissie voor het Rechtsverkeer in Oorlogstijd (CRO, Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime), the predecessor of the Indonesian Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR, Council for the Restoration of Rights). The CRO’s legal department employed two scholars from the Jakarta Rechtshogeschool (Law School): Wim Wertheim and Jannes Eggens. After the ministration. Folder: 1. SCAP Monographs Drafts, 1945-1951. CPC. Office of the Legal Advisor (OLA). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 2 Laws of War; Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II), 29-07-1899. http://avalon.law. yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp 3 Laws of War; Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II), 29-07-1899. http://avalon.law. yale.edu/19th_century/hague02.asp V The spoils of war 119 war, Wertheim went on to become a sociology professor at the University of Amsterdam and a prominent anti-colonialist. Eggens became the architect of restitution in the Netherlands and the colony (Veraart 2005:58-66). The CRO controlled enemy property ranging from agricultural enterprises to merchant ships in Indonesian harbours. Natural persons and legal entities on the enemy side were forbidden to conduct transactions without the custodian’s prior approval.4 The CRO delegated control over property of German and Austrian natural persons to the weeskamers, the institutions that normally controlled the property and businesses of absentee owners and juvenile heirs. One of Wertheim’s special tasks, and quite a complicated one at that, was to advise the CRO on whether certain individuals should be declared enemies. His word decided whether or not they remained imprisoned and could avail of their property without restrictions. This was of particular importance to Jewish and anti-fascist Germans in the colony (Wertheim 1991:189). After the Netherlands declared war on Japan in December 1941, the CRO also took control of all Japanese property in the colony. Trading and agricultural fi rms accounted for most of the estimated ƒ 32 million of Japanese assets.5 The CRO did more than manage enemy property; it also protected the colonial properties of companies and citizens in the occupied Netherlands. In his capacity as CRO employee, Eggens was in charge of moving large companies’ registered offi ces to the Dutch East Indies. Wertheim managed the affairs of people in the Netherlands who owned real estate in the colony (Wertheim 1991:187-8). On 18 July 1941, the US government froze Japanese assets in the USA. The Japanese Ministry of Finance in turn launched Law no. 99 of 22 December 1941, seizing control of American, British and Dutch assets in Japan.

All available evidence suggests that the Japanese had no detailed plan for taking control of enemy property in the Southern Regions. They had issued a few guidelines, however. The Army and Navy commands in Tokyo had discussed enemy property control in occupied territory on 26 November 1941, more than a week before the attack on Pearl Harbor. They agreed to establish custodianship of enemy military and non-military property. The Army and Navy also made a pledge of mutual assistance (Nishijima et al. 1963:534-6). However, this was a ‘letter of intent’ rather than an actual plan of action. Little coherence can be found in the ways enemy property was administered in Army and Navy-controlled areas. This is no surprise considering the Army- Navy rivalry over the allocation of scarce natural resources from occupied territories.

4 Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 17-5-1940. 5 BI, JB, inv. 2993. 120 The politics of redress

On 30 December 1941, army headquarters in Tokyo issued to its administrations in Southeast Asia what may have been the ﬁ rst general instructions for taking control of enemy property. The administrations were to seize the enemy’s strategic movable and immovable assets, such as factories, workshops, railways, ships and communication installations. Army headquarters urged restraint in the use of enemy property, with the exception of natural resources necessary for military production and consumption.6 Various Japanese documents indicate that the Tokyo Army and Navy commands were trying to establish a uniform custodianship policy in the occupied territories of Southeast Asia. All the occupation authorities in the Southern Regions received a secret document, dated 14 March 1942 and entitled ‘Principles of the Disposition of Military Administration in the Occupied Areas’, which outlined the grounds and procedures for taking control of enemy property. According to the Army and Navy, custodianship was mainly necessary as a means to secure raw materials and supplies for warfare and to protect Japan from its enemies (Shigetada Nishijina and Kishi

1963:560-3). A secondary motive was that Japanese property in the British, American and Dutch colonies and mainland USA had been placed under Allied control; the Japanese authorities wanted to retaliate for this move. In the policy document of 14 March 1942, the Army and Navy commands detailed which movable and immovable goods would be placed under Japanese control. They included all goods belonging to American, British, and Dutch nationals, including people ‘of mixed descent’ (Eurasians) as well as corporate bodies registered in the enemy countries.7 In occupied Indonesia, however, the Japanese authorities did not regard ‘people of mixed descent’ – mainly Eurasians – as enemies. So it is clear that military administrations in the Southern Regions used their own discretion in interpreting instructions from headquarters. There was no clear-cut distinction between enemies and friends. The Japanese military authorities in Java even had difﬁ culty dealing with the property of Axis nationals, Germans and Italians. Decisions were often arbitrary.8 A striking example is the German-owned music shop W. Naessens & Co. with various branches in Java’s big cities. The military administration regarded the Semarang and Surabaya branches as enemy property, but the others as German property. The latter branches were therefore administered by the Sûjiku Kokujin Zaisan Kanri Jimusho, the custodian for property of Axis citizens. The custodian appointed the German owners as managers

6 National Archives of Japan, Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR), B20020328386. 7 JACAR, B20020328386. 8 NIOD, IC, 009356. V The spoils of war 121 and only allowed them to sell their products (from sheet music to pianos) to Japanese citizens or other buyers approved by the custodian.9 Tokyo’s instructions allowed the Army and Navy to seize goods such as cars, telephones, bicycles, and weapons, for immediate military use. The occupying forces did intend to return or provide compensation for these confi scated goods once the war ended. Other strategic resources, such as crude oil, were to be considered loot for which no compensation would be paid. Therefore, such strategic goods were not administered. The Southern Army’s headquarters in Singapore defi ned enemy property (tekisan) as goods, services and investments belonging to public bodies (such as municipalities) and to inhabitants of enemy nations. Real estate belonging to institutions of religion, charity, education, the arts and sciences was considered exempt from looting and sequestration. According to Tokyo headquarters’ instructions, the Japanese authorities were accountable to the population for the seizure of goods for military purposes. Confi scations had to be announced in advance, all confi scated goods had to be registered, and the lists of property made available to the owners. If confi scation deprived the rightful owners of their source of livelihood, the owners were eligible for fi nancial support from the occupier to guarantee a minimum existence (Shigetada Nishijina and Kishi 1963:560-3). These stipulations echoed the 1907 Hague Convention, ratifi ed by Japan in 1911. For example, Article 46 of the convention stipulated that private property must be respected, meaning that it must not be confi scated. Article 47, on looting, was equally unambiguous. Pillage was formally forbidden. Article 52 stipulated that requisitions in kind or services could only be demanded from inhabitants to serve the needs of the occupation army. Contributions in kind had to be paid for in cash, or a receipt had to be given. Article 56 specifi ed that the occupying forces should be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of the property of the occupied state. The property of municipalities, of religious and charitable institutions, and of institutes of art and science, were to be treated as private property. Seizing or deliberately damaging any such property was forbidden and subject to legal proceedings, according to the 1907 Hague Convention. As various Japanese documents clearly indicate, the Tokyo Army command was quite familiar with the Rules of War and knew that the legitimacy of the measures imposed to gain control of enemy property in the occupied territories was problematic. At a joint meeting of the imperial headquarters and the government, the offi cials present voiced warnings that the control of enemy property had to be handled with great care.10 In a later document, written in 1943, an Army Chief of Staff

9 NA, archief RvR, inv. 859. 10 NIOD, IC, 063.130-139. 122 The politics of redress even foresaw that the ‘Empire […] [would] generally follow the regulations of the [...] 1907 treaty concerning legal regulations on War on Land’.11 His words could hardly have been clearer. The Japanese authorities in Tokyo could not plead ignorance of the Rules of War. In March 1943, the Southern Army headquarters in Singapore spelled out in detail the organizational structure and the procedures for taking control of enemy property in the occupied territories of Southeast Asia. The authorities were to take control in the name of the military administration (Gunseikanbu). The military administration would appoint an enemy property administrator, who was known as the Shunin Tekisan Kanrikan. In addition, lower-ranking offi cials with limited powers (Bunnin Tekisan Kanribu) would be appointed to manage specifi c goods. These offi cials were empowered to appoint yet another custodian, preferably a Japanese natural person or corporate body – or, if this was impossible, ‘an upstanding citizen with no hostile leanings’. Private, state, and public (municipal) property would be administered by custodians, or Kanrinin. Their task was to be performed ‘with all of the diligence of a good custodian’. It was left to the custodian to decide whether or not the property would be used for economic purposes. The lower-ranking administrators had to report to the Shunin Tekisan Kanrikan every six months on the amount of property and the location and method of management. They were also expected to assess the value of the property. On order of the military administration, the Shunin Tekisan Kanrikan in turn sent semi-annual reports to the general military administration in Tokyo, which then reported to the Ministry of War (Rikugun Daijin). If arbitration was needed to resolve a dispute, this would be handled by individual Enemy Property Arbitration Boards, or Chihõ Tekisan Shori Iinkai, to be set up in each occupied country. Below is a schematic representation of the Japanese property administration structure in the occupied territories.12 Several elements from this administrative structure were introduced in occupied Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Java and Sumatra.13

Japanese ‘administration’

Until the latter half of May 1942, occupied Indonesia remained free of custodians and management protocols. Individual soldiers looted, while Army and Navy units conﬁ scated whatever property they needed for military

11 JACAR, B20020328386. 12 JACAR, B20020328386. 13 NIOD, archief De Weerd, 010584. On Malaya, see Kratoska 1998:66-7. On the Philippines, see NIOD, IC, 033861. See also Looting general in Philippines. Folder: 16. CPC. ED. Property Service Branch (PSB). GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 123 purposes, facing no resistance. They answered to no one about these activities and appeared not to respect the Rules of War. When the ﬁ rst sporadic reports came of looting during the Japanese invasion, the perpetrators – ironically enough – were not Japanese troops, but Allied soldiers. After the fall of Singapore, groups of British and Australian soldiers ﬂ ed to the nearby island of Bintan, which was still under Dutch East Indies rule. To the surprise and dismay of the last remaining Dutch East

Gunseikanbu Military administration

Chihõ Tekisan Shori Iinka Shunin Tekisan Kanrikan Enemy Property Arbitration Board Enemy property administrator

Bunnin Tekisan Kanrikan Kanrinin Lower officials charged with Custodians enemy property control

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the Japanese property administration structure in the occupied territories.

Indies ofﬁ cials, these troops were seriously lacking in military discipline. They plundered the deserted homes of Europeans in the village of Tanjung Pinang. Preoccupied by preparations for their own evacuation, the local authorities were unable to stop the looting.14 There are very few reported cases of looting by Japanese soldiers in Indonesia. One exception is the story about the home of the Assistant-Resident of Meester Cornelis (currently Jatinegara, Jakarta). As Japanese soldiers carried off some furnishings, the son of the Dutch administrator persuaded one of them to issue him a written statement forbidding the plundering of this house. The next day, another Japanese soldier showed up with a large group of Indonesians, intent on removing the rest of the possessions. But when the Assistant-Resident’s son presented the Japanese letter, the soldier and his mob left empty-handed.15 There is also mention of Japanese troops breaking into homes, looking for valuables that were easy to transport and hide. The

14 NIOD, IC, 003532. 15 NIOD, IC, 003526. 124 The politics of redress soldiers were particularly keen on watches, fountain pens, and cameras.16 A better-documented phenomenon is the confi scation of goods by Japanese troops for use in warfare (requisitioning). The goods they confi scated were natural resources crucial to the war industry, such as oil and rubber stored in Javanese and Sumatran ports, and the stock in trade of the large Dutch import and export businesses. Because of their strategic importance, the oil supplies, fi elds and refi neries in Sumatra were made part of the Southern Fuel Depot of the General Army Headquarters in Singapore.17 For the entire duration of the war, the oil industry remained beyond the control of the various Japanese custodians. Requisitioning was a disorderly business, as we know from the way Japanese Army and Navy units took over Dutch import and export companies in Java and the Outer Islands. Without coordinating their actions, Japanese Army and Navy offi cials inspected and sealed offi ces and warehouses. In some locations the cash was confi scated, while in others it was left untouched.18 When the branch manager of the Nederlands-Indische Handelsbank in Manado was forced to hand over ƒ 11,000 in cash in February 1942, military authorities refused to give him a receipt (Korthals Altes 2004:369-70). The vanguard of the Japanese Army and Navy regarded cash and stock in trade as spoils of war. The Japanese Navy’s requisitioning of the Dutch hospital steamer ‘Op ten Noort’ is a most unusual story, if only because the record of its fate contains such wildly confl icting reports. The Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) vessel had been delivered to the Dutch Navy just before the Japanese invasion to serve as a hospital ship. The 1929 Geneva Convention had outlawed any fi ring upon or requisitioning of hospital ships. Although the treaty had been ratifi ed by the Japanese government before the war, this did not stop the Japanese Navy from bombarding the ‘Op ten Noort’ on 21 February 1942. Then, on 28 February, the ship was intercepted by the Japanese and forced to anchor off Bawean Island in the Java Sea. The Japanese Navy escorted the ship to Banjarmasin, later directing her to Yokohama via Makassar. The Dutch crew was interned (Bakker 1950:105-8). The Japanese renamed the vessel ‘Teno Maru’ in June 1942 and changed its name to ‘Daini Hikawa Maru’ on 1 November 1944. These were not the only violations of international law. While the Japanese government had registered Teno Maru with the Red Cross as a hospital ship, it was actually being used to transport supplies. According to Kunitaka Mikami, a Japanese investigative journalist who used the ship’s log as his source, the ship was repeatedly used to haul rice, rubber, crude oil and other raw materials from the occupied territories to Japan. It loaded oil in

16 NIOD, IC, 003400. 17 NIOD, IC, 033861. 18 NIOD, IC, 029439-029447; see also Asia Raya, 14-07-1942. V The spoils of war 125

Tarakan and rice in Saigon, for example. The ship was not only used to move supplies for the war industry, it also served to transport personnel. On 27 March 1945, the vessel steamed from Ambon to Singapore carrying more than a thousand Navy troops (Kunitaka 2001:151, 167, 172, 206, 213, 270-5). The requisitioning and the mysterious disappearance of the ship at the end of the war eventually led to a settlement with the Netherlands (see Chapter VIII). The forced rice deliveries in Java, which the military administration introduced in April 1943, can also be seen as a type of requisitioning. Rice was needed for domestic consumption, to feed the Japanese Army and Navy, and for export to other occupied areas. There was initially a free market system, but a dwindling food supply forced the Army to take measures. The Japanese administration set rice quotas for individual villages at fi xed prices. Direct supervision was left to village heads. Rice traders and owners of rice mills were placed in the employment of the Shokuryô Kanri Zimusho (SKZ; Bureau of Food Supplies). They husked and traded rice at a fi xed commission. Trade between residencies was strictly forbidden. Rice deliveries invariably fell short of the quota, so village heads had to resort to house-to-house inspections and intimidation to uncover hidden rice supplies. On the whole, the level of coercion increased. Apart from concealing rice, villagers also traded it on the black market for much higher prices than the rate set by the occupying forces. The prevalence of rice shortages and famines during the war throws doubt on the success of forced rice deliveries. Based on Japanese fi gures, Kurasawa calculated that the rural population in Java handed over less than 20% of its total annual production to the Japanese administration. She considers this a relatively low percentage since pre-war deliveries to the Dutch East Indies government, which were not forced, amounted to 25% of total production. Because coercion was used during the occupation, Kurasawa also considers it plausible that Javanese farmers delivered more rice than the fi gures in the Japanese books indicate (Kurasawa 1988:121-4, 131-3, 148-9). Whatever the precise percentage may have been, rice deliveries can be classifi ed as requisitioning for military purposes because they directly served the needs of the Army and the Navy. The ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in Java and Sumatra were forced to pay war tax and ‘donations’ towards the war effort. Whether these were requisitions for direct military purposes is hard to say. In July 1942, the military authorities in Sumatra ordered the Chinese community, which was seen as the ‘wealthy class’, to come up with US$ 30-40 million. In Java, the administration did not opt for such a collective payment but instead forced individual Chinese businesspeople to contribute to the war fund. Apart from these ‘donations’, the Java administration also levied a war tax on Chinese residents (Twang 1998:76-8). It is debatable whether such ‘levies’ can be regarded as requisitioning. On paper at least, these payments all went to 126 The politics of redress the war effort, but it was unclear who, precisely, was supposed to pay what amount.

Locomotive of the Nederlands-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij requisitioned by the Japanese and dismantled for transport overseas. Yogyakarta, October 1942. (NIOD 48736-1.)

In the second half of May 1942, the fi rst signs of enemy property control became visible in Java and Sumatra. On 18 May, the Tekisan Kanri Jimusho (Enemy Property Administration) took control of the Dutch import businesses in Java. This custodian would later become known in Java and Sumatra as the Tekisan Kanribu (Offi ce for the Management of Enemy Property). It would administer the property of natural persons, including the business assets of small entrepreneurs such as shopkeepers. It is unknown exactly when the Tekisan Kanribu and its predecessor were established. Nevertheless, the fact that this institution existed as early as May 1942 proves that the Army administration in Java had started seizing enemy property. It seems that the Tekisan Kanri Jimusho in those early days of the occupation was still badly organized and that Japanese Army units were not impressed by this new custodian. It failed to take control of the stock in trade of the Dutch East Indies trading companies, for instance, because various Army units refused to hand over the warehouse keys to Tekisan offi cials. This confusing situation V The spoils of war 127 continued until November 1942. A month later, control of import businesses was transferred entirely to the Tekisan Kanribu. In the years to come, the custodian sold leftover stock in trade to the Jûyô Busshi Kôdan (Corporation for the Management of Vital Goods).19 Lack of coordination and cooperation between Japanese Army units and the Tekisan Kanribu, as well as the contradictory policies of the custodian itself, also caused problems when Dutch banks in Java were liquidated. On 11 April 1942, the military administration in Java shut down all enemy banks until further notice. In May 1942, a group of Japanese bank employees recruited by the War Ministry in Tokyo arrived in Java to assess the fi nancial situation of enemy banks.20 Following orders from the War Ministry, the military administration decided to permanently dissolve all Dutch banks on the basis of Ordinance no. 44 on 20 October 1942. Hiroshi Yamamoto, manager of the Bank of Japan and head of Tekisan Kanribu’s research department, was in charge of the liquidation.21 The Dutch fi nancial institutions were to be replaced by Japanese banks. In order to complete liquidation, the banks called in the loans they had given to businesses. However, many trading companies owned by ethnic Chinese and British Indians had put up their stock in trade as security for these loans. These stocks had in the meantime been confi scated and sold off by Japanese Army units and the Tekisan Kanribu, even though the owners were not considered enemy subjects. The Army units and the Tekisan Kanribu refused to divert revenue to pay off loans to the Dutch banks in liquidation. According to the sources, large sums of money were involved. This course of action apparently threatened the liquidity position of several Dutch banks, and complicated the administration of the Dutch banks’ liquidation because accounts payable were settled either late or not at all.22 In the long run, however, the latter proved not to be an insurmountable problem for the Japanese authorities. They completed the liquidation of the Dutch banks in 1944. For the remainder of the occupation, certain Army units kept evading the authority of the custodian and the property control protocols. The feared Kempetai (Military Police) stole goods under the guise of confi scation and requisitioning without asking permission from the Tekisan Kanribu. In September 1942, for example, the Kempetai seized the textile stocks of the Jakarta and Cirebon stores of the Indonesian Arab textile trader Abdulkadir

19 NIOD, archief De Weerd, 009358. 20 Report on Liquidation Proceedings of Banks in Japan, 1945-1951. Folder 4. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. Operations Division (OD). Foreign Property Branch (FPB). United Nations Property Unit (UNPU). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 21 Report on Liquidation Proceedings of Banks in Japan, 1945-1951. Folder 4. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. UNPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 22 Archief De Javasche Bank, Bank Indonesia, inv. 2974. 128 The politics of redress

Abdullah bin Afi ff. The Kempetai reimbursed the textile factory for the chemicals and dyes, but at a fraction of their price. The military police then forced Bin Afiff to deposit the money in an account at the Yokohama Specie Bank and also fi ned the businessman’s father ƒ 140,000 for no apparent reason. In another case, on 27 June 1944, the Kempetai took 37 diamonds, worth ƒ 750,000 in total, from a safe in the house of one Lim Kang Tjoean in Garut, West Java.23 Many private possessions disappeared in this way: silver, copper and nickel coins, bars of gold, keris, musical instruments, famous art, Chinese porcelain, stamp collections and cars. Because such confi scations were not instigated by the Japanese custodians, they were never entered in the books and there is no hard evidence they ever happened. These ‘confi scations’ were actually examples of looting, pure and simple: the military need was either unclear or absent, and no compensation, or only a meagre one, was offered. Japanese Tekisan offi cials tried to put a stop to the arbitrary looting. For example, a secret instruction from the 16th Army (no. 657, undated) mentions a request from the Enemy Property Administration to the Gunseikan to call on local military authorities to prevent ‘unlawful’ confi scations by Army units. According to the Administration, property was too often confi scated without the Supreme Commander’s approval and without the Administration’s involvement.24 This appeal to the Japanese Supreme Commander again points to the battle for competency between the Tekisan Kanribu and the Army units. According to a report by the Tekisan Offi ce that can be dated to August 1944, custodianship was administered ‘most fairly and most reasonable [sic] in accordance with the principle of international custom’.25 The report conceded that there had been some problems at the outset, but it also stated that ‘the administration has become perfect nowadays’.26

Economic mobilization

Enemy property control in Java entered a new phase in June 1942, when a number of new custodians were established. All export-oriented plantations in Java, regardless of whether they were enemy-owned, were placed under the management of the Saibai Kigyô Kanri Kôdan (Corporation for the Administration of Agricultural Businesses) in July 1942. One month earlier, the Japanese had already founded the Shiryôchi Kanri Kôsha (Corporation for the Administration of Private Estates).27 The Japanese government had

23 ANRI, AS, inv. 301; MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1790. 24 NA, AS, inv. 5228. 25 NIOD, IC, 012583. 26 NIOD, IC, 012583. 27 Kan Po, Aug. 1942, no. 1. V The spoils of war 129 not publicly announced the establishment of the Tekisan Kanribu. Yet, the Ordinance publication Kan Po did openly refer to the two new custodians. The custodians’ objectives stated in the ordinances simultaneously served to legitimize their existence. According to the Japanese, the plantations were taken over for the benefi t of the population. Custodianship of agricultural businesses was necessary, they said, to combat the unemployment on plantations caused by the collapse of the global produce market brought on by the war. According to the offi cial reading, custodianship of private estates was necessary to offer the population an improved standard of living. The takeover of private estates was announced in an unusual way, not with a legal text full of jargon but in a fi ctional dialogue between an inhabitant of an estate and a representative of the Shiryôchi Kanri Kôsha. In the dialogue, the Japanese offi cial reassures the inhabitant about the taxes and rent to be paid.28 It reads like an attempt by the Japanese to avert social unrest on the estates, which during the Japanese invasion, as we saw earlier, had turned very violent. In these statements the military administration did not mention the property of enemy groups. In October 1942, a third corporation was established: the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan (Corporation for the Administration of Real Estate).29 This custodian’s offi cial purpose was to monitor the price of real estate in Java and to supervise the maintenance, usufruct and repair of buildings and land. When Kan Po announced the establishment of this body, it made no mention of enemy property. In practice, however, the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan bore all the hallmarks of an institution designed to administer enemy property. The offi ce reported directly to the Gunseikan. The Japanese Army brought in a start-up capital of ƒ 2 million. Profi ts were to be transferred to the military administration.30 The Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan clearly saw its mandate as wider than the administration of real estate; the institution also included a department of movable goods. The custodian administered not only the homes of enemy groups, but also the furnishings found in them. It sold confi scated furniture to Japanese soldiers and civilians employed by Japanese companies, and to Indonesians and ethnic Chinese.31 According to Zorab, this led to ‘considerable dispossession’, a statement which he failed to substantiate with fi gures (Zorab 1954:80). It is likely that he was right, however, since the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan took over the work of the Jakarta auctioneering fi rm for movable assets, the Balai Djoeal-Beli Barang-Bergerak, in December 1942. Because of the large number of foreigners put into camps, the custodian had a plethora of household items

28 Kan Po, Aug. 1942, no. 1. 29 Kan Po, Oct. 1942, no. 5. 30 Kan Po, Dec. 1942, no. 9. 31 NEI Looted Property, 1946-1951. Folder 46. CPC. OD. FPB. Looted Property Unit (LPU). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 130 The politics of redress at its disposal. The auctioneering fi rm no doubt functioned as a sales centre. In December 1942, the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan also opened new branch offi ces in Surabaya and Malang.32 The fact that the institution was also involved in the collection of precious metals and stones in Java only underscores the wide scope of its activities. In May 1943, the military administration in Java established the Jûyô Busshi Kôdan (Corporation for the Administration of Vital Goods), with the aim of buying, storing, selling and distributing raw materials (minerals), semi- fi nished products (steel, chemicals) and strategic fi nished products (machines, textile, cement, medications).33 Like the other custodians, it reported directly to the military administration and bought goods from the Tekisan Kanribu and (Japanese) companies.34 In post-war years, the Dutch mockingly referred to the Jûyô Busshi Kôdan as the ‘wrecking kodan’, because it was involved in buying up equipment from the Dutch-owned sugar plans in Java dismantled by the Japanese Army (Rodenburg 1946:40). In October 1943, control of enemy property in Java was organized as follows:35

GUNSEIKANBU Military administration

Jûyô Busshi Kôdan Tekisan Kanribu Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan Saibai Kigyô Kanri Kôdan Corporation for Enemy Property Corporation for the Corporation for the the Administration Management Administration of Administration of of Vital Goods Real Estate Agricultural Businesses

Shiryôchi Kanri Kôsha Corporation for the Administration of Private Estates

Figure 2: Schematic representation of the Japanese control of enemy property in Java, October 1943.

The administration of enemy property in Sumatra was structured along similar lines. The Japanese 25th Army, stationed at Fort de Kock (present- day Bukittinggi, West Sumatra) initially opened the Tekisan Kanri Kyoku (Bureau for Enemy Property Control) in July 1942, closed it down in June 1943, and replaced it with the Tekisan Kanribu. At the same time, the military

32 Kan Po, Jan. 1943, no. 10. 33 Kan Po, June 1943 no. 20. 34 NA, AS, inv. 5224. 35 This fl ow chart is based on the following sources: Kan Po, Oct. 1942, no. 5; Kan Po, Aug. 1942 no. 1; NA, AS, inv. 5224 and NA, AS, inv. 5224. V The spoils of war 131 administration’s Finance Department established its own division, the Tekisan Kanrika (Enemy Property Department).36 Agricultural enterprises in Sumatra were placed under the control of the Nôen Kanri Kyoku (Offi ce for the Supervision of Agricultural Businesses). It is unknown exactly when the military administration in Sumatra created this offi ce (Westerhout 1947:461-2).

Although the ofﬁ cial announcements are evidence of a systematic, policy- based approach, the Japanese authorities were loathe to publicize the fact that they were taking over enemy property. The military hoped to gain the cooperation of enemy and other groups while collecting strategic goods for the war effort. Their reticence probably did no good, however. Civilians, regardless of whether they were considered enemies, feared they would be forced to hand over possessions with little or no compensation. The population started burying their small valuables such as jewellery, even in the internment camps. Another strategy, practised mainly by Europeans who feared internment, was to sell movable goods such as furniture or give them to Indonesian friends and acquaintances for safekeeping.37 The military administration was well aware of these strategies. Buying enemy property was permitted only with the approval of the authorities. All goods belonging to Europeans who were about to be interned had to be transferred to the military administration. The administration also searched for hidden treasure and investigated whether goods had been given to front men for safekeeping. According to one Dutch source, many who attempted to keep their possessions out of Japanese hands were found out.38

Tekisan Kanribu

In the spring of 1943, the military administration in Java changed the organizational structure of the Tekisan Kanribu, replaced its staff, rewrote its protocols, and started registering all enemy property in Java. The Japanese were probably tightening the reins because the tide was turning against them. Despite Japan’s initial military successes, the Allies were gradually putting the Japanese on the defensive. Allied blockades were effective, increasingly isolating Japan and the occupied territories. It became harder to exchange raw materials between the territories; supplies were running out. To make matters worse, the production of war material was not going as planned.

36 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 37 NIOD, IC, 018087. 38 NIOD, IC, 018087, see also NIOD, IC, 004839 and IISG. Henri Aa Collection, portfolio 13, ‘Rechtszaken’ folder. 132 The politics of redress

An inter departmental budget committee in Tokyo voiced these concerns at a meeting in early February 1943. One suggestion made during a debate on war production was to improve the management of enemy assets. However, Prime Minister Tôjô Hideki had no practical suggestion as to how this could be achieved.39 He and his ministers had already concluded that a good overview of all enemy assets was needed in order to more effectively exploit the available natural resources, semi-ﬁ nished and ﬁ nished products for war production. A month earlier, on 7 January 1943, the War Ministry had ordered the military administrations in the occupied Southern Territories to take inventory of all enemy property.40 For this large and highly specialized task, the ministry had selected 127 inspectors exclusively from zaibatsu circles in Japan. The zaibatsu were the monopolistic family businesses that dominated Japanese banking, trade and industry. These inspectors were sent to the occupied territories in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.41 Twenty-four of them went to Java in May 1943, and only a handful to the Philippines. All of the inspectors had completed their work by late June 1944 and they submitted their reports to the War Ministry in Tokyo. To have completed such a complicated task so quickly, the inspectors and their commissioner must have treated the matter as very urgent. Their estimate of all enemy assets in Java totalled about ƒ 3.5 billion; this was the sum of estimated values of all industrial, agricultural and service enterprises, public utilities, and all other companies that the inspectors had categorized in a separate ‘miscellaneous’ category.42

In Java, the Tekisan Kanribu became an established institution with a clear structure as prescribed by Army headquarters in Singapore. The institution answered to the military administration and was assisted by an advisory committee made up of members of the 16th Army staff and high-ranking offi cials from various departments. Day-to-day management of the offi ce was handled by a head (Tekisan Kanri-Buchô) and deputy, both of them Japanese. Civilians were permitted to fi ll these posts. The offi ce was subdivided into various departments and subdepartments, with local branch offi ces throughout Java and Sumatra and an offi ce in Makassar (South Sulawesi). The Tekisan Kanribu had four departments: Sômuka (General Affairs), Kanrika (Administration of Movable Assets), Keirika (Accounting) and Chosaka (Research) (Schoevers 1946:26, 47).43 Tekisan offi cials worked out the administrative procedures in detail. In the spring of 1943 they argued for closer cooperation with Fudôsan Kanri

39 JACAR, B20020328386. 40 NIOD, IC, 063130-139. 41 NIOD, IC, 063130-139. 42 NIOD, IC, 063.130-139. 43 NA, AS, inv. 5228. V The spoils of war 133

Kôdan in order to more effi ciently manage real estate.44 They propagated the use of detailed standard forms to register the goods taken into custody, and provided guidelines for confi scating abandoned property such as the homes and furnishings of Dutch internees. They developed similar procedures for dealing with the property of those ethnic Chinese who were considered of ‘enemy nature’.45 Although the military authorities generally regarded the Chinese as Asian brothers, there were always exceptions to the rule; these were mainly Kuomintang supporters and people who had shown anti- Japanese leanings even before the occupation of the Dutch East Indies, by being active in organizations that aided victims of the Sino-Japanese war for instance. According to Twang, the offi cial number of Chinese Indonesians detained by the Japanese military administration in Java was 542. The Tekisan Kanribu took control of their possessions (Twang 1998:74-5). The Japanese custodians put the money they paid in compensation for confi scated goods in a special account for enemy subjects: the A-account at the Nanpo Kaihatsu Kinko (Southern Development Bank), also known as the Nanpo Bank. This bank was the fi nancial hub of the Army-occupied territories in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Nanpo Bank reported directly to the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan in Tokyo. It had branch offi ces in Singapore, Rangoon (Yangon), Jakarta and Manila, and started functioning as a bank of circulation in Java and Sumatra on 8 April 1943. It fi nanced the 16th and 25th Armies. The Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB) acted as an agent of the Nanpo Bank in Java and Sumatra. Established in 1880, the YSB was the most important bank in all the Japanese-controlled and occupied territories. It had some 90 branch offi ces throughout Japan, China and Southeast Asia. The Japanese Imperial family was a majority shareholder in the bank. The other shares were held by approximately 5,800 partners.46 The Japanese bank withheld back taxes from the compensation it paid for confi scated goods. Enemy subjects whose possessions had been confi scated could not freely dispose of their compensation money because the A-account for enemy subjects had been blocked. Apart from the A-account, the military administration also held four other accounts at the Nanpo Bank: the B-account for deposits of non-enemy subjects, the C-account for confi scated cash from enemy banks in Java, the D-account for credit balances of public organizations (such as municipalities) and the E-account for credit balances of the CRO (Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime) (Van Horn et al. 2000:36).

44 NA, AS, inv. 5228. 45 NA, AS, inv. 5228. 46 History of the nonmilitary activities of the occupation of Japan (1945 through September 1949). Money and Banking. Folder 6. SCAP Monograph Drafts, 1945-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 134 The politics of redress

According to the Japanese administration, revenues from the sale of enemy property deposited at the Nanpo Bank amounted to approximately ƒ 114 million on 25 August 1945. This was the sum total of confi scated cash, requisitioning and forced sale of about 7,000 people’s property.47 The real monetary value of these goods was undoubtedly much higher than the books suggest because the goods were sold at extremely low prices. The number of property owners must also have been higher, since there were about 300,000 Dutch people in Indonesia – 100,000 of whom had been interned and most of whom lived in Java. With reference to post-war restitution, it is important to note that the people affected by confi scation held a claim against one of the Japanese banks involved in the confi scation. The eventual restitution process for these receivables from the Nanpo Bank and the Yokohama Specie Bank was conducted in an extremely nontransparent manner, and the ultimate results were bitterly disappointing to the claimants. The Tekisan Kanribu tended to entrust administrative tasks to Japanese and Chinese Indonesian civilians, many of whom were entrepreneurs themselves. An example of this is how the Japanese dealt with the ‘enemy-owned’ retail stores in Java. One Dutch chemist in Bandung was told, much to his surprise, to hand over the keys to his pharmacy to a Japanese shopkeeper who used to come in for a friendly chat before the war.48 In many cases, the custodian appointed shop personnel to manage the business under the supervision of a Japanese administrator. The Tekisan Kanribu phased out all enemy shops. The fi rst wave of liquidations hit the clothing shops in August 1943. All remaining stocks were moved to Japanese stores. It could not have been much merchandise because retail stocks had barely been replenished during the occupation. February 1944 saw a second wave of liquidations when the Tekisan Kanribu ordered all retail stores closed down. In Jakarta, the custodian transferred the lion’s share of the stocks from liquidated businesses to a Japanese store called Toko Okamura. We can safely assume that Japanese stores were involved in the liquidation of European retailers in all of Java’s major cities. The Tekisan Kanribu sold the stocks on commission. Buyers had to pay in cash. The Army confi scated a large share of the stock and put it up for sale in Army toko (stores) where Japanese offi cers did their shopping (Schoevers 1946:47). The custodian also sold enemy possessions privately, using auctioneering fi rms, private traders and Japanese toko as appraisers and middlemen. However, it remains unclear exactly what role these distributors played in the property appropriation chain. According to a British source, the Tekisan Kanribu in Surabaya employed the services of Indonesians and Eurasians,

47 The owners were registed by name, but this detailed information could not be found. NIOD, IC, 012583. 48 Mr. T., personal communication,Vught, 3-4-2003. V The spoils of war 135 including the Secretary of the Surabaya Chamber of Commerce. This source claims that several local European shopkeepers were also involved in the sale of enemy property.49 The Tekisan Kanribu employed not only distributors but also inspectors who were authorized to seize property and collect debts. They were also recruited from among the Japanese civilians who had been living in the Archipelago since before the war, and from the Chinese Indonesian population. Obviously, they had to speak Malay. These inspectors provided inventories, appraised the value of goods and reported to their superiors. They also provided policy advice to the Tekisan Kanribu about improving management. As ‘fi eld workers’, these inspectors had detailed knowledge of the enemy population’s fi nancial situation. One Japanese inspector’s report that was translated into English gives an impression of his job and describes his debtors: enemy shopkeepers in West Java. 50 The report, written in March 1943, paints a picture of a relatively good relationship between the administrator and the debtors (shopkeepers, small manufacturers, hotel owners). The debtors could negotiate with the inspector on repayment amounts and due dates. By February 1944, enemy retailers were no longer in business and the work of the inspectors was done. In May 1945, the Tekisan Kanribu in Jakarta was renamed Sômubu Tekisan Kanrishitsu (Chamber of Enemy Property, Department of General Affairs).51 This appears to have been more than a cosmetic change. The new name indicated that the custodian no longer served directly under the military administration, but under General Affairs. This suggests that the Army administration now considered direct involvement in the custodial institution a lower priority and may point to a decrease in property management activities. The inspectors and Tekisan Kanribu offi cials were meticulous bookkeepers, as seen from the accounting books a Dutch CRO member found at the Tekisan’s head offi ce in Jakarta after the Japanese capitulation. In August 1945, the CRO put down a total amount of ƒ 143 million for the goods seized and sold by the Japanese custodian in Java and Madura, consisting of

Table 2: Breakdown of the amount of cash for goods seized and sold by the Japanese custodian in Java and Madura (CRO, Aug. 1945) A. Seized cash ƒ 12 million B. Collected debts ƒ 25 million C. Sale of movable goods ƒ 94 million D. Other, unknown ƒ 12 million

49 NIOD, IC, 009357a. 50 NA, AS, inv. 5230. 51 Asia Raya, 23-05-1945. 136 The politics of redress

The category ‘Unknown’ was comprised of transactions that had been left unspeciﬁ ed by the Tekisan Kanribu branches due to the chaos surrounding the Japanese capitulation (Schoevers 1946:47).52

Defeat the enemy with diamonds!

The Japanese Army and Navy showed great interest in minerals and semi- fi nished products, particularly precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, radium) and gems (diamonds). Like gold, diamonds were stable in value and could be exchanged for other raw materials from the occupied territories, to be used towards the war effort. The Army used diamonds from the Dutch East Indies to buy copper from China, for instance.53 Diamonds were more than a means of exchange, though. They were also highly valuable for cutting, grinding and polishing steel and duraluminium (an aluminium alloy used for airplane engines) in the manufacturing of airplanes and munitions.54 The aviation industry also used radium.55 Platinum was used in the production of conductors.56 In order to obtain these minerals, the Army and Navy commands in Tokyo mounted campaigns in the occupied territories using the combined forces of Army units, custodians, Japanese companies and private traders. They used three collection methods: confi scation, (forced) sale and forced labour. Confi scation amounted to seizure of enemy goods by the authorities, with the promise of compensation. The institution or Army unit that carried out the confi scation deposited the compensation in the Nanpo Bank’s A-account in the name of the rightful owner. Sale of goods was not a form of custodianship and was, in theory, not forced. However, there is ample reason to assume the military authorities pressured non-enemy groups into selling their goods at low prices. And fi nally, the Japanese military administration obtained rough diamonds and platinum ore from forced labour. The Navy forced the Indonesian population to work in the opencast diamond mines and platinum mines in South Kalimantan for very low pay. This ‘collection method’ was also unrelated to custodianship and should rather be seen as direct requisitioning of services and goods.

52 These data could no longer be found in the archives. 53 ANRI, AS, inv. 1598; United Kingdom R & R Delegation. Folder: 8. Numerical File, 1947- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 54 Asia Raya 2-1-1945. 55 NA, Dossierarchief MvK, inv. 9609. 56 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. See Asia Raya 5-1-1945. V The spoils of war 137

In the framework of liquidating the Dutch banks, bank manager Yamamoto was ordered not only to collect debts, but also to register, appraise and sell all the gold, silver, diamonds and securities in the bank vaults and safe deposit boxes of natural persons and legal entities. Employees of the local Tekisan Kanribu ofﬁ ces and the Yokahama Specie Bank carried out this task.57 On 20 October 1942, Yamamoto called on enemy safe deposit box holders to report to their banks in liquidation with the keys to their deposit boxes. The ‘invitation’ was repeated in March 1943, because many Dutch people had been interned or gone into hiding and had missed the call. The message, written in poor English, read:

In accordance with the Proclamation no. 44 dated 20th October 2602, I have to terminate the contract regarding you Safe Deposit (Boxes no. 23/I) rented from … [name of Dutch East Indies bank, PK]. You are hereby informed that the contents of above mentioned box(es) are at the disposal of you or your proxy, as far as they are not of interest for the Nippon army. In connection herewith you or your representative are (is) requested to apply to the ofﬁce of …. [name of bank, PK] , on … [date, PK] and/or [date, PK] every week between 10. a.m. - 1 p.m. before the end of March 2603. You are requested to bring with you both keys in your possession and also you private key in case you have used your own box. The contents of the Safe-deposit boxes which have not applied from within one month will be inspected by me. In case the articles are not of interest for the Nippon Army, they will be kept by me in your name.58

The Tekisan Kanribu was also involved in this operation. In Surabaya, the custodian addressed enemy safe deposit box holders in the Malay language, requesting that they report to the ofﬁ ce where the contents of their deposit boxes could be inspected. The boxes could then be ‘administered’ in the holder’s name (jang diadministrasikan atas nama Toean).59 The Japanese authorities, including Yamamoto, the appointed liquidator, did not mention sanctions for failing to report for inspection. In March 1943, he sent another circular to the agencies of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM) and De Javasche Bank asking them to open all safe deposit boxes by the end of that month and to inspect them for goods that might be of value to the Japanese Army. The letter explains the procedure for opening the safe deposit boxes, thus showing the boxes’ owners that this was a regulated, legal and legitimate action which would respect their ownership rights. According to Yamamoto’s instructions the safe deposit boxes were only to be opened in the presence of a Japanese

57 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 58 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. SCAP, NARA. 59 NIOD, IC, 080281. 138 The politics of redress offi cial and the deposit box holder or his/her appointed proxy. This procedure was necessary, Yamamoto wrote, ‘to avoid possible claims’. The offi cials followed it to the letter.60 His instructions avoided use of the terms ‘seizure’ and ‘confi scation’ and instead spoke of ‘safekeeping’. The liquidator would return any items to the box holders that were not of interest to the Army and would, in the case of enemy subjects, ‘administer’ these.61 The box holders were required to sign a receipt with a standard text in Malay, which translates as: ‘Taken into consignment on orders of the Imperial Japanese Army pending settlement of specifi ed goods from the safe deposit box registered in the name of [name of box holder] in the administration of the [name of Dutch bank, PK]’.62 The inspectors gave out receipts, sometimes a list of the contents of the safe deposit box. The contents consisted mainly of gem-studded gold, gold watches, and silver jewellery and coins.63 The Japanese inspectors visited seven enemy banks in Java: the four Dutch banks, two British banks – the Chartered Bank and the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation – and the Chinese-owned Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation. Some 2,000 articles from the boxes passed through the inspectors’ hands, half of which were returned to the boxes. As Yamamoto’s data show, most confi scated objects came from the boxes of the four Dutch banks. There, the inspectors ‘harvested’ more than 700 objects in all: 174 diamond items, 311 gold items, 172 silver items and 96 other objects (coins and banknotes). In compensation, Yamamoto put almost ƒ 1.5 million into the A-account at the Nanpo Bank, while ƒ 250,000 were transferred to the Nanpo B-account.64 The total number of safe deposit box holders cannot be reconstructed. The available data are only from a few of the branch offi ces of the Nederlands- Indische Handelsbank and the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij in Java. From this information we know that 219 box holders lost their possessions. Of these, 52 box holders actually received compensation (Van Horn, Van der Maar and Keppy 2003:20-1). The others could not touch their money because the Japanese authorities had deposited it in the blocked Nanpo A-account. Their hopes that this compensation would be made available to them after the war, and that they would get back their jewellery and other valuables, would be dashed.

60 NA, AS, inv. 5230. 61 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 62 NIOD, IC, 080281. 63 Ishifuku Shoten Ltd, 1946-1951. Folder 8. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 64 Report on Liquidation Proceedings of Banks in Japan, 1945-1951. Folder 4. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. UNPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 139

De Javasche Bank staff member M. Plantema, who Yamamoto still had on the payroll in the spring of 1943, was well aware that jewellery and other valuables would fall into Japanese hands and that no compensation would be paid. He implored Yamamoto not to sell the enemy-owned silver that was in the custody of the banks in liquidation, but to hold on to it as blocked deposits. Plantema pointed out that the market value of silver was negligible. He questioned how much profi t the Japanese Army could make on its sale. He also mentioned the emotional value of silver jewellery, usually family heirlooms.65 Yamamoto would not be swayed. In August 1943, the box holders gradually found out what the ‘safekeeping’ of their deposit box contents meant. They could not freely dispose of the money in the Nanpo A-account and their silver was sold off by Yamamoto.66 Only non-enemy box holders got their silver back. But if they happened to be absent, the liquidator would sell the objects anyway and put the revenue in the B-account of the Nanpo Bank in Jakarta. The local Department of Movable Goods of the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan put the enemy groups’ silver objects up for sale at public auctions.67 Such auctions took place at least until November 1943. The Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan deposited the revenue in the special A-account, after deducting taxes and a 10% commission. The Japanese banks also sold silver privately to non- enemy buyers and put the proceeds of these sales in the Nanpo A-account.68 Items other than silver were to remain untouched, according to Yamamoto’s instructions. Japanese offi cials deposited these items in sealed vaults in the name of the rightful owner.69 Even within the internment camps, the Japanese coerced internees into handing over their valuables, following the same basic procedures as on the outside (Kemperman 2002:187).70 The collection in the Tjideng women’s camp in Jakarta is illustrative. The Japanese camp command forced internees to hand over specifi c items such as jewellery in exchange for either cash payment or food. The revenues were put into a blocked account at the Yokohama Specie Bank in the name of the seller.71 The command at this particular camp was quite obsessive in its administration of seized goods. It drew up incredibly

65 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 66 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 67 Erdbrink, G.R. – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 37. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 68 NEI – Handelsbank – Java Branch, 1946-1951. Folder 55. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 69 NEI – Handelsbank – Java Branch, 1946-1951. Folder 55. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 70 NA, AS, inv. 5245; ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 71 NA, AS, inv. 5245. 140 The politics of redress detailed lists of internees’ possessions, noting down everything from working and broken refrigerators to types of glasses and brands of tableware. Europeans and ethnic Chinese also lost their jewellery in other ways. The military administration required them to register their jewellery so the Japanese Army could ‘protect’ it. What this protection was supposed to consist of was anyone’s guess. Men had to pay ƒ 150 and women ƒ 100 for this ‘service’. Many (the source does not specify how many) were unable to pay or simply did not report to the authorities.72 Payment in instalments or in jewellery was also possible. Jewellery could be pawned in government-run pawn shops.

The Army and private enterprise

Let us take a closer look at both how the Japanese organized the confi scation of goods in the internment camps and the contents of safes, and who was involved in this endeavour. The supply regiment of the Japanese Army headquarters in Java launched several campaigns to obtain gold and diamonds. The Army called upon Ishifuku Shoten Industry Co., a Japanese company, for the appraisal and purchasing of gold. Ishifuku did not limit itself to the contents of safe deposit boxes. It appraised all gold items the Japanese Army had seized in Java.73 Ishifuku was probably a subsidiary of the Mitsui conglomerate. The company opened an offi ce in Jakarta on 17 November 1942 and started doing business there in April 1943.74 Ishifuku bought gold at a fi xed price of ƒ 7.56 per momme (an old Japanese unit of weight equalling 3.75 grams). For credit, Ishifuku turned to the Yokohama Specie Bank.75 The trading company deposited the proceeds in the Nanpo A-account. All precious metals were shipped off to Japan. A transport that took place at the end of 1943 serves as a typical example of such shipments In December 1943, the supply regiment of the 16th Army transferred gold and silver coins and silver bars collected by Ishifuku and Army units to an ordnance. There were about 200 crates of silver bars and gold, and 1,749 barrels of silver coins that were most likely taken from the vaults of De Javasche Bank. The precious metal was loaded onto the Manila Maru, which

72 NIOD, IC, 004839; Twang 1998:77-8. 73 NEI – Handelsbank – Java Branch, 1946-1951. Folder 55. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 74 After the war, the company changed its name to Ishifuku Kin Zohu Kogyo. See Ishifuku Shoten Ltd, 1946-1951. Folder 8. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 75 Lentze, A.C., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 141 headed for Kobe, Japan, on 29 December 1943. On 7 January 1944, the gold and silver reached the mint at the Finance Ministry in Osaka, where part of the load was melted and recast into 559 new bars of mixed gold and silver. These were stored in the Bank of Japan vault in Tokyo in the summer of 1944. After the war, SCAP, the American occupation forces in Japan, estimated the value of these bars at US$ 1.5 million.76 This is what must have happened to all the gold, platinum and silver casings of the jewellery taken from the vaults and safe deposit boxes in the East Indies. Under the cloak of ‘safekeeping’ and despite empty promises of ‘compensation’, the Japanese Army stole large quantities of precious metals – exactly how much cannot be traced – and shipped them to Japan.77 According to Japanese sources, some cargoes sank en route to Singapore.78 One important consequence of melting down the precious metals was that the original form of the jewellery was lost, making identiﬁ cation by the rightful owners impossible. All post-war requests to trace the jewellery in Japan were rendered futile.

The systematic collection of diamonds in Java was a two-stage operation that took place from May 1942 through February 1943, and from April 1943 to June 1945. The situation until May 1942 was simple. The Japanese Air Force headquarters in Ciniki, Jakarta, bought industrial diamonds from A. Gutwirth, a prominent local diamond trader, who together with the Ipekdjian Brothers, Masoem, Hasan and David Siva, dominated the precious stone trade in Java. In August 1943, the military administration imprisoned this gemstone dealer. Starting in May 1942, the Army and Air Force set about collecting diamonds with greater zeal. Air Force headquarters in Tokyo ordered the unit in charge of procuring aviation materials, headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tadao Kirihara, to collect diamonds in Java. The Kirihara unit had a wider mandate. It was to conﬁ scate and buy all sorts of minerals needed by the aviation industry: radium, platinum, aluminium, lead and copper.79 Kirihara sent a Japanese jeweller to Java to appraise the diamonds and he personally made two trips to the island. On his ﬁ rst visit, in August 1942, his unit collected approximately 29,000 carats, most of which (19,000 carats) came from bank vaults. The other 10,000 carats were obtained by imploring the Indonesian

76 Gold bar (Bullion & Coins) – General – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 24. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 77 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 78 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 19471951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 79 Bank of Java (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 50. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA; ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 142 The politics of redress population to sell their diamonds.80 During his second trip, from September 1942 to February 1943, a few big local jewellers bought up 68,000 carats from the Indonesian population at ﬁ xed, low prices and delivered the gemstones to the Kirihara unit.81 This shipment must have included the stock in trade of the jewellers themselves. The Kirihara unit probably gave them little or no compensation, as we can deduce from a post-war restitution claim by the Ipekdjian Brothers. With the Dutch Military Mission acting as its intermedi- ary, the company asked the Japanese government to return 3,511.25 carats in diamonds (with a pre-war value of nearly ƒ 400,000). SCAP did not act on the claim due to lack of evidence.82 After selling the jewellery taken from enemy groups, the Kirihara unit put the proceeds in the Nanpo A-account.83 The Nanpo Bank paid a few safe deposit box holders with Dutch names a small sum of money for the sold-off contents of their deposit boxes. These box holders were probably Eurasians whom the bank did not consider enemies of Japan. Diamond experts removed the cut stones from the gold and silver settings of necklaces, bracelets, kebaya (traditional Malay blouse) pins and other jewellery, and weighed and appraised the diamonds. The left-over gold settings went to Ishifuku Shoten. The experts divided the gemstones into two categories: cut and rough diamonds.84 Kirihara personally carried the gemstones to Japan by plane. The Asahi Diamond Company turned them into diamond cutters, grinders and polishers for industrial use in military and civilian munitions factories.85 In the second stage of the diamond-collecting operation the Kirihara unit had been taken out of the picture entirely. The operation was much larger in scale and more complex because it involved Japanese private enterprise. From April 1943 to the spring of 1945, the Showa Tsûshô K.K. trading company played a pivotal role in the collection of diamonds in Java. This company had been established in 1939 at the behest of the Army; before the war, its main activity had been importing machinery to Japan. Its three shareholders were Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, Naigai Tshusho Kaisha, and Mitsubishi Shoji Kaisha.86

80 Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 81 Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA; ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 82 ANRI, AS, inv. 303; Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 83 NEI – Handelsbank – Java Branch, 1946-1951. Folder 55. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 84 Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 85 ANRI, AS, inv. 300. 86 Showa Tsusho (21-017-04), 1946-1950. Folder 3. Zaibatsu Corporation File, 1946-1950. Eco- nomic and Scientiﬁc Section (ESS). Director for Economics and Planning (DEP). Programs and Statistics Division (PSD). GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 143

Showa Tsûshô opened branch offi ces in Jakarta and Surabaya, which, according to an American source, were operated independently of the holding company in Japan. It conducted its business under the direct command of the General Army headquarters ordnance in Tokyo.87 The Nanpo Bank and the Yokohama Specie Bank in Java advanced Showa Tsûshô and various local brokers the capital. From December 1944 to January 1945, the government mouthpiece Asia Raya repeatedly called on these middlemen to hand over their purchased gems to Showa Tsûshô. Other Japanese banks operating in Java, such as the Taiwan Bank and the Teikoku Bank, were also involved in the diamond-buying operation.88 The various middlemen sold the diamonds to Showa Tsûshô, which in turn sold them to the 16th Army. In late June 1944, the Japanese gemstone experts working for the Kirihara unit were no longer active. Pressed for time, Showa Tsûshô started employing Indonesian pawn shop personnel to appraise the diamonds and remove them from their settings.89 The 16th Army’s Ordnance in Java transported the stones by boat or airplane to Singapore and to Southern Army headquarters in Saigon. The gems were then fl own to Tokyo. After the deliveries were checked by the First Army Weapons Arsenal, the Tokyo Diamonds Tool Company prepared the stones for industrial use in the munitions factories. In some cases, the Army Weapons Arsenal held back a shipment for a time before deciding upon its fi nal destination. Apart from the Tokyo Diamonds Tool Company, there were at least seven other industrial diamond-cutting companies in 1945.90 From April 1943 to June 1945, Showa Tsûshô collected diamonds weighing an estimated total of 163,000 carats.91

Conﬁ scation was not the only channel through which the Army and Navy obtained gems. They also bought them from non-enemy groups in collection campaigns that ran simultaneously with the collection campaigns targeting

87 Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. In Japan, the parent company was involved in collecting all sorts of goods, particularly hides and medicine and by the end of the war also jewelry which it traded against hides, tungsten and various oils from China. Showa Tshusho reportedly also had branches in Singapore, Sumatra, British Borneo (Kucing) and Burma. ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 88 For example, see Asia Raya, 29-12-1944. See also Lentze, A.C., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 89 ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 90 Namely: Yokokawa Denki K.K., Riken Denkei K.K., Tokyo Shibaura Denki K.K., Oki Denki K.K., Sumitomo Tshushin Kogyo K.K., Hakko Garasu K.K., Kitakama Seisaku-sho. Diamonds – Begeer, van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA; Diamonds – NEI - # 1. Folder 17. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 91 Diamonds – Begeer, van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 144 The politics of redress enemy groups. In Kalimantan and South Sulawesi, the Nomura Tohindo Takusan K.K. mining company was involved in buying diamonds. It employed a troupe of travelling musicians to lure the local population into selling their gems by promising them textiles in return. This was an attractive proposal because textiles were in great demand. But the musicians also bluntly warned that those who did not cooperate risked imprisonment or death. Refusal to sell one’s diamonds was seen as an unwillingness to support Japan against the Allies.92 Local Chinese Indonesian and Indonesian middlemen sold the diamonds to the Nomura offi ce in Banjarmasin. Nomura employees packed the diamonds and sent them by seaplane directly to Navy headquarters in Japan.93 From December 1944 to January 1945, Nomura placed ads in local newspapers exhorting the population to hand over their gems, under the slogan ‘Destroy the Allied Army with our diamonds’. Like Showa Tsûshô, Nomura used local government pawn shop employees to appraise its gems.94 This campaign coincided with Showa Tsûshô’s campaign in Java, in which jewellers and Japanese banks acted as middlemen. On 11 December 1944, Asia Raya for the fi rst time called on the population to hand in not only their gemstones but also platinum.95 The government mouthpiece explained why these minerals were so important to the war industry.96 An editorial subtly pointed out to readers that the Indonesian Arab and Eurasian communities had so far failed to come through in delivering items that were needed for the war effort. In the weeks that followed, Asia Raya regularly featured stories on prominent Indonesians in the management of Japanese civilian institutions and on Chinese Indonesian and even Indonesian Arab businesspeople who had proven themselves worth their weight in carats by donating jewellery.97 In addition to such ‘voluntary’ donations, it is certain that middlemen and Japanese banks relied on coercion to buy up gemstones and platinum at very low prices. Some Eurasians did sell their jewellery, as we can see from a letter the Taiwan Bank in Surabaya sent to the pro-Japanese Kantor Oeroesan Peranakan (Offi ce of Eurasian Affairs) in the same city. It reveals that 107 people sold the Taiwan Bank diamonds weighing a total of 53 carats and worth just over ƒ 31,000.98 These must have been relatively rare cases though. It is highly unlikely that large numbers of Indonesians and Eurasians voluntarily parted with their jewellery, valuables and family heirlooms (pusaka). Concealing

92 NA, Dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2243. 93 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2244. 94 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2243. 95 Asia Raya, 11-12-1944. 96 Asia Raya, 2-1-1945. 97 For example, see Asia Raya 4-1-1945 and Asia Raya 9-1-1945. 98 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1785. V The spoils of war 145 gemstones was risky, however. Historian De Jong mentions sales that took place ‘under Japanese threats of terror’ (De Jong 1985 11b:544-5). As people faced growing infl ation and shortages of basic necessities, their willingness to sell off property, even valuables and precious heirlooms, grew too. It remains diffi cult to assess how successful the Japanese collection operation was. On 16 January 1945, before the operation offi cially ended, Asia Raya presented preliminary results and called them ‘satisfactory’. On 17 and 19 February it published the fi nal results.99 Because the daily did not mention a total monetary value or carat weight, it is impossible to estimate the real size and success of the campaign. Asia Raya only referred to donations, even though the Japanese were systematically buying up any diamonds they could get their hands on.100 In early 1945, the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service in Australia caught wind of the collection campaigns in the Dutch East Indies because Indonesian newspapers mentioned the ‘donation’ of diamonds and platinum by prominent Indonesians in support of the Japanese war effort.101 This was about the extent of the information the service received, because it lacked a proper intelligence network in the occupied territory. The Allied forces did not gain more knowledge of Japanese occupation practices in Indonesia until 1946, after extensive investigations.

The ﬁ nal remaining channel through which the Japanese could procure diamonds was mining. Rough gems were mined by the Nomura company in the district of Martapura, South Kalimantan, near Banjarmasin. Japanese soldiers and local police used whips to force the local population – including children – and rômusha from Java into the opencast mines. Anyone caught concealing what they mined was punished as severely as someone concealing a Dutch soldier.102 But the miners were not easily deterred. They left rough diamonds in the ground and later dug them out to secretly trade them for foodstuffs.103 There were many diamond transports to Japan – mostly by plane, but also by ship. The latter was risky because of Allied submarine attacks. In June 1945, Allied subs torpedoed the cruiser Ashigara, which was carrying approximately 16,000 carats of diamonds from Java to Singapore. The vessel sank off the shore of Bangka, southeast of Sumatra.104 In 1948, Dutch authorities estimated total diamond revenues from the Dutch East Indies

99 Asia Raya, 17-2-1945; Asia Raya, 19-2-1945. 100 Asia Raya, 16-1-1945. 101 NA, AS, inv. 5410. 102 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2243. 103 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2243. 104 ANRI, AS, inv. 1598. 146 The politics of redress through conﬁ scation, (forced) sale, (coerced) donations and forced labour in diamond mines at 423,000 carats. Table 3.2 provides an overview of the total weight in carats per diamond type taken from each region and from Indonesia as a whole:105

Table 3: Overview of the sum of carats and total weight in carats per diamond type looted from each region and from Indonesia as a whole (Source: Diamonds – NEI – 2, 1946-1950. Folder 18. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP. NARA) cut diamonds industrial diamonds rough diamonds Java 56,455.65 151,000 3,000 Kalimantan 160,000 45,000 Sulawesi 7,000 Total 223,455.65 151,000 48,000

The sole task of the Tanaka Precious Metal Company was to mine platinum ore on orders of the Japanese Navy and the civilian administration in Kalimantan. Platinum ore was also mined near Martapura, in the upland region of the rivers Riam and Martapura. The miners were paid for their work in tools and food. Working conditions appear to have been slightly better than in the diamond mines.106 At its Japanese smelter, Tanaka combined the ore from the Dutch East Indies with platinum objects collected in Japan. The platinum was intended for the jet engine department of the Naval Ministry, which used it to manufacture electrodes.

The plantation sector

Let us turn our attention to the fate of the agricultural businesses that had played such a crucial role in the colonial economy. In contrast to enemy import and export businesses, banks and life insurance companies, Indonesia’s plantations were allowed to continue operating during the occupation – though the military administration put them under Japanese supervision. The administration took control of the plantations in two stages. From July 1942 to May 1944, it set up various custodians for the sugar industry and

105 Diamonds – NEI - # 2, 1946-1951. Folder 18. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 106 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA; NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2243; NEI Looted Property, 1946- 1951. Folder 46. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 147 other agricultural sectors. And from May 1944 until the end of the occupation, Japanese private enterprise obtained a growing share in the control of Western agricultural enterprises. Plantation management was not always a smooth- running business, as we can see from the ups and downs of the Saibai Kigyô Kanri Kôdan (SKKK, Corporation for the Administration of Agricultural Businesses) in Java and the Tôgyô Rengô Kai (TRK, Ofﬁ ce of the Federation of Sugar Businesses) in Java. On 5 July 1942, the Japanese administration issued an ordinance eliminating all existing agricultural umbrella organizations, such as the Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat (General Agricultural Syndicate). All agricultural enterprises, whether enemy or non-enemy, would henceforth be administered by the SKKK. This custodian took control of the cinchona (quinine), coffee, rubber and tea plantations in Java. The organization had specialized departments for each of these product sectors.107 On 18 June 1943, the SKKK expanded its scope to include kapok, cacao and sisal plantations (Prillwitz 1946a:13). It took control of wholesale coffee trade in August 1943 (Zeeman 1946:98-9). The sugar industry, however, was kept out of the SKKK’s reach throughout the occupation. The SKKK did not replace the management of the companies it took over, requiring them to run the plantations as normal. The custodian made every company hand over production ﬁ gures for the years 1939 to 1941 and list all stocks. Any transactions between the agricultural companies and the SKKK were subject to the military administration’s approval. The companies were forbidden to supply anyone but the custodian.108 The SKKK did all the purchasing for companies and was responsible for storing and selling their products. Strict regulations applied to the planting, harvesting and transportation of cinchona bark and cinchona seeds. The military authorities had divided up the rights to export agricultural products among zaibatsu subsidiaries. Mitsui Bussan Kaisha (MKB) and Mitsubishi Shôji arranged for the export of rubber and sugar. MKB was the largest trading company in Japan (Hikita 1997:141). On 1 June 1944, the military administration issued an ordinance dissolving the SKKK and replacing it with the Saibai Kigyô Rengokai (SKR).109 The establishment of the SKR signalled important changes. The SKR returned all non-enemy enterprises to their rightful Chinese Indonesian and Indonesian owners. Several Japanese companies and a smaller number of natural persons took over the management of enemy-owned companies. The larger role of private enterprise should be seen as an attempt by the military administration to rationalize agricultural operations and to increase and diversify production,

107 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1924. 108 Kan Po, Aug. 1942 no. 1; Kan Po, Oct. 1942, no. 4. 109 Kan Po, June 1944, no. 44. 148 The politics of redress objectives which the SKKK had apparently failed to achieve (Prillwitz 1946a:13-6). After June 1944, some 30 Japanese companies were managing enemy agricultural businesses in Java. Approximately ten natural persons were put in charge of various enemy agricultural companies.110 One company was particularly active in the agricultural sector: Nankoku Sangyo. Even before the war, this holding company ran several sugar refi neries in Java. During the occupation, it also took on the production of tea, sugar, rubber, cinchona bark, rami, cacao and coffee, and it exported cinchona bark to Japan (Westerhout 1947:461-2).111 The natural persons who were appointed acting managers of agricultural fi rms were Japanese and Taiwanese businessmen. They included people who had been working for Japanese companies in Indonesia since before the war. Some managers were so-called ‘economists’, a collective term for Japanese scientists and administrators. Some of them had been sent to Indonesia during the war because they were members of the political opposition in Japan and would form no political threat in the occupied territories under the watchful eye of the Kempetai.112 These managers often had no clue how to run a business or how to handle the tasks the military administration had given them. More often than not, well-educated or experienced enemies of Japan, namely the Dutch, were told to assist these administrators. The Dutch had the technical know-how and experience in tropical agriculture that the Japanese administrators and managers often lacked.113 In some cases the Japanese administration had not kept the Dutch employees on after taking control of the companies where they worked. If necessary, they pulled the experts out of internment camps.114 There was little resistance against such Japanese requests for cooperation. Few people objected to keeping businesses afl oat under Japanese supervision. Besides, it allowed those involved to sabotage the production plans in subtle ways. The Dutch experts withheld crucial information about planting methods and the quality of seed, for example. Despite the general tendency to cooperate, six people refused to sign an oath drawn up by the SKKK. In another case, a BPM employee in Surabaya defi ed orders to collaborate with the Japanese Army. These people paid for their protest with their lives.115 Although the SKKK and SKR may appear to have had near-total control, the domestic rubber trade in Java remained in the hands of Chinese Indonesians. Offi cials of the custodian preferred doing business with a small

110 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 3380. 111 See also MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1780; MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1924. 112 NIOD, IC, 003437. 113 NA, AS, inv. 5226. 114 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1924; NA, AS, inv. 4752. 115 NIOD, IC, 070346. On the fate of the BPM employee, see Boer 1979:179. V The spoils of war 149 group of steady wholesale buyers rather than a large fl ock of rubber consum- ers. This meant that the end buyers, Javanese shoe factories, were dependent on the whims of the wholesalers. The domestic coffee and cocoa trade showed a similar pattern: favouritism between Japanese offi cials and Chinese Indonesian businesspeople, exclusion of small traders, and creation of artifi - cial shortages to drive up prices.116

The story of the Pondok Gedeh agricultural company illustrates that Japanese management did not always go smoothly. Pondok Gedeh comprised various tea, rubber and cinchona plantations in West Java. In April 1942, two months after the occupation began, the Japanese Army seized the company’s assets (worth almost ƒ 27 million). Except for a very short period of internment, the staff were allowed to stay on. In late 1942, Pondok Gedeh was placed under control of the Takeda holding, which took over the fi nancial management from the SKKK. In June 1943, for undisclosed reasons, the administration of Pondok Gedeh was transferred to the Nankoku holding. In December 1943, the military administration sent several employees to the camps after all. Three Dutch people stayed on at three different plantations. The Japanese ordered Pondok Gedeh employees to clear the rubber trees and tea shrubs and replant the acreage with food crops, but employees practised a subtle form of subversion. They told the Japanese management that only old trees and shrubs should be grubbed up, thereby sparing younger and more productive plants. To sabotage the Japanese production plans, they did not inform them of the proper cultivation methods for commercial agricultural and food crops. In August, the SKKK made funds available for a switch to rubber and cinchona cultivation. The Japanese management at Pondok Gedeh set aside a small amount for maintenance of the tea plantation, but it proved insuffi cient. Another problem was the acute transportation shortage, which made it impossible to deliver the tea. All passenger cars and lorries had been requisitioned by Japanese troops. This problem affected commercial agriculture in general. The Army’s overzealousness in requisitioning vehicles had become counterproductive. This was probably the reason why the Japanese management at Pondok Gedeh in November 1942 ordered employees to start buying up so-called ‘people’s tea’ from Indonesian smallholders. This was a product of inferior quality, but in the hope of keeping the tea plantations afl oat the SKKK was buying it up anyway. After six months, decline set in because of the low prices of tea in comparison to the soaring prices of basic necessities. Tea production was simply not profi table. By the end of 1943, the Japanese administration sacrifi ced tea entirely in favour of food crops. Workers cut

116 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1924. 150 The politics of redress down the tea shrubs and planted corn and cassava. These crops failed, however, due to hasty planning and the use of inferior seed. The production of rubber at Pondok Gedeh followed a similar pattern. Three months after the Japanese invasion, the company ran out of the formic acid needed to process the latex. The Dutch staff came up with a creative solution by producing their own acetic acid to replace the formic acid. But the delivery of latex stagnated due to the transportation shortage. In mid-1944, the SKR ordered Pondok Gedeh to start producing cocoa. The same scenario of failing food crops and people’s tea was played out. An experiment with hemp cultivation followed, for which the tea plantations had to be cleared. This, too, turned out to be a ﬁ asco. The only positive thing former employees could say about Japanese management was that Pondok Gedeh’s factories and machinery were still more or less intact when the occupation ended.

When it comes to instability, the management of Java’s sugar companies was in a league all of its own. It was characterized by indecisiveness and inconsistent reorganization. This must be seen in light of the limited usefulness of sugar for the war effort, the loss of export markets due to the war in Europe, and the limited domestic demand for sugar. On 1 June 1942, sugar companies were placed under the management of the Bureau for the Control of the Sugar Industry. The military administration merged the existing Sugar Syndicate and the Nederlandsch-Indische Vereniging voor den Afzet van Suiker (NIVAS, Dutch East Indies Association for the Sale of Sugar) into a Japanese custodian, which it called Tôgyô Rengô Kai (TRK, Federation of Sugar Companies in Java). The TRK was responsible for the production, management, and funding of the sugar industry (Rodenburg 1946:38-9). This organization most likely supplied the two major sugar exporters Mitsui Bussan Kaisha and Mitsubishi Shôji. On 1 November 1942, the military administration divided the 16 enemy- owned sugar companies among six Japanese companies, in keeping with a decree from Tokyo. This measure effectively cut out the TRK, but it did not mean the TRK was dissolved.117 With the establishment of the Tôgyô Kôdan (Corporation for the Administration of the Sugar Industry) in June 1943, the Japanese administration appeared to be scaling back the inﬂ uence of private enterprise (Kurasawa 1988:93). Both the TRK and the Testing Station for the Java Sugar Industry were incorporated into the new custodian (Rodenburg 1946:39). But on 1 May 1944, the military administration in Java yet again changed tack and – either on orders from Tokyo or on its own – put its bets on private enterprise to drive the sugar industry. It divided up enemy businesses

117 This involved sixteen legal entities, not to be confused with the number of plantations, which was much higher. MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1777. V The spoils of war 151 again among six Japanese companies, this time by region.118 The custodian reduced the number of sugar producers by closing down businesses and by retooling sugar refi neries for the production of other necessities for the war effort, such as cement. Those former sugar refi neries ended up under various other administrators, including the Department of Raw Materials for the War Industry. A number of enemy-owned sugar refi neries were converted into butanol (butyl alcohol) factories and rice mills. Butanol was mixed into the fuel for airplane engines to increase its octane level. For that reason, Tokyo authorities considered doubling sugar production in Java, but the plan was thwarted by the destruction of marine transportation. The military administration allotted small plots of sugar acreage to the population to grow rice and other secondary food crops (palawija).119 The Jûyô Busshi Kôdan bought up the scrapped machinery and rails from dismantled sugar refi neries. To compound the confusion, the military administration dissolved the sugar industry custodian on 1 June 1944 and reinstated the earlier TRK.

Compared to the SKKK, SKR, and TRK, the management of private estates was run along slightly different lines. The zaibatsu appear to have played no role. The SKR was responsible for funding the Shiryôchi Kanri Kôsha (Corporation for the Administration of Private Estates) and the sale of products (Prillwitz 1946b:118-9). According to another source, the Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan was also involved in ﬁ nancing the estates.120 The management of these private plantations was initially a matter of great confusion. It seems the military administration intended to expropriate the estates to end their ‘feudal conditions’, which were seen as a cause of social unrest and crime.121 In this sense, Japanese policy was no different from Dutch colonial policy. In the early twentieth century the colonial government had tried to introduce land reforms to regulate and protect the land rights of Indonesians. This also entailed revoking landlords’ special privileges of exacting mandatory labour and levying taxes in the form of part of the harvest. If land reform was not possible through amicable settlement between the colonial government and landlords, the government was prepared to resort to expropriation. This slow and difﬁ cult reform of private estates was still in progress when the war broke out. On 1 June 1942, the military administration announced that all estates except those owned by Indonesians were now the property of the Japanese

118 These six were Nanyo Kohatsu Kaisha, Dai Nippon Seito, Taiwan Seito Kaisha, Meiji Seito Kaisha, Ensuiki Seito Kaisha and Okinawa Seito Kaiska. 119 NIOD IC. 009348. 120 NA, AS, inv. 4752. 121 Kan Po (nomor istimewa) Mar. 1943. 152 The politics of redress

Army.122 But the Japanese military administration quickly reversed this decision, supposedly after American and British radio stations had reported on the policy. It is not known how Allied forces might have come by this information or whether this news was actually broadcast. According to Dutch sources, it was negative publicity that deterred the Japanese authorities from implementing their policy. And indeed, the propaganda rag Asia Raya announced a few weeks later that, despite earlier announcements of expropriation plans, the Japanese administration had decided to guarantee the property rights of landowners (Van Zboray 1948:26). A far more plausible explanation for the administration’s change of heart is that it simply needed the cooperation of the landlords – with the exception of the European owners and managers that were interned in mid-1943. The estates produced large quantities of rice and vegetables and were thus an important link in the food supply for met- ropolitan Jakarta (Prillwitz 1946a:118-9). Contrary to what De Jong believed, everything remained the same, with the exception of mandatory services (De Jong 1985 11b:326-7). Expropriation did not take place.

The Japanese policy for administering companies in Java is characterized by inconsistencies and confusion. The quality of the management of individual agricultural businesses or even individual plantations varied widely. While some companies were led by committed, expert managers, others fell prey to indifference and amateurism. Success depended on the experience and expertise of the Japanese administrators and managers, on the cooperation of enemy employees and on the type of agricultural product. After the war, Dutch agricultural experts generally concluded that crop production was lower during the occupation than before the war. They named several reasons for this: the collapse of exports to Europe, incompetent management, the closure and conversion of businesses, and low prices.123 Exceptions to this trend were the production of cinchona and coffee. Cinchona acreage had been kept intact and production had even seen a steep increase. Coffee production had stayed about the same and the coffee roasters had not been dismantled (Prillwitz 1946a:13-6). The negative overall image that the Dutch liked to paint needs adjusting for several other reasons. Dutch experts did not take into account that the export of agricultural products had already been in decline before the Japanese occupation, due to the war in Europe. Secondly, some managers clearly did turn a proﬁ t. Mitsui Bussan K.K., for example, made a proﬁ t on the plantations it administered during the occupation (Hikita 1997:150-1). Sugar was obviously a losing proposition, but this was probably not true of rubber production and trade.

122 Kan Po (nomor istimewa) Mar. 1943. 123 NIOD, IC, 009348. V The spoils of war 153

Overall, it can be concluded that Japanese custodians and private enterprise continued to operate agricultural businesses as normal. In an unknown number of cases, however, the businesses suffered from mismanagement. Administrators sold off supplies to third parties and the proceeds did not ﬂ ow back to the owners. They cleared productive plantings, sacriﬁ ced commercial plantation acreage to food production, and converted agricultural factories to satisfy the needs of the war industry. The latter occurred mainly in the sugar industry.

The ‘Greater East Asia Robbery Sphere’

In the Philippines there was a sarcastic Tagalog pun on the term Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere which dubbed it the ‘Greater East Asian Robbery Sphere’ (Agoncillo 1965:342).124 We have only a sketchy image of this robbery, mainly because US and Philippine authorities paid scant attention to it. As in Indonesia, Japanese invasion forces in the Philippines were given general instructions on requisitioning strategic goods and enemy property. All goods owned or administered by Allied subjects or governments or by the Philippine administration were to be seized and placed under control of Japanese military authorities. Banks were to be closed down and all assets of Allied subjects and their governments conﬁ scated. Assets belonging to Filipinos (civilians), except for those with pro-Allied leanings, would remain untouched. Real estate that was in enemy hands and deemed of use to the Army would be administered by the military administration. It was not speciﬁ ed which goods were to be exempted and which procedures were to be followed. For example, there was no directive on how to deal with company assets. The instructions also failed to describe who would be responsible for the administration of enemy property. There are parallels with Indonesia: a lack of coordination and a rivalry between the various administrative institutions. Two Japanese military institutions, the Keirichoku (Intendance Section) of the Ministry of War and Zaimu-bu (Finance Section) of the military administration both believed they held a monopoly on the seizure of movable assets and real estate belonging to governments, companies and civilians. There was no coordination or division of tasks and responsibilities between the two bodies.125

124 ‘Sama-samang Kasaganaan sa Lalong Malakíng Silangang Asya’ became ‘Sama-samang Pagnanakawán sa Lalong Malakíng Silangang Asya’ (Greater East Asia Robbery Sphere). 125 Looted General in Philippines, 1945-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 154 The politics of redress

After February 1942, the Intendance Section sought to cooperate with the Finance Section, but their rivalry rendered this impossible. An additional problem was that only 40% of the goods seized by Army units were reported to the Intendance Section, a Japanese witness estimated. The other 60% disappeared onto the black market. Furthermore, it appears that in January 1942 there was already a custodian for enemy property who answered to the military administration, the Tekisan-han. In the fi rst week of January 1942, this institution had closed down and sealed all banks until further notice. It is totally unclear what role it played and what its relationship was to the Intendance and Finance Sections. The only thing we know for sure is that its relationship with the War Ministry’s Intendance Section must have been tense, since the Tekisan-han was part of the military administration.126 In February 1942, the military administration received reinforcements in the form of a contingent of civilian fi nancial experts from Japan and a group of Japanese who had been employed in the Philippine banking sector before the war. They worked for the Ginko Seiriin (Banking Consultation Group) established that same month, and advised the military administration on the fi nancial position and role of the (enemy) banks in the new economic system. SCAP reports provide a glimpse of the Ginko Seriin’s role in closing down and reopening the banks in March 1942. This organization distinguished between enemy banks and non-enemy banks, and within those banks between accounts of the Philippine government, Allied governments and Allied subjects. Allied banks remained closed for the duration of the war. The military administration fi nanced various projects using deposits of the Philippine and Allied governments and of enemy subjects, held in enemy-owned banks. The projects included the establishment of a puppet administration and an effort to support Philippine war victims. One witness believed that all Allied valuables stored in safe deposit boxes were seized and sold between January and February 1942. The proceeds went to the Gunsei Kaikeibu, an agency under the General Affairs Section, to fi nance projects instigated by the military administration. The same witness admitted that it was very likely that the people who had access to safe deposit boxes in enemy banks had resorted to common looting.127 A similar scenario of closures and property sales affected enemy-owned stores and trading companies. The stocks in trade and cash of fi ve large department stores, retail stores and trading companies belonging to non- Filipinos in Manila ended up in the hands of the Intendance Section. Note that

126 Looted General in Philippines, 1945-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 127 Looted General in Philippines, 1945-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. V The spoils of war 155 the owners were not only enemy subjects such as US citizens, but also mestizo Filipinos. Seizure and sale of stocks effectively meant the liquidation of the department store or shop. The stocks that were of direct use to the Army, such as food and clothing, were distributed among Army units. Cash, even from small businesses, went to the Intendance Section. The Section sold luxury goods such as watches and cameras to Japanese troops and civilian personnel in Army stores. This followed the same pattern as the liquidation of shops in Java and Sumatra. Aside from this relatively formal liquidation and shutting down of stores and trading companies, soldiers also looted. If little is known about the service and retail sectors, even less is known about the continuation or closing of industrial plants and plantations. In practice, enemy-owned mining companies came to a standstill. Gold and silver mines closed down for the duration of the occupation. Guerrilla activity made their operation impossible. Production of copper and manganese was given priority and the military administration moved production material from the gold mines to the copper and manganese mines it administered. The actual operation of the mines and the export to Japan was in the hands of two zaibatsu subsidiaries: Mitsui Kozan and Ishigara Sangyo (Ikehata 1999:127- 61). The Navy was actively involved in running hemp plantations in Davao, Mindanao, and in exporting this crop to Japan.128 As in occupied Indonesia, the Japanese attempted to administer enemy property in the Philippines in accordance with international law. At the same time, the administration was hampered by the rivalry between the various Army institutions and the undisciplined behaviour of Army units and individual soldiers. The systematic removal of the spoils of war in the Philippines, under the cloak of ‘administration’, was inspired by economic motives. Yet, the robbery in the Philippines seems to have been less systematic than in Indonesia. There were no carefully orchestrated campaigns to coerce the population into parting with their gemstones and precious metals. We do not ﬁ nd the same diversity of custodians as in Indonesia. However, this does not mean that unsystematic robbery – looting and plundering – was the rule. It is more likely that systematic and random theft went hand in hand. The fact that the Philippines had a less pronounced ‘robbery bureaucracy’ could be explained by the differences between the Philippine and Indonesian economic structures, and, after October 1943, by the Philippines’ formal status as a sovereign country. Indonesia’s great variety of raw materials vital to the war industry, such as rubber and oil, made administration more impera- tive than in the Philippines. It is not a coincidence that the Japanese business community during the war invested roughly twice as much in Indonesia as in the Philippines (Hikita 1997:157-8). A ﬁ nal speculation that may serve to

128 Looted General in Philippines, 1945-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 156 The politics of redress help explain the relatively weak robbery bureaucracy in the Philippines is that the Philippine government was able to shield its population from excessive demands and actions by the Japanese government.

Summary

The Japanese military administration closed down the Dutch East Indies import and export businesses early on in the occupation, and requisitioned their stocks. The administration liquidated enemy banks and closed down insurance companies. The enemy retail sector, from pharmacies to clothing shops, was initially placed under Japanese management. Two years into the occupation, the administration also closed down the retail sector, selling off all the stocks in trade. Furthermore, the administration took control of agricultural companies. Expropriation did not take place. The administrators took stocks from their rightful owners without compensation, but did not fundamentally violate their property rights. The Japanese Army’s use of enemy assets toward the war effort was a form of economic warfare that over the course of the occupation gradually turned into excessive economic exploitation. By and large, the situation in the Philippines showed the same pattern of economic exploitation. The robbery was conducted under similar guises as in Indonesia and there are no indications that the occupying forces systematically violated property rights. Research into the collection of precious metals and stones through confi s- cation, forced sale, ‘donations’ and forced labour – and studies of the management of the plantations – show that custodians, Japanese companies and private entrepreneurs all cooperated in these activities. The terms ‘robbery’ and ‘plunder’ misrepresent the organized nature of this appropriation of property. They also fail to refl ect the aura of semi-legality and legitimacy surrounding these acts of confi scation, requisitioning and administration, thanks to Japanese ordinances and the authorities’ interpretations of the international Rules of War. Looting and robbery, by contrast, are characterized by lawlessness. To the victims, this distinction is probably meaningless, since they lost their property anyway – and received little or no compensation. At the time of the Japanese capitulation, neither the Dutch government nor the Dutch East Indies government in Brisbane had any clues about how property rights had been subverted in Japanese-occupied Indonesia. Restitution seemed to offer a means to reverse the measures taken by the Japanese, but this was a completely new legal concept. However, the Dutch government in exile had already started thinking about restitution during the war. As it turned out, the Americans and the Philippine government in exile showed less foresight. CHAPTER VI Restitution: laying the groundwork

After the war, the governments of the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies had to address the problem of German and Japanese looting. Their answer was restitution through the restoration of property rights. Unlike war damage compensation, this was primarily a matter between civilians, natural persons and corporate entities. The government merely provided the legal framework and the institutions needed to resolve the property disputes resulting from the war and ensure that stolen goods were returned. In 1946-1947, the Dutch government in London and the colonial leadership laid the groundwork for restitution in the Dutch East Indies. By contrast, no measures were taken to provide restitution in the Philippines. Neither the US nor the Philippine Commonwealth administration seems to have given much thought to settling the issue of plunder.

Eggens

Jannes Eggens belonged to a select group of high-ranking Dutch East Indies offi cials and others who fl ed to Australia just before the Japanese invasion. Eggens, a former professor at the Rechtshogeschool (Law School) in Jakarta, became the founding father of restitution legislation in the Netherlands and Indonesia. He left Brisbane for London in November 1942, where he started his work as chairman of the Commissie voor het Rechtsverkeer in Oorlogstijd (CRO, Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime). He set about creating the legal provisions to restore property rights in the Netherlands (Veraart 2002:183-8). The committee assumed that property issues in the colony would resemble those in the Netherlands and considered it unnecessary, therefore, to write separate restitution legislation for the Dutch East Indies. The only problem the committee in London foresaw was whether a restitution decree could be made applicable to the entire Kingdom, including the colonies. As the Japanese retreat continued in the summer of 1944, the New York- based Indische Contact Commissie (ICC, Dutch East Indies Contact Com- 158 The politics of redress mittee) – a procurement body set up by the Dutch government – started specu- lating on whether property rights in the occupied Dutch East Indies had been disrupted as in the Netherlands. Because of the Allied advance in Southeast Asia, the committee suggested, it was time to start thinking about the restoration of rights in the colony as well.1 On 1 March 1945, the Minister of Overseas Territories instructed Eggens to begin writing recommendations for a restitution decree. It took Eggens just two months to complete the task. On 7 May 1945, he sent his proposals to the Lieutenant Governor-General.2 Eggens was able to deliver so quickly because he had previously helped devise legislation for the restoration of rights in the Netherlands (Veraart 2002:184-8). It was on this earlier work that he based his proposals for the colony. Eggens’ draft for the restoration of rights in Indonesia was put in a drawer. A year later, in the second half of 1946, a few lawyers at the Justice Department in Jakarta drew up an actual bill. It was not until the spring of 1947, two years after Eggens made his recommendations, that the Lieutenant Governor- General fi nally promulgated the restitution decree. Four fundamental problems had caused this delay: a shortage of qualifi ed lawyers, uncertainty as to whether property rights had been violated (and if so, how), uncertainty about the appropriation methods of the Japanese occupation force, and renewed chaos due to the Indonesian revolution.

When Japan offi cially capitulated in September 1945, the Allied nations had no idea what property rights the Japanese Army and Navy had violated in the colony and by which methods they had done so. Unlike the well-documented Nazi pillage of occupied Europe, Japanese property theft in Indonesia and the Philippines was shrouded in mystery. Attempts to uncover the full extent of the theft were plagued by diffi culty and yielded unsatisfactory results. Immediately following the Japanese capitulation, the British authorities who temporarily assumed control showed little interest in how the occupation force had governed Indonesia. The fi rst investigations into the methods of Japanese custodians and banks were carried out by Dutch East Indies institutions: the Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime (CRO) and NEFIS. In the autumn of 1945, CRO investigators found some of the paperwork connected with the Tekisan Kanribu. These inventories and debtor lists provided some insight into how the Japanese had dealt with the retail sector and the Dutch import and export trade.3 In October 1945, NEFIS started investigating the black market and the smuggling of foreign currencies. It studied Japanese and Malay documents on agriculture, industry, mining

1 NA, Londens archief MvK, inv. 508. 2 NA, Londens archief MvK, inv. 508. 3 NIOD, IC, 009357a. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 159 and trade before and after 15 August 1945. NEFIS did some of the research itself, but also approached local colonial authorities in several Indonesian regions with a request for information.4 The collection of data on the Japanese occupation had begun. In the meantime, the chaotic transfer of power and the new conﬂ ict caused further confusion of property relations.

Transfer

From 15 August 1945 until well into 1946, several Indonesian regions were effectively left in a power vacuum. The fi rst Allied units did not arrive until six weeks after the Japanese capitulation, and once there they were too few in number to make their presence felt. At the same time, the Japanese were pulling out and the Republic was too disorganized to step in. Aside from the Japanese and British troops, other parties entered the stage at the local level. Republican authorities, Indonesian militias, labour unions, and businesspeople of Chinese Indonesian and Indonesian backgrounds would all come to play a role in compounding the confusion surrounding property rights. For information on the Japanese transfer of power to the Allies and the Allied reoccupation, we are again largely dependent on fragmented impressions from Java and Sumatra. The handover of authority to the Allied forces took many shapes: from a well-organized, cooperative effort to downright obstruction. Our fi rst example is a model transfer of power – of the type that probably exceeded the Allies’ wildest dreams. In the best English they could muster, the local administrators of Bandung’s Seibu Sisetu Kyoku, or Western Facilities Bureau, provided the Allies with detailed information on the enemy real estate they had administered. The Bureau presented the British with a list of homes and offi ces in the city of Bandung and surrounding regions.5 This was, in principle, enough to start restoring the homes to their rightful owners. It is not known whether this was actually done. In other cases, the transfer was far from smooth, though the problems were not always the result of deliberate obstruction. A good example of this is what happened to the Dutch agricultural businesses in Sukabumi, West Java. The Japanese administrators were prepared to transfer these companies to the Allies. But because there were no Allied troops in sight, they signed the businesses over to the Republican Kantor Poesat Perkeboenan Djawa (Central

4 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1761. 5 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 3378. 160 The politics of redress

Offi ce of Agricultural Enterprises in Java).6 A similar fate apparently befell the private estates in West Java.7 The transfer of the BPM and NKPM oil fi elds in Sumatra was a different matter altogether. On 30 August 1945, a Japanese Army unit transferred the oil fi elds in Plaju and Sungei Gerong near Palembang to a local Republican oil workers’ union, the Persatoean Pegawai Minjak (Association of Oil Industry Personnel).8 When the British troops arrived in Palembang in November 1945, they ordered the Japanese Army authorities to cancel this transaction and guard the oil fi elds. For reasons unknown, the Japanese troops did not obey the British; the Indonesian union had no intention of doing their bidding either. Production and sale simply continued under the union’s management, not an easy task under the circumstances. Roaming ‘gangs’ in the area had their eye on the oil supplies. Militias even managed to take control of a few oil fi elds. The revenue from oil sales was a fi nancial lifeline, both for the unions supported by the Republic and for the militias. In June 1946, the BPM and the Nederlandse Pacific Petroleum Maatschappij (NPPM) recognized the Persatoean Pegawai Minjak as a union and negotiating partner. Negotiations on the reopening of the Plaju and Sungei Gerong refi neries led to an agreement in which the oil companies promised to improve the oil workers’ social conditions. With British approval, the Japanese Army transferred all oil fi elds in Sumatra to the Indonesian Republic with the exception of Plaju and Sungei Gerong. In October 1946, the oil fi elds in South Sumatra were put under the centralized management of the Peroesahaan Minjak Repoeblik Indonesia (PERMIRI, Oil Company of the Indonesian Republic). In March 1947, the scope of this custodial body had expanded to Central Sumatra. The Republican Army was responsible for guarding the oil fi elds. After the First Police Action, Dutch troops took over all but a few fi elds around Jambi in South Sumatra. After the Second Police Action, those fi elds also reverted to Dutch control and PERMIRI ceased to exist. Indonesian managers returned almost all the fi elds to the concessionaires, the owners (Boer 1997:306-7). In North Sumatra, however, Dutch troops were unable to take control of the oil fi elds and refi neries that the Japanese Army had left to Indonesian militias. In some cases, the Japanese transferred ownership to the Allies in a manner that seemed to comply with international law while in fact hidden, illegal practices were taking place. For example, on 22 August 1945, the head of the Tekisan Kanribu in Batavia ordered the manager of the Bogor branch offi ce to collect the proceeds from the sale of enemy property, make a list of the property

6 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1780. 7 There is confl icting information about the name of this Republican institution in the sources. One source calls it Dewan pengawas pimpinan kantor besar oeroesan Tanah Partikoelir, another Kantor Poesat Oeroesan Tanah Partikoelir. See KITLV, inv. D H 884. 8 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1787. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 161 sold and give this to the Allies. Yet at the same time, he gave the order to burn all of Tekisan Kanribu’s secret fi les.9 This custodian’s destruction of evidence was not an exception. One of the businesses that destroyed its accounts was Mitsui Bussan Kaisha, the large trading company that had been involved in exporting sugar and rubber during and immediately after the occupation. Similarly, the Japanese Army ordered the personnel at Showa Tsûshô, a company involved in diamond collecting in Java, to burn its books.10 We see yet another scenario unfold in the half-hearted – and ultimately failed – attempt by the SKR, the Japanese custodian for agricultural businesses, to transfer control to the Indonesian Republic in Jakarta. The Japanese may have been biased by their sympathy for the Indonesian independence struggle and infl uenced by pressure from Indonesian militias. In early October 1945, the SKR chiefs called a meeting at their Jakarta headquarters, where they told their personnel the organization would be placed under Republican management. They appointed the former Regent of Cirebon as the new managing director. The pemuda present at the meeting pressed the point home that anyone who turned against the Republic would not be welcome. This was enough to scare off the Chinese Indonesian and Eurasian SKR employees. None dared return to work. A few days later, the Japanese SKR staff held another meeting with all Indonesian managers and was in the process of appointing Indonesians to key positions in the company when British troops disrupted the meeting. The British strictly forbade the Japanese management to turn over anything to the Indonesians and ordered the SKR closed down. The SKR was dissolved on 9 October 1945.11 However, this was a far cry from ensuring the return of the plantations and supplies to their rightful owners, as we can see from the situation in Java’s sugar industry. The Japanese transferred control of the sugar companies to the Indonesian employees. These companies were eventually placed under the management of a central custodial body, the Kantor Gaboengan Peroesahaan (Offi ce of the Federation of (Sugar) Companies).12 On 21 May 1946, President Soekarno and minister of Agriculture and Supply Saksono Prawirohardjo nationalized the entire sugar industry. The sugar companies were to be administered by the Badan Penjelenggara Peroesahaan Goela Negara (Institution for the Regulation of the State Sugar Industry).13 It is doubtful whether this administrative control was actually implemented everywhere; many companies were in the grip of powerful local militias and unions that charted their own course.

9 NIOD, IC, 009354. 10 Diamonds – Begeer, Van Kempen & Vos, 1946-1951. Folder 37. Subject Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 11 NA, AS, inv. 5226. 12 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1777. 13 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1777. 162 The politics of redress

The transfer of plantations on the east coast of Sumatra followed a different pattern. The British administration left the Japanese Nôen Kanri Kyoku (bureau for the supervision of Sumatran plantations) and the Japanese plantation personnel in charge of managing the agricultural companies. However, Indonesians gained control of the plantations through the active and passive cooperation of the Japanese.14 On 6 June 1946, the Republican government decreed a state takeover of all European agricultural companies in the areas under its control.15 Indonesian control of these plantations was partially undone by the Police Actions of 1947 and 1948. A number of Japanese custodians and companies continued to trade after the capitulation as if nothing had changed. For example, the Jûyô Busshi Kôdan sold various bulk products (sugar), semi-fi nished products (sulphur, lime) and fi nished products (cigarettes, engines and machinery) to Chinese traders in Jakarta; business went on as usual after 15 August 1945.16 This was relatively innocent compared to the illegal transactions made by the two Japanese companies that controlled Javanese rubber exports: Mitsui Bussan Kaisha (MBK) and Mitsubishi Shôji. They sold the rubber supplies that had been stockpiled in Java during the war – stocks that were originally earmarked for export to Japan – to local Indonesian and Chinese companies and to Japanese ‘dummy’ companies that had never traded in rubber before. The spreading of rubber supplies among a large number of small buyers and the destruction of important documents by MBK were deliberate strategies aimed at keeping the rubber out of Allied hands.17 NEFIS tried to trace the transactions through the books, but was unsuccessful – largely because the central accounts had gone missing. The devaluation of the Japanese invasion currency had turned rubber into an attractive investment. Considerable stocks had accumulated in Java towards the end of the occupation due to problems affecting export and local transportation. Based on personal inspections of the supplies found immediately after the capitulation, Allied rubber experts spoke of maximum stocks (Lumsdale and Henderson 1946:2). The Chinese Indonesian and Indonesian rubber exporters who regulated the trade from their offi ces in Malacca and Singapore had ‘made millions with this fraudulent export and done the country great damage through their activities in this area’ according to a Dutch source (Departement van Landbouw en Visserij 1950, III:2).18 This trade was a source of income for the Indonesian Republic.

14 NA, AS, inv. 3457. 15 Peratoeran Pemerintah no. 4 Tahoen 1946 Tentang Peroesahaan Perkeboenan, 6-6-1946. 16 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1918. 17 NA, AS, inv. 5226. 18 For the Republican trade with Singapore and other Straits Settlements, see Twang 1998:203- 41 and Yong 2003. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 163

For several months after the capitulation, Japanese companies also traded large supplies of coffee, cocoa, tea and kapok, in deﬁ ance of British bans.19 Native Indonesian and Chinese traders generally ignored the Dutch-British agreement of 30 October 1945 to safeguard property rights in the colony. Buyers antedated their contracts to mislead the Allied military authorities into thinking the transactions had taken place before 15 August 1945.20 Actually the agreement had not been aimed at preventing illegal transactions by Japanese, Indonesian and ethnic Chinese businesspeople. It was mainly meant to clarify what the British and Australian troops should consider spoils of war (Van der Wall 1972:274-5).

There are remarkably few reports of looting by Japanese soldiers or of convictions for this crime during the period of transfer to the Allied forces. One of the few cases of looting, and probably the most notorious, is the Nakamura treasure. Just a week after the Japanese surrender, Captain Nakamura Hiroshi stole a large amount of jewellery from a pawn shop in Jakarta. His motive never became clear and is the subject of speculation even today.21 Nakamura had been ordered by his superior, Lieutenant Colonel Nomura Akira, to collect gold from various pawn shops in Jakarta and surroundings. This was to be distributed among Korean and Japanese soldiers so they could afford necessities in the camps while awaiting repatriation.22 It is known that Nakamura and his mistress claimed part of the gold for themselves – an amount valued at ƒ 330,000. There are various accounts of the jewellery’s origin, but none has ever been proven beyond doubt. In a June 1946 interrogation, Lieutenant Colonel Nomura claimed that Indonesians had ﬁ rst robbed the gold from the pawn shop but later returned it after receiving Allied or Japanese promises that they would not be prosecuted or punished for looting. This Japanese version of events seems unlikely in light of the liberties that bandits and Indonesian militias tended to take at the time. Besides, these militias needed whatever means they could ﬁ nd to buy supplies. A few years later, Nomura told a Dutch interrogator the gold was supposed to be shipped to the Japanese Finance Department and that the original owners had never claimed it.23 An employee from the Jakarta pawn shop gave another explanation which possible corroborates Nomura’s second account. He said the jewellery had arrived at the pawn shop in several shipments toward the end of 1943 and that he had catalogued and appraised it himself.24 It is possible

19 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1924. 20 NA, ONRANI, inv. 106. 21 See Schumacher 2005. 22 NA, AS, inv. 5274. 23 NA, AS, inv. 5274. 24 NA, AS, inv. 5274. 164 The politics of redress that the jewellery had been taken from its owners during the last Japanese campaign to collect precious stones and metals in Java. Captain Nakamura’s plunder may have captured the public’s imagination, but in terms of motive, method and magnitude it bore no resemblance to the practically seamless, systematic appropriation of gemstones and precious metals that took place during the occupation. The Temporary Court Martial in Jakarta imprisoned Nakamura and Nomura for the war crime of looting. It is not known whether the rightful owners ever got back their jewellery or received compensation from the pawn service. Neither possibility seems at all likely, since a large portion of the loot had disappeared.

Allied shield

In large parts of Java and Sumatra, there was not an Allied soldier in sight. There were simply too few troops on hand to control this vast area. The British and Australian military commands gave higher priority to repatriating Japanese POWs than to investigating large-scale property theft.25 The British allowed the Japanese employees of the Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB) and the Nanpo Bank to take important documents back to Japan.26 The resulting lack of evidence complicated not only the reconstruction of the looting, but also the liquidation of Japanese banks in Java. Attempts to investigate looting via the bank archives in Japan ran into similar problems. SCAP, which was responsible for the liquidation of the zaibatsu, ordered its secret service to seal the archives of the Nanpo Bank. This bank had fi nanced the Japanese Army and Japanese companies in the occupied territories. In early 1946, SCAP denied Allied delegations access to the Nanpo archives. A Philippine government representative was fobbed off with some vague excuse.27 Another example of how Allied shielding frustrated investigation was the offi cial liquidation of the YSB in June 1947, six months after SCAP had classifi ed it as a ‘closed institution’. The continuation of the YSB as the Bank of Tokyo was the result of a compromise between SCAP and the Japanese government. The issue of liquidating the YSB had been a long-running controversy. The Japanese government had insisted that the bank was indispensible to the country’s fi nancial system. SCAP gave in to this argument because it did not want to exacerbate Japan’s fi nancial and economic woes (Tsutsui 1988:31-2). SCAP recognized Allied subjects’ claims against the YSB in Japan, but not their claims on the bank’s branch offi ces in Indonesia and other formerly

25 NA, AS, inv. 3174. 26 NIOD, IC, 09351; NA, AS, inv. 5228. 27 MBZ, code 9, 3683. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 165 occupied territories.28 SCAP tacitly left it to the respective governments in these countries to settle the fi nancial affairs of local YSB branches. The liquidation of Japanese banks in Indonesia – and, presumably, elsewhere – proceeded in chaos and with unsatisfactory results. General W. Schilling, who headed the Nederlandse Militaire Missie (NMM, Dutch Military Mission) in Tokyo, sent a pressing letter to SCAP in December 1946 stating that ‘great diffi culties are being encountered on the matter of liquidating the Yokohama Specie Bank Ltd. in Java and Sumatra because of the lacking [sic] of suffi cient information’.29 All the Japanese personnel of this bank, except for those on staff in Jakarta, had taken important information with them when they returned to Japan. The Dutch East Indies government had hired a private accountancy fi rm, the Nederlands-Indische Trust Maatschappij (Dutch East Indies Trust Society), to handle the liquidation of the Japanese banks. Whatever came of this is not known. Even today, this lack of information is still dogging research into the transactions by Japanese banks during the occupation and post-war transition. Insuffi cient documentation makes it impossible to verify allegations that Japanese companies illegally resold agricultural products after the capitulation. Likewise, it has prevented any settlement for war victims with claims on the Japanese banks. As enemies of Japan, the war victims had been forced to sell their property. The Japanese authorities had deposited the proceeds of these sales in the blocked Nanpo A-account. After the war, SCAP regulations prevented the victims from fi ling claims at the bank’s head offi ces in Japan. The Council for the Restoration of Rights would have recognized the war victims’ claims on the Japanese bank branch offi ces in Indonesia, but these no longer existed.30 As far as the Allied delegations to the FEC were concerned, Japanese bank offi ces in the formerly occupied territories were ‘lost’.31 The A-account had been ‘dissolved’.

The British showed such a lack of interest in expediting the return of looted property that Dutch ofﬁ cials in Singapore started applying pressure through the local British authorities. It was only then that the British started frisking Japanese soldiers and screening them for war crimes before allowing them to leave Indonesia for Japan. This yielded thousands of watches, jewellery, fountain pens and other small valuables. Of course, the authorities suspected that the soldiers had not obtained these items legally. In a letter to the British

28 Yokohama Specie Bank, Ltd, 1945-1951. Folder: 3. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. UNPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 29 Yokohama Specie Bank, Ltd, 1945-1951. Folder 3. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. UNPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 30 MBZ, code 3. 31 MBZ, code 9, 3683. 166 The politics of redress

Jakarta, 1946. A major from the Seaforth Highlanders, a division of the British Army, interrogating the Japanese director of De Javasche Bank. The ‘director’ is almost certainly Yamamoto Hiroshi, who the Japanese Army had put in charge of liquidating the Dutch banks in Java during the occupation (NIOD 48879). commander of the Allied Forces Netherlands East Indies (AFNEI), a Dutch offi cer stressed that ‘practically all of this has been taken from the inhabitants of this country mostly by force and either without payment or at ridiculously low price [sic]’.32 The Temporary Council for the Restoration of Rights would decide what was to be done with the goods. The Allied troops were not entirely innocent themselves. One example of this is the Dutch-British agreement of 30 October 1945 on the safeguarding of property rights. It was normal practice for the British troops to seize Japanese military goods such as arms and munitions. However, they applied a very broad defi nition of ‘spoils of war’. They considered it self-evident to include natural resources such as tin and gold, and agricultural products like rubber, without a second thought to their origin or owners. In talks with the Dutch, the British negotiated for and won the right to confi scate war materiel such as weapons. All other goods, however, were to be transferred to the Dutch East

32 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 167

Indies authorities.33 And yet, to Van Mook’s great frustration, the Australian troops in East Indonesia continued to ship out rubber and copra (Van der Wal

1972:274-5). Another major problem was the looting of private property by Allied soldiers. In February 1946, the Komite Tionghoa Pembantoe Keamanan Oemoem Djakarta (Chinese Assistance Committee for General Safety in Jakarta) warned the Republican government that anarchy reigned in Jakarta and its surrounding regions.34 When the aid committee again appealed for help six months later, they provided proof that the rampok was not only the work of Indonesian militias. The organization gave the Republican government an overview of the looting, theft and requisitioning from April to August 1946. They listed 23 thefts by unknown perpetrators, 37 cases of looting by British, British-Indian and Dutch soldiers, and 19 instances of requisitioning by British and Dutch military police.35 A high-ranking Dutch ofﬁ cial referred to the plundering by British troops in a letter to a claims ofﬁ ce run by the British Army in Jakarta:

During the Japanese invasion and occupation there has been a considerable amount of theft and looting by the enemy, without the possibility to make a claim. It was even unadvisable to do so. After three years and a half, people were used to that. When the British troops came, it was not immediately clear that now looting was looting and theft was theft again.36

This must have caused deep disillusionment, particularly for those who had pinned their hopes on the Allied authorities. Dutch marines, KNIL and KL (Dutch Army) soldiers also acquired a bad reputation in terms of respect for property.37 The problems had started early on. An Army commander’s 25 November 1946 letter to all military authorities left little to the imagination: ‘It has come to my attention that soldiers from the K.N.I.L. and K.L. are still guilty of looting’ (Bank 1995, bijlage 11:159). The commander concluded by urging ofﬁ cers to keep a closer eye on their troops and to haul those who committed violations before the proper authorities. Two years later, looting was still rampant, despite several orders issued to eradicate the problem (Bank 1995, bijlage 11:159-60). In December 1948 and March 1949, Lieutenant General Simon Spoor, the commander of the Dutch Army in Indonesia, had to issue routine orders insisting that the troops respect others’ property unless combat left them no

33 ANRI, AS, inv. 298. 34 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 35 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 36 ANRI, AS, inv. 299. 37 NA, AS, inv. 3774. 168 The politics of redress alternative. He referred not only to the damaging of property but also to looting. The same point of view is refl ected in the verdicts handed down by the Dutch court martial on the battlefi eld. On at least two occasions, the court martial published lists of its sentences in both Dutch and Malay. Publication was aimed at counteracting the negative image the Dutch troops in Indonesia had in both domestic and international public opinion.38 This shows how embarrassed the Army command was by the behaviour of its own troops. The lists enumerated 46 cases of looting, desertion and other minor violations, but this was probably just the tip of the iceberg. In one example, a sergeant had been found guilty of stealing some very valuable sarongs and jewellery while on patrol. He was sentenced to a year in prison – half the time requested by the prosecutor – and discharged and demoted, though the court martial in its decision pointed out that the defendant ‘had been given an extraordinary promotion in rank for showing uncommon valour during combat action’.39 In the early stages of the revolution rampok was rife, just as it had been in the fi rst weeks of the Japanese invasion. The government pawn shops in Java’s larger cities were a favourite target. Some were looted by several gangs, for instance in Semarang (Central Java) in December 1945.40 Because of the frequent robberies, the government decided to close down the pawn shops in some cities – precisely where is not documented – until further notice. The pawn service was authorized to compensate those borrowers whose pawns had been stolen, but it is not known whether this ever occurred.41 The perpetrators were probably Indonesian militiamen, criminal gang members and Dutch Army troops. On 1 October 1947, the head of the pawn service wrote to the Army commander about the involvement of Dutch soldiers in 17 pawn shop lootings in Java and two in Sumatra, all of which took place during and after the First Police Action. In reply, the commander of the Dutch military police in Jakarta confi rmed that Dutch soldiers had been actively involved in six of these. The pawn service concluded that the other 11 cases of rampok in Java were the work of Republican forces and Indonesian civilians (Bank 1995, bijlage 11:12-3). Looters also targeted homes. Whether these were deserted or occupied made little difference. One British offi cer stationed in central Jakarta reported one day in October 1945 that he was woken at 6 a.m. by a cry for help from neighbouring residents. He quickly got dressed and grabbed his gun. When British soldiers arrived fi ring warning shots in the air, about fi fty looters scattered in all directions, dropping furniture and other household goods

38 ANRI, AS, inv. 1487. 39 ANRI, AS, inv. 1487. 40 ANRI, AS, inv. 461. 41 ANRI, AS, inv. 461. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 169 in the streets. Several arrests were made. Republican police arrived at the scene and the British politely asked them for permission to inspect a nearby pasar (market). Afraid the Indonesians at the market would regard this as a provocation, the police refused. But they agreed to a compromise proposed by the British ofﬁ cer in charge: he and his men would proceed unarmed to inspect the pasar. At the market, the British found stolen furniture and other items. With the help of one Indonesian policeman – all the others refused to cooperate – the British managed to return the stolen goods to their rightful owners. But this was the exception rather than the rule.42 The event just mentioned gives us a glimpse of the lively market in stolen goods, even at regular pasar. This black market trade deﬁ ed all authority. For instance, it was a public secret that most of the goods at the Pasar Atoom, in the Noordwijk district of Jakarta, were stolen. The buyers, mostly Europeans, were not deterred. Given the many shortages, people were simply grateful to get their hands on goods.43 With so few Allied troops deployed and local Republican authorities withholding unconditional support for Allied rule, preventing rampok was an extremely tall order. In the city of Malang, for instance, looting broke out in March 1948. Inhabitants and homeowners were helpless. The police left them unprotected; private guards hired by the homeowners were unable to keep the looters at bay. One real estate agent even tried renting out homes for free, in the hope that tenants would protect the property. But no tenants were willing to risk their lives. Whole neighbourhoods ended up deserted.44 While it was the Dutch population that suffered most from the collective looting in the early days of the Japanese invasion, i t was Indonesia’s Chinese community that was hit hardest by rampok. The reason the Dutch were largely spared is simple: by the end of 1945, most of them had left Republican- controlled areas. The ones who were still there were in Republican internment camps.45 Rampok was also targeted at the relatively wealthy Indonesians who lived in the countryside, mostly land-owning farmers. They fell victim to militias and criminal gangs who took their rice, food and cattle to supply their ‘troops’. This was often accompanied by excessive destruction; many houses were burned to the ground.46 From October 1945 to February 1946 rampok was daily fare in the Surakarta region. In 1949, when the Second Police Action got underway, there was another wave of lootings in the municipality of Surakarta and surrounding villages. These resulted from a complex local power struggle between the

42 NIOD, IC, 047648. 43 IISG. Collectie Henri Aa, portfolio 13, folder Rechtszaken. 44 ANRI, AS, inv. 301. 45 NA, AS, inv. 5521. 46 NA, AS, inv. 5516; Sin Po, 8-10-1949. 170 The politics of redress

Mangkunegaran (the Javanese ruling house in Surakarta), militias, criminal gangs and the Dutch and their supporters. These lootings were the work of undisciplined Indonesian soldiers and gangs led by charismatic benggol (self- proclaimed supernaturalists). These armed night prowlers worked in groups of ten or more. The bigger the group, the more loot they could take. If the loot was too much to haul off in one trip, the bandits would sometimes return for a second ‘visit’. Most victims were well-off Indonesians and Chinese (Ibrahim 2004:224-44, 300-12).

Restitution in the Dutch East Indies

While anarchy reigned in many parts of the Dutch East Indies, the colonial government appointed yet another committee. This one was to lay the groundwork for legislation on restitution. In mid-1946, two lawyers were brought over from the Netherlands to do some initial fact-fi nding because there were no specialists in the colony capable of doing this work. Their fi rst step was to fi nd out how the Japanese occupation had affected assets and whether the Japanese occupation force’s measures were valid under international law. Although several inquiries into Japanese control of enemy property were still in progress, including the NEFIS investigation, the Dutch lawyers already drew their conclusions in June 1946. By international law, they argued, Japan had not conquered but merely occupied the Dutch East Indies and should therefore have complied with the 1907 Hague Convention (Rules of War). The Dutch experts concluded that ‘the acts of the Japanese occupying forces [...] [could] be characterized as a continuing violation of international law’.47 This conclusion is hard to dispute, considering the practices of Japanese institutions and businesses during the occupation. However, the Tokyo government saw things differently. In its July 1946 survey of Japanese military rule in the Southern Area, the First Demobilization Bureau of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized that ‘the management of enemy properties in the occupied territories [had been] carried out lawfully and properly according to the international law from the beginning of the operation’.48 Whether international law had been violated was of little concern to the Dutch lawyers in Jakarta. They quickly concluded that the measures the Japanese took during the occupation had no legal validity: ‘[T]he owners may repossess these factories and everything belonging to them and need not recognize any contracts [...] that were drawn up by the Japanese army,

47 ANRI, AS, inv. 309. 48 NIOD, IC, 033861. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 171 or [...] Japanese companies’.49 The lawyers conceded that overcropping, the sale of products at unreasonable prices, and theft of fi xed assets had taken place. They concluded that the Japanese occupying force had administered but not expropriated enemy property. In short, no ownership rights had been revoked. And yet, special measures were needed to return the goods to their owners and to settle ownership disputes. A handful of documents can be seen as the seeds of restitution legislation in Indonesia: the May 1945 bill drafted by Eggens, the June 1946 assessment of Japan’s occupation measures, and fi ve anonymous and undated memoranda – including one that was tellingly entitled: Afwijkende sfeer van het Indische rechtsherstel ten opzichte van Nederland (The different approach to restitution in the East Indies compared to the Netherlands).50 The fi ve memoranda are commentaries on Eggens’s draft and were probably written by lawyers at the Justice department in Jakarta in late 1946. In a nutshell, they constitute a comparative study of restitution in the Netherlands and Indonesia. In terms of restitution, there was an essential difference between the two countries: the Netherlands was striving to restore pre-war economic relationships, while this was deemed impossible in the colony. As one of the lawyers put it, this was ‘just as impossible as returning from the tree to the seed’.51 The reasoning was that – unlike the Germans who occupied the Netherlands – the Japanese occupier of Indonesia had practically eliminated the European and American business community. It was an illusion to think that this disruption of economic life could be redressed by a simple decree. Although it is not mentioned in the offi cial documents, Indonesia’s legislature must have feared the chaos caused by the Indonesian revolution. Law and order were being undermined daily, with no resolution in sight. The memoranda also compared the Netherlands to Indonesia with respect to the actual restitution of assets. Restitution cases in the Netherlands were proceeding too sluggishly, according to Eggens. De Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR, the Council for the Restoration of Rights) was a slow-moving apparatus with numerous departments that worked at cross purposes. Final responsibility rested with the Minister of Justice. In order to avoid the kind of problems the Netherlands was experiencing with restitution, a decision was made to give the Dutch East Indies Council carte blanche to organize itself and to decide on its methods, which would not include any provisions for appealing decisions by asset management departments. Eggens’s last recommendation was to give fi nal say exclusively to the new council.52 His recommendations were

49 ANRI, AS, inv. 309. 50 NA, RvR, inv. 867. 51 NA, RvR, inv. 867. 52 NA, RvR, inv. 867. 172 The politics of redress adopted by Van Mook. Pending deﬁ nitive legislation, the Dutch government declared the Decree on Restoration of Legal Transactions, which it had promulgated on 14 September 1944, to be applicable in Indonesia as well. Article 164 declared the Decree commonly known as ‘E 100’ binding for the Dutch East Indies, Surinam and Curaçao. Despite this, Article 164 provided the option of taking measures that deviated from the Decree.53

The Temporary Council

In October 1946, as legislation was being prepared, the colonial authorities in Jakarta created the Tijdelijke Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (Temporary Council for the Restoration of Rights) in the Dutch East Indies. The council was derived directly from the pre-war Committee on Legal Transactions in Wartime (CRO), in which various heads of department participated including Director of Economic Affairs J.E. van Hoogstraten and Chief Treasurer W. Alons. The Temporary Council existed largely in name. It was ﬁ rst mentioned in the October 1946 Directive on Enemy Assets by the Lieutenant Governor- General, who gave no further explanation of the council’s purpose.54 The Governor-General transferred enemy property control from the CRO to the newly-established Nederlands-Indisch Beheersinstituut (NIBI, Dutch East Indies Property Administration) and also delegated to this agency responsibility for administering agricultural products (rubber, tea, sugar and palm oil) whose owners were either unknown or absent.55 NIBI fell under the direct supervision and control of the council. However, the distinction and hierarchical relationship between the two bodies existed mainly on paper because many of NIBI’s members also sat on the CRO and the council. Indeed, the members saw the overlap of tasks between NIBI and the Council for the Restoration of Rights as self-evident. They saw a close link between the administration of enemy and non-enemy property and restitution issues. This is hardly strange given the many property control issues at stake. Besides, the council members considered it efﬁ cient to hold combined meetings to deal with the various topics.56

Their lack of familiarity with restitution as an issue within special law gave rise to disputes within the CRO, NIBI and Temporary Council. It also caused confusion about the demarcation line between restitution and enemy property

53 Staatsblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden No. E 100. 54 Indisch Staatsblad, no. 104. 55 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 56 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 173 control. To some council members, the relationship between regular law (civil code), international law (law of nations) and special law (restitution) was unclear (Ten Siethoff 1946:377). The need to clear up the confusion made deﬁ nitive legislation all the more urgent. Meanwhile, the council and NIBI got to work, acting on the assumption that a policy would emerge in practice.

The Temporary Council did not formally evaluate the contents of the bill or the powers of the permanent council. Its members did, however, discuss the composition of the council including the issue of representation on the body. In October 1946, the council members supported the inclusion of a representative from the Chinese community. The representative chosen was an employee of the Kian Kwan trading house, a subsidiary of the Oei Tiong Ham business group which was well known throughout Indonesia and Singapore.57 The group was on good terms with the Dutch authorities in the colony. In January 1947, the combined meetings of the CRO, NIBI and the Temporary Council were also attended by a native Indonesian: R.M. Notosoetarso, bookkeeper at the Nederlandse Handel-Maatschappij (Dutch Trading Company).58 This selection is perfectly in keeping with the racial lines along which the pre- war colonial government had subdivided society, including categories such as ‘Natives’ and ‘Foreign Orientals’. There can be little doubt the council had a preference for candidates with an unquestionably pro-Dutch attitude. Hence a bookkeeper, who despite his many abilities had no obvious legal expertise, could end up with a seat on the temporary council under the cloak of representation. There were more ways in which the federal government tried to control the situation. It ensured that both war damage compensation and restitution were excluded from the member states’ legal competence, as we see from the directives on the jurisdiction of the federal states of East Indonesia and Negara Madura.59

Very little actual restitution took place at this time. NIBI occasionally restored property to its owners after mediation by a local representative. However, many of the rightful claimants were either temporarily or permanently untraceable. The war had forced some to move elsewhere in the colony or to leave for the Netherlands. Others could not be found because they lived in Republican territory inaccessible to NIBI. And some were deceased. Actual restitution would only get underway after the First Police Action in mid-1947.

57 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 58 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 59 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1946, no. 143; Staatsblad van Indonesië 1949, no. 128. 174 The politics of redress

Drafting legislation

By the end of February 1947, a draft decree was ready. We can reconstruct the principles it was founded on by studying the comments made by various civil servants and interest groups. In an effort to gauge society’s response to the draft, Van Mook invited a few special interest groups to Jakarta in mid-March 1947. Once again, however, this was more for appearances’ sake than an earnest attempt at inclusion. Dutch private enterprise played a dominant role, having brought along lawyers from the Indische Ondernemersbond (IOB, Dutch East Indies Business Association) and a representative of De Javasche Bank. The non-European population was represented by a member of the Chinese Trading Association in Batavia and another person who probably attended on behalf of Indonesian Arab merchants. NIBEG, the alliance of former prisoners of war and internees, was also represented. Indonesians were conspicuously absent.

At its core, the draft decree on restitution covered the following points: 1. the legislature did not automatically regard acts that violated international law as null and void; 2. the Japanese had administered businesses, but did not expropriate them; and 3. the introduction of an unlawful Japanese currency justiﬁ ed a sliding scale conversion. The third measure was meant to ensure that debts which had been partly or entirely paid off during the occupation would not have to be repaid again after the war. The legislature recognized debt settlement according to a sliding scale of percentages and date of repayment. The later the debt payment, the lower the percentage recognized as redeemed. This formula took into account the Japanese currency devaluation towards the end of the occupation and the great increase in repayments at that time. In Van Mook’s words, the draft directive steered ‘a middle course between national common law, international law, and the demands of the occupation’.60 However, the business organizations held a sharply different view on the reality of the occupation. In their view, all transactions subject to property law made during the Japanese occupation should be declared null and void. They also felt that the Japanese administration of businesses had been unlawful. The business community’s criticism of the draft decree should not be interpreted solely in the context of the loss of property rights during the Japanese occupation. The post-war era also played a role. Japanese custodians and private enterprise had transferred large stockpiles of raw materials and agricultural commodities owned by Dutch East Indies trading and agricultural businesses to Republican organizations, unions, and to Indonesian and Chinese Indonesian companies. How could these supplies quickly be reclaimed? The

60 NA, RvR, inv. 869 VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 175

IOB had already discussed this topic extensively with the Dutch East Indies government on March 3, 1947.61 Speaking on behalf of the planters, the IOB proposed to amend the Restitution Decree by restricting the authority of the Council for the Restoration of Rights to the period before 15 August 1945 for the area that was under de facto Republican control. In a nutshell, the IOB saw restitution rights as an obstacle to the implementation of Article 14 of the Linggajati agreement.62 For agricultural businesses, this article was a legal instrument that could be used to reclaim stocks with the mediation and support of the Republican government.63 The IOB felt that the Restitution Decree was unclear on the invalidity of transactions after 15 August 1945 and feared this vagueness could be interpreted as a form of protection for those who had taken over control of plantations and crops without the owners’ permission. This would be all the more likely, the IOB feared, if implementation of the decree were put in the hands of an Indonesian restitution court. The IOB preferred to negotiate out of court settlements with Indonesian administrators over trying to get farmland or agricultural stocks back through a slow-moving and uncertain restitution procedure. In the meeting with the Governor-General, representative Djie Siauw Hoen of the Chinese Trading Association expressed what he called ‘the dominant opinion among the Chinese in Batavia’. Djie described his constituents as stakeholders ‘who do not think like lawyers and are not versed in international legal affairs’.64 Chinese Indonesian businesses had been coerced into making payments during the Japanese occupation. Just like the IOB representatives, Chinese Indonesian entrepreneurs did not understand why the policy of the Dutch East Indies government was not to automatically declare all the transactions made during the Japanese occupation null and void. President R.E. Smits of De Javasche Bank also criticized the draft decree because he felt that the proposed registration of securities was unnecessary. Unlike the banks in the Netherlands, those in Indonesia had already taken complete control of shares before the occupation. It was certain that these securities were ‘untainted’. The securities at the four major banks in Indonesia had been registered before the Japanese invasion and these records had survived the occupation intact. No trading had taken place during wartime.65 Smits also objected to the proposed sliding scale scheme to legitimize and recalculate payments made during the occupation. The president of De Javasche Bank argued that recognizing payments made towards debts during the Japanese occupation would be unfavourable to the creditors (the banks)

61 NA, ONRANI, inv. 106. 62 NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. 63 NA, ONRANI, inv. 106. 64 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 65 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 176 The politics of redress

(Van Horn et al. 2000:82). Van Mook dismissed Smits’s criticism of the sliding scale principle, stating that no sliding scale could make everyone happy. Obviously, the parties invited were disappointed in both the draft decree and the Governor-General’s response. Less than a month later, the Hague-based Ondernemersraad voor Nederlands-Indië (Council for Dutch Businesses in Indonesia) requested that its sister organization in Jakarta, the IOB, lodge a protest with the Dutch East Indies government against the draft decree and the procedures through which it had been reviewed. The Ondernemersraad felt excluded from the talks. Its main concern was the relationship between restitution and Article 14 of the Linggajati Agreement. It wanted better protection of foreign assets: in other words, crops and plantations.66 Despite these objections, the principles of the draft decree remained unchanged. Alterations were limited to the rewording of several articles to prevent terminological misunderstandings. About three weeks later, Van Mook promulgated the Decree on the Restoration of Legal Transactions in the Dutch East Indies.

Big business and restitution

While legislative work was still underway, the Temporary Council began implementing the restitution policy. At the start, implementation was dominated by property administration issues. The fact that restitution had not yet been clearly deﬁ ned worked to the advantage of the big Dutch East Indies trading companies, as the next two examples will illustrate. Under the guise of restitution Van Mook granted compensation to the Big Five importers in the Dutch East Indies, much to the chagrin of President Hens of the Research Committee on Material War Damage. The second property administration issue I will discuss here is the debate about what had to be done with the stocks of agricultural products like rubber.

In order to regulate and control export and domestic trade, the Dutch East Indies government had established a number of central purchasing and sales organizations – essentially state-owned monopolies – one of which was the Nederlands-Indische Gouvernements Import- en Export Organisatie (NIGIEO, Dutch East Indies Governmental Importing and Exporting Organization).67 In November 1946, the Nederlands-Indische Vereniging van Importeurs-Groothandelaren (NIVIG, Dutch East Indies Association of Importer-Wholesalers) heard distressing news about the activities of NIGIEO.

66 NA, ONRANI, inv. 106. 67 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 177

NIGIEO had seized imported goods whose individual owners were unknown, assumed that these were enemy assets and subsequently sold them. NIBI and NIVIG suspected that NIGIEO had sold pre-war supplies stockpiled by the importers at the behest of the Dutch East Indies government after the ties with the motherland had been severed. These stocks had subsequently been seized by the Japanese, located by NIGIEO after the capitulation and sold. NIBI put the proceeds into a joint account opened by the Big Five at De Javasche Bank. However, the importers could not touch these funds because the account had been frozen by the Dutch East Indies government as an anti-inﬂ ation measure. They were nervous about the impending liquidation of a NIGIEO subsidiary that controlled the import goods. They feared they would neither get their supplies back nor receive any compensation as it was unclear who the money should go to once the account was unfrozen. In the last two months of 1946, the importers organized a brief but powerful lobbying effort to secure the proceeds earned by NIGIEO. NIVIG suggested to the Temporary Council that the proceeds should be divided among the importers who were the probable owners of the goods sold off. The Department of Economic Affairs informed NIVIG on 13 December 1946 that the government would grant the importers compensation for the loss of the supplies they had been ordered to stockpile.68 Although the NIVIG president expressed his gratitude, he took umbrage to the description of the measure as war damage compensation. He considered it a ‘replacement’ of the supplies stockpiled by the importers.69 This set off a war of words, with Director of Economic Affairs Van Hoogstraten insisting that this was undeniably a case of war damage compensation.70 Van Mook had yet another opinion and was supported in this by the Temporary Council. The council invoked Article 113 of E 100, an administrative provision that gave the council the right to decide on the fate of the assets it controlled. The council could opt to restore the proceeds to the owner of the goods or to use them for a purpose of its own choosing.71 Van Mook and the Temporary Council saw compensation of the importers as a ‘temporary provision’ taken in anticipation of the deﬁ nitive Decree on the Restoration of Legal Transactions. The Governor-General therefore spoke of an advance.72 The IOB and the planters could only look on and grit their teeth. Having counted on receiving either compensation or restitution from the Dutch East Indies government, the planters now felt the import-export sector and the government had simply passed them over.

68 NA, archief van de Federatie van Verenigingen van Bergcultuurondernemingen in Indone- sië (FEDERABO), inv. 56. 69 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 56. 70 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 56. 71 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 72 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 178 The politics of redress

The debate on agricultural commodities revealed how fl uid the notion of restitution still was and how highly prioritized property administration issues were. Prior to the establishment of NIBI in October 1946, the departments had acted as provisional managers of all enemy assets (German, Japanese and Italian) and assets whose owners were either absent or unknown. It appears the departments had been charged with this responsibility by the CRO. The rules for managing such property were unclear, however, and each department acted on its own discretion. It was unknown whether certain goods should even have been labelled as enemy assets and whether sold items should have been put up for sale or returned to their owners. Another issue was whether the goods had been sold at their real value or far below. Finally, there was the persistent problem of what to do with the proceeds. Should they fall to the state? Or should the state use them to pay damages to the rightful claimants (the planters)? The heads of department admitted that various ‘anomalies’ had occurred after the Japanese capitulation. The abnormal circumstances had necessitated speedy action. But often the consequences of these hasty decisions were not fully grasped.73 The establishment of NIBI allowed the department heads to divest themselves of their administrative role. They were afraid of being confronted with claims to either the goods or the money they were sold for. It was a responsibility they wanted no part of. NIBI formally took over property administration from the department heads, but this did not solve the problems. NIBI appointed new managers to confi scate supplies of rubber, tea, sugar and other crops. It did so either because it suspected that these were enemy assets, or because the commodities were not in the hands of their rightful owners, or because the owners were absent or unknown. With a view to reviving exports, NIBI felt inclined to sell this stock off. It had approval to do so from the Temporary Council for the Restoration of Rights. NIBI intended to sell mainly to foreign buyers who could provide the treasury with badly needed foreign currency. The Dutch East Indies government was even prepared to sidestep restitution legislation in order to come up with a solution for the control of agricultural commodities. Essentially the plan called for the government to confi scate the products, sell them, and pay part of the proceeds to the known owners (the planters). Proceeds from the sale of unclaimed commodities would be payable to NIBI. This solution would clear the way for a quick sale of goods while avoiding any delays caused by the restitution court’s orders to freeze assets.74 During a meeting of the Temporary Council in late February 1947, Van Hoogstraten suggested it would be better to leave the issue of agricultural

73 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 74 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 179 produce out of restitution law altogether and to introduce a system of produce sales. The planters welcomed his proposals. Van Hoogstraten admitted that implementation of the restitution law would be hampered by red tape and opposition from the Indonesians who administered plantations and agricultural commodities. A government-approved system for the sale of agricultural commodities would enable the planters to bypass restitution regulations. The proceeds would be directly available. Obviously, the IOB was curious to know exactly what kind of system the government had in mind.75 This proposal never got off the ground, however, and Van Mook continued – outside the context of the Temporary Council – to explore ways to free up, mobilize and export agricultural goods (Van der Wal 1978:652-7). To achieve this, he imposed export restrictions, bargained with the British in Singapore, and negotiated with the Indonesian Republic in the spirit of Article 14 of the Linggajati Agreement. This approach had nothing to do with restitution. The legal and diplomatic measures he took were primarily aimed at restricting the illegal export of rubber to the Straits Settlements, a trade controlled by Chinese and Indonesian merchants. The ultimate goal was two-pronged: to strengthen the Dutch East Indies’ foreign exchange position and to weaken the economic foundations of the Indonesian Republic. By mid-1947 the Dutch East Indies government felt military intervention was the only way to get a grip on the plantation sector. The issue of what to do with the proceeds from the sale of agricultural products would come back to haunt the Council for the Restoration of Rights and the planters. The problem remained a thorn in their side until well after the transfer of sovereignty. And even though the planters backed the First Police Action, the issue of property administration eventually caused deep division between the planters and the Dutch East Indies government.

Half-hearted implementation

Most ordinary citizens had no idea that the restitution regulations existed. This point had been driven home by the representative of the Chinese trading association in the meeting with Van Mook. It is worth questioning how much contact there was between the Temporary Council in Jakarta and civilians. What did the average citizen know about restitution in the early days after the decree? Local representatives reporting to the Temporary Council in Jakarta spread the word about the possibility of restitution and kept their eye out for property disputes. Although the documentation treats these local representatives as

75 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 180 The politics of redress anonymous facilitators of restitution, their role was far from secondary. We know little for certain beyond the fact that these ﬁ eld workers were active in Jakarta, Bandung and Semarang in late 1946 and early 1947.76 They were members of the local judiciary, recruited by the Temporary Council in consultation with local Advisory Councils. These judges, notaries, lawyers and corporate lawyers belonged to the lower echelons of the European colonial elite. They received practical and moral support from the private citizens and civil servants who sat on the Advisory Councils. Because these local representatives worked only in the cities controlled by the Dutch East Indies government, and because virtually no information was provided to the public, a large part of the population remained ignorant of the possibility of restitution. There must have been countless property disputes, but it is doubtful that many natural persons asked the Temporary Council to arbitrate. There is no jurisprudence about restitution from the early post- war period. It is also unknown how many and what sort of cases the local representatives managed to settle without mediation by the council. The minutes of the Temporary Council’s meetings reveal the kind of property issues that affected natural persons. These turned out to be largely the same as those experienced by the corporations: the administration of unclaimed assets, how they should be sold and who should beneﬁ t from the proceeds. Homes and furniture were a major problem. After the Japanese capitulation, former internees returned to their places of residence. The majority found their homes intact, but were unable to move back in because others were living there. Their furniture was nowhere to be found; it had been sold off by Japanese Army units and custodians during the occupation. The Red Cross and AMACAB offered relief, arranging for accommodation and furnishings.77 The sources do not mention where these furnishings came from, but they must have belonged to unknown and absentee owners. It was not always clear who had to administer the property of natural persons. For example, no one was certain which institution was responsible for the homes of absentee owners.78 Another problem was the thousands of watches, fountain pens and alarm clocks that the Allied authorities in Singapore had taken from Japanese soldiers heading back home from Indonesia. The British and the Dutch assumed that some of these items had been obtained illegally. Because it was impossible to track their owners, NIBI suggested making the goods available to the social group the owners probably belonged to. The Lieutenant Governor-General would then decide on the

76 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 77 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 78 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 181 items’ ultimate destination. The Temporary Council got mired in a debate on how to delineate these social groups. A practical consideration cut the debate short: the majority of the items were in disrepair. Fixing them would be either too costly or impossible. The Temporary Council decided to sell the items and deposit the money in a general account, earmarking it for ‘a more general purpose’. In other words, it would be up to the government to decide what to do with the proceeds.79 The way in which unclaimed property would be sold to third parties was an issue in itself.80 The Council could choose between a private sale, in which it approached a few potential buyers, or a public sale by auction. Public auctions, so commonplace in pre-war Indonesia, had been temporarily banned by the Finance Department and NIBI after the Japanese capitulation. NIBI was afraid large quantities of goods acquired through theft or forced sale (particularly furniture) would be put up for auction. Such illegal merchandise could later become the object of restitution claims. The Finance Department thought Article 1977 of the Dutch East Indies civil code contained suffi cient warning to buyers that their purchase might be provisional and guaranteed rightful owners a chance to reclaim goods. The article recognized owners’ right to reclaim stolen movable goods as long as they made their claim within three years after the date of theft. NIBI was not satisfi ed with the protection this article offered buyers. They would not be protected against claims based on the restitution legislation that was being drawn up.81 Given the rampok and Jakarta’s thriving black market, it seems NIBI’s fears were justifi ed. Incidentally, the Council for the Restoration of Rights held on to movable goods such as home furnishings for a long time, on the chance they might be reclaimed by their rightful owners. Enormous amounts of private property were accumulating at the custodial institutions appointed by NIBI. One example is the luggage of Dutch evacuees that was stored in warehouses of the Royal Packet Steam Navigation Co. (KPM) all over Indonesia. The luggage consisted of clothes, straw mattresses, toys and unidentifi ed suitcases. Having stored these items since early 1946, the shipping company was itching to get rid of them because they were likely to attract thieves. It is not known whether the KPM donated these goods to the Red Cross, as NIBI suggested.82 One last issue at play during this early post-war period was the restitution of goods sold under duress during the Japanese occupation. Whenever it could be proven that the rightful owners had been forced to sell their goods, NIBI allowed the property to be returned immediately without insisting on

79 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 80 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 81 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 82 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 182 The politics of redress a formal restitution procedure. The property was returned on one condition: the claimants had to pay NIBI the money they had received from the Japanese person or institution for the goods. NIBI did not take into account any possible decrease or increase in value of the object. Some claimants disputed the amount NIBI wanted to be paid. A homeowner who had been forced to sell a house in 1943 for ƒ 10,000 was expected to pay the full ƒ 10,000 to NIBI in 1946, even though the house’s value had bottomed out at ƒ 2,000 by then. The opposite might also occur. To take the same example, the Japanese owner of the ƒ 10,000 house might have added a wing to it, signiﬁ cantly increasing its value. In that case, the claimant would proﬁ t from what was formally enemy property. NIBI refused to revise this payment condition and urged the Temporary Council’s local representatives to seek a court ruling in a test case.83

Restitution dilemmas in the Philippines

The Americans showed little interest in the organized looting that had occurred in the Philippines. They neither drew up special legislation nor established institutions to deal specifi cally with this problem. What explains this lack of concern about looting and restitution? The fi rst initiative to investigate organized theft in the Philippines ran aground in 1946. A Reparations Commission had been installed in November of the previous year, after President Osmeña appealed to US Congress. The commission was given a very broad mandate to investigate robbery in the wider context of preparing a claim on Japan for war reparations. However, any investigations undertaken must have been aborted, because in June 1946, Edwin Pauley, President Truman’s envoy in Japan, told the Philippine government it could not expect large reparations from Japan (Meyer 1965:27). This is the last we hear about this commission and its investigation of Japanese robbery. The issue of looting in the Philippines found its way back on the American agenda when SCAP received hundreds of claims from US citizens about possessions taken by the Japanese in the Philippines. This led to an investigation (of sorts) in Japan in 1948. The inquiry was limited to the interrogation of ten formerly high-ranking Japanese offi cers who had served in the Philippines during the war. All but one either claimed to know nothing or gave information that was extremely diffi cult to verify. As far as we know, neither SCAP nor the Philippine authorities conducted any research in the Philippines itself. Based on its research in Japan, SCAP produced two general reports on looting in the Philippines. The investigation focused on personal

83 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 183 property loss suffered by Americans who had been in the Philippines during the war. The reports did not mention Filipinos who had fallen victim to looting. The investigators did not address the issue of Japanese custodianship, the role of Japanese private enterprise, or the activities of Philippine go-betweens who supplied the Japanese occupying force and made great proﬁ ts on the black market selling goods of dubious origin (Agoncillo 1965:572-5). Unfortunately, the SCAP reports dealt only with what went on in Manila, so we learn nothing about the rest of the Philippines.

The Americans and the Filipinos sought to address the issue of looting through the 1946 War Rehabilitation Act and through international law, particularly the Rules of War. The War Damage Commission granted compensation for looted property. In this way, the Americans and Filipinos avoided arduous the legal and bureaucratic tasks that an extensive investigation of looting would have entailed. However, the Rehabilitation Act offered no way to resolve the issues involving the property of unknown or absentee owners. It provided no guidance for arbitrating property disputes or for the compensation of forced payments. That the Philippine courts relied on international law is obvious from jurisprudence. In March 1946, the Philippine Supreme Court refused to recognize payments that a debtor named Haw Pia had made during the Japanese occupation to the Taiwan Bank, the liquidator of the Manila-based China Banking Corporation.84 Based on Articles 46 and 53 of the Rules of War, the court ordered the debtor to make the payments again. The justices’ arguments are clearly laid out in a published Supreme Court decision in the case of the Benedictine Order vs. the Philippine Trust Company in December 1949. Referring to the Haw Pia case, the Supreme Court justices argued that payments made with Japanese money were null and void because they were not backed by gold or silver reserves in the treasury. Such payments were deemed to be in contravention of the 1907 Hague Convention and on these grounds the court ruled against the petitioner, the Benedictine Order (Sevilla 1984:52-4). There was one dissenting opinion, however: that of Justice Sabino B. Padilla. His arguments may help us understand the problems of interpreting the Rules of War and restitution in the Philippines. Padilla wrote:

In deciding this case, in the same way as when it decided the case of Haw Pia v. China Banking Corporation, supra, this Highest Court of the Republic sits as an international tribunal, because it construes and applies the rules or regulations of the Hague Conventions of 1907. I sincerely believe that the majority decision in this case, as well as in the case of Haw Pia v. China Banking Corporation, supra, has laid down a dangerous rule or precedent – dangerous because it sanctions a viola-

84 ANRI, AS, inv. 309. 184 The politics of redress

tion of the rules or regulations of the Hague Conventions of 1907 – a precedent which may be invoked in the future against the peaceful and law-abiding citizens and inhabitants of the Republic. For these reasons, I dissent from those two parts of the majority opinion to above. (Sevilla 1984:52-4.)

Judge Padilla would have preferred to see a different ruling. Both cases show that the majority of the judges in the Philippines were insensitive to the fact that circumstances of war, such as coercion by the occupying force, could infl uence payments. We are also left with the impression that their interpretation of the Rules of War was far-fetched. Articles 46 and 53 of the Rules of War provide no guidelines on how to deal with payments made during an occupation. Both the Dutch East Indies legislature and its British counterpart in the Malayan Union did recognize the shortcomings of international law in this respect and were aware of the danger identifi ed by Padilla. For this reason, Dutch lawyers in Jakarta had kept a close eye on the Haw Pia case in 1946.85 They felt a great need to create restitution legislation specifi cally to deal with the problems of war and occupation, such as payments under duress. All this begs the question why the Philippine authorities did not draw up special legislation to handle restitution-related issues. They probably feared that such legislation would be plagued by the same fundamental problems preventing them from effectively dealing with collaboration.

In a US Joint Congressional Resolution passed in October 1944, aimed at the immediate restoration of civil administration in the Philippines, President Roosevelt declared that collaborators had to be barred from important administrative posts in the country. After liberating the island of Leyte, General MacArthur, who was acting without consulting with the US government and without any real plan, detained political collaborators at Iwahig Penal Colony on Palawan Island. MacArthur assumed that collaborators would be brought to justice, but he wanted to leave this task to the Commonwealth (De Viana 2003:111). He cleared his personal friend Manuel Roxas of collaboration charges because Roxas had maintained contact with American spies during the war and had given them information about the members of José Laurel’s puppet regime (Steinberg 1967:115). Roxas’s political role during the war was debatable, however. He had initially avoided collaborating with the occupying force, but had ended up working with the Japanese anyway. He was a member of the Preparatory Commission for Philippine Independence, which had the support of Japan. Roxas returned to the political arena in June 1945 as president of the Philippine Senate, and he ran for and won the presidency of the Philippine Commonwealth in April 1946. He became a key

85 ANRI, AS, inv. 309. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 185

fi gure in the resolution of the collaboration issue, not only because of his arbitrary release under the patronage of MacArthur, but especially thanks to the amnesty act for collaborators, which he promulgated in 1948 during his term as Philippine president. On 17 August 1945, the then Philippine President Osmeña ordered the establishment of a People’s Court and an Offi ce of Special Prosecutors with the express aim of bringing collaborators to justice. Osmeña appointed former guerrilla leader and lawyer Lorenzo M. Tañada head of the Offi ce. Tañada was dismayed to discover how unwilling the US authorities were to help. He needed their cooperation because the US Army and Navy had collected dossiers on the suspects. Given the imminent independence of the Philippines, the US government thought it wise to leave it to the Philippine authorities to prosecute collaborators. But this was not the only reason the US was reluctant to cooperate. It had set its sights on prosecuting Japanese war criminals in Japan and had allocated logistical, fi nancial and legal resources to this purpose. A third reason was summed up by MacArthur when he stated that prosecuting Philippine political leaders would be detrimental to the foreign policy objective of stopping the spread of communism. The Huk Rebellion in Central Luzon was held up as an example of the terror communism would bring. The Philippine political elite was needed in this battle to stop the dominoes from falling to communism (Steinberg 1967:127, 143-4). Despite all of these obstacles, the Philippine Prosecutor accused 5,600 people of collaboration, including former President Laurel. The prosecution of collaborators was political by defi nition because many of the suspects were members of the elite and had returned to politics after the war. More fuel was thrown on the fi re during the campaign leading to the April 1946 presidential election. Presidential candidate Manuel Roxas did all he could to ‘neutralize’ his tainted past. He took to calling everyone who had used Japan’s worthless invasion money a collaborator. Since almost everyone had been forced to use the invasion currency, prosecution of collaborators would be a farce, he argued. Followers of Laurel organized mass protests in the streets of Manila to put pressure on the People’s Court. They demanded that all charges against the former puppet leader be dropped. Laurel himself argued in his defence that he had protected the Philippine people from bigger disasters by subtly undermining Japan’s request to recruit Filipinos for their Army, for instance (De Viana 2003:135, 137, 156, 160, 169). The idea that the puppet administration had acted as a buffer between the Japanese military administration and the population was one of the key arguments former collaborators used in their defence. They stressed that they had represented the people’s best interests. The argument found support. Society gradually grew polarized between those who wanted to prosecute the collaborators and a growing group in favour of amnesty. 186 The politics of redress

Even the People’s Court did not escape the increasing politicization, polarization and partisanship. Judges all the way up to the Supreme Court fought over the cases they would try. Some of them openly sympathized with the collaborators’ point of view. The courts also faced procedural problems. They were often unable to meet the legal requirement of hearing at least two witnesses. As a result, many cases were dismissed. More worryingly, witnesses were intimidated and bribed (De Viana 2003:179-80). The Special Prosecutor won 156 convictions, only one of which was against a prominent administrator: Theoﬁ lo Sison, former Justice minister of the puppet regime (Steinberg 1967:162-3). Roxas saw his election in April 1946 as proof that the Philippine population considered him a legitimate leader and patriot, not a traitor. With a Senate majority backing him, he could now easily introduce an Amnesty Act. He did so in January 1948, under the banner of shoring up Philippine unity.86 All political and economic collaborators were granted amnesty with the exception of those who had committed felonies against guerrillas and the population. In February 1948, the Philippine Lawyers’ Association voiced its displeasure with the act because it favoured high-ranking collaborators. Many spies and murderers had been executed by guerrillas during or immediately after the occupation. Most of the collaborators who were still around had committed less serious offences (De Viana 2003:164-5, 170). Therefore the Act reeked of class justice. The political and legal problems encountered in handling the collaboration issue would very likely have hampered any attempt to settle restitution cases in the Philippines and would have yielded the same disappointing results. The collaboration issue may even have acted as a deterrent to other special legislation initiatives aimed at dealing with the aftermath of war and occupation.

Summary

When Japanese Army units, custodians and businesses had to transfer control of the assets they had administered in Indonesia, their methods were far from uniform or transparent. Japanese conduct varied from cooperation to outright sabotage. With the arrival of Allied troops in late September 1945, respect for property hardly improved. Not only were the Indonesian Army, militias and gangs guilty of thieving and looting; British and Dutch soldiers often grabbed what they could as well.

86 Proclamation No. 51, 28-01-1948. VI Restitution: laying the groundwork 187

Restitution legislation had been prepared by Eggens even before the Japanese capitulated, but it took almost two years for his recommendations to be drafted into bills and enacted into law. The main causes for this delay were a shortage of legal experts in the colony and renewed confl ict as the Indonesians began their struggle for independence. Since there were no clear guidelines for carrying out restitution, there were great problems with the administration of property originally belonging to natural persons and corporate entities now unknown or absent. The return of stolen goods was also complicated by this vagueness. Because the Dutch East Indies government could not put off restitution indefi nitely, it created a Temporary Council and NIBI began returning property to its rightful owners on a limited scale. Defi nitive restitution legislation was needed to make these property control structures more transparent, to return goods to their rightful owners wherever possible, and to clarify the interrelationship between national, international and special law. Dutch lawyers in Jakarta continued Eggens’s work in 1946. By late February 1947, their efforts had yielded a bill. This legislation was based on the premise that the Japanese had not expropriated enemy property, but had managed it. The legislature did not consider actions that violated international law a priori null and void. Van Mook was immune to criticism and nothing could sway him from promulgating the Decree on Restoration of Legal Transactions. In the Philippines, no restitution legislation was drawn up. Law and politics were dominated by collaboration; this issue overshadowed all matters of restitution and compensation. Besides, the Philippine legislature was satisfi ed with the alternatives offered by the Rehabilitation Act and the provisions of international law.

CHAPTER VII Restitution in practice

On 3 May 1947, almost two years after the Japanese capitulation, the Ordon- nantie Herstel Rechtsverkeer (OHR, Ordinance on Restoration of Legal Transactions) ﬁ nally saw the light of day.1 With its completion, the Council for the Restoration of Rights in Indonesia was established, replacing the Temporary Council. The ordinance’s 195 articles and the equally lengthy explanatory memorandum laid down the same principle that Royal Decree E 100 had established in the Netherlands: that the legislature had accepted the post-war situation as a fact and adjusted its legislation accordingly. In other words, the principle of compensating every infringement of property rights was abandoned. Unlike its counterpart in the Netherlands, the Indonesian restitution law acknowledged that the situation after the war had by no means returned to normal. Formally, the war in the colony had ended, but chaos continued unabated. The violation of property rights – or to put it more bluntly, looting – was a daily reality.

Royal Decree E 100 had introduced the concept of ‘impact of extraordinary circumstances’ to describe the consequences of the ﬂ uid situation of war.2 The legislature in the colony borrowed this concept, using it alongside the terms ‘enemy acts of war’, ‘the war that broke out in the year 1939’ and the less precise notion of ‘disruption of normal legal relationships after the liberation’.3 The ‘impact of extraordinary circumstances’ became the touchstone for the Council for the Restoration of Rights; the phrase was the body’s justiﬁ cation for intervening in legal relationships, declaring transactions null and void or restoring their validity. That ‘extraordinary circumstances’ covered the Japanese occupation was clear. But the phrase also implicitly referred to the Indonesian revolution – without, however, using the word ‘war’. It was up to the Lieutenant Governor-General to determine when the extraordinary

1 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1947, no. 70. 2 Staatsblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, no. E 100. 3 OHR artikel 1, lid 7. 190 The politics of redress circumstances in the Dutch East Indies had ended.4 On 1 April 1948, Van Mook determined that the extraordinary circumstances had ended on 19 July 1947 in the regions recaptured after the fi rst Police Action.5 It seems the Lieutenant Governor-General and the Council for the Restoration of Rights were eager to draw a line in time and space, as if regular colonial law and order had been re-established. A regular civil court such as the Landraad was not authorized to hear cases related to ‘extraordinary circumstances’. These cases were dealt with by the Council (or its delegates), whose rulings had the same power as court verdicts. The one type of case these delegates were not empowered to hear, according to the OHR, was claims to salary not paid during the Japanese occupation.6 The Dutch East Indies government refused to pay the salaries that civil servants, including military personnel, had not received during the Japanese occupation. The government feared that issuing back pay would exhaust the treasury, just as paying war damage compensation would have done. Both the colony and the mother country, its fi nancial backer, would be brought to the brink of bankruptcy. In legal terms this meant that those entitled to back pay could not turn to the Council for the Restoration of Rights but had to fi le a lawsuit with a regular civil court. Former civil servants and military personnel took this route in the Netherlands, but to no avail. The Dutch courts regarded the former Dutch East Indies as fi nancially independent of the Netherlands and as a separate legal entity. They reasoned that the Netherlands therefore had no obligation to pay the back wages of Dutch East Indies civil servants (Meijer 2005:44-7, 50-3, 65-78).

As Eggens had advocated, the Dutch East Indies government established a restitution body that was less bureaucratic than its counterpart in the Netherlands. There were no separate departments for the administration of justice, custodianship, provisions for unknown or absentee owners, registration of securities, and real estate (Aalders 2001:52-62). Instead, the colony’s Council consisted of three core bodies: a Board, a Restitution Executive, and a Court of Appeals. NIBI, which was responsible for managing enemy and unclaimed assets, was made answerable to the Executive. However, it was the Board that steered NIBI in practice. The restitution representatives formally reported to the Executive too, but were appointed by the Board. Schematically it looked like this:

4 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1947, no. 70. Bijblad no. 15102. Toelichting op het ontwerp der Ordonnantie Herstel Rechtsverkeer:22. 5 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1948, no. 76. 6 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1947, no. 70. Bijblad no. 15102. VII Restitution in practice 191

Council for the Restoration of Rights

BoardExecutive Court of Appeals

Dutch East Indies Property Delegates (local representatives) Administration (NIBI)

Figure 3: Organizational structure of the Council for the Restoration of Rights. Solid lines indicate formal answerability, dotted lines show informal inﬂ uence.

The Council’s centre of gravity was the Board, consisting of the heads of the Departments of Justice, Finance, Economic Affairs, and Transport and Communications. Putting the department heads on the Board was the Dutch East Indies government’s way of guaranteeing it had leverage on the Council.7 In the long run, this led to tensions as the Executive felt its room for manoeuvre was being restricted by the Board.8 Anxious not to allow the Council to be seen as a government-dependent institution, the legislature stressed in its explanatory memorandum that the Court of Appeals should be regarded as an objective and purely judicial body within the Council.9 However, by October 1947 there was still no such court in place due to a lack of lawyers.10 To counter the appearance of undue government inﬂ uence, the Executive decided the chairman of the board should not be a head of department. In July 1947 it appointed C.H.V. de Villeneuve, president of the Dutch East Indies Business Association (IOB), as the ﬁ rst chairman of the board.11 This in turn led to the concern among department heads that Dutch private enterprise might gain too much clout.12

7 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1947, no. 70. Bijblad no. 15102. 8 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 9 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië 1947, no. 70. Bijblad no. 15102. 10 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 11 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 12 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 192 The politics of redress

The restoration of rights was implemented at two levels: via the Council’s Board and through a decentralized court system run by local representatives, formally known as ‘delegates’ of the Executive. The Board decided on matters of general and vital economic interest: for instance, how to deal with unclaimed agricultural commodities. The Board also dealt with issues it considered too complicated for the local representatives. Every week, it handled questions ranging from the liquidation of Japanese enemy assets to the appointment of custodians for unclaimed assets. The delegates, meanwhile, acted as local restitution judges. As the personiﬁ cation of the decentralized justice system, they mediated between civilians in property disputes. The Council Executive was supposed to steer them, but it never issued a uniform or comprehensive set of instructions.13 The only real guideline that existed was the jurisprudence built up by these local judges themselves. In the latter half of 1948, the Appeals Court compiled a representative body of cases from their jurisprudence and made it available to all the delegates as a reference work. Until then, the delegates had clearly been left to their own devices and had learned by trial and error. They had encouraged disputing parties to reach out-of-court settlements, to avoid protracted litigation and save time and manpower. Most of the local representatives had a heavy workload because they were earning a living as notaries or lawyers and hearing the restitution cases ‘on the side’.14 The fact that many complained of being overburdened suggests that the number of restitution requests was high. If the claimants failed to settle out of court, they could submit a written restitution request and in so doing start a formal procedure. After the Ordinance on Restoration of Legal Transactions (OHR) had been issued in May 1947, the Council Executive appointed various new delegates in areas where the Council had so far hardly been active.15 The restoration of rights seemed to get underway only after the First Police Action in July-August 1947. In October 1947 delegates were active in 20 locations: Bandung, Bogor, Semarang, Surabaya, Medan, Padang, Palembang, Pangkal Pinang, Tanjung Pinang, Balikpapan, Banjarmasin, Pontianak, Makassar, Manado, Den Pasar, Kupang, Ambon, Morotai, Jayapura (formerly Hollandia), and last but not least Jakarta, which had two local delegates.16 After the Second Police Action in late 1948, the Council tentatively expanded its jurisdiction to Yogyakarta, the former Republican capital. The Sino-Malay newspaper Sin Po reported that on 12 January a branch of the Council for the Restoration of Rights had opened in Yogyakarta. ‘For those who understand the Dutch language, the

13 NIOD, IC, 081286. 14 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 15 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 16 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VII Restitution in practice 193 signifi cance of this offi ce will be immediately obvious, but a large number of the inhabitants of this city are unfamiliar with it’.17 The newspaper continued with a very brief explanation of the objective of the restoration of rights, noting that the public hardly understood the implications of confi scation: a reference to the Council’s role as custodian. Sin Po added that no one had taken the trouble to visit the offi ce and ask for an explanation. In the same article, the reporter mentioned that the local delegate was so busy that he did not have enough time to tell the public about the restoration of rights and the activities of the branch offi ce. In practice, restitution through the restoration of rights was very complicated, as we can see from the Council Executive’s desperate statements:

[the] Council [is] facing [a] practically lost cause […]. This applies in particular to all sorts of movable goods, whose legal history since they left the hands of their original owners is simply no longer traceable. In assessing the question whether the current owners acquired the goods in good faith, one consequently encounters problems that are in practice unsolvable.18

Due to these problems, the structural lack of qualiﬁ ed experts, and the ﬁ nancial cutbacks, the Executive urged the Board to set a general closing date for submitting claims, as intended in Article 38 of the OHR. In the OHR the date had initially been set to 31 December 1947, but it was moved to 1 December 1949 because of the continuing state of war.19

In September 1949, the Council’s local delegates covered 13 cities in Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi and Ambon.20 Large parts of East Java remained out of reach for implementing the restoration of rights.21 Security lapses and communication problems hampered restitution until the transfer of sovereignty.22 With an eye on the upcoming transfer of power, the Council Executive started winding down the Council’s activities in August 1949. This meant drastically cutting back the number of local representatives, scaling down the Council’s activities, accelerating the liquidation of unclaimed assets, and setting a cut-off date for submitting claims. Local delegates no longer responded to information requests or inquiries concerning lost goods. Time had run out.23 The Executive gave top priority to gathering the ﬁ nancial ﬁ gures on goods sold. It did not

17 Sin Po 24-2-1949. 18 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 19 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 20 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 21 NA, RvR, inv. 861. 22 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 23 NA, RvR, inv. 870. 194 The politics of redress disband the Council, however. The transition to the United States of Indonesia had in essence been drafted by a working committee of the nascent Indonesian state, called the Panitia Persiapan Nasional (National Preparatory Council). In order to assuage the fears of its personnel, the Executive of the Council for the Restoration of Rights told its employees that the Council would continue its work after the transfer of sovereignty.24 As late as December 1949, the federal government established a new body called the Pre-War Claims Committee. This group focused on a category of claims bordering on restitution: those founded on other types of war preparations, such as expropriations predating the Japanese occupation. The difference between the Council for the Restoration of Rights and the Pre-War Claims Committee was that the latter dealt with property issues that stemmed from preparations for the war but were not caused by the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ intended in the OHR. Just like the Council, the Committee continued its work in Indonesia after independence. It dealt with compensation claims for KNIL-commandeered cars, for instance, and the construction of Army barracks never paid for by the KNIL. Before the transfer of sovereignty, the Committee handled some 4,000 cases but resolved only a small number (the sources do not mention any ﬁ gures). The majority of the claims submitted had to be settled by the United States of Indonesia after the transfer.25

As mentioned earlier, the Board dealt with restitution issues of general economic interest or those which affected larger groups of stakeholders. Test cases were put to the Council in the hope that a ruling would clarify matters and provide a precedent for other cases. However, the Council often failed to reach a ruling because there were conﬂ icting interests at stake. One notable case concerned unclaimed assets. The main problem was the applicability of OHR Article 135. This article stipulated that assets whose owners could not be identiﬁ ed would fall to the state, and that the Governor-General, after hearing the Council, would determine what to do with these assets or the proceeds of their sale. There was a wide range of unclaimed assets, including auto parts, household goods, furniture, machinery and agricultural commodities.26 The Council stated in December 1949 that it had about ƒ 50 million in unclaimed assets in its custodianship.27 This included some ƒ 22 million in proceeds from the sale of agricultural commodities. The debate on how to allocate these proceeds will be discussed later in this chapter.

24 NA, RvR, inv. 870. 25 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 4506. 26 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 27 NA, RvR, inv. 862. VII Restitution in practice 195

The handling of unclaimed household goods was already the subject of discussion well before the OHR was decreed. The issue was particularly relevant because so many civilians had suffered a loss of household property. The Council Executive proposed to put the proceeds from the sale of these items into a fund intended for (partial) compensation of war damage. The Council’s proposal ran aground because there was no prospect of compensation legislation.28 By 9 December 1949, the proceeds from the sale of household goods amounted to ƒ 2 million, but the Council expected this ﬁ gure ultimately to reach ƒ 6 million. On 12 December, the Council decided the Federal Government should have a say in the allocation of the proceeds.29 The Council treaded very carefully when it came to unclaimed goods, particularly the agricultural commodities. It was afraid to create a precedent that would harm the economy. As a result, the Council failed to reach any test case decisions until the imminent transfer of sovereignty ﬁ nally forced their hand.

The Council did, however, decide on another matter of principle before the transfer of power: the legal position of the former Postspaarbank’s savings account holders. After the war, this bank refused to recognize the payments its debtors had made during the Japanese occupation. Unlike the other Dutch East Indies banks, the Postspaarbank had not been closed down and liquidated during the occupation, but had continued to operate under a Japanese name. The Council decided in favour of the account holders by recognizing all of their rights and obligations including instalments paid during the occupation to liquidated Dutch banks (Van Horn et al. 2000:40-1, 84-5). All stakeholders regarded the Council’s ruling as binding. This stands in sharp contrast to the Philippines, where the government dealt with this issue neither centrally nor fairly, as we saw in Chapter VI. Debtors were offered no protection by the government and were left at the mercy of the Supreme Court’s questionable decisions. The Council, and in particular the Board, also dealt with questions from the department heads regarding the restitution of stolen goods found in Japan. One such question concerned the nickel and copper coins probably taken from De Javasche Bank by Japan’s 16th Army. At the request of the War Damage Council, the Council for the Restoration of Rights advised the High Representative of the Crown to declare the coins national property in accordance with OHR Article 135.30 A similar issue was the large amount of

28 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 29 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 30 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 196 The politics of redress silver seized in Indonesia, which probably also came from De Javasche Bank.31 While the Council’s Board in Jakarta was dealing with these matters of general interest, the local representatives mediated between individual citizens. For an impression of the local property issues at stake, we must turn to the jurisprudence.

Jurisprudence

Usually, the delegates were faced with cases involved with material assets. The kind of property issues so typical of restitution cases in the Netherlands, such as claims to securities, are not found in Indonesian restitution jurisprudence (Aalders 2001:56-80). Unlike the German occupying force in the Netherlands, the Japanese administration in Indonesia had not implemented a systematic expropriation policy and had left securities untouched. The cases in Indonesian jurisprudence can be roughly categorized into disputes about movable and immovable goods. The latter mainly involved home and ofﬁ ce leases, while the former usually focussed on company assets (inventory, machinery) and vehicles (cars, lorries and motorcycles). The jurisprudence shows that the claimants came from all different ethnic backgrounds and walks of life. I will now discuss a few restitution cases in detail, starting with a fairly simple one in which the Japanese occupation had violated property rights. After the war, a man named Adrianus Zwang tried to regain possession of the refrigerator which had been taken from his house while he was interned by the Japanese military authorities. Following Japan’s capitulation, the Huisvesting Organisatie Batavia (Batavia Housing Organization) started an investigation and found the refrigerator at the home of one Oen Seng Tjay. On this organization’s advice, Zwang submitted a claim to a Jakarta delegate of the Council on 9 July 1948. In the hope of regaining possession of his refrigerator, he submitted proof of ownership in the shape of the original sales receipt and warranty. Oen Seng Tjay had bought the refrigerator from a middle man, who claimed to have bought it from a toko. The owner of this shop could neither prove that his possession of the refrigerator had been legitimate, nor that he had been authorized to sell it. The Council restored Zwang’s ownership rights and ordered the defendant, Oen Seng Tjay, to give Zwang his property back.32 The delegate, or restitution judge, had tested this case against two key restitution criteria, namely the impact of extraordinary circumstances and the buyer’s intentions. The judge concluded that Zwang’s internment had come about because of extraordinary circumstances (the Japanese occupation and

31 NA, RvR, inv. 861. 32 NA, RvR, inv. 869. VII Restitution in practice 197 internment policy) and that Oen Seng Tjay had not acted in good faith. He should have known, or at least suspected, that the conﬁ scation and sale of Dutch possessions had taken place against the will of the internees.

The next property rights case shows that the restitution judges also found ‘extraordinary circumstances’ to be applicable to the Indonesian revolution. It also illustrates how a delegate’s decision could be overturned by the Appeals Court in Jakarta. The case involves a family from Bandung interned by the Japanese military authorities. To prevent the loss of their furniture through confi scation, looting or other types of theft, the family entrusted their possessions to one Mrs B., who permitted a tenant referred to by the sources as Th. to move into the family’s furnished home. Both the home and its furnishings survived the occupation unscathed. At the end of 1945, when the revolution started in Bandung, the British ordered the Europeans to evacuate. This meant that tenant and usufructor Th. had to leave as well. The furniture was likely to be damaged during the fi ght for the city, but B., the custodian, was unable to move it due to the dangerous situation. Transportation was impossible. It seemed she had no choice but to sell it. In December 1947, after calm had returned to Bandung, the original owners attempted to regain possession of their furniture by asking the Bandung delegate to nullify the contract of sale. However, the local delegate ruled in favour of B., reasoning that she had been forced by extraordinary circumstances – in this case the revolution – to sell the possessions. Undeterred by this ruling, the original owner brought the case to the Court of Appeals, which granted the claimant’s request to nullify the contract of sale. Although it agreed the sale had been effected under extraordinary circumstances, the Court found that the buyer should have verifi ed the origin of the furniture.33 Considering the circumstances (the revolution) the buyer should have known that the ƒ 700 he paid for the furniture was far lower than its true value (ƒ 2,500). The Court therefore reversed the Bandung delegate’s ruling and ordered the buyer to restore the furniture to its original owner at a price it deemed fair and reasonable (ƒ 700). The principle of fairness was applied here much as it was in the restitution cases in the Netherlands (Veraart 2002:204-5). In some cases, delegates found extraordinary circumstances to be insuffi cient grounds to restore rights. In 1942, a motorcycle dealer in Bandung was interned by the Japanese. His wife and brother continued to run his business. Because it turned out to be impossible to keep the business afl oat, the dealer’s wife notifi ed the owner of the business premises in August 1943 that she was terminating the lease. She sold some of the inventory. The building was subsequently leased to a housing contractor. After the occupation, the former

33 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 198 The politics of redress motorcycle dealer demanded that his legal position as lessee of the business premises be restored because he had lost that position due to extraordinary circumstances (his internment). However, the delegate ruled in favour of the current lessee, the contractor. He denied the motorcycle dealer’s claim because the contractor’s interests ‘considerably outweighed the claimant’s’, in accordance with OHR Article 45.34 This article stipulated that in some cases the current ‘owner’ would retain rights if they were obtained in good faith. In this case, the contractor had rented the premises in good faith and built up his business over a period of fi ve years. Although the motorcycle dealership had existed for six years and had acquired a degree of goodwill, this was offset by the fact that the contractor’s fi rm had rendered public services after the war. The restitution judge ruled that the general economic interest was best served by maintaining the status quo of the contractor’s lease rather than re- establishing the motorcycle dealership. In several cases, neither the delegates nor the Appeals Court considered themselves competent to rule. This included cases where property rights had been lost due to causes other than ‘extraordinary circumstances’. For example, during the occupation and revolution some people had lost movable assets for reasons unrelated to armed confl ict. The Council usually referred these claims to a regular civil court or another institution, as in the case of a man from Bogor whose furniture had been stolen. The police in Bogor had arrested him in December 1946 for an unspecifi ed offence. After three months in detention, he returned home to fi nd that his furniture had been stolen. With the help of the Dutch Military Police he tracked down the people who had taken his belongings and brought the case before a rural judge in Bogor. For reasons unknown, the judge declared himself incompetent to hear the case. In January 1948, the man submitted a restitution claim to the Council’s local delegate, who also concluded he lacked the necessary jurisdiction. The claimant then turned to the Appeals Court to fi nd out which court had jurisdiction. The Appeals Court ruled that the theft of the claimant’s movable goods had not been due to extraordinary circumstances and that the delegate had rightfully declared himself incompetent. The claimant should have appealed the rural court’s decision, the Appeals Court concluded.35 There are many similar examples of delegates declaring themselves incompetent, particularly in cases of breached rental agreements in which the Council was not certain that extraordinary circumstances had played a role. The delegates or the Appeals Court would then refer the claimants to the local rent commission and the regular civil court.36 It seems a fair amount of ‘forum shopping’ took place: the practice of

34 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 35 NA, RvR, inv. 869. 36 NA, RvR, inv. 869. VII Restitution in practice 199 bringing a claim to various courts in search of a favourable ruling (Von Benda- Beckman 1984:37-58). If the restitution judge failed to ‘deliver’, then it was worth trying other legal avenues.

Planters’ plight

The jurisprudence does not contain any cases involving the Dutch East Indies agricultural enterprises. This is no coincidence: the political and economic interests at stake in the restoration of this sector’s property rights overshadowed those of the small and medium-sized shops and manufacturers, not to mention those of private persons. On 5 March 1947, the Dutch East Indies government estimated the foreign exchange value of the agricultural commodities in the areas not under Dutch control to be ƒ 300 million. Some of the commodities were still held by the companies themselves, and some had ‘changed hands’ once or twice (Van der Wal 1978:652-7). ‘Changed hands’ was the Dutch East Indies authorities’ euphemism for what had happened to the commodities under the control of either the militias and unions that ran the plantations or the Indonesian and Chinese Indonesian traders who exported these products to Singapore and Malacca. The plantations themselves were an important source of income for all parties: the militias, unions and central government. More importantly, the occupied plantations were a political bargaining chip which various Indonesian groups, the unions in particular, hoped to play in the negotiations between the Republic and the Netherlands. The three main issues at stake for the planters were: restitution of the plantations to their owners, restitution of the agricultural commodities to their owners (or compensation of their value if restitution was impossible), and the division of proceeds from the sale of unclaimed agricultural commodities in the Council’s custody. Resolution of the fi rst two issues was actively frustrated by the Indonesian custodians who controlled the plantations and agricultural commodities. When it came to the third issue – the division of proceeds from the sale of agricultural products – it was a very different set of problems that dogged the search for closure. Restitution of the plantations was far from complete in the spring of 1947 and was the key issue in the political struggles pitting the Netherlands against the Indonesian Republic and the central government against the militant unions. The condition of the plantations in various parts of Java and Sumatra was unknown. Many plantations under Indonesian management had initially (after they were seized) been run by their Indonesian workers and had later been taken over by unions or Republican organizations such as the Institution for the Regulation of the State Sugar Industry. These new custodians were willing to restore the plantations to their original owners only under certain 200 The politics of redress conditions, usually involving better benefi ts for the workers. The custodians felt no obligation to honour either mutual agreements between the Netherlands and the Republic, such as Article 14 of the Linggajati Agreement, or unilateral decisions by the Dutch East Indies government, like the restitution legislation. In the hope of breaking this impasse and regaining control of the agricultural enterprises, various Dutch East Indies departments formed an alliance with the Council for the Restoration of Rights, the Army and the agricultural employers’ organizations. On 15 July 1947, a week before the fi rst Police Action, the Dutch East Indies government issued ordinance Staatsblad 1947 no. 140, establishing the Centrale Verkooporganisatie van Ondernemingslandbouwproducten (CVO, Central Sales Organization of Agricultural Commodities). The CVO was charged with taking measures ‘to increase the availability of agricultural commodities for distribution and export in order to strengthen Indonesia’s foreign exchange position without jeopardizing the restoration of rights’ (Departement van Landbouw en Visserij 1950, III:13).37 As an additional measure, the Council for the Restoration of Rights on 18 August appointed the Department of Economic Affairs’ representatives in Java and Sumatra custodians of ‘all commodities which are not physically present at the actual agricultural enterprises and whose owners should be regarded as either absent or unknown’ (Departement van Landbouw en Visserij 1950, III:2). To deal with assets captured by the Dutch during the fi rst Police Action, the Council for the Restoration of Rights appointed the Finance Department custodian of Republican assets. It intended to use those assets to pay private citizens’ claims against the Republic.38 The Republican government lodged a protest against the CVO’s confi scation of agricultural commodities at the Council. In consultation with the Lieutenant Governor-General, the Council decided to treat the Republican claim on the commodities like any other third party claim.39 This can be seen as an attempt to undermine the Republic’s economic base even further. The restitution of the plantations had been at issue even before the Gov- ernor-General created the CVO and other custodial bodies. Despite the fi rst Police Action and the subsequent establishment of custodians the situation remained unchanged. The Dutch failed to establish military control over all the plantations, particularly in East and Central Java, so restitution was sim-

37 After the ﬁ rst Police Action, the Council again appointed various employers’ organizations as custodians of unclaimed goods. These custodians included the Algemene Vereniging van Rub- berplanters ter Oostkust van Sumatra (AVROS, General Association of Sumatran East Coast Rub- ber Planters), the Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat (ALS, General Agricultural Syndicate) and the Algemeen Syndicaat van Suikerfabrikanten in Nederlands-Indië (ASNI, General Sugar Manufac- turers of the Dutch East Indies). 38 NA, RvR, inv. 861. 39 NA, RvR, inv. 859; NA, ONRANI, inv. 107. VII Restitution in practice 201 ply impossible. Furthermore, the planters found the restitution procedure te- dious and time-consuming while Indonesian custodians simply disregarded the legislation altogether. Parties on both sides circumvented the regulation by settling out of court. The planters reached ‘compromises’ with the custodians, in which they arranged for the restitution of commodities or indem- niﬁ ed the custodians’ claims to the goods (Departement van Landbouw en Visserij 1950, III:13). Such bargaining was most frequent in the rubber sector, but there are examples from other industries as well. For instance, the Preanger Bontweverij, a weaving mill in Garut (West Java), bought back an inventory of yarn, dyes and chemicals from Chinese and Arab traders who had held these goods ‘for safekeeping’ (Kroese 1979:34). The Dutch East Indies authorities went to great lengths to stem the spread of unlawful land occupancy by Indonesians and to hasten restitution of the plantations. They invoked pre-war European agricultural law and the local adat, or customary law, to protect the assets of the planters in the tobacco heartland, the east coast of Sumatra. In addition, the Dutch administration proclaimed new post-war ordinances such as the Restoration of Rights Ordinance and the Anti-Occupancy Law of 31 May 1948 (Pelzer 1982:5). In July 1948, the Council for the Restoration of Rights appointed C. Nagtegaal, a local administrator, to the post of restitution delegate in Medan. He was appointed mainly to mediate in disputes about unlawful occupancy of agricultural land.40 Just as in agricultural commodities cases, the parties usually reached a settlement.41 The Republic also tried to get Sumatra’s economy back on its feet and to maintain law and order, but it did so on its own terms. In July 1949, the Republican central authority ordered the plantations restored to their original owners. However, it said this measure only applied to plantations that required specialist know-how and large investments (Pelzer 1982:23).

Dutch planters asked the logical question whether restitution of the plantations was part of the restitution legislation or, in keeping with the Linggajati Agreement, a separate category to be dealt with by a special institution.42 From April 1948, the Dutch East Indies government tried once and for all to secure the restitution of agricultural enterprises and commodities to their rightful owners through negotiations.43 In Kaliurang, near Yogyakarta, a delegation of businessmen and Dutch East Indies government representatives bargained for months with an Indonesian negotiating team. This was the ﬁ rst time the Dutch considered the restitution of private plantations and state companies

40 NA, RvR, inv. 860. 41 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 42 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-I. 43 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-I. 202 The politics of redress in isolation from the special restitution legislation and addressed the issue as a separate point of negotiation with the Republic. However, no settlement was reached in Kaliurang and the talks ended in a deadlock. The Indonesian Republic argued that the Dutch East Indies as a legal entity had ceased to exist on de facto Republican territory and that state-owned enterprises such as utility companies had been ceded to the Republic. The Indonesians did recognize property rights that fell under private law. A settlement was impossible because the parties could not agree on the restitution of state- owned enterprises. The Dutch East Indies government representatives in the Dutch delegation perceived the stalemate merely as a matter of a different legal interpretation by the Indonesian delegation. For the planters, there was more at stake: they saw the Kaliurang negotiations as a way to ‘weaken the demands of the unions’.44 But the Indonesian delegation felt that restoration of property rights could only be discussed after the Netherlands and the Republic had reached a political agreement. That was still a long way off. Both delegations indicated that these differences of opinion would not scuttle the negotiations.45 This effectively broke the link between the special restitution legislation and the issue of state-owned enterprises and private agricultural companies. As a result, this issue would come up at the ﬁ nancial-economic (Finec) talks during the Round Table Conference almost eighteen months later (August-November 1949). During the RTC negotiations, the parties eased their demands. The Dutch government and private enterprise were mainly concerned guaranteeing operational continuity and a stable, ‘economic rule of law’. They felt that expropriation should be balanced by compensation (Tervooren 1957:152- 3). These same principles formed the spearhead of the Dutch delegation’s approach in negotiations over privately-owned agricultural companies. The Indonesian delegation stressed that an OHR procedure would be impractical, implying that it would lead to protracted litigation. The Indonesians therefore proposed that their government try on behalf of all plantation occupants to ‘reach a satisfactory settlement with the owners’. The Dutch delegation agreed.46 Bypassing the formal legislation on restoration of rights, the two sides opted instead for a pragmatic approach to the restitution of agricultural enterprises.

Another long-standing dispute between the Council and the planters involved the proceeds from the sale of unclaimed agricultural commodities. The entrepreneurs wanted the proceeds to be divided by sector and distributed

44 NA, ONRANI, inv. 108-I. 45 NA, AS, inv. 4426. 46 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 4503. VII Restitution in practice 203 among the businesses in each of the various sectors as a type of group restitution.47 For example, the proceeds from the sale of a supply of rubber were to be allocated to the rubber producers while allowing the sector’s umbrella organization to decide on an allocation ratio. The Council took various factors into account, such as a company’s pre-war production levels and how much war damage it had incurred. Big producers and companies that had lost large supplies would therefore get a larger share of the proceeds.48 The Council had applied this principle of group restitution when it liquidated some of the unclaimed rubber and almost all sugar stocks of uncertain origin.49 For a long time, the Council dragged its feet with regard to proceeds from the sale of the remaining rubber and tea, coffee, kina, cocoa and unclaimed manufacturing machinery. By November 1949 the estimated total value of these goods was ƒ 22 million.50 The Council was uncertain whether Article 135 of the OHR should be applied and could not decide how to advise the High Representative of the Crown. It wavered between applying the group restitution principle and allocating the proceeds to the state treasury.51 The Council and the planters failed to reach an agreement.52 Only after the transfer of sovereignty did it become clear who would beneﬁ t from the sale of unclaimed goods.

After the transfer of sovereignty

On 9 January 1950 the Council for the Restoration of Rights held its ﬁ rst meeting since Indonesia had gained independence. Present on that day were the former leaders of the Dutch East Indies government and representatives of the Indonesian Ministries of Welfare and Justice. The Dutch East Indies ofﬁ cials disputed whether the constitution of the Republik Indonesia Serikat (RIS, United States of Indonesia) allowed Indonesian ministers or their representatives to sit on the Council’s Board. The questionable legality of Indonesian representation on the existing Council was one of the many uncertainties resulting from the hasty transfer of sovereignty.53 The next conundrum was how to transform the Council into an RIS institution. This was the subject of talks with Mas Besar Martokoesoemo, the secretary general and spokesman of the Indonesian Justice Ministry. The Indonesian delegation to the RTC had told its Dutch negotiating partners that it wanted property

47 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 48 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 49 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 50 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 51 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 52 NA, RvR, inv. 862; NA, ONRANI, inv. 159. 53 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 204 The politics of redress rights to be recognized and expropriation compensated. The Netherlands and Indonesia had eventually laid this down in Article 1 of the Financial and Economic (Finec) agreement reached during the Round Table Conference.54 The only restitution issues the two sides discussed during the RTC were the legal security and operational continuity of agricultural enterprises and of former Dutch East Indies state-owned enterprises. As we saw before, the delegations to the RTC did not deal with the implications of special restitution legislation. Indonesia did not consider it self-evident that it would adopt this legislation unmodiﬁ ed. What the delegations had agreed upon, in broad strokes, was that the RIS would assume control of the Dutch East Indies government institutions including the Council for the Restoration of Rights. How these institutions were to be integrated into the new governmental structure had not been elaborated in the RTC agreement. In new talks about continuation of restitution it became clear the Dutch and Indonesians sharply disagreed on the future of the special legislation. In discussions with current members of the Council for the Restoration of Rights, Indonesian Justice Ministry lawyers indicated that the restitution legislation was too Western in structure. They also considered it odd to start implementing the legislation so long after the war, especially in areas where restitution had never gotten off the ground.55 The Indonesian notion that the restitution legislation was too Western must not be taken as a rejection of the principles of Western law. All new Indonesian legislation had been modelled after the Dutch legal system. Mas Besar Martokoesoemo was a passionate advocate of a uniform Western legal system. He was not the only lawyer who regarded the administration of justice in the plural system as an arbitrary, unjust vestige of the colonial divide-and-rule strategy. In his view, a uniform legal system could put an end to arbitrariness and serve as a symbol of national unity (Lev 2000c:33-70). The rejection of the restitution legislation was primarily a political signal intended for domestic consumption. By refusing to adopt the restitution legislation based on the Dutch system, the Indonesian government showed that they took the interests of the mighty unions to heart. In the eyes of the Indonesians, the restitution legislation favoured Dutch economic interests and those of the planters in particular. This perception came to the fore in February 1950, as the Indonesians prepared to continue the work of the Council for the Restoration of Rights. To the dismay of the Council and the IOB (Dutch East Indies Business Association) the Indonesian Justice Ministry had unilaterally stricken Articles

54 Artikel 1, lid 1 en lid 3 a en c, artikel 2, artikel 3, en artikel 9 van het ontwerp ﬁnanciële en economische overeenkomst (Secretariaat-generaal van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie 1949:24-5, 27). 55 NA, RvR, inv. 862. VII Restitution in practice 205

47 and 48. These articles – which dealt with acquiring rights or goods in good faith – offered the planters legal protection from the unlawful sale of their inventory to third parties. In what amounted to an honest mistake, the Indonesian translator of the Dutch legal text had simply omitted these articles. If the Dutch had not been paying such close attention, large supplies of agricultural commodities and entire plantations would have remained in Republican hands free of any requirement to pay compensation to the original owners. Zorab caught the mistake and immediately contacted the IOB, which in turn managed to persuade the Indonesian government to reinstate the two articles. At the local level, other forces undermined the restoration of rights. Local administrative bodies of the Indonesian military challenged the authority of former Dutch East Indies custodial institutions such as the Algemene Import Organisatie (AIO, General Import Organization). In so doing, they were also challenging the authority of the central Indonesian government. They ‘took over’ goods from the custodians and proclaimed ordinances that the Council for the Restoration of Rights neither knew nor approved of.56 In short, the military administrative bodies and Army units ﬂ outed the restitution legislation. Mas Besar Martokoesoemo tried to put a stop to this. He sent a circular on behalf of the Justice Ministry to all military and civil administrators in Java and Sumatra, emphasizing that restitution was to continue as planned (tetap berjalan) until an Indonesian successor to the Council for the Restoration of Rights was formed.57 This perfectly illustrates the gap that existed between central government and regional military administrations; it is also a good example of the problems the Republic encountered in trying to maintain the rule of law.

The uncertain future of restitution in Indonesia forced the Council to accelerate its decisions on pending property rights cases. On 9 January 1950, at the ﬁ rst meeting after the transfer of sovereignty, the Board declared OHR Article 135 applicable to unclaimed agricultural commodities and furniture. The proceeds would fall to the state.58 Because Indonesia had assumed all the rights and duties of its legal predecessor, this implied that the proceeds would ﬂ ow into the RIS treasury. During the meeting, the Council also decided that Article 135 applied to the nickel and copper coins Japan had restituted to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. These proceeds would also fall to the state. On the same legal grounds, the Netherlands would hand over a large number of diamonds from Japan to Indonesia. The Council did the same with the Japanese and

56 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 57 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 58 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 206 The politics of redress

German assets in its custody.59 Meanwhile, the Council continued to scale back its activities, closing its offi ces in Sukabumi, Padang, Tanjung Karang, Pontianak and Banjarmasin in March 1950. The remaining offi ces were closed over the course of April and May.60 On 31 March 1950, the Indonesian Justice Minister by special legislation created a committee to succeed the Council for the Restoration of Rights, the Panitia Untuk Menjelesaikan Soal Soal Pemulihan Hak (Committee for Settling the Restoration of Rights). The committee, known as the Panitia, consisted of two departments: General Policy and Appeals.61 Mas Besar Martokoesoemo became its chairman and Noto Soebagio its vice chairman. Former Chairman Zorab of the Council for the Restoration of Rights left for the Netherlands that same month. A few Dutch representatives remained in Jakarta until the end of April 1950 to attend the Panitia’s fi rst meeting. From 24 April 1950, Indonesian became the offi cial language of the meetings (Notulen Panitia 1950). The Indonesian Justice Ministry made minor adjustments to the OHR by means of an emergency act. To the relief of Dutch planters, OHR Articles 47 and 48 were left untouched. The Indonesian legislature charged the regular courts with applying the rules on payment of interest as set out in Article 53, amended in 1949.62 The settlement of disputes involving less than ƒ 5,000 could not be appealed.63 In September 1952, the Panitia’s appeals court in Jakarta, known as the Department of Decisions of Second Instance, was hearing Gouw Boen Seng & Co versus the NV Escomptobank. The latter refused to recognize payments made by ‘Gouw’ during the Japanese occupation; these payments had been ruled valid by both a Council delegate and the Appeals Court of the Council for the Restoration of Rights in 1948 and 1950 respectively. Mas Wirjono Prodjodikoro, chairman of the Decisions Department, denied the bank’s claim. The payments had been made under duress. Prodjodikoro upheld the earlier rulings, recognizing the validity of the payments made by Gouw Boen Seng & Co.64 No Panitia documents dating from after 1952 have been found in Dutch or Indonesian archives. However, we know from other sources that the Panitia was still active after 1952. The committee continued to play a role, as we will

59 NA, archief Financiën afd. IOR, inv. 44. 60 NA, RvR, inv. 862. 61 Lembaran Negara Republik Serikat Indonesia no. 23, 1950. Pemulihan Hak. Undang-undang darurat Nr. 15, Tahun 1950, tentang penjelesaian urusan pemulihan hak. For an unofﬁ cial Dutch translation of the emergency act, see Rechtsherstel Sept. 1950 no. 3. 62 Staatsblad van Indonesië 1949, no. 393. 63 NA, ONRANI, inv. 159. 64 IISG. Collectie Henri Aa, portfolio 4, folder Rechtszaken. VII Restitution in practice 207 soon see, in the custody of orphaned properties and cancelled life insurance policies.

Incomplete restitution

From 1950, the Panitia took custody of great amounts of unclaimed property. Eight years had passed since the beginning of the Japanese occupation. Many of the rightful owners had died either of natural causes or war conditions during and after the occupation. Society was adrift because of domestic migration and a steady outﬂ ux to the Netherlands. The Panitia entrusted movable goods or the proceeds from their sale to the weeskamers (institutions established to look after the possessions of orphaned minors) in the various regions of Indonesia.65 These goods and proceeds were considered ‘orphaned’ in the sense that it was impossible to track down their rightful owners. Because very few claims had been made on orphaned properties, the Panitia and the Dutch Foreign Ministry made a public appeal in 1952 for entitled parties to submit a claim before 1 December 1954. After that date, the Panitia would be entitled to sell any goods that had not been successfully claimed. The Foreign Ministry in The Hague allowed interested parties to view lists of the names of entitled persons and the location of the properties. NIBEG also spread the word and in its newsletter repeatedly published the Panitia’s call to submit claims. In addition, NIBEG twice provided a list of names of the rightful owners with the location of their built or unbuilt lots which the Panitia had assigned to the weeskamers in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Malang, Surabaya and Medan. The list contained 274 entitled parties, 127 of whom owned land in Malang. The vast majority of the properties were small agricultural plots in the villages surrounding Malang, such as Batu and Ngaglik. The other orphaned properties were houses in the city.66 Most of the rightful owners had European or Eurasian names. For example, one E. de Quack owned a small plot of arable land in Batu; a Mrs C. Nijhoff owned a house on Jalan Klein Zwitserland in the city of Malang. The list contained no Indonesian names and only a few Chinese. The large number of orphaned estates in the Malang region can be explained by the regular militia raids that continued even after the Police Actions. Eurasian small-holders were an easy target. Considering the passage of time and the extension of the deadline for submitting claims to 1 December 1955, we can assume that the majority of these properties in Java and Sumatra eventually fell to the Indonesian state.67

65 Rechtsherstel 15-11-1952 66 See NIBEG-orgaan 21-11-1952 and NIBEG-orgaan 5-12-1952. 67 Rechtsherstel, Jan. 1955 no. 7 and Rechtsherstel, Mar. 1955 no. 9. 208 The politics of redress

Another issue was the restitution of life insurance policies in cases where the jurisdiction of the restitution courts in Indonesia and the Netherlands was disputed. The life insurance companies had generally been lenient towards the policy holders who failed to pay their premiums during the war and revolution. In most cases, the companies recognized that force majeur had prevented payment. The life insurance companies had been closed down during the Japanese occupation. Later, the ordinance freezing all accounts and then the revolution had rendered most payments impossible. The Indische Verzekeringskamer (Dutch East Indies Insurance Chamber), the insurance monitor in the colony, appealed to the insurance companies to keep the policies alive. Most of the companies heeded this request (Van Horn et al. 2000:126-30). There were three life insurance companies that strictly adhered to their policy conditions and simply cancelled policies when premiums were not paid. However, ‘De Eerste Nederlandsche’, a Dutch life insurance company with interests in Indonesia, had already been forced to back down in 1948. The legal department of the Dutch Council for the Restoration of Rights in The Hague annulled a policy cancellation by the Eerste Nederlandsche because the policy holder had been the victim of force majeur. The issue was far more complicated in the cases of two Canadian insurers, Sun Life and Manufacturers Life, which stood by their cancellations. The representative of the Indische Verzekeringskamer travelled to Montreal and Toronto in 1946 in an attempt to persuade them to reverse their decisions. In 1949 the case was still pending and claims had been submitted to the Dutch Council for the Restoration of Rights. However, the Dutch restitution court considered itself incompetent to deliver a verdict in the case because the claimants, as inhabitants of the former Dutch East Indies, fell under a different jurisdiction. The Dutch Council therefore referred the claimants to the Council in Indonesia. On 14 July 1951, one of these cases was brought before the Panitia’s Appeals Court. The Panitia denied the policy holder’s claim against a Canadian insurer, whereby all channels of appeal in Indonesia were exhausted. Although the policy holder’s claims had been denied by the Councils in both the Netherlands and Indonesia, in July 1954 the Dutch Council suddenly declared itself competent to hand down a ruling after all. The insurance policy was to be restored, it decided. Because the Canadian companies were beyond Dutch jurisdiction, however, it is unlikely that they took any notice of the decision. In January 1955, there were thirty cases in which insurance companies had not paid claims. In 1956 another case was heard. This time the Dutch Council denied a policy holder’s claim against one of the two Canadian life insurance companies (Van Horn et al. 2000:126-30). VII Restitution in practice 209

After the call for entitled parties to claim orphaned properties and the lawsuits over life insurance, all grew quiet on the restitution front. The Indonesian Justice Ministry probably disbanded the Panitia in 1957 or 1958 because the number of claims and liquidations of unclaimed goods had declined sharply after 1 December 1955; another factor was the escalating political confl ict between Indonesia and the Netherlands over New Guinea in 1956. The Panitia still existed in December 1956 – as we can see from the offi ce’s correspondence with the Nederlands Beheersinstituut, NIBI’s Dutch counterpart.68 But the committee was probably dormant. Eight months later, in August 1957, jewellery was found buried near Ambarawa in Central Java. There was a strong suspicion it had been hidden by Dutch women in the Japanese internment camps or other people whose freedom had been restricted during the occupation. While the Dutch Foreign Ministry was considering what to do, the ‘solution’ came from an unexpected source. In December 1957, a NIBEG board member gave the ministry some unsolicited advice: he believed there was little chance of restitution because there was no proof of ownership. He suspected the Indonesian authorities would hold the goods until the year’s end and then sell them. His strictly confi dential advice was to keep the case under wraps in order to avoid causing unnecessary unrest in the Eurasian community.69 Remarkably, the sources do not mention the Panitia anywhere in connection with this case. The committee was probably already defunct or impeded from continuing its activities by the heightened anti-Dutch sentiments in Indonesia in 1957. The Republic kept the Commissie Vooroorlogse Vorderingen (Pre-War Claims Commission) in place. This commission operated in the margins of the restoration of rights. It dealt with claims regarding property loss due to the preparations for war, such as expropriations that had taken place before the Japanese occupation offi cially began. The commission consisted of a few Dutch and Indonesian representatives. The Indonesian gave it a ƒ 10 million credit as starting capital. By 1952, about a third of the claims had been paid. Payments were made in rupiah, which meant the claimants on average received only 40% of the original value of their lost goods due to the devaluation of February 1952.70

Restitution of agricultural enterprises

Although restitution of agricultural companies had been severed from the formal restoration of rights, the issue is still relevant in this context. In 1950,

68 NA, Nederlands Beheersinstituut, inv. 132. 69 MBZ, code 3. 70 NA, Dossierarchief MvK, inv. 4506. 210 The politics of redress plantations in many parts of Java and Sumatra had not been handed back to their original owners. Negotiations between the owners and Indonesian custodians had either run aground or were dragging on. The issue was far from resolved. In January 1950, the Ministry of Welfare called on the population to intensify agrarian production in order to improve the country’s foreign exchange position and combat the lack of primary necessities. The ministry explicitly asked the Indonesian people to cooperate in the return of all companies and goods, both state-owned and in the possession of non-Indonesians, to their rightful owners. The ministry also urged them to take good care of the materials in their custody. The latter probably referred to the agricultural commodities and factories and machinery for processing sugar, rubber, coffee and tea.71 Nearly a year later, in December 1950, some Indonesian ministers openly admitted to their Dutch counterparts that the implementation of the RTC’s Finec agreement had had poor results as far as the agricultural enterprises were concerned. There were still plantations taken over during the Japanese occupation and the revolution that had not been returned. In Central Java, no solution had yet been found for withdrawing conversion rights. These rights had been awarded in a 1918 agrarian law that had given planters, many of them wealthy Eurasians, the power of disposition of the land for a 50-year term.72 Since the implementation of this agrarian reform, the colonial government had referred to the land as ‘conversion land’ and to the control of the land as ‘conversion right’ (Nagtegaal 1946-48). In the spring of 1950, while the local population was still dismantling factories and burning and uprooting crops, Indonesian Welfare Minister Djuanda alerted his fellow ofﬁ cials to the lack of security and operational continuity on the sugar and tobacco plantations in East Java. Armed gangs roamed the area. Company guards and the national Army units deployed to guard the sugar plantations were no match for them.73 Large-scale, well-organized theft of agricultural products was rife.74 Obviously, the central Indonesian government had not yet established a good grip on the hugely important plantation sector, which was run not only by bona ﬁ de planters, but also by local military administrators, unions and criminals. The situation was essentially the same as during the Linggajati talks in November 1946. Commercial agriculture in Java and Sumatra was still a bone contention in domestic and foreign politics.

71 Bataviaasch Nieuwsblad 14-1-1950. 72 On these Eurasian land-owning families, see Bosma and Raben 2008:94-141. 73 ANRI. Kabinet Perdana Menteri RI Yogyakarta, inv. 152. 74 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. VII Restitution in practice 211

A survey by the Federatie van Bergondernemingen in Indonesië (FEDERABO, Federation of Upland Agricultural Enterprises) from late December 1950, provides fi gures that illustrate what deep trouble the owners were in.75 In Aceh, not a single planter had managed to regain control of a plantation. There were a total of 104 plantations there, where mainly rubber and coconut palm were grown. The plantations were administered by Sarekat Boeroeh Perkeboenan Republik Indonesia (Sarboepri), a plantation workers’ union with links to the Indonesian Communist Party PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia). The union set conditions for restitution which the entrepreneurs dismissed as excessive. Sarboepri demanded that a. the owners recognize Sarboepri as the sole plantation workers’ union; b. the owners respect the Republic’s 1948 labour law; c. the plantation be exclusively Indonesian-run; d. all workers be compensated for the wages they had not received during the Japanese occupation; e. all company land the workers had illegally occupied be excluded from the restitution settlement; and f. the owners pay Rp 25 million to ease the plantations’ debt burden. Mediation by the governor of Aceh, who was also opposed to Sarboepri’s conditions, failed to break the deadlock. In Tapanuli, North Sumatra, the Sarboepri maintained custody of fi fteen rubber plantations against the owners’ wishes. On the east coast of Sumatra, the situation was more favourable for the owners. All the plantations had been restituted, but on the various tobacco plantations the population illegally occupied nearly 20,000 acres of land in addition to the more than 22,000 acres it had already legally gained control of. Unlawful occupancy was growing by the day. The difference between legitimate and illegitimate occupancy was that the former were cases where the owner had legalized a squatter’s occupancy by offering him a so-called ladang-contract. This contract stipulated that occupants were allowed to work the land for a pre-defi ned period of time according to the slash-and- burn method (ladang) (Pelzer 1982:83-109). Such land occupations by individuals thwarted new planting. Squatting also took place on the rubber plantations. These acts, unlike the occupancies of the tobacco plantations, were supported by the PKI-affi liated Barisan Tani Indonesia (BTI, Indonesian Peasants’ Union).76 In Java, a number of Indonesian custodians restored the agricultural companies to their rightful owners based on the March 1950 circulars from the Indonesian Ministries of Interior, Labour and Agriculture. To implement the restitution, the local administrations established Panitia Pengembalian Milik Asing, special committees charged with restoring foreign property to its

75 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. 76 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. 212 The politics of redress original owners. These committees were composed of union representatives, peasants, civil and military offi cials and plantation owners. Restitution was provisional and could only take place on strictly defi ned conditions which varied by region and committee. In South Malang, East Java – a problem area for the Dutch authorities ever since the revolution – 28 plantations were thus returned to their owners in June 1950.77 In nearby Kediri, Sarboepri returned 20 of the 28 reclaimed plantations to their owners. But this restitution was not carried out according to the local committee’s guidelines. A spokesman of the Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat, a planters’ association, negotiated with the union. Sarboepri demanded ƒ 42,500 for the return of the Margomulio company, for instance, but the owner ended up paying only ƒ 10,000. No wonder the chairman of the Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat spoke of ‘redemption money or peace offerings’ in exchange for restitution of the plantations.78 It shows how strong the unions’ bargaining position was vis-à-vis the planters, and how much clout they had in the local committees. There were also 29 companies in Kediri for which no restitution claim was made because the company-owned factories and plantings had been destroyed completely. In West Java, some 200 companies had not yet been restored to their owners, but that was about to change. The committee for the Restitution of Foreign Property, established in Banten in April 1950, booked steady progress. Forty-one plantations were returned to their owners in that area. The agricultural enterprises around Yogyakarta and Surakarta in Central Java were the biggest problem. The Indonesian custodians, including the BTI, had returned none of the plantations to their rightful owners. The problem was exacerbated by the 1918 conversion law that the Republic had rescinded in 1948. Under pressure from the BTI, the Republican government fi rst revoked conversion rights in 1948 and ratifi ed this move in Law No. 5 1950 of the RIS. Finec Article 1.3 stipulated that the RIS would prevent the revoking of conversion rights by ‘taking any legal measure necessary to ensure the companies involved [...] could keep control of the land they needed’.79 In this spirit, a committee for the restitution of foreign property had been established in the Yogyakarta area on 31 July 1950. However, this committee showed no sign of activity. The planters’ access to their plantations was severely restricted by the Indonesian custodians, probably the BTI, making inspection practically impossible. In the Surakarta region, the situation was slightly better. There the military governor signed the offi cial return of 25 plantations on 24 April 1950. There too, however, it was unclear whether the old conversion rights would

77 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. 78 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. 79 Resultaten van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie 1949:25. VII Restitution in practice 213 be recognized or the planters would have to start leasing land from village communities.80 Owners and custodians negotiated the restitution of agricultural enterprises until well into 1953.81 The wave of nationalizations that began in 1958 probably led to expropriation of plantations in Indonesian custody.

Summary

The Japanese occupying force had taken control of enemy property in a way that seemed to comply with the principles of international law. Although the Japanese approach had been quite distinct from blatant theft, it had led to the loss of property all the same. In contrast with theft, looting and requisitioning for military purposes, assuming control of enemy property was a legitimate way to deploy goods and services for the Japanese war effort. At fi rst glance, the custodianship seemed to comply with the Rules of War, a treaty Japan had ratifi ed. However, Japanese Army units, companies and custodians provided little or no compensation for the services and goods they forced (enemy) civilians to deliver. The military administration closed down the enemy retail sector (small businesses) after a period of custody. The owners were not compensated. Japanese custodians freely disposed of the agricultural commodities they found at the plantations. Profi ts did not fl ow back to the owners, but to the Japanese custodians. The compensations put into Japanese bank accounts by the military administrations turned out to be worthless after the Japanese capitulated, because the Japanese banks simply ceased to exist from one day to the next.

Restitution was meant to restore the property rights lost as a result of Japan’s measures. Even though it was largely unknown in 1946 how the Japanese occupying force had treated the assets of enemy civilians, the Dutch lawyers at the Justice department in Jakarta concluded in the spring of 1946 that false law such as the Germans had introduced in the Netherlands had not existed in the colony during the Japanese occupation. Starting in the spring of 1947, the government held the view that the legal transactions effected during the occupation were not to be nulliﬁ ed per se. This was not only a pragmatic approach in that it would limit the number of restitution cases; it was also aimed at decreas- ing the impact of such cases on the economy and in particular on the export of agricultural commodities. This principle of allowing the common economic good to prevail over individual interests was also applied to restitution in

80 NA, FEDERABO, inv. 68. 81 Commercial Weekly, 16-02-1953; Commercial Weekly 3-08-1953. 214 The politics of redress the Netherlands. According to legal historian Veraart, former Dutch Finance Minister Lieftinck regarded restitution in the Netherlands as an economic issue rather than a legal one (Veraart 2002:192-3). Aalders reaches a similar, but bolder conclusion. In his view, Lieftinck had only one objective – the economic reconstruction of the Netherlands – for which everything else had to make way (Aalders 2001:365). Restitution in the colony was handled accordingly. One of the key issues in the economic reconstruction of the colony was control over the plantations, the motor behind the colonial economy. Due to problems in the plantation sector the restitution of plantations and agricultural commodities started to lead a life of its own, outside the formal framework of the restitution legislation. The planters themselves were partly responsible for undermining this legislation. They had little faith in its implementation. They hoped that the Indonesian government would implement the Linggajati Agreement, which offered protection from expropriation in Article 14. Although the central Republican government had every intention of maintaining law and order and of restituting or compensating foreign property, it was unable to subdue all the Indonesian custodians of agricultural enterprises. The unions in particular recognized neither the Linggajati agreement nor the restitution legislation. For this reason, the planters preferred to try and reach out-of-court settlements with these Indonesian custodians, rather than wait for an uncertain restitution procedure to be rounded off. The restoration of rights was negatively inﬂ uenced by other factors as well. Restitution went hand-in-hand with military intervention, proving that the Dutch East Indies government was incapable of arranging for restititution of the plantations through diplomatic or legal channels. In short, the restoration of rights failed. After 1950, the central Indonesian government had similar trouble reaching an agreement with regional military authorities and unions in Java and Sumatra about restoring the plantations to their rightful owners. The plantations were big business and the subject of political negotiations. The agricultural companies were a source of income for the Army and the unions. The local military administrators and the PKI-afﬁ liated unions had a large power base. These groups had essentially held the central Republican government hostage since August 1945. This explains why restitution of the badly-needed plantations was such an arduous task, and one that remained a problem until well into the 1950s.

In the hastily-arranged transfer of sovereignty, insuffi cient preparation had gone into the continuation of restitution through the restoration of rights. The RTC had dealt only with the broad outlines and the larger fi nancial and economic issues; restitution had not been a priority to any of the participants. Although restitution of the plantations had been an offi cial item on the RTC agenda, it was dealt with as a separate issue, completely divorced from the VII Restitution in practice 215 restitution legislation and the Council that implemented it. It was only after sovereignty had been transferred that the Indonesian Justice ministry started thinking about the continuation of restitution. The ministry had political and practical objections to leaving the restitution legislation unchanged; the Indonesians regarded it primarily as a colonial legal instrument used to protect the interests of the European planters. Maintaining law and order was defi nitely a priority for legally trained Indonesians. However, to them this meant abolishing the plural justice system and replacing it with uniform Western legislation to guarantee every citizen’s equality before the law. The Indonesian Committee for Settling the Restoration of Rights, in Jakarta, focused primarily on settling custodianship of unclaimed assets, with an emphasis on bringing the custodianship to a close. This was an issue that slowly petered out, because so few claims were made. The liquidations probably continued until 1957. The 1958 nationalizations of Dutch private and incorporated property marked a whole new phase of Indonesian custodianship, expropriation, compensation and negotiation between Indonesia and the Netherlands. These developments were unrelated to the Japanese occupation and the Indonesian revolution.

Restitution in Indonesia was clearly not a panacea; the continuing state of war, from August 1945 to 1949, meant that some regions remained inaccessible to the delegates of the Council for the Restoration of Rights. Still, it would be unfair to stress only the negative effects of restitution, as if it were no more than a tool to safeguard colonial economic interests. In February 1950, a Board member of the IOB stated ‘that restitution had been handled more satisfactorily than the rehabilitation regulations and everything connected to them’.82 Obviously, his views reﬂ ected only those of the business community and not of the thousands of individuals who had successfully reclaimed property via one of the dozens of Council delegates. As we see in the jurisprudence, any inhabitant of the colony could submit a claim to a restitution judge. The claimants came from every class of society, every walk of life and every ethnic background. Restitution managed to solve a few general property issues that the war had foisted on the civilian population. For example, the Council for the Restoration of Rights recognized the payments the Postspaarbank’s debtors had made during the Japanese occupation. If the Council had not recognized these payments, many hundreds of people would have had to repay their debts to the bank twice. In the Philippines, no satisfactory solution was found to deal with such property issues. With the bitter experience of the Special Court charged with prosecuting collaborators still fresh in their minds, special restitution legislation was more than the Filipinos were willing to consider.

82 NA, ONRANI, inv. 159.

CHAPTER VIII Tracing the loot

In August 1945, President Truman gave the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur, the power and authority to take any measures he deemed necessary to enforce the conditions of the Potsdam Declaration in Japan.1 One of the measures MacArthur took was to trace and return the goods that Japanese troops and private enterprise in the occupied territories had appropriated and shipped to Japan. At the outset, the Allied powers had little reason to doubt that they would get their looted property. On 3 November 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff – the top brass of the US military – issued a new directive to SCAP. In a memo entitled JCS 1380/15, better known as the Basic Occupation Directive, the Joint Chiefs explicitly mentioned restitution of identifiable looted property for the fi rst time.2 ‘Identifi able’ meant the property’s country of origin was known, not necessarily its owner. SCAP ordered the Japanese government to impound all foreign property, including that of Japan’s former allies such as Thailand and the Philippines. This property included precious metals, currencies, works of arts and cultural objects. SCAP also ordered a ‘freeze’ on securities of all kinds (such as shares) and the books of all fi nancial institutions. The directive was carefully worded to include property obtained by the Japanese authorities in a wide number of ways: ‘transfer under duress, wrongful acts of confi scation, dispossession or spoliation whether pursuant to legislation or by procedure purporting to follow forms of law or otherwise’.3 This was the fi rst step towards what would later become known as SCAP’s Looted Property Program, aimed at tracing and returning plunder to its owners. While awaiting a defi nitive regulation from its advisory body – the Far

1 JCS 1380/5 – Authority of SCAP. Guiding Policies. Folder 18. Subject File, 1945-1950. Civil Property Custodian (CPC). Policy and Management Group (PMG). Policy Branch (PB). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 2 JCS 1380/5 – Authority of SCAP. Guiding Policies. Folder 18. Subject File, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 3 Foreign Property Division Policy File, October 1945 – June 1949. Folder 14-1. United Nations Property File, 1946-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 218 The politics of redress

Eastern Commission – SCAP implemented an interim restitution policy. This policy was in place from November 1945 until 18 July 1946, when SCAP issued JSC Serial Directive # 57, or FEC policy document 011/12: Restitution of looted property.4 This document stipulated that:

immediate steps should be taken to restore gold and other precious metals, precious gems, foreign securities, foreign currencies, other foreign exchange assets, cultural objects, agricultural products, industrial raw materials, and industrial and transportation machinery and equipment, where any such property was identiﬁed as having been located in an Allied country and as having been removed by fraud or duress.5

After numerous revisions, the ﬁ nal version of this directive was published in August 1948.

Origin unknown

Restitution was no simple matter. By the end of the war, more than sixty Japanese cities had been levelled by American carpet bombings. The bombardments had demolished property stolen from all over Asia and destroyed company fi nancial records and the archives of government agencies involved in plundering. This badly hampered efforts after the war to reconstruct the looting and trace property in Japan and elsewhere. The fi nal destination of looted property was often unclear. Army units and zaibatsu subsidiaries freely traded goods throughout Southeast Asia under the fl ag of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Germany and Japan had also secretly traded strategic goods which they transported in submarines and warships disguised as freighters (De Jong 1985, 11b:48- 9).6 It was also unknown whether all ships and airplanes bound for Japan had managed to escape Allied torpedoes and anti-aircraft guns. According to Japanese witnesses, a number of gold-laden ships had been sunk en route from Indonesia to Japan. It was also rumoured that an unknown number of airplanes carrying diamonds never made it to Japan.7

4 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 2244. 5 History of the Non-military Activities of the Occupation of Japan-Foreign Property Ad- ministration. Folder: 1. SCAP Monographs Drafts, 1945-1951. CPC. OLA; JCS Serial Directive # 57 – Restitution of Looted Property. Folder: 2. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 6 See Time 31-7-1995. See also Newsweek 31-7-1995. For the deployment of civilian ships for military purposes, see Cook and Cook 2000:215-6. 7 Java Bank – Gold, 1946-1951. Folder 28. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. Op- erations Division (OD). Foreign Property Branch (FPB). Looted Property Unit (LPU); Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; 332.2 Personal Property, Vol. III. Folder 7. CPC. Executive Division (ED). GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 219

A fundamentally diffi cult task in the restitution process – not only in post-war Asia – was the tracing and identifi cation of looted property and its owners. The Japanese Army and Navy had bought and confi scated objects of gold and silver in China, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore and Indonesia. The Japanese Finance Ministry had melted part of this loot down, making it impossible to identify jewellery or its owners. There was a similar problem with precious stones. Because the stones had been removed from their original settings, the owners could no longer identify them as their property. Even diamond experts agreed that the recovered stones showed too many similarities in colour, shape and size to base identifi cation on those properties. The problem was compounded by the fact that the looted diamonds had been mixed with stocks of diamonds obtained legally before the war.8 In April 1946, the Civil Property Custodian – which SCAP had set up in Japan a month earlier – reported that at least 75% of the looted property turned over by the Japanese government had to be classifi ed as ‘origin unknown’.9 This was bad news for the owners. No evidence in the archives suggests that this percentage changed dramatically over the course of the American occupation. Dealing with this category of looted property required a separate solution. There were also other factors that complicated restitution. For instance, there were indications that shortly before the capitulation the Japanese armed forces and the zaibatsu devised a plan to minimize the consequences of the defeat and to preserve Japan’s economic structure wherever possible. Japanese companies expected to suffer badly from the loss of the Army’s orders and assumed this would not be compensated. The armed forces and the mighty family businesses were rumoured to have hoarded and hidden large quantities of raw industrial materials.10 There are various clues that may substantiate these rumours. One such clue is the 187 tonnes of silver (worth ƒ 19 million) the US Army salvaged from Tokyo Bay in May 1946. The origin of this silver is disputed (Boegheim 1995:500-1). The explanation accepted by SCAP and resolutely defended by the Dutch authorities was that the plunder had originally been a large amount of silver coin taken from the Bandung vault of De Javasche Bank by liquidator Yamamoto in September 1943 and subsequently melted down by the Ministry of Finance in Osaka.11 A Dutch forced labourer in Japan overheard an indiscrete overseer saying that the silver would be hidden until

8 Diamonds, 1945-1950. Folder 24. Subject Files, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 9 Staff Study on Looted Property Program, 1945-1950. Folder 8. Subject ﬁle, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 10 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 11 NA, RvR, inv 861. 220 The politics of redress after the war. After the capitulation, this information reached NEFIS and the Dutch authorities alerted the Americans, who launched a search mission.12 In the run-up to the American occupation, a consignment of 5,000 kilos of quinine with a value of US $ 60,000 went missing. This had probably been taken from Indonesia.13 Japanese companies were also said to be involved in an unsolved disappearance of a large amount of construction materials and equipment that SCAP had placed in custody of the Japanese Interior Ministry (Takemae 2003:76-7). Large quantities of goods were traded on the domestic black market; these were bound to include unlawfully obtained goods from the occupied territories. According to Dutch ofﬁ cials stationed in Japan, US foreign intelligence was fully aware of these illegal practices in July 1946. The US took no action, however.14 Schaller has called this a Japanese government- sanctioned ‘pillage. It was largely responsible for the shortages of various goods that lasted for almost two years (Schaller 1985:26-7).

Dutch East Indies initiatives

Japan was not the only country where the Allies found looted property after the war. Loot also turned up in various Southeast Asian countries that had been ruled by Japan. Large Dutch East Indies companies took the lead in tracking down and claiming their property in early 1946. Before long, efforts to recover the property of private citizens also got underway. In February 1946, the Singapore-based Dutch industrial manufacturers, acting in conjunction with the local Dutch consul, established the Commissie tot Opsporing van Nederlands-Indische Eigendommen (CONIE, Committee for Tracing Dutch East Indies Property). The founders included the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij (BPM) and the Billiton Maatschappij.15 CONIE later expanded its operations to the other Straits Settlements and to Vietnam, Burma and Thailand. In Singapore and Malacca, CONIE had contacts in the British Military Administration (BMA) and, more importantly, at the British Custodian of Property, the institution that administered enemy and unclaimed property.16 It is hard to judge CONIE’s success in tracing and identifying looted property. It is unknown exactly what the Dutch companies claimed as missing property, how much of it was traceable to Southeast Asia, and what was even-

12 Nieuwe Courant’, 9-11-1949. 13 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 14 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 15 ANRI, AS, inv. 297; NA, ONRANI, inv. 21. 16 NA, RvR, inv. 858. VIII Tracing the loot 221 tually returned to the owners. In any case, restitution did not go smoothly. One example was the large amount of machinery and equipment from the Java sugar industry that CONIE tracked down in Singapore. The costs involved in tracing the rightful owners and shipping the equipment back to Java effectively prevented the return of the machinery. In some cases, however, materials did make it back to Indonesia. For example, 1,500 tonnes of mining equipment and materials were returned. These were mostly owned by the Billiton Maatschappij, which took matters into its own hands. Looted ships were of particular interest to CONIE. The committee also tracked down railway materials. In 1947, more than 3,000 tonnes of rails, approximately 1,000 trailers and passenger trains, and 25 locomotives were found in Thailand, Vietnam and Burma and identiﬁ ed as Dutch East Indies property (De Vries 1947:36).

In the spring of 1946, CONIE and the Dutch East Indies government actively cooperated to combat smuggling between the Republic and the Straits Settlements. In a joint effort with the Dutch Navy and the Dutch East Indies government trade agency NIGIEO, CONIE impounded any supplies either proven or believed to be looted from Dutch companies. These were mainly agricultural products (Yong 2003:59). Chinese traders in the Straits Settlements disputed the legality of these Dutch confi scations. As we saw in Chapter VI, several cases were brought before the British court in Singapore. These lawsuits were probably initiated by Chinese shipping companies and traders registered in the Straits Settlements who demanded that their supplies and ships be returned by the Dutch authorities. The Custodian of Property also challenged several Dutch claims to stock in trade found in Singapore (De Vries 1947:36, 44-5). These claims involved quantities of tin, rubber and oil produced during the war. The Custodian felt entitled to confi scate and sell as war loot any raw materials it found on British colonial soil.17 One lawsuit focused on a large quantity of tin that was proven to have originated from the Bangka mines in Indonesia.18 In 1956, after protracted litigation, a few Dutch oil companies fi nally managed to get the BMA to compensate oil supplies used up by the British in Singapore.19 On 30 April 1947, CONIE was disbanded. Its task had been completed. The organization estimated the total value of the recovered goods – everything from oxygen tanks to steam boilers – at US $ 16 million.20 The Dutch delegates in Bangkok, Rangoon, Saigon and Singapore settled all pending cases with the help of former CONIE employees. The War Damage Council took on the

17 NA, ONRANI, inv. 21. 18 NA, AS, inv. 4766. 19 MBZ, code 3. 20 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 222 The politics of redress arduous task of settling fi nancial matters, reimbursing the owners of goods found and sold abroad.21 Selling looted property instead of returning it to its owners was a practical solution. Some of the agricultural products would otherwise have spoiled. Other goods, such as machines, had been damaged or worn out. There was also the risk of theft or looting by the local population. Sale of the goods on site at least yielded some profi ts. A good example of the local sale of looted goods was the railway materiel found by Allied forces in the border region of Burma and Thailand. After the war, the Allies squabbled about the division of the rails and locomotives the Japanese Army had confi scated in Burma, Malaya and Java. A key negotiator in this dispute was K.A. Warmenhoven, a Dutch railway expert and former forced labourer on the Burma railway. He had managed to keep his expertise hidden from the Japanese during the war. Afterwards, he not only supervised the Thai section of the railway, but also helped former forced labourers return to their home countries (Kratoska 2005). The British authorities in Bangkok soon came to regard Warmenhoven as the most reliable source of information on the railway and most important local contact. While the British authorities in Thailand temporarily left Japanese troops in charge of the railway, Warmenhoven on his own initiative identifi ed the origin of the materiel, assessed its state and replacement value, and made recommendations to the British as to who should receive it. Of the 300 kilometres of rails, nearly half was of Japanese origin and therefore not stolen. More than 100 kilometres came from the Federation of Malaya, less than 7 kilometres came from Burma, and slightly more than 34 kilometres was of unknown origin. Of the 59 locomotives, 36 were from Japan, 16 from Malaya and 7 from Java. The stretch of railway also included a railway bridge the Japanese Army had dismantled and transported from Java (Kratoska 2006:162-9). Immediately after the Japanese capitulated, the Thai government expressed an interest in the railway. The Americans regarded it as a Japanese foreign asset, however. The British did not dispute this, but felt that the original owners of parts of the railway were entitled to restitution or compensation for the materiel stolen from them. In the end, Thailand bought the Thai section of the railway from the countries that had a rightful claim to it. The US, Britain, Burma, Thailand and the Netherlands quickly agreed on a cost allocation formula in which the Netherlands received about £ 187,000 from Thailand.

In the spring of 1946, Dutch enterprises in Jakarta, acting in consultation with the Dutch authorities, established a committee to help streamline the tracing of property abroad. 22 Unlike CONIE, the Commissie Terugvoering Indische

21 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. 22 ANRI, AS, inv. 297. VIII Tracing the loot 223

Eigendommen in het Buitenland (COMTIEB, Committee for the Return of Dutch East Indies Property Abroad) focused on tracing and claiming the property of natural persons. The two organizations closely cooperated, however. COMTIEB had close ties with the Dutch East Indies authorities. For example, it advised the Lieutenant Governor-General on the looted property policy discussed in the FEC. Just like SCAP in Japan, COMTIEB faced the problem of tracing and identifying property in Southeast Asia. Identifying company-owned bulk goods and large quantities of marked raw materials like tin pigs, semi-fi nished or fi nished products, and machines with type numbers was much simpler than fi nding the origin of a rare and valuable stamp collection or a gold ring.23 In the Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch- Indië, COMTIEB called on the rightful owners to come forward or submit a claim. For example, COMTIEB published chassis numbers and other details of stolen cars found in Singapore in an attempt to locate their owners in the Dutch East Indies.24 Claimants were asked to give a detailed description of the property and an account of the circumstances under which it was lost. Claims were to be submitted in English in fi ve-fold. They had to be accompanied by as much proof of ownership as possible, such as drawings, numbers and other means of identifi cation, weight and value (in case of precious metals and stones), and offi cial proof of ownership such as true copies of policies, deeds of estate division or two statements from witnesses swearing the claimant was the rightful owner. COMTIEB further requested that claimants include a statement detailing the time and place where the property was lost, how it was taken, which Japanese people or institutions were involved in the loss, as well as the method of transportation to Japan and the Japanese people or institutions involved in this. The deadline for submitting restitution claims was 17 October 1948.25 This was the procedure specifi ed by the offi ce of the Dutch Military Mission in Jakarta and the War Damage Bureau and ‘advertised’ in the Dutch and Dutch East Indies dailies and weeklies. Claims that did not meet these criteria were not processed by the War Damage Bureau.26 Obviously, the number of responses to these calls were practically nil.27 Another reason few claims were submitted was that Dutch people in Republican-controlled areas were beyond the reach of the Dutch media and the Indonesians were avoiding any contact with Dutch institutions. Until 25 March 1946, COMTIEB took receipt of goods restituted by SCAP. This cannot have amounted to much, considering the great diffi culties still

23 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 24 Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 12-10-1946. 25 Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 28-06-1947. 26 Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië. 5-10-1946. 27 NA, RvR, inv. 858. 224 The politics of redress plaguing the US occupation of Japan and the absence of any restitution policy. In 1947, COMTIEB was subsumed in the Reparations and Restitution Section of the War Damage Council in Jakarta.

SCAP allowed all FEC countries to station a Restitution and Reparation (R&R) delegation of no more than fi ve people in Japan to represent the interests of those countries and their subjects at SCAP. On 28 March 1946 the Dutch government established the Nederlandse Militaire Missie (NMM, Dutch Military Mission) through Royal Decree No. 93. The NMM was headed by Lieutenant General Wijbrandus Schilling, a KNIL offi cer who had directly experienced Japanese theft of his property in Java. The NMM’s R&R delegation in Tokyo was led by M.G. Mout (Van Poelgeest 1999:180-1). The R&R delegation liaised with SCAP, dealt with Dutch restitution and compensation claims and took receipt of property from the Japanese government on behalf of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The NMM also opened an offi ce in Batavia which was to gather information on the Japanese looting in Indonesia and to take receipt of goods from Japan and forward claims to the Japanese authorities. The US government received some Allied claims against Japan for restitution of (allegedly) looted property that had been shipped to Japan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff passed these on to SCAP. In most cases, however, Allied representatives in Japan submitted the claims directly to SCAP. These claims were made in the name of the Allied government in question rather than the individual claimant. This was necessary because SCAP did not accept any claims directly from natural persons or legal entities. SCAP returned goods only to R&R delegations, not claimants. These procedures had been introduced to ensure that claims ended up on the right desk, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to avoid time-consuming correspondence between SCAP and individual claimants.

Civil Property Custodian

Initially, SCAP’s Economic and Scientiﬁc Section (ESS) and the US 8th Army were charged with tracing and administering looted property in Japan. However, the main priority of the ESS was to advise SCAP on rebuilding the Japanese and Korean economy. Dealing with looted property required special expertise and manpower. Therefore, the ESS staff urged SCAP to establish a separate institution to handle the looted property of Allied subjects. On 8 March 1946, MacArthur issued General Order No. 10, establishing the Civil Property Custodian (CPC).28 Headed by Brigadier General Patrick H. Tansey,

28 Organization, Duties, and Responsibilities of the Civil Property Custodian, 1945-1950. Fold- er: 7. Subject file, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 225 the CPC continued investigating, administering and returning looted property found in Japan until 1 March 1952. The CPC had a number of specialized divisions and subdivisions that underwent several small organizational changes over the course of the occupation. The main divisions were the Looted Property Branch, the Policy and Management Group, and the Office of the Legal Advisor. All in all, more than 100 people worked for the CPC, but that was not enough to handle the massive and complicated task that awaited them. As a staff member remarked in a September 1948 job evaluation: ‘It is a case of whether we use two men for thirty years or thirty men for two years’. Staff shortages and the complexity of the restitution issues made tracing and returning looted property almost impossible.29 The CPC had to work in complete secrecy for several reasons: the Japanese were attempting to obstruct its investigations, and even US military personnel could not be trusted. Bribery of SCAP staff by ultra-right wing Japanese was a signifi cant problem (Takemae 2003:71). In order to guarantee secrecy and limit bribery and embezzlement, the CPC was extremely discrete in its external contacts and communications. The custodian rarely employed Japanese personnel to conduct investigations. By limiting the use of external manpower to a select group, the CPC hoped to hide its methods and plans from the Japanese as much as possible.30 All external contacts were handled by the CPC’s Foreign Liaison Branch. The custodian put strict conditions on meetings with R&R delegations at its offi ces. Visitors to the offi ce in the Teikoku Sōgo Building in Tokyo’s Hibiya district had to wear a badge and be accompanied by a CPC employee. No telephone contact with members of the Allied delegations was allowed. All correspondence intended for the CPC had to be addressed to the Foreign Liaison Offi ce. The management explicitly warned the staff against accepting gifts. These rules and procedures were put down in writing.31 From August 1946, the CPC dealt with the Central Liaison Offi ce (CLO), the Japanese government institution charged with liaising with SCAP. Faced with staff shortages and cutbacks, SCAP decided in 1949 that two agencies of the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry – the First Demobilization Bureau

29 Economic & Scientific Section – SCAP Functions & Control Committee, September 1948-No- vember1948, 1947-1951. Folder 16. Subject File, 1947-1951. Office of the Chief of Staff (OCS). Office of the Comptroller (OC). Audit Division (AD). Special Accounts Branch (SAB). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 30 Economic & Scientific Section – SCAP Functions & Control Committee, September 1948-No- vember 1948, 1947-1951. Folder 16. Subject File, 1947-1951. OCS. OC. AD. SAB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 31 Organization, Duties, and Responsibilities of the Civil Property Custodian, 1945-1950. Fold- er 9. Subject file, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB; Policy & Control File, August 1946-April 1947. Folder 1. Subject File, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 226 The politics of redress

Cover of a manual used by the Civil Property Custodian to convert Japanese units of measure to American standard while handling looted property. The cover shows a Japanese looter with his plunder (Organization, Duties, and Responsibilities of the Civil Property Custodian, folder 7. Subject ﬁ le, 1945-1950. CPC. Policy and Management Group. Policy Branch, GHQ SCAP, NARA). VIII Tracing the loot 227 and the Civil Property Bureau – would have to get more actively involved in tracing looted property in Japan. However, in its capacity as advisory and executive SCAP body, the CPC remained the central institution in the looted property program.

Full and prompt restitution?

In November 1945, SCAP ordered the Japanese government to hand over a Buddhist relic from Thailand to the Thai embassy in Tokyo. Thus began the implementation of the restitution policy concerning looted property traced to Japan.32 In March 1946, SCAP returned two ships to the Chinese government, and in July, it returned to the British a number of lathes that had been stolen from Hong Kong. The Netherlands was due to receive its fi rst restitution on 15 August 1946, exactly 12 months after the Japanese capitulation.33 The property returned was the gold and gem-studded crown of the Sultan of Pontianak (West Kalimantan ), an heirloom (pusaka) that SCAP handed over to the NMM. This was followed by some more unusual items in November 1946: the skull of Homo Soloensis No. IX, an object of great paleontological value, and three orang-utan skulls. The Homo Soloensis skull, also known as Ngandong IX, was found in the Imperial Household Museum in Tokyo.34 All of the skulls, including those of the orang-utans, were the property of the museum of the Geological Laboratory in Bandung. Professor Hidezō Tanakadate of Sendai University shipped the Ngandong IX skull from Bandung to Tokyo in April 1942, along with other important scientifi c items including a piece of a rare meteorite. Tanakadate was employed by the Raffl es Museum in Singapore during the war, but he also spent time in Java. By his own account, he ‘saved’ cultural and scientifi c objects in Malaya, Java and Sumatra from being destroyed by acts of war. The Army had probably appointed him custodian of these objects without the knowledge of the Tekisan Kanribu. In April 1942 Major General Endo, a Japanese offi cer, told Tanakadate that an airplane would leave Bandung for Tokyo in a few days. Endo offered to transport important goods to Japan. Tanakadate accepted the offer because he thought the objects would be safer in Japan than in Bandung.35 It is not clear what he

32 Foreign property Division Policy File, October 1945-June 1949, 1946-1951. Folder 14-2. Unit- ed Nations Property File, 1946-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 33 Foreign property Division Policy File, October 1945-June 1949. Folder 14-2. United Nations Property File, 1946-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 34 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 9606. 35 NEI-Skulls, 1946-1951. Folder 25. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 228 The politics of redress meant by ‘safe’, but the fact is that in Tokyo these objects were presented to Emperor Hirohito as gifts.36

The Chinese claim on two ships settled in March 1946 and other outstanding Allied claims forced SCAP to formulate a clearer policy on what would be returned to the Allies and the procedures to be followed. In May 1946, the US Army staff sent a confi dential interim directive to SCAP stating that looted property could only be returned with the approval of the Supreme Commander and under the following conditions: 1. the claimed objects had been located and identifi ed; 2. the objects had been stolen from territories occupied by the Japanese armed forces during the Japanese occupation, but not before 7 July 1937 (when the Japanese invaded China); and 3. the property was owned by the government or a subject of the country that had submitted the claim. The SCAP directive stated that no claims could be made on ships, boats, precious metals and stones, foreign currencies and other securities.37 This exemption bluntly contradicted earlier American assurances that all looted property was claimable. It led to vehement Allied protests. Exceptions such as those described above were not new. In January 1946, SCAP had refused to turn over the looted steamer ‘Reael’ to the Netherlands. This ship had been part of the KPM fl eet and had been sunk near Muntok, in the Bangka Strait (South Sumatra) by Japanese air raids in early February 1942. The Japanese Navy had salvaged the ship (Bakker 1950:80-1). SCAP did not dispute that the vessel was Dutch property, but it insisted the ship was needed to haul coal from the Japanese island of Kyūshū.38 Oil was also excluded from US restitution policy because it was an important resource for the US Army and Japanese industry. SCAP did not qualify oil as looted property, leaving it outside the CPC’s jurisdiction.39 When the Netherlands requested an overview of how the US was administering oil supplies in Japan, the CPC was willing to help. The custodian advised the Dutch R&R delegation that it could substantiate its claims on looted oil supplies by studying American Strategic Bombing Surveys. These reports detailed the damage done to the Japanese war industry; it was thought they might clarify the whereabouts of oil shipped from Indonesia to Japan during the war. However, US authorities thwarted every attempt by the Dutch Embassy in Washington and Dutch representatives in Tokyo to gain access to

36 NEI-Skulls, 1946-1951. Folder 25. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 37 History of the Non-military Activities of the Occupation of Japan-Foreign Property Admin- istration. Folder: 1. SCAP Monographs Drafts, 1945-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 38 Netherlands Indies Governments Request for Return of Steamship ‘Reael’, April 1946. Fold- er 60. Subject ﬁle, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 39 MBZ, code 3, 3613. VIII Tracing the loot 229 the reports.40 Similarly, the NMM never gained insight into the precise carat weight of the diamonds SCAP administered and allocated to the Japanese government.41 Numbers circulated, but the Allied missions had no way of checking them. It is a fact that SCAP donated supplies of industrial diamonds to the Japanese government in order to maintain a ‘minimum economic level’ in Japan.42 In September 1947, the NMM came to the painful realization that not all the gold Japan had looted from the occupied territories was in SCAP’s custody. Clearly, the odds that this gold supply would ever be released for restitution were very slim indeed.43

In early July 1946, the NMM discovered that SCAP had shipped more than 5,000 tin sheets to the US. The tin had come from the mines on Bangka Island in 1943. This infuriated the Dutch. The ambassador in Washington, acting in his capacity as representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands at the FEC, demanded restitution of all the tin. The Americans rejected the claim. According to the American interpretation of FEC policy, no goods produced during the war would be eligible for restitution. The Netherlands disputed this, invoking the London Declaration of 5 January 1943 in which the Allied governments jointly warned neutral powers against the plundering methods of the occupying forces (Aalders 1999:107-8). This declaration set no conditions or restrictions on the restitution of looted property. The Dutch delegation also referred to the unambiguous passage from the Basic Post-Surrender Policy on ‘full and prompt restitution’. In addition, the delegation pointed out that the Interim Procedures for Restitution of Identiﬁable Looted Property (FEC-011), issued by the FEC on 18 July 1946, made no mention of restrictive conditions on any type of property. According to the American interpretation of JCS Serial Directive # 57 on restitution of looted property, wartime produce – the raw materials produced by Japan in the occupied territories – could be excluded from restitution. The Dutch delegation’s argument was loud and clear: The US was inconsistent in its interpretation of FEC policy and favoured Japan over the Allies. The Dutch delegation also objected to the fact that SCAP had allocated tin and rubber supplies to Japan. This criticism culminated in a declaration that the Americans had abandoned the general principles of law.44 The Americans argued that it was often impossible to trace either the owners or origin of natural resources like rubber and tin. SCAP would later recant. In 1948, the US compensated the Netherlands for the rubber and tin it had claimed back.

40 MBZ, code 3, 3633. 41 MBZ, code 3, 3640. 42 Diamonds, 1945-1950. Folder 24. Subject File, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 43 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 44 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 230 The politics of redress

The Netherlands also objected to the import and export program for Japan that SCAP propagated at the FEC. This program provided for the Japanese export of 4,000 tonnes of tin and 10,000 tonnes of raw rubber in 1946. The Netherlands felt it inappropriate that these commodities, large quantities of which were stolen from formerly Japanese-occupied territories, were earmarked for export.45 The Dutch asked the US to relax the identifi cation criteria so they could more readily establish the origin of such commodities. For the time being, the Americans steadfastly refused. SCAP defended its policy on exempting certain categories of looted goods from restitution, arguing that searching for the owners of raw materials was too diffi cult and the results too uncertain to justify such investigations. It would involve comparing pre-war rubber stocks in Japan with rubber produced during the war in the occupied territories. As for quinine and some other materials, SCAP even maintained that it was impossible to determine when they had been produced. In addition, SCAP doubted whether the Allies could produce reliable fi gures about Japanese production during the war. The incompleteness of Japanese production fi gures did not help matters. SCAP’s objections may have been disingenuous; it simply had other plans. SCAP deemed it more sensible to use the raw materials to strengthen the Japanese economy. Underlying SCAP’s position on identifi cation was MacArthur’s fear that a stricter restitution policy would disrupt the Japanese foreign trade programme. Any Allied claims on export products would require storage of the products pending an FEC decision. This had already happened to a consignment of quinine that was earmarked for export from Japan. Such claims prevented the sale of materials, hindering Japan’s economic redevelopment. Therefore, SCAP rejected any Dutch claims to gold and diamonds and Chinese claims to silk produced during the Japanese occupation. The Allied missions were told there was insuffi cient proof of ownership.46 SCAP refused Allied diamond experts access to Japan to inspect consignments of precious stones. Wijbrandus Schilling, head of the NMM in Tokyo, noted that the US planned to use these stolen diamonds to fund exports to Japan.47 It was not until March 1947 that NMM members, accompanied by CPC staff, were allowed to inspect the warehouses where the looted property was stored. They were taken to two Mitsui warehouses in Tokyo, to the Setagaya Automobile Warehouse in Tokyo, the Kyoto Museum in Kyoto, and Kizugawa Kanpo Soko warehouse in Osaka.48 These storage locations were of little importance. The places where precious stones and metals were kept,

45 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 46 Tree-Man Mission. Folder 60. Subject Correspondence ﬁle, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 47 ANRI, AS, inv. 1597. 48 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 9606 VIII Tracing the loot 231 such as the vaults of the Bank of Japan in Tokyo, remained closed to Allied inspections.49 It was obvious that SCAP wanted to maintain control over vital resources, even if this went against the principles of full and prompt restitution and directly undermined the Looted Property Program. This interpretation corroborates the image of a US occupying force that was trying to secure the means to fund its occupation of Japan and that did not want to unduly burden the Japanese economy with Allied restitution and compensation claims.

Obstruction

Aside from the exemption of certain products, other obstacles to restitution were the administrative problems faced by the US occupying force. The greatest of these was the obstructiveness of the Japanese authorities and companies. They refused to cooperate fully in the Looted Property Program. Another problem was the integrity of the US Army personnel who supervised the looted goods and guarded the storage facilities. Japanese institutions and individuals were slow or totally unwilling to register looted property with SCAP. Only after repeated urging and investigations by the CPC did the owners reluctantly admit that their goods were looted. Sometimes the CPC achieved a modest success. For example, CPC personnel located 25 tonnes of looted copper of unknown origin at a smelting facility in Osaka. The company had been inspected before, but this time a CPC employee discovered a secret underground tunnel that served as a storage facility.50 It was often diffi cult to reconstruct how companies or people had got hold of property; the CPC often had insuffi cient evidence to prove they had acted in bad faith. In June 1948, the CPC had been tipped off about a Japanese trader and watch collector in Nagoya who was said to be hiding precious metals. A CPC employee did not fi nd any gold or silver at the suspect’s premises, but did come across a collection of fi ne American-made and other foreign watches. The trader claimed that he had bought most of them during and after the war from middlemen whose names and addresses he had forgotten.51 The CPC inspector did not recommend any follow-up action, which suggests that he was disheartened at the thought of further investigation. ‘Amnesia’ was an affl iction that plagued many Japanese suspects and witnesses,

49 NA, dossierarchief MvK, inv. 9606. 50 Economic & Scientific Section – SCAP Functions & Control Committee, September 1948-No- vember 1948, 1947-1951. Folder 16. Subject File, 1947-1951. OCS. OC. AD. SAB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 51 Unclaimed miscellaneous jewelry, 1946-1951. Folder 18. Subject correspondence file, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 232 The politics of redress from businessmen to former high-ranking offi cers. It was a source of great irritation and frustration among CPC staff and the members of the Allied R&R delegations.52

One excuse Japanese entrepreneurs and former military personnel frequently gave to explain their lack of knowledge was that the books had been burned. A more artifi cial pretext used by suspects was to tell the CPC that there had been no obligation to report looted property at SCAP before 27 February 1946. There was yet another excuse that was particularly popular among directors of the zaibatsu subsidiaries: under the US policy aimed at liquidating the monopolistic companies, fi nancial ties with their predecessors had been cut and managers and directors removed. In other words, the directors claimed, there was nothing for the CPC to reclaim from the ‘new’ company. One example of this was the Hitachi Manufacturing Plant. During the war, this company had built combat planes for the War Ministry and used diamonds for their cutting and grinding. SCAP’s Holding Company Liquidation Commission (HCLC) liquidated the company because of its involvement in the war industry. After liquidation, the company continued as a new legal entity under the name Nikko Kogyo KK. Airplane manufacturing was discontinued, the staff was cut back, and the company converted to car part manufacturing.53 The CPC had strong suspicions the company had used looted diamonds, but could not prove this. It was equally helpless in the case of the Asahi Diamond Company, which had been actively involved in buying up and distributing diamonds looted from Indonesia. Between August 1945 and September 1947, the company sold a large consignment of diamonds believed to have been part of the stock built up during the war. Again, the CPC had suspicions but ended up empty-handed. It could produce no proof that the precious stones sold off had been looted.54 The HCLC did not always help matters, as in the case of Showa Tsûshô, the trading company involved in collecting diamonds in Java. The HCLC was supervising Showa Tsûshô’s parent company in Japan, but liquidated it and then decided that further investigation was unnecessary because the basic data were known.55 This made it impossible for the Dutch East Indies authorities and the NMM to uncover any fi nancial or organizational ties between the parent company, its subsidiaries and its branches in

52 NA, Dossierarchief MvK, inv. 9609. 53 Diamonds – Nikko Kogyu K.K. Tachikawa. Folder 19. Subject correspondence file, 1946- 1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 54 Allegedly hidden diamonds, 1946-1951. Folder 2. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 55 Showa Tsusho (21-017-04), 1946-1950. Folder 3. Zaibatsu Corporation File, 1946-1950. Eco- nomic and Scientific Section (ESS). Director for Economics and Planning (DEP). Programs and Statistics Division (PSD). GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 233

Southeast Asia or to track down the diamonds the company had collected during the war.

Other examples show Japanese obstruction at the highest levels. Based on a Dutch claim to a collection of mounted insects and the knowledge that the Japanese emperor was an avid insect collector, the CPC took up the plan to inspect the entomological collections in the palace museum. A few days after the CPC announced the upcoming inspection, the custodian received a letter from the Japanese government in which corrections were made to an earlier report on cultural objects in the palace museum. The letter claimed a collection of insects and birds had been discovered that had earlier been overlooked. The reason for this oversight, the letter explained, was that the emperor had distributed the collection among friends all over Japan to protect it from the American bombardments at the end of the war. Because the collection had been spread out, it was later overlooked. When the CPC inspected the museum, there was no doubt about the origin of the mounted insects: they were from Java. The collection was probably taken from the Botanical Gardens in Bogor.56 The American inspectors also happened upon a collection of birds labelled ‘Luzon’. This looted collection, which the Japanese government had also neglected to report to the CPC, was not hard to trace back to its origin: it came from the Philippines.57 Whether the emperor was truly unaware that his high-ranking offi cers and scientists expanded his collections during the war, or whether he simply feigned ignorance of this, is not known. According to the post-war Japanese government, Hirohito was presented with many scientifi c objects as gifts, for example the Homo Soloensis skull.58 This explanation seems to be an attempt by the Japanese government to save the emperor’s face. Yet it is hard to imagine that the Dutch East Indies authorities or Dutch academics would have voluntarily parted with this world-renowned skull, as Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald’s account proves. This famous palaeontologist realized shortly before the Japanese invasion that the collection of fossils he had built up in the Dutch East Indies (including the fossilized Homo Soloensis skull) was in danger of being stolen. With great haste and ingenuity, he made copies that were diffi cult to distinguish from the originals and locked the original objects in a vault. All skulls, except that of Homo Soloensis No. IX, remained untouched. However,

56 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 57 Economic & Scientiﬁc Section – SCAP Functions & Control Committee, September 1948-No- vember1948, 1947-1951. Folder 16. Subject File, 1947-1951. OCS. OC. AD. SAB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 58 Netherlands East Indies. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 234 The politics of redress

Silver objects looted by the Japanese Army and Navy during the war in Southeast Asia. Here the items are shown in the vault of the Bank of Japan in Tokyo that was administered by SCAP after the war (No Title, folder 1. Subject ﬁ le compiled 1945-1950. CPC. GHQ SCAP, NARA).

Von Koenigswald was unable to save the 25,000 animal fossils that had been dug up in Ngandong, Central Java – which belonged to his personal collection – and the rare meteorite from the Bandung Geological Museum. These items disappeared and were never seen again (Swisher, Curtis and Lewin 2000:209). Regardless of what the emperor had been aware of during the war, the post- war Japanese government knew full well that it was withholding information on looted property from SCAP. The NMM tipped the CPC that a large number of academic books looted from Indonesia were being held at the University of Sendai. An unspeciﬁ ed Japanese government institution had kept this information from the CPC. Prompted by this case, the NMM urged SCAP to order the Japanese VIII Tracing the loot 235

SCAP-administered gold jewelry and gold bars in Tokyo. The gold was looted in the countries occupied by Japan during the war (No Title, folder 1. Subject ﬁ le compiled 1945-1950. CPC. GHQ SCAP, NARA). government to immediately report any looted property in libraries, museums and institutions.59 In some cases, the Dutch authorities in Japan grew impatient with SCAP procedures and covertly tried to track down looted property on its own. In September 1948, for example, the NMM in Tokyo thought it had traced a white gold tiara with bunches of diamonds (288 in all) from Indonesia. This was an heirloom belonging to the Sultan of Langkat in Sumatra.60 SCAP was not allowed to know about this Dutch quest in Japan. Incidentally, this recovery attempt proved unsuccessful.61 It should be noted that the CPC employees were realistic about the chances of successfully tracing art objects.

59 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 9609. 60 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 2, 1947-1951. Folder 5. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 61 MBZ, code 3, 3619. 236 The politics of redress

Warehouse at the Agricultural School in Setagaya, Tokyo, temporarily used by SCAP as a storage facility for vehicles looted by the Japanese forces in Asia (03-Agricultural school, folder 13. Numerical ﬁ le compiled 1947-1951. CPC. Operations Division. Foreign Property Branch. Looted Property Unit. GHQ SCAP, NARA).

They assumed the Japanese population deliberately hid many cultural objects so they would never be found.62 The CPC and the 8th Army’s security measures at the many warehouses speciﬁ cally designated for the storage of looted property were not watertight. American soldiers stole diamonds, for instance. SCAP arrested a number of suspects, but an unknown number got away with theft.63 Tyres and other parts were stolen from looted cars and lorries stored at a warehouse at the agricultural college in Setagaya, Tokyo.64 Throughout the post-war occupation,

62 Economic & Scientiﬁc Section – SCAP Functions & Control Committee, September 1948-No- vember1948, 1947-1951. Folder 16. Subject File, 1947-1951. OCS. OC. AD. SAB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 63 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2244. 64 Foreign Property Division Policy File, October 1945- June 1949, 1945-1951. Folder 14. United Nations Property File, 1946-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 237 there were persistent, unconﬁ rmed rumours of theft by the US military and hiding of looted property by Japanese institutions and individuals. In May 1950, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that even General MacArthur had appropriated gold and jewels. The CPC investigated and refuted this allegation in August 1950.65

Restitution Advisory Committee

From March 1948, SCAP crystallized its restitution policy in response to two pressures: persistent Allied criticism of its implementation of this policy and confl icts stemming from competing claims to looted property. The US occupying force took action, establishing a number of new subdivisions within the CPC to administer specifi c goods, such as precious stones and jewellery (Precious Metals and Gems Branch) and raw materials (Raw Materials Branch). These branches were primarily responsible for administering, identifying and returning property found in Japan to its Allied owners. The new branches also had an advisory task.66 As Allied countries continued to squabble amongst themselves and with SCAP over claims to looted property, the Americans were forced to take a more goal-oriented approach. For example, the British, Filipino and Dutch R&R delegations all claimed a very large consignment of Singer sewing machines.67 In order to resolve such competing claims, SCAP established the Restitution Advisory Committee (RAC). The establishment of RAC on 13 April 1948 was the fi rst step towards accelerating the restitution of looted property. RAC consisted of representatives of each of the FEC’s R&R delegations and was chaired by Brigadier General Tansey, head of the CPC. In competing claims cases, RAC advised SCAP on which of the disputing parties should be allocated the looted property.68 In June 1948, RAC made its fi rst decision, returning a Hammond organ to the Philippine government. Between then and 22 September 1949, more than 200 decisions and restitutions would follow, involving all sorts of goods (from radios to supplies of coffee beans) of unclear or disputed origin. The Netherlands was awarded restitution by RAC on more than 30 occasions.69

65 Philippines R&R delegation, 1947-1951. Folder 7. Subject File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 66 Organization, Duties and Responsibilities of the Civil Property Custodian. Folder 7. Subject file, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 67 RAC, Inactive, 1946-1951. Folder 3. Subject Correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 68 Organization, Duties and Responsibilities of the Civil Property Custodian. Folder: 7. Subject file, 1945-1950. CPC. PMG. PB. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 69 RAC-info-index. Folder 17. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 238 The politics of redress

This included compensation for stolen Dutch East Indies tin and rubber supplies exported by the US from Japan in 1946. This compensation was awarded after SCAP decided, in April 1948, no longer to exclude raw materials from restitution.70 SCAP paid approximately US $ 8.7 million to the Netherlands.71 The decision to include raw materials in the restitution policy was an important victory for the Netherlands with its colony so rich in natural resources. However, oil remained excluded from restitution. The CPC was well-disposed towards the NMM. Without consulting RAC, the CPC decided to allocate unidentifi ed goods to the Netherlands. For example, the CPC of its own accord added approximately 700 tonnes of kina bark – of which neither owner nor origin were identifi able – to another 360-tonne consignment of properly identifi ed kina bark claimed by the Netherlands. The CPC neglected to inform other interested Allied countries of this informal allocation. The Dutch R&R delegation ascribed the CPC’s generosity to Tansey’s fairness and to the delegation’s smooth cooperation with him.72

Restitution claims

SCAP received requests to track down and return many types of stolen goods which the owners or Dutch authorities assumed had been shipped to Japan: paintings, stamp collections, geological maps, jewellery, antique weapons, cars, musical instruments, ﬁ ne bone china and even a statue from the Borobudur temple.73 On 5 April 1948, the Dutch R&R delegation asked SCAP to investigate the disappearance of 17 looted paintings, for example. These included Dutch masters such as Jan Toorop, Piet Mondriaan and one of Rembrandt’s apprentices, whose ‘name the owner had forgotten’ according to the clumsy description on the claim.74 In March 1949, the Dutch government submitted a claim on all diamonds and other precious stones of Indonesian origin in Japan, as well as all sewing machines conﬁ scated and shipped to Japan.75 The Dutch claim

70 NA, archief Financiën afd. IOR, inv. 35; History of the Non-military Activities of the Oc- cupation of Japan-Foreign Property Administration. Folder: 1. SCAP Monographs Drafts, 1945- 1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 71 History of the Non-military Activities of the Occupation of Japan – Foreign Property Ad- ministration. Folder: 1. SCAP Monographs Drafts, 1945-1951. CPC. OLA. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 72 MBZ, code 3, 3626. 73 Netherlands Government Mission, Vol. 1 & II, 1945-1952. Folder 4. Decimal File, 1945-1952. CPC. Executive Division (ED). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 74 Paintings – Looted- NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 36. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU GHQ SCAP, NARA. 75 Tree-man mission. Folder 60. Subject Correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; VIII Tracing the loot 239 to the precious stones was based on a claim fi led by the Dutch banks in Indonesia on behalf of several hundred safe deposit box holders. The banks’ claims, which were submitted to the NMM, consisted of detailed accounts per branch offi ce, including the deposit box holders’ names, the type of missing objects, their value, and the bank accounts into which the proceeds had been deposited during the war. For example, the Nederlands-Indische Handelsbank represented approximately 80 clients who had been robbed of their valuables.76 As proof of ownership, the claimants had included copies of receipts from the Japanese banks and hand-drawn images of the jewellery lost, such as gold and diamond-studded kebaya clasps. There were about 400 Dutch claimants in all. This included a handful of Chinese Indonesians and prominent Indonesians who supported the Dutch regime. The latter group were all (former) high-ranking indigenous offi cials from the local aristocracy, or their offspring. Among them were the son of the Sultan of Pontianak, the son of the raja of Goa (South Sulawesi), the Sultan of Langkat (Sumatra), the bupati of Jepara (Central Java) and the raja of Mori (east coast of Sulawesi). The Indonesian claimants also included Raden Abdulkadir Widjodjoatmodjo, the West Java Commissioner of Administrative Affairs (Recomba).77 These wealthy and often pro-Dutch groups had been an easy target for the Japanese occupying force because they always had something worth stealing. One claim in particular illustrates the problems involved in restitution cases and provides a unique impression of the world of autonomous rulers in Indonesia. This was the claim submitted by the raja of Goa’s son in an attempt to retrieve his father’s keris emas (keris with a golden hilt), stolen by a Japanese Navy offi cer. Responding to an appeal in the local newspaper Indonesia Timur, Andi Idjo Karaeng Lalolang submitted a claim to the War Damage Bureau in Jakarta for restitution of his father’s keris. In his claim, submitted on 15 October 1948, the son explained that the raja of Goa had given his gold and diamond-studded jewellery and the keris to the regent of Simbang as collateral for a loan. A Japanese naval offi cer had heard about the loan and devised a plan to gain possession of the valuables. He approached the Simbang regent with a letter he himself had written in which the raja of Goa demanded the valuables back. The Japanese offi cer paid the regent 4,000 Japanese guilders (a Japanese invasion currency) for the goods and shipped these to Japan. The raja of Goa had never consented to this deal. He sought recourse with the

Diamond & Precious Stones – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 1. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; General claim – Sew- ing Machines (NEI), 1946-1951. Folder 7. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 76 NEI – Handelsbank – Java Branch, 1946-1951. Folder 55. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 77 General Claim – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 19. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 240 The politics of redress

Navy authorities in Makassar but they feigned ignorance of the transaction.78 Based on the claim by the raja’s son, the CPC immediately concluded that the Simbang regent had sold the jewellery under duress. The CPC ordered the Japanese Civil Property Bureau in February 1949 to investigate the matter. In a report on its ﬁ ndings in July 1949, the Bureau stated that it had managed to track down the Navy ofﬁ cer. He categorically denied any looting or forced sale and alleged that the raja of Goa had given him the gold keris as a reward for his efforts in returning other jewellery. He even claimed that he had kept a signed deed – for the very purpose of disproving any false claims such as the one he was faced with – and that he had given the Navy authorities a copy of the deed as well. He also claimed to have sent a letter of gratitude to the raja. Unfortunately, however, both the keris and the proof of ownership had changed hands at the end of the war and had been destroyed in Bandung during the early days of the Revolution.79 Careful consideration of the ‘suspect’s’ and the claimant’s accounts leads to the conclusion that the keris was indeed sold under duress and later embezzled. The SCAP archives contain no information on how this case was eventually resolved.

The relatively small number of claimants can be explained by the strict requirements imposed by the Dutch and American authorities. All claims had to be accompanied by proof of ownership, which few looting victims had in their possession. The claims also had to be submitted in English, which excluded a large number of potential claimants. Very few claimants could provide information about the circumstances under which the property had been taken. Even the Dutch East Indies authorities had diffi culty grasping these circumstances. NEFIS and other government institutions lacked the necessary manpower and expertise to reconstruct most of the looting, so it was little wonder that the war victims had no clue which Japanese custodians, Army units and companies had been involved in ‘spiriting away’ their property. No claim better illustrates these problems than the one submitted by A.C. Lentze. SCAP, Japanese witnesses and the Japanese government initially denied – much to the shock and dismay of the claimant and witnesses – that there had been any Japanese custodians in Sumatra that confi scated the property of natural persons, including the claimant’s. At fi rst, the Dutch East Indies authorities could neither confi rm nor deny that Japanese custodians had been active in Sumatra. They simply had no idea what had happened there.

78 Raja of Goa – Jewelry, 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 79 Raja of Goa – Jewelry, 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 241

In an angry letter to SCAP, the claimant cited witness testimony verifying the existence of the custodians.80 Confi rmation came from Indonesia three months later, in November 1947, when a NEFIS investigation found there had been enemy property control institutions in Sumatra as well as in Java.81 After a year-long investigation, the Japanese government reconfi rmed the Dutch fi ndings.82 The CPC did not manage to trace the property, however. On 30 June 1947, before the results of the Japanese investigation were even made public, Tansey informed Schilling about the search for Lentze’s possessions: ‘if further information is received on this property, it will be forwarded’.83 The claim had run aground. A different story, but one with a similarly unhappy ending, was the claim submitted by a Mr and Mrs Leyds in September 1948. They asked SCAP to track down and return the jewellery and other valuables confi scated from their safe deposit box. They backed their claim with receipts left by Japanese inspectors at the Dutch bank. The sales receipt recorded over ƒ 2,000 as payment for the objects, deposited at the Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB). On orders from the CPC, the Civil Property Bureau of the Japanese government conducted an investigation into the jewellery’s whereabouts. As we saw in Chapter VII, reconstructing the Japanese banks’ books in Indonesia was a hopeless task because important documents were missing. Documents of the YSB’s former Bandung branch offi ce, which the Civil Property Bureau found in Japan, mentioned no deposits in Mr Leyds’s name.84 YSB and Ishifuku Shoten trading company employees were interrogated, but this yielded nothing. The witnesses claimed they knew nothing of the fi nal destination of the precious stones and metals they had collected and appraised during the war.85 Given all the diffi culties of tracing property and identifying precious stones and metals, not to mention the state of the YSB’s books, we can be fairly certain the claim was not honoured. The same can be said of all other restitution claims concerning valuables stolen from safe deposit boxes.

80 Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 81 MBZ, NEFIS, inv. 1918. 82 Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 83 Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 84 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 85 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence file, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 242 The politics of redress

The Leyds claim exempliﬁ es how poorly cases involving the forced sale of valuables from safe deposit boxes were handled. They had in black and white a claim of more than ƒ 2,000 against the YSB’s liquidated Bandung branch for the proceeds of the forced sale of their jewellery. However, they were convinced this claim was totally worthless and they were proven right.86 The 1951 Peace Treaty with Japan rendered null and void any claims to restitution of property conﬁ scated from safe deposit boxes or bank vaults and all claims on former Japanese banks.87 Although Article 15 of the Treaty provided for the restitution of looted property, this only referred to Allied property that had been in Japan prior to the war. After 31 December 1951, SCAP and the Japanese government no longer accepted any restitution claims for property looted in Southeast Asia and shipped to Japan during the war. SCAP rejected the majority of the claims it had received earlier, because it considered the evidence too scant or, as we saw from the Lentze claim, because the property could not be traced in Japan.

There are only three cases in which we know for sure that a looted object was restored to its rightful owner; the steamer ‘Reael’ was returned to the KPM, the Homo Soloensis skull went back to Von Koenigswald and the Sultan of Pontianak was given his crown. We have already discussed the steamer and the skull. Let us now turn to the Sultan of Pontianak’s crown. SCAP and the NMM paraded the recovery of the crown to underscore the success of the restitution policy. It is unclear where SCAP found the object, but the Imperial Household Museum is a likely location. The discovery gave cause for celebration at NMM headquarters in Tokyo. Tansey, the head of the CPC, was invited to a dinner organized by the NMM on the symbolic date of 15 August 1946, a year after the Japanese capitulation. He accepted.88 As head of the custodian he could probably afford to ignore the strict rules concerning contact between the CPC and Allied missions. All the fuss that was made over the recovery of the crown is understandable in light of the great problems the authorities faced in tracking down looted property. Nonetheless, it was disproportional. A personal letter from Hamid II Alkadri, the son of the murdered Sultan, to General MacArthur shows that the crown was not the only valuable object that had been looted; however, it was all SCAP had managed to trace. As heir to the throne, Hamid profusely thanked MacArthur for his efforts. At the same time, he politely urged the American commander

86 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence ﬁle, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 87 MBZ, code 3. 88 Netherlands Government Mission, Vol. I & II, 1945-1952. Folder 4. Decimal File, 1945-1952. CPC. ED. GHQ SCAP, NARA. VIII Tracing the loot 243 to track down the other stolen royal jewellery in Japan as well.89 SCAP and the NMM made no mention of this during their celebrations. The return of the heirloom was also politically signiﬁ cant to the Dutch. The Sultan’s son and heir was also president of the West Borneo Council and head of the federal administration in the Daerah Istimewa Kalimantan Barat (the special West Kalimantan area). In these capacities, the Dutch regime considered him ‘one of the main pillars of the Government in executing its plans for political reconstruction of these regions’.90 Restitution of state jewels was considered a sign of good relations between the government and this representative of the federal state in Kalimantan.

It is certain that SCAP returned several items to the NMM, but whether their rightful owners ever received them is not known. On 1 February 1949, the Japanese government returned a car, an upright piano, ‘sundry jewelry’ and 38 tonnes of Bangka tin to the Dutch government.91 Tracing the owners of the tin would have been easy. All tin production on the island of Bangka was in the hands of Bangka Tin Winning (BTW), a state-owned, Dutch East Indies enterprise (Touwen 2001:134-8). The other property would have been more difﬁ cult to trace back to its owners, and it is unknown whether the NMM even tried. It is also unknown what happened to what the CPC called the ‘sundry items’ it returned to the NMM on 10 November 1949. These included 3 kilo- grammes of rings, 4 kg of earrings and necklaces, 8 kg of bracelets, 7 kg of jewellery, cameras, a letter scale, pens and pencils.92 Apart from the question why one would bother tracking down the owner of a pencil, the indication of the weight of the jewellery suggests the owners were unknown. Otherwise, the goods would have been split up into individual objects. Most likely, the NMM in Tokyo transferred these objects to the Council for the Restoration of Rights in Jakarta as ‘unclaimed property’; as such, the items were probably sold off in accordance with OHR Article 135 – as we saw in Chapter VII. The same probably applies to the goods the Japanese government returned to the NMM on 28 October 1949.93 They consisted of 37 objects: mostly wristwatches, but also typical pieces of colonial interior decor such as

89 Sultan of Pontianak. Folder 45. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU; Lentze, A.C. – N.E.I., 1946-1951. Folder 16. Subject correspondence ﬁle, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 90 NA, DIRVO, inv. 158. 91 Sundry Items – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 32. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. NARA. GHQ SCAP. 92 Sundry Items – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 32. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. NARA. GHQ SCAP. 93 Sundry Items – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 32. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. NARA. GHQ SCAP. 244 The politics of redress

The ‘crown’ of the Sultan of Pontianak. Looted in 1942, tracked down by SCAP in Japan and returned to its rightful owners in 1946 (BUZA 1945-1954, 6278). a stuffed tiger’s head, a tiger skin rug, a stuffed bird of paradise and wooden statues.94 Most of the objects for which claims were ﬁ led, ranging from cars to paintings, remained untraceable. As mentioned, a mere handful of objects was actually returned to its owners. All things considered, one can only conclude that restitution did the claimants little good.

Debt and sale

When SCAP found goods of untraceable origin in Japan that were presumably looted from Indonesia, the NMM would turn these goods over to the Council

94 Sundry Items – NEI, 1946-1951. Folder 32. Subject Correspondence File, 1946-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. NARA. GHQ SCAP. VIII Tracing the loot 245 for the Restoration of Rights. In some cases, however, this did not happen. This begs the question where this property ended up, if it was not transferred to the Council or its rightful owners. A few weeks after JCS # 57 was issued on 5 August 1946, Tansey proposed in a confi dential report to General MacArthur that unidentifi able property be excluded from restitution. Tansey’s idea was either to sell these goods to fund exports from Japan or release them to the Army Central Exchange which could sell them as souvenirs to US occupation troops. He also recommended offering some of the goods to UN representatives for offi cial use in Japan, selling some to Allied subjects in Japan, selling them to the Japanese government for offi cial use, and selling the remaining goods to the public and depositing the proceeds in a special fund.95 MacArthur followed Tansey’s recommendations. It was common to sell identifi ed looted property in Japan and make the proceeds payable to the rightful owner or the countries that had fallen prey to looting. The Allied countries and SCAP regarded this as a pragmatic alternative to restitution. The goods sold included those that SCAP considered indispensable to the Japanese economy (foodstuffs such as sugar), perishable bulk produce (coffee, cocoa) and goods not worth the cost of storage, conservation and transportation (badly damaged automobiles, for instance). The sale of these looted objects was known as ‘dollar restitution’ as SCAP paid their value in US dollars to the Allies instead of returning the objects. SCAP bought and sold looted property on condition that the Allies used a special ‘open account’ in Japan. SCAP and the Allies considered this the simplest way of settling accounts because no cash exchanged hands and debts could be cancelled out. As of 31 December 1948, the Dutch East Indies owed SCAP US $ 22 million for textiles and other goods shipped from Japan to Indonesia.96 The US occupying force suggested the NMM use the proceeds from the sale of rubber, tin, sugar and nutmeg to offset the debts.97 As mentioned earlier, the Netherlands had been paid US $ 8.7 million in compensation for the tin and rubber stolen from the Dutch East Indies and exported from Japan to the US. The Netherlands decided to use this money to partially settle the debt it had built up in the open account with SCAP.98 Dutch Finance Minister Piet Lieftinck saw the benefi ts of this deal, even though it had secretly been brokered without his consent at a 1947 meeting in Tokyo. He could easily have balked; after all it was the Kingdom of the Netherlands rather than the Dutch East Indies that stood surety for the open account construction with Japan.

95 Policy directives on looted property, 1945-1951. Folder 1. Miscellaneous UN Correspond- ence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. United Nations Property Unit (UNPU). GHQ SCAP, NARA. 96 NA, Archief Financiën , afd. IOR, inv. 34. 97 MBZ, code 3, folder 3607. 98 NA, Archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 34. 246 The politics of redress

Oddly enough, the debt settlement deal was struck up by the NMM and SCAP and quietly implemented without the approval of the Dutch Ministers of Finance and Foreign Affairs.99 However, Lieftinck had no intention of paying for debts the Dutch East Indies government had incurred with SCAP based on an agreement he had not been privy to. The proceeds from the sale of goods looted from Indonesia and retrieved in Japan offered a way out. Lieftinck placed a condition on the restitution sales: every individual sale had to be submitted to him beforehand so he could decide to which country’s foreign exchange reserves the proceeds should be allocated: the Netherlands’ or Indonesia’s.100 What this amounted to was that Lieftinck could allocate the proceeds from the restitution sales to Indonesia as a means of paying off the colony’s debts to Japan. The management of De Nederlandsche Bank (the Dutch central bank) gave its full support to the fi nance minister’s strategy.101 This fi nancial construction allowed Lieftinck to spare the Dutch treasury and hence the Kingdom’s foreign exchange position. By December 1949 the revenue from restitution sales in Japan had reached almost ƒ 60 million, according to reliable information from the Japancommissie (Japan Committee). Most of the money had come from the sale of tin (more than ƒ 28 million), gold and silver (ƒ 13 million), kina bark and quinine derivatives (more than ƒ 11 million) and rubber (more than ƒ 4 million).102 It is unclear where this money ended up. Part of it was used to cover the Dutch East Indies’ debt to Japan and deposited in the open account; the rest probably fell to the Indonesian Republic after the transfer of sovereignty, in pursuance of Finec Article 27. The amount cannot be ascertained. In November 1949, civil servants of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned an amount of ƒ 13 million.103 But by 1951, this amount was no longer accurate as it had been increased substantially by so-called deferred restitution sales; the sale of diamonds alone generated US $ 16 million. The deferred restitutions involved property the CPC had at fi rst considered untraceable but were later declared ‘identifi ed’. SCAP used the revenues from certain commodities, such as opium, to cover the Netherlands’ debt in the open account. The Netherlands returned some other goods, such as a gold fi ve-guilder coin, to Indonesia. It also allocated to Indonesia the proceeds from the sale of some goods, for instance a 1,000-kg consignment of copper coins that was sold for US $ 600.104

99 NA, archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 34. 100 MBZ, code 3, folder 3607. 101 NA, archief Financiën, afd. IOR, inv. 34. 102 MBZ, code 9, folder 3711. 103 MBZ, code 3, folder 3612. 104 MBZ, code 3, folder 3619. VIII Tracing the loot 247

In other cases, restitution was not late – it simply never happened. An example of this was a shipment of silver salvaged from Tokyo Bay which had most likely been stolen from De Javasche Bank’s war vault. The NMM shipped this silver from Yokohama to Rotterdam on 3 September 1949. The Dutch government planned to use the silver to pay off a debt to the US.105 On 3 February 1945, the Dutch East Indies government had under the Lend- Lease agreement borrowed 7,594,571.23 troy ounces of ﬁ ne silver from the US. This was to be paid back to the US Treasury within ﬁ ve years. The new Indonesian government refused to assume the debt, but was happy to take over the silver. On 29 November 1950, the Netherlands informed Indonesia it was prepared to hand over the silver. However, Indonesia rejected the conditions the Netherlands had imposed, which included a stipulation that Indonesia would pay for all transport and other costs until the date of the transfer (approximately ƒ 250,000). The silver did not leave the Netherlands. In 1951, the Finance Ministry used some of the bars to mint Deutschmarks (Boegheim 1995:502-6).

The Secured Fund and ‘unidentiﬁ ed’ diamonds

SCAP also applied the ‘selling off’ principle to unidentifi ed looted property using a special account known as the Secured Fund. Diamonds were kept out of this fund and were sold separately. The Secured Fund was a SCAP- administered account that held the proceeds from the sale of property that could not be traced to either owner or country of origin, but which could safely be assumed to have been looted. On 29 July 1948, the FEC determined that these unidentifi ed commodities would be auctioned off in Japan and the proceeds divided amongst the seven Allied countries that had been subject to looting.106 SCAP favoured the Allied countries as bidders over the Japanese government and other prospective buyers. It should be noted that SCAP deliberately kept the price of the goods low. The Allied countries therefore paid relatively little for the goods, which seemed favourable. At the same time, however, this meant that the total revenue collected in the fund was low as well, leaving less to divide. Although the proceeds in this fund were in fact paid for out of their own pocket, this structure was still preferable to the allocation of unidentifi ed goods to the US Army or the Japanese government. In September 1949, the CPC proceeded to auction off unidentifi ed looted property. It offi cially invited the R&R delegations to bid for particular goods.

105 NA, MvK Indisch archief, inv. 55. 106 MBZ, code 3, folder 3621. 248 The politics of redress

These included cars, consignments of metal (zinc, tin, lead), precious metals (gold, silver) and ‘sundry items’ including elephant tusks.107

For years, the Allies, the CPC and the State Department argued about which proceeds should go to the Secured Fund and about the percentages of the revenue to be allocated to the seven Allied countries including the Netherlands and the Philippines.108 For example, the Philippine, Australian and Chinese delegations proposed various uses for the money and different ratios for dividing the proceeds amongst the Allies. Australia proposed donating the money to UNICEF. However, this charity never received anything because China vetoed the plan. France and Britain in turn torpedoed China’s counterproposal in which China would collect 3% of the revenue.109 These disagreements caused SCAP to postpone the fi nal closing date for allocating the revenue from 1 October 1949 to 1 April 1950.110 But even after the new deadline, the standoff continued. After the San Francisco Peace Treaty in September 1951, with the end of the US occupation of Japan in sight, Washington fi nally resolved the matter. In February 1952, the FEC awarded the Netherlands US$ 420,000 – 12% of the fi nal revenue of US $ 3.7 million.111 In accordance with Article 4 of the RTC, which stipulated that the Dutch East Indies rights had been transferred to the RIS, the Netherlands handed this money over to Indonesia.112

SCAP kept unidentiﬁ ed diamonds out of the Secured Fund. Initially the CPC had wanted the fund to include these diamonds, which weighed between 225,000 and 250,000 carats in total. The Netherlands formally and informally objected to this proposal at the CPC, because it could safely be assumed that the lion’s share of these precious stones had been looted in Indonesia. On 17 January 1950, the RAC declared the diamonds ‘identiﬁ ed’ and decided in the Netherlands’ favour.113 SCAP sold the gems for much more than the CPC’s estimate of US$ 1.1 million, which the Dutch authorities had considered very conservative to begin with.114 The total revenue was US $ 16.7 million, and SCAP divided this amongst the three countries which were presumably hit hardest by diamond looting (either directly or through their colonies). Britain

107 Netherlands East Indies, Folder 1, 1947-1951. Folder 4. Numerical File, 1947-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. LPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 108 MBZ, code 3, folder 3607. 109 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2244. 110 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2244. 111 NA, MvK Dossierarchief, inv. 2244. 112 MBZ, code 3, folder 3621. 113 MBZ, code 3, folder 3640. 114 MBZ, code 3, folder 3621. VIII Tracing the loot 249 received 0.75%, China 0.75%, and the Netherlands the remaining 98.5%.115 Long before the diamonds were actually sold in August 1952, the Indonesian government had accepted the Dutch offer to give Indonesia the revenue from the sale of these gems. The Dutch share, which approached US $ 16.5 million, therefore fell to Indonesia.

The division of the Secured Fund marked the beginning of the end of the Looted Property Program, and hence the end of the restitutions. After 31 December 1951, when the Peace Treaty went into force, the Japanese government took on the implementation of the Looted Property Program.116 This was mainly a formality. There was little actual work to be done aside from rounding off affairs already in progress.

Hospital ship ‘Op ten Noort’

One restitution case that would drag on until 1978 was the Dutch claim on the ‘Op ten Noort’, a hospital ship the Japanese Navy had commandeered in February 1942 (see Chapter V). This case illustrates the problems of interpreting and complying with international law and the fragile post-war relations between the Netherlands and Japan. Op 22 July 1946, Schilling asked SCAP to investigate the whereabouts of the ship, which had disappeared after the Japanese capitulation. This turned up nothing until early 1948, when SCAP informed the NMM that the ship had hit a mine and sunk on its way to Korea in the summer of 1944, as the Japanese government had claimed.117 On the assumption that these facts were correct, SCAP and the NMM accepted the Japanese version of events. The Dutch authorities were considering asking the Japanese government to compensate them for the lost ship. The US State Department delayed settlement. In the Americans’ view, the Japanese government was not authorized to handle this sort of restitution case. Only the FEC, in close consultation with SCAP, was allowed to decide in such cases.118 In October 1951, the Dutch R&R delegation was approached by a Japanese salvaging company in Tokyo, Kayashita Gumi Ltd., with a request for permission to locate and inspect the ‘Op ten Noort’. This request surprised P.E. Teppema, who headed the Dutch Mission in Japan (the NMM’s successor). After all, SCAP was to transfer all restitution cases to the Japanese government

115 MBZ, code 3, folder 3640. 116 MBZ, code 3, folder 3619. 117 ‘Op ten Noort’ – Inactive – Dutch, 1945-1951. Folder 23. Miscellaneous UN Correspondence File, 1945-1951. CPC. OD. FPB. UNPU. GHQ SCAP, NARA. 118 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. 250 The politics of redress just a few months later, in December 1951. Furthermore, the Peace Treaty stipulated that nine months after the signing, goods such as these would become property of the Japanese government. Nonetheless, the Dutch trade attaché De Bruyn signed a contract with Kayashita Gumi on 1 December 1951. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Gaimusho) was opposed to this plan, however. It refused to issue a salvaging permit. From that moment, the case became far more complicated, because there were three stakeholders involved – the Netherlands, the Japanese salvaging company and the Gaimusho – each employing its own strategy.119 On 21 January 1952, the Dutch Mission offi cially requested compensation from the Japanese government for the ‘Op ten Noort’, as well as information about its location and condition.120 The Japanese government took its time responding, and in the meantime the salvaging company tried to force a decision in its favour at the Dutch embassy. The salvagers suggested to the ambassador that if the Japanese government refused to give back the ship, the Netherlands could fi le suit at the International Court of Justice. This would put the Japanese government in a ‘very awkward position’. The Dutch embassy did not favour this option because it smacked of coercion. The ambassador did not want to jeopardize the diffi cult but slowly improving relationship with Japan by threatening to bring a case before an international court. On 7 October 1953, more than 18 months later, Gaimusho offi cially responded to the Dutch embassy’s restitution request. The Ministry of Transport had investigated the matter and located the sunken ship due north of the port of Maizuru, 0.9 nautical miles outside Japan’s territorial waters. Gaimusho referred to Article 15a of the Peace Treaty, which stipulated that only claims to goods on Japanese territory could be considered. Because the ship lay outside Japanese waters, the Japanese government rejected the Dutch claim.121 In February 1954, the Dutch Ambassador to Japan, O. Reuchlin, was directed by The Hague to try a different avenue. This time, Reuchlin left the Peace Treaty for what it was and reminded his hosts of a promise the Japanese government had made on 27 September 1945: that it would provide the Netherlands with a suitable replacement for the ‘Op ten Noort’.122 Again, the Japanese response took a long time, much to Reuchlin’s ire. A year later, on 1 February 1955, Gaimusho replied that the Japanese government felt no obligation to keep the promise because it had been superseded by the Peace Treaty and by Article 14b in particular.123

119 MBZ, Onderzoeksrapporten 1950-2000. Japan (CD-rom). 120 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. 121 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. 122 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. 123 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. VIII Tracing the loot 251

In February 1955, the case took an unexpected turn when Reuchlin for the fi rst time became aware of the true course of events surrounding the ‘Op ten Noort’. The Dutch sources do not mention where he obtained this information, but it was probably the salvaging company. The salvagers were clearly also getting tired of waiting. Reuchlin was shocked when he heard the story, even though he had heard rumours in the Japanese media about the disappearance of the ship and its cargo. According to the story, the Japanese Navy had scuttled the ship 7 kilometres northeast of the island of Kutsujima on or around 19 August 1945.124 Contrary to earlier offi cial statements from the Japanese government to SCAP and the Netherlands, the Japanese crew had not been killed and no important documents had been destroyed by air raids. The Japanese Navy had attempted to cover up a transgression of international law and hide the cargo from the Allies by having the ship ‘disappear’ (Kunitaka 2001:167, 172, 206, 231). Reuchlin did not doubt his informer’s version of events and within a week obtained confi rmation of the story from a former Gaimusho diplomat named Itoh. Itoh presented himself as an informal mediator from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but may also have been representing Kayashita Gumi (the salvaging company) without Reuchlin’s knowledge. Reuchlin was unable to fi nd direct proof of this new information about the ‘Op ten Noort’, however, and was therefore unable to use it as evidence to substantiate a Dutch claim. In May 1955, the Netherlands changed tactics. On 25 May the Netherlands asked the Japanese government to establish a Property Commission in accordance with Article 22 of the Peace Treaty. This article stipulated that in case of property disputes, an arbitration commission could be set up with the power to make a binding decision. Such a commission would have three members, in this case a Dutchman, a Japanese and a presiding commissioner from a third nation. Japan agreed to the Dutch proposal in June 1955. A month earlier, Nakamura, the salvaging company’s representative, had again sought out Reuchlin at the embassy. This time the salvager had revealed that the ‘Op ten Noort’ had been carrying 2.5 tonnes of tin at the time it was sunk. He alleged that the Navy had sunk the ship in order to keep the cargo out of Allied hands and possibly salvage it later.125 Obviously, Nakamura had a direct interest in relating the story about the cargo: it underscored the urgency and the importance of the salvaging operation. Whether the ‘Op ten Noort’ was in fact carrying cargo when it was sunk, and – if so – what this cargo was, have remained mysteries. By 1955 the Japanese government still had not given the green light to a salvaging operation. In November

124 MBZ, code 3, box 141. 125 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder I. 252 The politics of redress of that year, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs voiced concern that the salvaging operation Kayatashi Gumi had proposed would be too risky for the Netherlands fi nancially speaking. In February 1956, the Dutch Finance Ministry agreed with this view and asked the Dutch embassy in Tokyo to have the Nederlandse Handel-maatschappij (NHM) in Tokyo fi nance the salvaging company.126 The NHM ‘looked long and hard before they leapt’, as an investigative report from Foreign Affairs put it.127 In the meantime, Nakamura and two others founded a new salvaging company in the hope of circumventing the Dutch objections against Kayashita Gumi and obtaining credit from the NHM after all. Itoh acted as their representative, but it was unclear to the NHM agent in Tokyo whether Itoh also acted on behalf of the Japanese government this time.128 Although the Japanese government had been quick to agree to the Dutch proposal to establish a Property Commission, it took ages for the commission actually to be established and to convene for the fi rst time. The problems started with the so-called rules of procedure the commission would follow. The bickering about the conditions took two and a half years. The commission met several times between December 1960 and early January 1961. The Netherlands was demanding more than ƒ 5 million in compensation for the ship. The meetings made it clear that the Japanese government had been aware of the true course of events since 1952 through an interrogation of former Captain Goto. However, neither this nor any other evidence made a difference. The whole exercise ended in an anticlimax for the Netherlands. The Japanese member of the commission stuck to the standpoint that the ship was located outside the Japanese territorial waters. The exact circumstances of the ‘Op ten Noort’s disappearance were therefore irrelevant, according to the Japanese. In other words, it was irrelevant that the Japanese had requisitioned the hospital ship and turned it into a transport vessel, in violation of the Geneva Convention. The independent Swedish president of the commission, Professor A. Hölmback, invoked the same reason to declare the commission incompetent to reach a decision as intended in Article 15a Section 22 of the Peace Treaty. The ship was outside Japanese waters, while Article 15a only referred to property within Japanese borders. The verdict of 16 January 1961 was clear: the Netherlands would not be compensated.129

126 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder II. 127 MBZ. Onderzoeksrapporten 1950-2000. Japan (CD-ROM). 128 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder II. 129 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder V. VIII Tracing the loot 253

Dutch sources claimed that Hölmback had never intended to reach a binding decision, but rather to have the two countries reach a settlement. Even before announcing his decision, the Swedish professor had been negotiating behind the scenes with the Japanese commission member and through him with Gaimusho. The Japanese government was in favour of settling in order to avoid a lawsuit in another international court and – as would soon become clear – in the hope of paying relatively little compensation for the ship. On 9 January, a week before the commission’s decision, the Dutch ambassador received an evening telephone call from a Japanese offi cial saying his government was still not ready to reach a direct settlement, but was interested in negotiating. Japan’s willingness to bargain with the Netherlands was dependent on the amount of money involved and on the Japanese Finance Department’s fi at, the offi cial said. The ambassador summarized this conversation by saying: ‘It was clear that the Japanese were prepared to settle “as long as it would not cost too much”.’130 In November 1961, the Netherlands rejected the Japanese offer of ¥ 100 million in the hopes of driving the amount higher. The Netherlands thought it could link, or rather include, the ‘Op ten Noort’ case in the Dutch claim against Japan for the damage Japan had caused in Dutch New Guinea during the war. The prospect of the transfer of New Guinea to the Indonesian Republic in 1962 closed off that option (Van Poelgeest 1999:328). Because the case seemed to stand little chance in an international court of law, the Dutch government in November 1962 accepted the earlier Japanese offer after all. The two countries agreed that the Netherlands would relinquish all rights to the ship and its cargo. The case hit another snag because the Dutch government feared possible claims from third parties who could also claim the ship and cargo. The Netherlands considered itself incompetent to waive this group’s rights. The dispute remained in limbo until September 1971, when the Japanese emperor’s upcoming state visit to the Netherlands provided an impetus. The Japanese government proposed a change to the wording of the agreement to the effect that if a third party were to submit a claim, the Netherlands would not support it. This agreement was acceptable to the Netherlands. The government believed the chances of a third party coming forward at this point were nil, since they could have done so much earlier. In 1978 the countries fi nally reached an agreement. Japan paid the Netherlands ¥ 100 million for the loss of the ‘Op ten Noort’.131 As far as we can tell, the Dutch government did not allocate this money to Indonesia as it had done in earlier restitution cases. Nakamura, of the salvaging company that was by then defunct, pursued the

130 MBZ, Archief Ambassade Tokio. Geheime stukken 1955-1964. Berging ‘Op ten Noort’. Folder V. 131 HTK 1978-1979, 15462, no. 1. 254 The politics of redress case and urged the Dutch embassy to pay him for the costs he had incurred since 1951. After 25 years, he reached a settlement with the embassy. According to the Japanese investigative journalist Mikami, a Japanese salvager tried but failed to locate the ‘Op ten Noort’ in July 1979. In 1982, this salvager made a second attempt and actually found the ship, but no precious cargo (Kunitaka 2001:284-93).

Summary

Very little of the property looted during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia was found in Japan and returned to its owners. This failure was partly due to factors inherent to restitution, such as the difﬁ culty of identifying property, particularly jewellery. But the restitution of looted property from Japan was also hindered by more speciﬁ c factors. The Japanese obstructed restitution and the US protected the Japanese economy from what SCAP considered excessive Allied claims. Both of these factors worked against the war victims’ interests. SCAP did return some presumably stolen goods from Indonesia to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Some of these goods were sold off. The Dutch government used the proceeds from their sale to partially settle the debts of the colony and its legal successor (Indonesia) with SCAP and Japan. In accordance with the RTC agreement, another part of the returned property, or the proceeds from its sale, fell to Indonesia. CHAPTER IX Conclusion

Two legally and ﬁ nancially distinct types of redress – war damage compensation and restitution – were pivotal to this book. These remedies were illustrated by looking at the roles of various players, including looting soldiers (both Japanese and Allied); pillaging citizens in Jakarta and Manila; undisciplined Dutch soldiers; desperate rural populations; dutiful Dutch East Indies civil servants – but also those who had lost faith in the system; Dutch and Indonesian citizens who demanded compensation; a Chinese Indonesian from Jakarta who committed his memories of occupation and revolution to verse; and a young sultan who succeeded in retrieving his father’s looted heirloom. To be sure, these examples provide only a glimpse of the impact wartime looting had on individual lives. Yet they clearly illustrate how justice and redress were politicized in Indonesia and the Philippines due to pressure to rapidly rebuild economies, hasty decolonization and Cold War considerations.

War damage and compensation

Homes and furnishings, entire villages, warehouses, ports, ofﬁ ces, factories and plantations were lost during World War II. Some property was destroyed pre-emptively by Dutch and US demolition squads shortly before the Japanese invasion. Others were laid to waste by Japanese bombardments and shelling, wholesale pillaging (rampok) at the hands of Indonesians during the Japanese invasion and Indonesian revolution, Allied bombardments of Indonesian and Philippine cities at the end of the war, and Dutch and Indonesian military operations during the Indonesian struggle for independence. Neither the Dutch East Indies government nor its legal successor, the Indonesian Republic, saw any reason to introduce war damage compensation laws. Both governments felt compensation would overburden their treasury. For a long time, however, they were indecisive; not until the transfer of sovereignty did they make it clear that no compensation would be forthcoming. In the meantime, the Dutch East Indies government, private enterprise and 256 The politics of redress citizens debated whether the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia were liable to pay compensation. Although no general compensation legislation was drawn up to redress damage incurred during the Japanese occupation, the Dutch planters did manage to secure a deal with the Dutch East Indies government that covered the damage done to their sector during the Indonesian revolution. The success of the planters’ lobby can be attributed to the importance of the plantation sector within the overall economy. The citizens of Indonesia, irrespective of their nationality or ethnic background, did not manage to secure compensation from the state. Their negotiation position vis-à-vis the state was weak. They could do little more than appeal to the government’s sense of humanitarian and moral duty. Remarkably, the debate about compensation seems to have roused little enthusiasm among Indonesians. Two explanations for this come to mind. First of all, the very concept of compensation for war damage was relatively unknown and was kept so by a purposefully discrete colonial government. As for Indonesians and Eurasians lower on the social ladder, few would have considered state compensation; such a provision would have been alien to them. The compensation issue should therefore be regarded as a matter for the elites in the Dutch colony, business, and civil service, and for the members of the urban middle classes. In these circles, people were ﬂ uent in Dutch, had access to the Dutch media and maintained social contacts that were conducive to the exchange of information. Between 1945 and 1963, this section of the population migrated to the Netherlands in several ‘waves’, turning the compensation issue into a predominantly Dutch problem. The second reason the Indonesians showed little interest in war damage compensation is that the colonial government had lost much of its legitimacy in the eyes of the Indonesian population after the Dutch military interventions of 1947 and 1948. In other words, the Indonesians either abandoned their expectations of the Netherlands or wanted nothing more to do with the colonial authorities. The nascent Indonesian state could point to a priority more urgent than compensating war damage: building a sovereign state and a ‘new’ society whose politics, administration and economy were free of Dutch domination. This common goal clearly outweighed any compensation for individual citizens. The Indonesian government and leading political parties set their sights on securing war reparations from Japan to fund the economic reconstruction of the country rather than the compensation of individual damage. This is how it came about that former enemies – The Netherlands, Japan and Indonesia – all embraced the same position: that material war damage would not be compensated.

Unlike the Indonesians, the Filipinos did have a bargaining chip in the negotiations with the mother country: the 1934 US promise to grant them independ- IX Conclusion 257 ence and the conditions on which trade between the two countries would be continued. This enabled Manila to secure compensation. The Philippine leaders were in favour of continuing bilateral free trade, while the US government wanted to phase this arrangement out. The parties reached a compromise. In the 1946 Bell Trade Act, the US laid down that in the independent Philippine Republic, American business would continue to receive preferential treat- ment, that the parity rights were to be maintained, and that the bilateral free trade agreement would be gradually eliminated. The Bell Trade Act was aimed at protecting American economic interests in the former colony. The 1946 War Rehabilitation Act introduced various measures, including compensation of war damage incurred by individuals. The US intended this law as a political concession to the Philippine economic and political elite in exchange for privileges to be granted to US businesses after independence. Spurred on by the imminent declaration of independence, the Americans and Filipinos quickly settled matters.

Looting and restitution

Japan’s main motive for the looting in Indonesia and the Philippines was to acquire vital raw materials for its war industry. The Japanese appropriated the property in both countries primarily by establishing control over goods they had designated as enemy property. By declaring legal entities and private citizens enemies of the state, the Japanese military administration made it virtually impossible for them to take part in legal transactions. To put Japan’s actions in perspective it is important to realize that prior to and during World War II, all belligerents blocked, administered, and conﬁ s- cated the assets of enemy subjects and legal entities (often without any form of compensation). Japan invoked the provisions of the 1907 Hague Conven- tion (the Rules of War) to requisition goods for direct military purposes and to administer enemy property. This administration was more comprehensive and better organized in Indonesia than in the Philippines. In both countries the administration of property was marked by chaos and infringements of international law. The military administrations stretched the Rules of War to their limit; army units ignored or violated them, in some cases stooping to actual pillaging. In contravention of the Rules of War, Japanese custodians and businesses conﬁ scated goods for which they paid little or no compensation. They also forced enemy subjects to sell goods far below the market price or to accept worthless Japanese invasion money as legal tender. Farmers and small enterprises were forced to supply rice and make payments towards the war effort. 258 The politics of redress

The Americans and Filipinos were quick to agree on war damage compensation, but restitution legislation was not in the offi ng – not even a limited provision of the kind introduced in the British colonies. Evidently, restitution was not on anyone’s agenda. Given the looting that had taken place in the Philippines, there was clearly a need for such special legislation. Therefore there must have been other reasons why the Philippines did not devise special legislation to reverse the consequences of wartime looting. The US legislature did little more than include a provision in the War Rehabilitation Act to compensate looted property. This act offered no guidelines to help resolve property disputes resulting from measures taken by occupying forces. There are two complementary reasons for the lack of restitution legislation in the Philippines. The fi rst is that the American and Philippine governments both felt there were suffi cient means within private and international law to deal with ownership issues. In this view, restitution according to the Indonesian model – or any other model for that matter – was superfl uous. Property disputes resulting from the war and the occupation were handled by the existing courts, which applied international law in their administration of justice. The Philippine Supreme Court’s rulings indicate that it tended not to protect the interests of those who had fallen victim to Japanese measures. One example of this was the issue of the validity of debt payments made under duress during the occupation. The Supreme Court did not always recognize these payments. There are also examples of cases in which the Philippine judges were not sure how to interpret the Rules of War. Despite these legal problems, the Philippine government adhered to existing legislation. This leads us to the second, more speculative, explanation for the absence of special restitution legislation in the Philippines. A plausible explanation is that the creation and implementation of special restitution legislation was deemed unwise because of the great legal diffi culties and political turmoil caused by the collaboration cases in the Philippines. Filipinos at the highest levels had helped the Japanese in one way or another, turning the collaboration issue into a political hot potato. It was a major effort for the Philippine government to form a special court of law with independent judges because it lacked manpower and facilities. The US showed a reluctance to cooperate. Court cases dragged on and the courts became politicized, falling into either the pro-amnesty or anti-amnesty camp. This led to the creation of an amnesty act promulgated by Manuel Roxas, the new president of the Philippines, whose own activities during the war were called into question by sections of Philippine society. It is not unthinkable that such experiences with special legislation infl uenced the Philippine judiciary, leading them to believe that special restitution legislation would create similar problems. IX Conclusion 259

In 1946, Dutch lawyers in Batavia concluded that, although the Japanese occupying force had consistently violated the rules of war, the Japanese measures had no legal consequences. Property had merely been administered; owners had not been expropriated. Still, there had been large-scale looting that created a great need for both legislation and an institution that would return goods to their rightful owners. The rules by which this could be carried out were laid down in the 1947 Ordinance on Restoration of Legal Transactions. This ordinance was to be implemented by the Council for the Restoration of Rights. In the restoration process, the Dutch East Indies government and later the Indonesian government arbitrated in the property disputes resulting from the Japanese occupation and Indonesian revolution. Such disputes did not leave the government with a huge bill to pay, as would have been the case if the government had passed legislation providing for the compensation of war damage. The Dutch East Indies government did not rigidly adhere to the Japanese occupation as the period in which wartime conditions reigned, as it had done in the discussion about the compensation of war damage. The legislature included the ‘post-war disturbances’, its euphemism for the Indonesian revolution, in its defi nition of the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ that warranted restitution. The impact of these extraordinary circumstances on property rights became the restitution judges’ touchstone for hearing a restitution claim and handing down a ruling. These judges only heard cases in which the war had played a role in the unlawful alienation of property. The restitution courts only heard cases fi led by a claimant, and only if there was suffi cient evidence that goods had been alienated against the will of the owner and as a consequence of the war. When restitution law did not offer suffi cient redress, claimants sometimes tried other legal avenues to assert their rights. There was simply no way that all property rights alienated during the occupation and revolution could be restored to their pre-war state. For example, the Council for the Restoration of Rights applied the practical and sensible principle that transactions made during the Japanese occupation were not automatically void. At the same time, the Council protected debtors who had been forced to make payments to the Postspaarbank during the occupation. The debtors did not have to make the same payments again after the Japanese had capitulated. The Dutch East Indies were not alone in this. The British took a similar measure called the Debtor-Creditor Ordinance. As we saw, debtors in the Philippines could not count on government protection. Anyone could submit a claim based on the Ordinance on Restoration of Legal Transactions (OHR). By treating all sections of the population as equal under this special legislation, the colonial legislature for the fi rst time broke with its plural legal system. It is unknown how many Indonesians made use of the opportunity to claim restitution. However, we are certain they did not 260 The politics of redress

fl ock to the Council in large numbers, if for no other reason than that the country was in a state of war. Vast parts of the country were beyond the reach of local representatives of the Council. Furthermore, many Indonesians were simply unaware of either the special law or the Council’s existence. Moreover, many Indonesians saw Dutch institutions in a negative light in this period of decolonization. It therefore stands to reason that restitution legislation did not affect many Indonesians. Indonesian plantation managers – whether they were unions, local military administrations or entrepreneurs – generally paid no mind to the Dutch authorities or the restitution law. They regarded the restoration of rights as a colonial project intended to safeguard the interests of Dutch planters. These were not the only reasons why property rights were often not restored. Many of those entitled to property did not come forward. Of those who were still alive, many could not be identifi ed or located. Goods ranging from furniture to agricultural commodities were initially held by the Council for the Restoration of Rights in the hopes that their owners would resurface. Once it was felt unlikely that this would ever happen, the Council proceeded to liquidate these goods. It divided an unknown share of the proceeds from the sale of agricultural products among the Dutch representatives of the rubber, sugar and other agricultural sectors. After the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to the Indonesian Republic, another share of the profi ts from the sale of unclaimed goods fell to Indonesia in accordance with the agreement reached at the Round Table Conference.

As far as restitution of goods that had been transferred to Japan, the Nether- lands and the Philippines were subject to the whims of the American occupation authority in Japan, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). When the occupation began, the Americans had not yet formulated their vision of restitution; the Allied countries had to pressure the US to come up with a clear policy. However, SCAP was chiefl y concerned with pursuing America’s political and economic agenda in the region: stimulating the economic reconstruction of Japan while denying the Soviets a chance to spread their infl uence. This American strategy was at cross purposes with the Allied demand for full and prompt restitution. Certain looted goods were needed to fund the occupation and reconstruction of Japan and were exempted from restitution. The ratifi cation of the Peace Treaty in December 1951 rung in the end of the American restitution policy. Invoking Article 15 of the treaty, Japan shielded itself from any further Allied restitution claims resulting from the war in any area beyond post-war Japanese territory. Restitution of property seized in Indonesia turned out to be an illusion. Only a handful of the hundreds of claimants actually got their property back. We know nothing about the number of people in the Philippines who got back IX Conclusion 261 the goods taken from them. Although the Japanese seized the property of a great many Dutch people in Indonesia, including 100,000 internees, only about 400 Dutch people submitted claims. The number of Indonesian claimants was negligible for several reasons: the failure of the Dutch East Indies government to properly inform the population about the opportunity for restitution and the procedures to be followed; SCAP’s unreasonable demands in terms of proof; the fundamental problems of identifying property and owners; the obstructiveness of Japanese government institutions and private enterprise; and the Americans’ reluctance to part with property of stable value such as gold and diamonds. The US felt it needed those precious metals and gems to help cover the cost of occupying Japan and rebuilding the Japanese economy. As for the Indonesian claimants, the Republican government’s lack of cooperation may have played a part as well. Supporting individual restitution claims would have required the Republic to divert legal expertise and manpower from a more urgent project: reforming Indonesia’s old plural legal system into a uniform national system.

Reconstruction and the rule of law

The Dutch East Indies government was half-hearted in its decision-making about war damage compensation. At the same time, it seems to have made genuine efforts to restore property rights. Underlying both of these realities was a consistent financial and economic policy of rebuilding the colonial economy. The Dutch East Indies and Dutch governments hoped to achieve this objective through a rapid recuperation of the plantation sector aimed at exporting products and generating foreign exchange. The government did not hesitate to sacrifi ce the compensation of material war damage to this higher goal. Its obsessive focus on reconstruction also left a mark on restitution policy. Restitution became almost synonymous with control over the plantation sector. The Dutch East Indies government saw restitution as one of the instruments – another was military intervention – that it could use to regain control of the economy. Seen in this light, the Indonesians’ distrust of restitution was justifi ed. The main players in developing this fi nancial and economic policy were Dutch Finance Minister Lieftinck, Dutch East Indies Lieutenant Governor- General Van Mook, and Dutch East Indies Chief Treasurer Alons. Van Mook intervened directly in the drafting of restitution legislation for the colony in order to make sure his policy of limited expenditure and control over the plantation sector was pushed through. Alons supported him. In this respect, the restitution legislation was a seamless continuation of the laws that had served colonial economic interests before the war. Lieftinck and Van Mook 262 The politics of redress felt no need to respect the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government. As the colony underwent post-war economic reconstruction and revolution, these two powers bled over into each other. Although Lieftinck and Van Mook were key fi gures in the history of restitution, they received full cooperation from the Dutch and Dutch East Indies governments and Dutch parliament who gave them enough room politically to both write and execute the law. Although the Indonesians disputed the legitimacy of the colonial authorities, their government did not dismiss the idea of returning to the rule of law. What Indonesian legal minds and politicians were most concerned with, however, was the abolition of the dual legal system introduced by the Dutch. They advocated a system of Western law for all citizens and clamoured for the abolishment of the colonial ‘patchwork’ of adat law and separate courts of justice for the native population. The Indonesian intelligentsia felt the plural legal system was arbitrary and unjust. A uniform legal system would put an end to injustice and constitute a symbol of national unity to boot. In principle, restitution through the restoration of rights would have been a perfect fi t with this ‘modern’ Indonesian legal concept, because anyone – regardless of legal status – could submit a claim to a restitution judge. However, the wholesale adoption and execution of restitution legislation was not an Indonesian priority and was diffi cult to enforce. The Indonesian government sensed the country’s anti-colonial mood and kept Dutch restitution efforts at arm’s length. It would not cooperate with what looked like a last gasp by the Dutch to re- establish a grip on the economy. Against this backdrop, the Indonesian government adopted the restitution legislation on its own terms. In the Philippines, introducing restitution through the restoration of rights would also have forced society to face some fundamental questions about the constitutional state. Who had legal recourse? How impartial was the judiciary? Instead of a restitution act, the Philippines passed laws introducing war damage compensation and amnesty in order to lay to rest the legacy of war and occupation. Legally and politically speaking, it was simple to sign the acts giving every Filipino a blanket entitlement to war damage compensation and granting (alleged) collaborators amnesty; far simpler than it would have been to signal the return of the rule of law with the devilishly complicated measure of restitution. Bibliography

Sources Arsip multi subyek pemerintah propinsi Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia (ANRI), Jakarta - Algemene Secretarie (AS) van de Nederlands-Indische regering en de daarbij gedeponeerde archieven - Kabinet Perdana Menteri RI Yogyakarta - Arsip Kepolisian Negara RI

Bank Indonesia, Jakarta - De Javasche Bank

Departementsarchief ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Den Haag - Archief Netherlands East Indies Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS) - Archieven van de Nederlandse vertegenwoordiging te Japan (Tokio) - Codearchief

Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam - Collectie Henri Aa

Nationaal Archief (NA), Den Haag - Archief Algemene Secretarie (AS) - Archief Directie Verre Oosten (DIRVO) te Batavia van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken - Archief Federatie van Verenigingen van Bergcultuurondernemingen in Indonesië (FEDERABO) - Archief hoofdkantoor Nederlands Beheersinstituut - Archief ministerie van Financiën/afdeling Indonesië en overzeese rijksdelen van de directie buitenlands betalingsverkeer van de administratie/algemeen beheer der generale thesaurie (archief Financiën afd. IOR) - Archief ministerie van Koloniën (MvK)/ dossierarchief - Archief ministerie van Koloniën (MvK)/ Indisch archief - Archief ministerie van Koloniën (MvK)/ Londens archief - Archief Nederlands Militaire Missie in Indonesië van het ministerie van Defensie (NMM) - Archief Nederlandse en VFR-delegatie - Archief Ondernemersraad van Nederlands-Indië (ONRANI) - Archief Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR) 264 Bibliography

National Archives of Japan, Tokyo - Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR) (http://www.jacar.go.jp/)

Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), Amsterdam - Archief De Weerd - Archief Indische collectie (IC) - Correspondentiearchief

Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV), Leiden - Gegevens betreffende de Particuliere Landerijen in West-Java 1935-1949

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), College Park, Maryland - General records of general headquarters Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Record (GHQ SCAP) Record group 331.36

Waseda University, Tokyo - Nishijima collection

Periodicals and State Gazettes

Asia Raya, 1942-1945 Bondsmededelingen van de N.I.B.E.G., 1946-1947 Commercial Weekly, 1953 Kan Po; berita pemerintah, 1942-1945 Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia Serikat, 1950 Merdeka, 1950-1951 NIBEG-orgaan, 1949-1953 Rechtsherstel, 1950-1955 Sin Po, 1949 Staatsblad van Indonesië, 1949 Staatsblad van Nederlands-Indië, 1946-1948 The Straits Times, 1947 Tractatenblad van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, 1951

Bibliography

Aalders, G. 1999 Roof; De ontvreemding van joods bezit tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Den Haag: Sdu. 2001 Berooid; De beroofde joden en het Nederlandse restitutiebeleid sinds 1945. Amsterdam: Boom. 2004 Nazi looting; The plunder of Dutch Jewry during the Second World War. Oxford: Berg. Agoncillo, T.A. 1965 The fateful years; Japan’s adventure in the Philippines, 1941-1945. Quezon City: R.P. Garcia. 1984 The burden of proof; The Vargas-Laurel collaboration case. Manila: University of the Philippines Press. Bibliography 265

Akashi, Yoji 1981 ’Bureaucracy and the Japanese Military Administration, with speciﬁ c reference to Malaya’, in: W.H. Newell (ed.) Japan in Asia 1942-1945, pp. 46-82. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Alons, M. 1946 ‘Oorlogsschade’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 12-12:90. Aluit, A.J. 1995 By sword and ﬁ re; The destruction of Manila in World War II 3 February-3 March 1945. Makati City: Bookmark. Asia Kyokai Study Group 2001 ‘Japan’s war reparations – achievements and problems’, in: W. Mendl (ed.) Japan and Southeast Asia. Volume II: The Cold War Era 1947-1989 and issues at the end of the twentieth century, pp. 18-29. London: Routledge. Bakker, H.Th. 1950 De K.P.M. in oorlogstijd; Een overzicht van de verrichtingen van de Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij en haar personeel gedurende de wereldoorlog 1939- 1945. Amsterdam: De Bussy. Bank, J. 1995 De excessennota; Nota betreffende het archiefonderzoek naar de gegevens omtrent excessen in Indonesië begaan door Nederlandse militairen in de periode 1945-1950. Den Haag: Sdu. Barnhart, M.A. 1987 Japan prepares for total war; The search for economic security, 1919-1941. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Baudet, H. and M. Fennema 1983 Het Nederlands belang bij Indië. Utrecht: Spectrum. Becker, A. 2001 The plunder of Jewish property during the holocaust; Confronting European history. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Benda-Beckman, K. von 1984 The broken stairways to consensus; Village justice and state courts in Minangkabau. Dordrecht: Foris. Blakeslee, G.H. 1953 The Far Eastern commission; A study in international cooperation 1945-1952. Washington: Department of State. Boegheim, L.M.J. 1995 ‘De Japanse muntenroof in Nederlandsch-Indië gedurende de tweede wereldoorlog’, De Beeldenaar 19-5:497-506. Boer, J. 1997 Koninklijke Olie in Indië; De prijs voor het vloeibare goud 1939-1953. Bergen: Bonneville. Bosma, U. and Remco Raben 2008 Being “Dutch” in the Indies; A history of creolisation and empire, 1500-1920. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Bossenbroek, M. 2001 De meelstreep. Amsterdam: Bakker. Brugmans, I.J. 1960 Nederlandsch-Indië onder Japanse bezetting; Gegevens en documenten over de jaren 1942-1945. Franeker: Wever. 266 Bibliography

Cook, H.T. and Theodore Failir Cook 2000 Japan at war; An oral history. New York: New Press. Coultre, F. le 1946 ‘De K.P.M. 1941-1946’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 1-8: 61-2. Convention 1899 ‘Convention with respect to the laws and customs of war on land (Hague II)’, 29-07-1899. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/ lawofwar/hague02.htm (accessed 23-05-2008). Cribb, R. 1991 Gangsters and revolutionaries; The Jakarta people’s militia and the Indonesian revolution 1945-1949. Sydney: Allan and Unwin. Departement van Landbouw en Visserij 1948-50 De ontwikkeling van de ondernemingslandbouw in de federale gebieden van Indonesië gedurende 1947-1948. Deel I-III. [plaats?]: Departement van Landbouw en Visserij. Dienst voor ondernemingslandbouw. Doorn, J.A.A. van and W.J. Hendrix 1985 Het Nederlands/Indonesisch conﬂ ict; Ontsporing van geweld. Dieren: De Bataafsche Leeuw. Dower, J.W. 1999 Embracing defeat; Japan in the wake of World War II. Londen: Allen Lane. Duus, P. 1996 ’Introduction; Japan’s wartime empire; Problems and issues,”, in: P. Duus, R.H. Myers en M.R. Peattie (eds.), The Japanese wartime empire, 1931-1945, pp. xi-xlvii. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Eng, P. van der 1988 ’Marshal aid as a catalyst in the decolonization of Indonesia, 1947-49’, Journal of Southeast Studies XIX- 2:335-52. Fabricius, J. 1949 Brandende aarde; De vernieling en de evacuatie van de olieterreinen in Nederlandsch-Indië. ’s-Gravenhage: De Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij. Feliciano, M.S. 1990 ’The Philippine constitution; Its developments, structures, and processes’, in: Carmelo V. Sison (ed.), Constitution and legal systems of ASEAN countries, pp. 173-235. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Law Complex. Frederick, W.F. 1989 Visions and the heat; The making of the Indonesian revolution. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. 1999 ‘Reﬂ ections in a moving stream; Indonesian memories of the war and the Japanese’, in: Remco Raben (ed.), Representing the Japanese occupation of Indonesia , pp. 16-37. Zwolle: Waanders. Friend, Th. 1988 The blue-eyed enemy; Japan against the West in Java and Luzon, 1942-1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fusayama, Takao 1997 Memoir of Takao Fusayama; A Japanese Soldier in Malaya & Sumatra. Bangi: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Bibliography 267

Garde, W.A van de 1946 ‘De wettelijke regelingen t.a.v. de oorlogsschade in Nederland (I)’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 21:167-8. Goedhart, A. 1999 Eerherstel voor de plantage; Uit de geschiedenis van de Handelsvereeniging ‘Amsterdam’ (HVA) 1879-1983. Amsterdam: Albini. Golay, F.H. 1998 Face of empire; United States-Philippines relations, 1898-1946. Madison, WI: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Groen, P. 1991 Marsroutes en dwaalsporen; Het Nederlands militair-strategisch beleid in Indonesië, 1945-1950. ’s-Gravenhage: Sdu. Hartendorp, A.V.H. 1967 The Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Manila: Bookmark. Hering, B. 1996 M.H. Thamrin and his quest for Indonesian nationhood 1917-1941. Stein: Edisi Khusus Kabar Sebarang. Hikita, Yasuyuki 1997 ’Japanese companies inroad into Indonesia under Japanese military domination’, in: Peter Post and Elly Touwen-Bouwsma (eds.), Japan, Indonesia and the war; Myths and realities, pp. 134-76. Leiden: KITLV Press. Horn , N. van et al. 2000 Onderzoek naar de particuliere bank- en levensverzekeringstegoeden van Nederlanders in Nederlands-Indië/Indonesië 1940-1958. Den Haag: Begeleidingscommissie Onderzoek Indische Tegoeden. Horn, N.A. van, Rimko van der Maar and Peter Keppy 2003 Inventarisatierapport haalbaarheidsonderzoek Indische tegoeden; Buitenlandse archieven. Verricht in opdracht van de Technische Commissie Haalbaar- heidsonderzoek Indische Tegoeden. Den Haag Technische Commissie Haalbaarheidsonderzoek Indische Tegoeden. Hüsken, F. 1982 ‘Islam en ruraal verzet tijdens de Japanse inval in Midden-Java in 1942’. Paper, Conference De rol van religie in maatschappelijke veranderingsprocessen in Azië, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Ibrahim, J. 2004 Bandit dan pejuang di simpang Bengawan; Kriminalitas dan kekerasan masa revolusi di Surakarta. Wonogiri: Bina Citra Pustaka. Ikehata, Setsuho 1999 ’Introduction; The Japanese occupation period in Philippine history’, in: Setsuho Ikehata and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), The Philippines under Japan; Occupation policy and reaction, pp. 1-20. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 1999 ’Mining industry development and local anti-Japanese resistance’, in: Setsuho Ikehata and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), The Philippines under Japan; Occupation policy and reaction, pp. 127-70. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 268 Bibliography

Jenkins, S. 1954 American economic policy toward the Philippines. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Jong, L. de 1979-86 Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Nederlands- Indië, Deel 11a-c. Den Haag: Nijhoff. Jose, R.T. 1999 ’The rice shortage and countermeasures during the occupation’, in: Setsuho Ikehata and Ricardo Trota Jose (eds.), The Philippines under Japan; Occupation policy and reaction, pp. 197-214. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Kahin, George McTurnan 1952 Nationalism and revolution in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kahin, A.R. en George McTurnan Kahin 1995 Subversion as foreign policy; The secret Eisenhower and Dulles debacle in Indonesia. New York: The New Press. Kawilarang, A.E. 1993 Officier in dienst van de Republiek Indonesië; Ervaringen 1942-1961. Breda: Warung Bambu. Kemperman, J. 2002 Tjideng; De Japanse bezetting in dagboeken. Amsterdam: Bakker. Keppy, P. 2001 Hidden business; Indigenous en ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs in the Majalaya textile industry, West Java, 1928-1972. PhD thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. 2006 Sporen van vernieling; Oorlogsschade, roof en rechtsherstel in Indonesë 1940- 1957. Amsterdam: Boom. Kerkvliet, B.J. 2002 The Huk rebellion; A study of peasant revolt in the Philippines. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefi eld. Kratoska. P.H. 1998 The Japanese occupation of Malaya 1941-1945. London: Hurst. 2005 K.A. Warmenhoven and the Thailand-Burma Railway after 15 August 1945. Paper, Conference The Japanese occupation: sixty years after the end of the Asia Pacifi c War, Singapore 5-6 September. 2006 The Thailand-Burma railway 1942-1946; Documents and selected writings. London/New York: Routledge. Kroese, W.T. 1979 Het begin van de industrialisatie van Indonesië; De stichting van de Preanger Bontweverij (PBW) te Garut. Hengelo. Uitgeverij Smit. Kunitaka Mikami 2001 Kaigun byôinsen wa naze shizumeraretaka; Daini Hikawa maru. Tokyo: Fuyõ Shobõ Shuppan. Kurasawa, Aiko 1988 Mobilization and control; A study of social change in rural Java, 1942-1945. PhD thesis, Cornell University. Larkin, J.A. 1993 Sugar and the origins of modern Philippine society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bibliography 269

Lev, D.S. 2000a ‘Colonial law and the genesis of the Indonesian state’ in: D. Lev, Legal evolution and political authority in Indonesia; Selected essays, pp. 13-32: The Hague: Kluwer Law International. 2000b ‘The origins of the Indonesian advocacy’, in: D. Lev, Legal evolution and political authority in Indonesia; Selected essays, pp. 245-82.The Hague: Kluwer Law International. 2000c ‘Judicial uniﬁ cation in post-colonial Indonesia’, in: D. Lev, Legal evolution and political authority in Indonesia; Selected essays, pp. 33-70. The Hague. Kluwer Law International. Lim Kean Siew 1999 Blood on the golden sands; The memoirs of a Penang family. Subang Jaya: Pelanduk. Linggadjati 1946 Linggadjati; De ontwerp-overeenkomst, de toelichting der commissie-generaal, de regeeringsverklaring. ’s-Gravenhage: Rijksuitgeverij. Lucas, A.E. 1991 One soul one struggle; Region and revolution in Indonesia. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. Lumsdale, R.A., K.C. Lowe and J. Henderson 1946 Report on Java rubber estates covering 1942 to 1945. Batavia. N.I. Rubberfonds. Maas, P.F. and J.E.C.M. van Oerle 1987 ’Het Leger te gelde’, in: G. Teitler en P.M.H. Groen (eds.), De politionele acties, pp. 11-28. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw. Mañalac, F.J. 1995 Manila; Memories of World War II. Quezon City: Giraffe. Martin, E.M. 1948 The allied occupation of Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Meelhuijsen, W. 2000 Revolutie in Soerabaja. Zutphen: Walburg. Meijer, H. 2004 In Indië geworteld; De twintigste eeuw. Amsterdam: Bakker. 2005 Indische rekening; Indië, Nederland en de backpay-kwestie 1945-2005. Amsterdam: Boom. Meyer, M.W. 1965 A diplomatic history of the Philippine Republic. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Mràzek, R. 1994 Sjahrir; Politics and exile in Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Cornell University. Nagtegaal, C. 1946-1948 Stukken aangaande juridische en bestuurljike vraagstukken over de rechten op grondgebruik, waar de heer C. Nagtegaal bemoeienis mee heeft gehad, 1946- 1948. S.l. s.n. Nasution, A.H. 1978 Sekitar perang kemerdekaan Indonesia. Jilid 5: Agresi militer Belanda I. Bandung: Angkasa. 270 Bibliography

1979 Sekitar perang kemerdekaan Indonesia. Jilid 9: Agresi militer Belanda II. Bandung: Angkasa. Nishijima, Shigetada et al. 1963 Military administration in Indonesia. Washington: US Government Printing Ofﬁ ce. Nishihara, Masashi 1976 The Japanese and Sukarno’s Indonesia; Tokyo-Jakarta relations, 1951-1966. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Nortier, J.J. 1985 Acties in de archipel; De intelligence-operaties van NEFIS- III in de paciﬁ c- oorlog. Franeker: Wever. Nortier, J.J., P. Kuijt and P.M.H. Groen 1994 De Japanse aanval op Java. Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw. Notulen Panitia 1950 Notulen van de 3e vergadering van de Panitya untuk menjelesaikan soal-soal pemulihan hak, gehouden op Maandag 24 April, te 10 u. v.m. ten kantore van de Raad voor het Rechtsherstel, Rijswijk 11, Djakarta.S.l.: s.n Ohno, Takushi 1986 War reparations and peace settlement; Philippines-Japan relations 1945-1956. Manila: Solidaridad. Onghokham 2003 The thugs, the curtain thief, and the sugar lord; Power, politics and culture in colonial Java. Jakarta: Metafor. Pakpahan, G. 1979 1261 hari di bawah sinar matahari terbit; Indonesia merdeka dalam kandungan ibu-sejarah. Jakarta: Marintan Djaya. Poelgeest, L. van 1999 Japanse besognes; Nederland en Japan, 1945-1972. Den Haag: Sdu. Post, P. 1991 Japanse bedrijvigheid in Indonesië; Structurele elementen van Japan’s vooroorlogse economische expansie in Zuid-Oost Azië. PhD thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. Peattie, M.R. 1996 ‘Nanshin; The “Southward Advance”, 1931-1941, as a prelude to the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia’, in: P. Duus, R.H. Myers en M.R. Peattie (eds.), The Japanese wartime empire, 1931-1945, pp. 189-242. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pelzer, K.J. 1982 Planters against peasants; The agrarian struggle in East Sumatra 1947-1958. Den Haag: Nijhoff. Prillwitz, P.M. 1946a ‘De ondernemingslandbouw tijdens de Japansche bezetting’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 12-2:13-6. 1946b ‘De Pamanoekan- en Tjiasemlanden tijdens de Japansche bezetting’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 15: 118-9. Raben, R. 1999 ‘Tradition in triplicate’, in: Remco Raben (ed.), Representing the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, pp. 7-14. Zwolle: Waanders. Bibliography 271

Rapport van de Federatie 1953 Rapport van de Federatie van Ambtenarenorganisaties uit Indonesië (F.A.I.); Het vraagstuk der zg. Achterstallige Betalingen. Den Haag: F.A.I.. Resultaten van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie 1949 Resultaten van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie, zoals aanvaard tijdens de tweede algemene vergadering welke op 2 November 1949 werd gehouden in de Ridderzaal te ’s-Gravenhage. ’s-Gravenhage: Secretariaat-generaal van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie. Reynolds, E.B. 1996 ’Anomaly or model? Independent Thailand’s role in Japan’s Asian strategy, 1941-1943’, in: P. Duus, R.H. Myers and M.R. Peattie (eds.), The Japanese wartime empire, 1931-1945, pp. 243-73. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Robinson, N. 1951 ’War damage compensation and restitution in foreign countries’, Law and Contemporary Problems 16-3:351-2. Rodenburg, G. 1946 ‘De suikerindustrie op Java tijdens de Japansche bezetting (I)’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 5: 38-40. Rutherford, W. 1991 Het drama van de Filippijnen; Begin van de Japanse stormloop. Antwerpen: Standaard Uitgeverij. Sato, Shigeru 1994 War, nationalism and peasants; Java under the Japanese occupation, 1942- 1945. St. Leonards: Allen & Unwin. 2005 ’”Economic soldiers” in Java; Indonesian laborers mobilized for agricultural projects’, in: Paul H. Kratoska (ed.), Asian labor in the wartime Japanese empire, pp. 129-51. Armonk, NY: Sharpe. Schaller, M. 1985 The American occupation of Japan; The origins of the cold war in Asia. New York: Oxford University Press. Schein, E. 1951 ’War damage compensation through rehabilitation; The Philippine war damage commission’, Law and Contemporary Problems 16-3:519-42. Schoevers, A.M. 1946 ‘Import- en detailzaken tijdens de bezetting’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 26:47-8. Schumacher, P. 2005 Een bende op Java; Juwelenroof en corruptie in het naoorlogse Nederlands- Indië. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. Sevilla, V.J. 1984 Justices of the Supreme Court of the Philippines;Their lives and outstanding decisions. Quezon City: New Day. Shimer , B.G. and G. Hobbs 1986 The Kenpetei in Java and Sumatra (Selections from Nihon Kenpei Seishi). Translated by Barabara Gifford Shimer and Guy Hobbs. Ithaca: Cornel University. 272 Bibliography

Smail, J.R.W. 1946 Bandung in the early revolution, 1945-1946; A study in the social history of the Indonesian revolution. Ithaca: Cornell University. Stetler, C.J. 1951 ‘To what extent should congress appropriate to distribute the burden of war loss, given the insuffi ciency of war reparation’, Law and Contemporary Problems 16-3:469-86. Seagrave, S. and P. Seagrave 2003 Gold warriors; America’s secret recovery of Yamashita’s gold. Londen: Verso. Steinberg, D.J. 1967 Philippine collaboration in World War II. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Swisher, C.C., G. H. Curtis and R. Lewin 2000 Java man; How two geologist’s dramatic discoveries changed our understanding of the evolutionary path to modern humans. New York: Scribner. Takemae, Eiji 2003 The allied occupation of Japan. New York: Continuum. Tan Tjong Yan 1946 ‘De rijstpellerijen in Midden-Java gedurende de Japansche bezetting’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 21:161-3. Taylor, A.M. 1960 Indonesian independence and the United Nations. Londen: Stevens and sons. Thompson, W.L. 1989 The introduction of American law in the Philippines and Puerto Rico 1898- 1905. Fayetville/London: The University of Arkansas Press. Tervooren, E.P.M. 1957 Statenopvolging en de fi nanciële verplichtingen van Indonesië. ’s-Gravenhage: Nijhoff. Tjoekoer, P. 1946 Warisan Djepang. Batavia: Eng Hoat. 1948 Djeman Gelo; Komedi Indonesia dalem sair. Djakarta: Oke. Till, M. van 2006 Batavia bij nacht; Bloei en ondergang van het Indonesische roverswezen in Batavia en de Ommelanden, 1869-1942. Amsterdam: Aksant. Torpey, J. 2003 ’Introduction; Politics and the past’, in: John Torpey (ed.), Politics and past; On repairing historical injustices, pp. 1-34. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefi eld. Touwen, J. 2001 Extremes in the archipelago; Trade and economic development in the Outer Islands of Indonesia 1900-1942. Leiden: KITLV Press. Touwen-Bouwsma, E. 1995 ’Het Europese bedrijfsleven in Nederlands-Indië tijdens de Japanse bezetting’, in: 50 jaar bevrijding, 1945-1995; Bedrijfsleven in bezettingstijd Symposium 1 mei 1995:20-21. Bibliography 273

1997 ’Japanese minority policy; The Eurasians and the dilemma of ethnic loyalty’, in: Peter Post and Elly Touwen-Bouwsma (eds.), Japan, Indonesia and the war; Myths and realities, pp. 31-50. Leiden: KITLV Press. Tsutsui, W.M. 1988 Banking policy in Japan; American efforts at reform during the occupation. London: Routledge. Twang Peck Yang 1998 The Chinese business elite and the transition to independence, 1940-1950. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Valken, H. 1946 ‘Bepaling van de industrieele oorlogsschade’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië 30:280-1. Veraart, W. 2002 ‘Sanders contra Lieftinck; De ongelijke strijd om het rechtsherstel in de jaren van wederopbouw’, in: C. Kristel (red.), Binnenskamers; Terugkeer en opvang na de Tweede Wereldoorlog; Besluitvorming, pp. 173-208. Amsterdam: Bakker. 2005 Ontrechting en rechtsherstel in Nederland en Frankrijk in de jaren van bezetting en wederopbouw. Alphen aan de Rijn: Kluwer. Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 1952 Verslag van de Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen: ingesteld bij besluit van de staatssecretaris voor uniezaken en overzeese rijksdelen dd. 4 december 1951. Den Haag: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken. Viana, A.V. de 2003 Kulaboretor! The issue of political collaboration during World War II. Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. Volkstelling 1936 Volkstelling 1930. Deel VIII. Overzicht voor Nederlandsch-Indië. Batavia: Landsdrukkerij. Vries, W.A.D. de 1947 ‘Tracing removed property’, The Economic Review of Indonesia I-2:35-6. Wal, S.L. 1971-96 Ofﬁciële bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische betrekkingen 1945-1950. I-XX Den Haag: Nijhoff. Wertheim, W.F. 1991 Vier wendingen in ons bestaan; Indië verloren, Indonesië geboren. Wage- ningen: De Geus. Westerhout, A.M. 1947 ‘De afvoer van agrarische producten, geproduceerd vóór 8 Maart 1942 uit Nederlands-Indië gedurende de Japansche bezetting’, Economisch Weekblad voor Indonesië 29:461-2. Willems, W. 2001 De uittocht uit Indië, 1945-1995. Amsterdam: Bakker. Yong Cheong Mun 2003 The Indonesian revolution and the Singapore connection, 1945-1949. Leiden: KITLV Press. 274 Bibliography

Zboray, E. von 1948 De particuliere landerijen bewesten de Tjimanoek. Batavia: Kolff. Zeeman, C.W. 1946 ‘De kofﬁe-verkoop-organisatie onder het Japansch beheer’, Economisch Weekblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 13: 98-99. Zorab, A.A. 1954 De Japansche bezetting van Indonesië en haar volkenrechterlijke zijde. Leiden: Universitaire Pers. Zwaag, J. van der 1991 Verloren tropische zaken. De opkomst en ondergang van de Nederlandse handel- en cultuurmaatschappijen in het voormalige Nederlands-Indië. Groningen: de Feniks Pers. Zwitzer, H.L 1983 Documenten betreffende de eerste politionele actie, 20/21 juli – 4 augustus 1947. Den Haag : Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis van de Landmachtstaf. Index

Abdulah bin Aﬁ ff, A. 128 Goela Negara (Institution for the absentee owners 119, 180, 183, 190 Regulation of the State Sugar Aceh 13, 83, 211 Industry) 161 adat, 17, 201, 262 see also customary law Balai Djoeal-Beli Barang-Bergerak agricultural business 31, 86, 128-131, (auctioneering ﬁ rm for movable 146-8, 152-3, 159, 161, 174-5 see also assets) 129 estates, plantations Bali 13, 96 Algemeen Landbouw Syndicaat (ALS) Balikpapan 17, 23, 26, 39-40, 192 147, 200, 212 Bandung 18, 22-3, 50-1, 78, 104, 134, 159, Algemene Import Organisatie (AIO, 180, 192, 197, 207, 219, 227, 234, 240-2 General Import Organization) 205 Bandung Geological Museum 234 Allied Forces Netherlands East Indies Bandung Lautan Api 50 (AFNEI) 166 Bangka 17, 40, 145, 221, 228-9, 243 Allied Military Administration Civil Bangka Tin Winning 243 Affairs Branch (AMACAB) 301 Bangkok 221-2 Allied South East Asia Command Banjarmasin 95, 124, 144-5, 192, 206 (SEAC) 27 Bank of Japan 127, 133, 141, 231, 234 Alons, W. 52, 55-6, 58-62, 89, 172, 261 banknotes 22, 138 Ambarawa 209 Barisan Tani Indonesia (BTI) 211-12 Ambon 26, 97-8, 125, 192-3 Basic Occupation Directive (SCAP) 217 American-Philippine army, see also Basic Post-Surrender Policy (SCAP) 229 USAFFE 22-4 Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij American occupation (Japan) 32, 114, (BPM) 39, 81, 92, 148, 160, 220 219-220, 260 Bataan 24, 46 American War Damage Corporation 71 Batavia, 11, 13, 66, 92, 160, 174-5, 196, Amnesty Act (Philippines) 185-6, 258 224, 259 see also Jakarta Andi Idjo Karaeng Lalolang 239 batik 16, 101-2 Anti-Occupancy Law 201 Bawean 124 Article 14b of the Peace Treaty 105-7, Beel, L.J.M. 30, 89 250 Bekasi 44, 46, 101 Article 15 of the Peace Treaty 242, 250, Belitung 17, 40 252, 260 Bell, Jasper 28-9, 72-3, 75 Article 22 of the Peace Treaty 251 Bell Trade Act 73, 75, 257 Asahan 77 Benedictine Order 183 Asahi Diamond Company 142, 232 Berut 79 Asia Raya 40, 43-6, 124, 136, 143-5, 152 Besuki 83 Australia 22-3, 31, 34, 47, 54, 102, 145, Big Five 16, 52, 58, 176-7 see also 157, 248 Borsumij, Jacobson & Van den Berg, Geo Wehry, Internatio, Lindeteves Badan Keamanan Rakyat (BKR) 48-9 bilateral free trade agreement (USA- Badan Penjelenggara Peroesahaan Philippines) 19, 28, 71-3, 75 276 Index

Billiton Maatschappij 220-1 collaboration 2, 10, 23, 28, 69, 184-7, 258 Bintan 17, 44, 123 Cold War 2, 10, 255 black market 22, 25-6, 33, 69, 125, 154, Commissie Achterstallige Betalingen 158, 169, 181, 183, 220 (Back Pay Committee) 57, 91 Blom, N.S. 26, 109 Commissie tot Opsporing van Boeke, J.H. 60 Nederlands-Indische Eigendommen Bogor 46, 49, 78, 160, 192, 198, 233 (CONIE, Committee for Tracing Bondsmededelingen van de NIBEG 56-7 Dutch East Indies Property) 220-2 Borneo 6, 14, 65, 95-6, 143, 243 Commissie voor Rechtsverkeer in Borsumij 16 Oorlogstijd (CRO, Committee on Brebes 78 Legal Transactions in Wartime) 8, Brisbane 23, 26, 47, 53, 74, 113, 156-7 118-9, 133, 135, 157-8, 172-3, 178 British American Tobacco Company Commissie Terugvoering Indische (BAT) 93 Eigendommen in het Buitenland British banks 138 (COMTIEB, Committee for the British Military Administration (BMA) Return of Dutch East Indies Property 220-1 Abroad) 222-4 Bukittinggi 130 Commissie tot Taxatie van Bungkanel 80 Oorlogsschade (War Damage Bupati 17, 239 see also regent Assessment Committee) 60 Bureau voor Oorlogsschade (War Committee on Territories and Insular Damage Bureau) 65 Affairs (USA) 28, 71-2 Burma 25, 27, 35, 108, 143, 220-2 Commonwealth government Burma railway 25, 222 (Philippines) 22-4, 28, 39, 114 butanol 151 compensation see war damage compensation Canada 34 confi scation 117 Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 60 conversion rights 210, 212 Central Liaison Offi ce (CLO, Japan) 33- copper 136, 141, 155, 231 4, 134 Corregidor 22-4 Centrale Verkooporganisatie van Court of Appeals 190-1, 197 Ondernemingslandbouwproducten Curahmalang 79 (CVO, Central Sales Organization of custodianship 118-120, 128-9, 136, 183, Agricultural Commodities) 200 190, 194, 213, 215 Chartered Bank 138 Custodian of Property (BMA, Straits Chicago Daily Tribune 237 Settlements) 220-1 China 21, 34, 117, 133, 136, 143, 219, 228, customary law 17, 201 249-9 China Banking Corporation 183 damage assessment 57, 59, 60-1, 83-4, 86- Chinese consul 50, 79, 101-2 7, 110 see also damage estimates Chinese Indonesians 16, 43, 49, 78, 82, damage estimates 39, 51, 60-1, 71, 84, 86, 133, 148, 239 86-7, 103, 110-11 Chung Hua Thung Hui (Federation of De Nederlandsche Bank 246 Chinese Organisations) 53 Debtor-Creditor Ordinance (Malaya) 6, Cirebon 46, 93, 127, 161 259 Civil Property Custodian (CPC, SCAP) Decree on Restoration of Legal 33, 97, 105-6, 219, 224-8, 230-8, 240-3, Transactions see Royal Decree E 100 246-8 (The Netherlands) Civil Property Bureau (Foreign Affairs Decree on Restoration of Legal Japan) 227, 240-1 Transactions (Dutch East Indies/ cocoa 149-150, 163, 203, 245 Indonesia) see Ordonnantie Herstel coffee 15, 147-9, 152, 163, 203, 210, 237, Rechtsverkeer (OHR) 245 Delgado, Francisco 68-9 coins 96, 117, 128, 138, 140, 195, 205, 246 Deli 83 Index 277 demolition brigades 41 Federatie van Ambtenarenorganisaties Den Pasar 192 uit Indonesië (FAI) 110 Department of Economic Affairs (Dutch Federatie van Bergondernemingen in East Indies) 23, 38, 56-7, 62, 65, 77, Indonesië 211 200 Financial and economic accord (Finec) Department of Justice (Dutch East 32, 90, 202, 204,210,212, 246 Indies) 109, 159, 171, 191, 213 First Demobilization Bureau (Japan) 170, Department of Finance (Dutch East 225 Indies) 52, 102 First Police Action 31, 51, 77-81, 83, 85-6, Depok 48-9 101, 160, 168, 173, 179 Derksen, J.B.D. 60-3 Foreign Orientals 14 diamonds 128, 136-7, 140-6, 205, 218-9, forum shopping 198 229-230, 232-3, 235-6, 238, 246-9 Fudôsan Kanri Kôdan (Corporation for dispossession 129, 217 the Administration of Real Estate) Djie Siauw Hoen 175 129-130, 132, 139, 151 Djuanda, R. 210 furniture 129, 131, 168-9, 180-1, 194, 197- dollar restitution 245 8, 205, 260 Droogdok Maatschappij 42 Dukuh 79 Gaimusho 250-1, 253 Dulles, J. F. 106 Garut 103, 128, 201 duress 181, 184, 206, 217-8, 240, 258 Geneva Convention 124, 252 Dutch-British agreement (of 30 October Geo Wehry 16 1945) 163, 166 Gerbrandy, P.S. 23, 40, 109 Dutch banks 9, 22, 127, 137-8, 166, 195, Germany 21, 33, 218 239 Germans 14, 22, 118-120, 171, 213 Dutch parliament 35, 54, 91, 109, 113, Ginko Seiriin (Banking Consultation 115, 262 Group) 154 Dutch East Indies Navy 101 gold 3, 22, 96, 128, 136-8, 140-2, 155, 163, Dutch Navy 100, 102, 124, 221 166, 183, 218-9, 223, 227, 229-231, 235, 237, 239-240, 246, 248, 261 Economic and Scientifi c Section (ESS, Götzen, L. 52, 54, 94 SCAP) 33, 105, 224 Gouw Boen Seng & Co 206 Economisch Weekblad van Government-in-exile 23, 117 Nederlandsch-Indië 56, 223 Governor-General (Dutch East Indies) 9, Eggens, J. 118-9, 157-8, 171, 187, 190 17-8, 22, 23, 30, 37, 52-4, 58, 60, 65-6, Emperor, Hirohito 228, 233 74, 85, 97, 100, 102-3, 113, 158, 172, Endo, Major General 227 175,-7, 180, 189-190, 194, 200, 223, 261 enemy property 6, 8, 117-123, 126, 128- Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 135, 153-5, 160, 170-2, 182, 187, 213, 21, 133, 153, 218 241, 257 Gunsei Kaikeibu 154 Escompto Maatschappij (Escomptobank) Gunseikanbu 24, 122 16, 206 Gutwirth, A. 141 estates 15, 20, 44-6, 49, 128-130, 151-2, 160, 207 Hadu Doea 102 Eurasians 25, 43, 49, 57, 86, 120, 134, 142, Hamid II Alkadri 242 144, 210, 256 Handelsvereniging Amsterdam (HVA) 83 Far Eastern Commission (FEC) 34-5, 60- Hart, H.M.J. 54, 57, 60-3, 114 4, 106, 165, 218, 223-4, 229-230, 237, Hart Committee 9, 53-4, 60-2, 64-5, 113- 247-9, 253 4 see also Commissie tot Taxatie van Federal Government of Indonesia 11, Oorlogsschade 31, 67, 83, 87, 90-5, 97, 103, 103, Hatta, Mohamad 18, 27, 29, 112 115-6, 173, 194-5 see also Republik Haw Pia case (Philippines) 183-4 Indonesia Serikat (RIS) Hecking Colenbrander, H. van 112 278 Index heirloom, 96, 139, 144-5, 227, 235, 243, Ishifuku Shoten Industry Co. 140, 142, 255 see also pusaka 241 hemp 150, 155 see also rami Italy 21 Hens, A.P.G. 52-60 Italians 14, 118, 120 Hens Committee 52-60, 110, 113-4 Iwahig Penal Colony 184 Hertog, V.H. den 52, 56, 58 High Commissioner of the Crown Jacobson & Van den Berg 16 (HVK) 30, 86-7, 89, 97 Jakarta 9, 11, 13-7, 29, 37, 40-2, 44-6, 48- Hitachi Manufacturing Plant 232 54, 63-4, 66, 78, 85, 87, 96, 99, 101-2, Holding Company Liquidation 108, 118, 123, 127, 129, 133-5, 139-141, Commission (HCLC, SCAP) 34, 232 143, 152, 157-8, 161-172, 174, 176, 179- Hollandia, 26, 192 see also Jayapura 181, 184, 187, 192, 196-7, 206-7, 213, Hölmback, A. 252-3 215, 222-4, 239, 243, 255 Homo Soloensis No. IX (Ngandong IX Jambi 81, 160 skull) 227, 233, 242 Japancommissie (Japan Committee, Hong Kong 6, 132, 227 Dutch East Indies) 246 Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Japanese Army 3, 22, 26-7, 39, 41, 43-5, Corporation 138 47, 58, 117, 124-7, 129-130, 136-141, Hoogstraten, J.E. van 57, 65, 172, 177-9 148-9, 156, 158, 160-1, 164, 166, 170, House Committee on Territories and 180, 186, 213, 219, 222, 234 Insular Affairs (USA) 28, 71-3 Japanese banks 6, 127, 134, 139, 143-4, House of Representatives (USA) 73 164-5, 213, 239, 241-2 Hukbalahap, 20 see also Huk rebels Japanese invasion 10, 13, 15, 22, 37-8, Huk rebels 28, 52, 69 41-6, 55, 58, 74, 84, 93, 100, 115, 123-4, 129, 150, 153, 157, 162, 167-9, 175, 233, Ide Anak Agung Ngurah Agung 96 239, 255, 257 Imperial Household Museum 227, 242 Japanese occupation 1-3, 8-10, 13, 25, 30, indemnifi cation 63, 88, 99, 113-4, 201 43, 46-7, 56-7, 60, 69, 83-4, 88, 101-2, Indische Contact Commissie (ICC, Dutch 106, 117, 145, 152, 158-9, 170, 174-5, East Indies Contact Committee) 157 181, 183, 189-190, 194-6, 206-11, 213, Indische Ondernemersbond (IOB, Dutch 215, 228, 230, 254, 256, 259 East Indies Business Association) 16, Japanese Military Administration 11, 24- 31, 53, 56-8, 63, 66, 92-3, 95, 103, 110, 5, 27, 133, 136, 152, 156, 185, 257 see 174-7, 179, 191, 204-5, 215 also Gunseikanbu Indische Verzekeringskamer (Dutch East Japanese Navy 24, 26, 95-6, 124, 146, 228, Indies Insurance Chamber) 208 239, 249, 251 Indonesia Timur 239 Jatinegara 49, 123 Indonesian Arabs 16, 79, 127, 144, 174 Jikei dan 45 Indonesian Army, 9, 49-50, 77-8, 81, Java 9, 14-7, 22-6, 29-32, 37-40, 42-6, 48- 104-5, 186 see also Tentara Nasional 51, 58, 74, 77-9, 82-6, 92-3, 101-3, 112, Indonesia 120, 122, 124-135, 137-8, 140-152, 155, Indonesian independence 27, 161 159-162, 164-6, 168, 193, 199-201, 205, Indonesian revolution 1, 5, 7, 9-10, 13, 207, 209-212, 214, 221-2, 224, 227, 232- 15, 18, 25, 37, 42-3, 47-8, 51-2, 104, 4, 239, 241 158, 171, 189, 197, 215, 255-6, 259 Java Textiel Maatschappij 78 Insurance 38, 70, 92, 208 Javasche Bank, De 9, 16, 22, 98, 137, 139- Internatio 16, 52, 56 140, 166, 174-5, 177, 195-6, 219, 247 international law 6, 108, 124, 155, 160, jewelry 143, 235, 243 170, 173-4, 183-4, 187, 213, 249, 251, Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) 217, 224, 229, 257-8 245 internment 18, 25, 30, 35, 49, 131, 139- Jombang 81 140, 148-9, 169, 196-8, 209 Jones, J. 71 Ipekdjian Brothers 141-2 Jones Act 19 Irian Jaya see Papua, Nieuw Guinea Jong, L. De 109, 145, 152 Index 279 jurisprudence 180, 183, 192, 196, 199, 215 lasykar 9, 29 Jûyô Busshi Kôdan (Corporation for the Laurel, José 23-4, 26, 184-5 Administration of Vital Goods) 127, Law of Armed Confl ict 6 see also The 130, 151, 162 Hague Convention, Rules of War lawsuits 107, 112, 209, 221 see also Kalimantan 14,17, 23-4, 26, 39, 65, 86, 95, litigation 136, 144-6, 227, 243 see also Borneo legal systems 17, 19, 204, 259, 261-2 Kaliurang 31, 201-2 Lend-lease agreement 247 Kan Po 129 Lentze, A.C. 240-2 Kantor Gaboengan Peroesahaan Leyds, W.J. 241-2 (Offi ce of the Federation of (Sugar) Leyte 27-8, 184 Companies) 161 Lieftinck, P. 31, 54, 89, 91, 109-111, 214, Kantor Oeroesan Peranakan (Offi ce of 245-6, 261-2 Eurasian Affairs) 144 Lieutenant Governor General (Dutch Kantor Poesat Perkeboenan Djawa East Indies) 23, 30, 37, 58, 60, 65, 74, (Central Offi ce of Agricultural 85, 97, 100, 103, 113, 158, 172, 180, Enterprises in Java) 159 189-190, 200, 223, 261 Karangmalang 79 life insurance companies 146, 208 Kayashita Gumi Ltd 249-252 Lim Kang Tjoean 128 Kebayoran 49 Lindeteves 16 Kediri 81-2, 84, 212 Linggajati 30 Kedu 45 Linggajati agreement 30-1, 175-6, 179, Keirichoku (Intendance Section) 153 200-1, 214 Keluang 78 litigation 102, 192, 202, 221 Kempetai 127-8, 148 see also military liquidation 9, 127, 134, 137, 139, 155, police 164-5, 177, 192-3, 209, 215, 131 Kencok 79 local representatives (Council for the keris 96, 128, 239-240 Restoration of Rights) 97, 179-180, Khoe Wi Hin 13, 43, 78 182, 191-3, 196, 260 kina 15, 203, 238, 246 see also quinine London 23, 40, 47, 54, 109, 117, 157, 229 Kirihara Tadao 141-2 London Declaration 229 Kizugawa Kanpo Soko warehouse 230 looting 1-7, 9, 15, 23, 42-7, 67-8, 74, 86, Kobe 141 117-8, 1213, 128, 154-7, 163-4, 167-170, Koiso 27 182-3, 186, 189, 197, 213, 218, 222, 224, Koenigswald, Gustav Heinrich Ralph 240, 245, 247-8, 255, 257-9 see also von 233-4, 242 pillage, plunder, rampok, robbery Komite Tionghoa Pembantoe Keamanan Looted Property Program (SCAP) 217, Oemoem Djakarta 49, 167 227, 231, 249 Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij Luzon 20, 23-4, 26, 28, 51-2, 69, 71, 185, (KPM) 39, 42, 124, 181, 228, 242 233 Koninklijk Nederlands-Indische Leger (KNIL, Royal Dutch East Indies MacArthur, Douglas 22-4, 27-8, 32-5, 46, Army) 13, 23, 82, 93, 101-4, 112-3, 105-6, 184-5, 217, 224, 230, 237, 242, 167, 194, 224 245 KNIL Military Settlement Command 104 Madura 14, 30, 80, 135, 173 Korea 33, 249 Majalaya 78 Krawang 40, 44 Makassar 26, 98-9, 124, 132, 192, 240 Kupang 26, 98, 100, 192 Malang 79, 84, 130, 169, 207, 212 Kutsujima 251 Malaya 6, 21, 25, 117, 122, 219, 222 Kyoto Museum 230 see also Malayan Union Kyūshū 228 Malayan Union 54, 94, 110, 194 Malacca 162, 199, 220 Landraad 17, 190 Manado 26, 98, 124, 192 Landzaat, K.O. 100 Mangkunegaran 87, 179 280 Index

Manila 22-5, 27, 36, 40-1, 46-7, 68, 71-2, Nankoku Sangyo 148-9 114, 133, 154, 183, 185, 255, 257 Nanpo Kaihatsu Kinko (Southern Manufacturers Life 208 Development Bank) 133 see also Marquat, W.F. 105 Nanpobank Marshall aid 32, 92 Nanpobank 134, 136, 138-9, 142-3, 164 Martapura 145-6 Nasoetion gelar Soetan Oloan, Martokoesoemo, Mas Besar 17, 203-6 Masdoelhak Hamononangan 122 Matnoer, Haji 95-6 Nasution, Abdul H. 77-9, 81 Medan 16, 50, 192, 201, 207 Nederlands Beheersinstituut 209 Merdeka 104 Nederlandse Militaire Missie (NMM, militia 9, 28-30, 45, 48-51, 77-8, 81-3, 85, Dutch Military Mission) 165, 224, 159-161, 163, 167-170, 186, 199, 207 227, 229-230, 232, 234-5, 238-9, 242-7, see also pemuda, lasykar, 249 military police 45, 52, 128, 167-8, 198 Nederlandse Paciﬁc Petroleum Mindanao 24, 155 Maatschappij (NPPM) 160 mining 33, 144-5, 155, 158, 185, 214, 221 Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service Minister of Justice of the Netherlands (NEFIS) 8-9, 26, 62, 85, 158-9, 162, 171 170, 220, 240-1 Minister of Justice of the Republic of the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration Philippines 23-4, 186 (NICA) 26, 30, 47, 53, 74 Ministerie van Overzeese Gebiedsdelen Nederlands-Indische Bond van (Ministry of Overseas Territories) 60, Ex-Krijgsgevangenen en Ex- 158 Geinterneerden (NIBEG, Dutch East Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indies Alliance of Former Prisoners Indonesia 104 of War and Internees) 53, 56-7, 59, 61, Ministry of Finance of Japan 119, 133, 63, 91, 107, 110-12, 147, 207, 209 219 Nederlandsch-Indisch Beheersinstituut Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the (NIBI, Dutch East Indies Property Netherlands 8, 35, 91, 106, 112-3, 246, Administration) 8, 172-3, 177-8, 180- 252 2, 187, 190-1, 209 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 33- Nederlandsch-Indische 4, 170, 225, 250-1 see also Gaimusho Aardoliemaatschappij (NIAM, Dutch Ministery of Justice of the Republic of East Indies Oil Company) 92 Indonesia 17, 203-6, 209, 215 Nederlands-Indische Gouvernements Ministry of War of the Netherlands 112 Import- en Export Organisatie Ministry of War of Japan 122, 153 (NIGIEO, Dutch East Indies Mitsubishi Shôji Kaisha 142, 147, 159, Governmental Importing and 162 Exporting Organization) 176-7, 221 Mitsui Bussan Kaisha 140, 142, 147, 150, Nederlandsch-Indische Handelsbank 152, 161-2, 230 16, 124, 138, 239 Moluccas 14, 17-8, 24, 26, 32, 97-9 Nederlands-Indische Trust Maatschappij Montreal 208 165 Mook, H.J. van 23, 30, 37, 40, 48, 53-4, 56- Nederlandsch-Indische Vereniging voor 61, 65-6, 74, 85, 102, 113, 167, 172, 174, den Afzet van Suiker (NIVAS) 150 176-7, 179, 187, 190, 261-2 Nederlands-Indische Vereniging van Morotai 26, 99, 192 Importeurs-Groothandelaren Mountbatten, L. 27 (NIVIG, Dutch East Indies Mout, M.G. 224 Association of Importer-Wholesalers) Muntok 228 176-7 Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij Nagasaki 27, 33 (NHM) 16, 137, 252 Nagtegaal, C. 201 Nederlandse Nieuw-Guinea Petroleum Nakamura 251-3 Maatschappij (NNGPM, Dutch New Nakamura Hiroshi 163-4 Guinea Petroleum Company) 93 Nakamura treasure 163-4 Nieuw Guinea 14, 18, 108, 209, 253 Index 281

Nikko Kogyo K.K. 232 Pematang Siantar 45 Nôen Kanri Kyoku (Offi ce for the pemuda 9, 29, 49, 161 Supervision of Agricultural Penang 102 Businesses) 131, 162 Pendopo 78 Nomura, Akira 163-4 Pentagon 106 Nomura Tohindo Takusan K.K. 144-5 People’s Court (Philippines) 185-6 Notosoetarso, R.M. 173 Peroesahaan Minjak Repoeblik Nijhoff, C. 207 Indonesia (PERMIRI, Oil Company of the Indonesian Republic) 160 Oberman, J. 65-6, 87 Persatoean Pegawai Minjak (Association Oei Tiong Ham business group 173 of Oil Industry Personnel) 160 Oen Seng Tjay 196-7 petroleum 21 Offi ce of Special Prosecutors Philippine Executive Commission 23-4 (Philippines) 185-6 Philippine Congress 28, 36 oil 17, 21, 23, 26-7, 37, 39-40, 42, 78, 81, Philippine independence 19, 28, 71, 184 83, 92-4, 104, 115, 121, 124, 155, 160, Philippine judiciary 259 221, 228, 238 see also petroleum Philippine Lawyers’ Association 186 Ondernemersraad voor Nederlands Philippine Trust Company 183 Indië/Indonesië (Council for Dutch Philippine War Rehabilitation Act 10, 54, business in the Dutch East Indies/ 67-9, 73, 183, 257-8 Indonesia) 67, 91-3, 176 Philippine War Damage Commission 7, Op ten Noort 124, 249-254 68-70 Open account 245-6 pillage 50, 52, 67, 121, 158, 220 opium 44, 246 Plaju 39, 160 Ordonnantie Herstel Rechtsverkeer plantations 14-7, 20, 29-31, 44, 46, 77, 80, (OHR) 189 83-4, 99, 128-9, 146-7, 149-153, 155-6, Osmeña, Sergio 20, 23, 27-8, 182, 185 161-2, 175-6, 179, 199-202, 205, 210-14, Outer Islands 14, 16, 124 255-6, 260-1 Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation Plantema, M. 139 138 planters 18, 20, 31, 92, 175, 177-9, 199- 206, 210, 112-15, 256, 260 Padilla, S.B. 183-4 platinum 136, 141, 144-6 paintings 238, 244 plunder 3, 7-8, 46, 49, 61, 65-6, 88, 112, Palawan 184 117, 123, 155-7, 164, 167, 217-9, 226 Palembang 17, 39, 45, 50, 78-9, 160, 192 police 9, 28, 44-6, 52, 79-80, 145, 169, 198 Pane, Sanoesi 43 Police Actions 31-2, 51, 78-9, 83-6, Pangkal Pinang 192 162, 207 see also First Police Action, Panitia Pengembalian Milik Asing Second Police Action (Committee for the Restitution of Pondok Gedeh 149-150 Foreign Property) 211 Pontianak 17, 192, 206, 227 Panitia Persiapan Nasional (National Postspaarbank 195, 215, 259 Preparatory Council) 194 Potsdam Declaration 27, 33, 63, 217 Panitia untuk menyelesaikan pemulihan Preanger Bontweverij 201 hak (Committee for the Settlement of precious metals 130, 136, 140-1, 155-6, Restitution) 9, 206 164, 217-8, 223, 228, 231, 237, 248, 261 Papua 14, 17, 24, 26 see also gold, silver Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) 77, 211 pre-emptive damage 39, 42, 94-5, 115 see Pauley, E. 182 also pre-emptive demolition pawn shop 140, 143-4, 163, 168 pre-emptive demolition 22, 37, 39, 42, pawn service 164, 168 68, 92-5, 104 Payne-Aldrich Act 18 Pre-War Claims Committee 194 Peace Treaty with Japan 35, 64, 105-7, Private Estates (particuliere landerijen) 116, 242, 248,253, 260 15, 44-6, 49, 128-130, 151, 160 Pearl Harbor 21-3, 39, 70, 74, 119 Prodjodikoro, Mas Wirjono 206 Pekiringan 79 Pronojiwo 80-1 282 Index property administration 122-3, 126, 128, Restitution Advisory Committee (RAC, 176, 178-9 SCAP) 237-38, 248 Property Commission see also Article 22 restitution claims 181, 223, 238, 241-2, of the Peace Treaty 251-2 260-1 property rights 37, 117, 152, 156-9, 163, restitution court 175, 178, 208, 259 166, 174, 189, 196-9, 202, 205, 213, restitution law 2, 179, 189, 259-260 259-261 restitution legislation 5-6, 10, 157, 171, pusaka 96, 144, 227 178, 181, 187, 200-5, 214-5, 258, 260-2 restitution policy (Dutch East Indies) Quack, E. De 207 6, 10, 176 see also looted property quinine 81, 147, 220, 230, 246 program (SCAP) Quezon, Manuel 19-20, 23, 27, 29, 70-1 Restitution and Reparation delegation (R&R delegation, Japan) 164-5, 224-5, Raad voor het Rechtsherstel (RvR, 228, 232, 237-8, 247, 249 Council for the Restoration of Rights) restoration of rights 158, 192-3, 200,202, 8-9, 66, 96-7, 118, 165, 171-2, 179, 205, 209, 214, 260, 262 181, 189, 190-1, 194-5, 200-1, 203-6, Reuchlin, O. 250-1 208, 215, 243, 259 see also Temporary Riau 17, 44 Council for the Restoration of rice 15, 20, 25-6, 42-4, 52, 79, 112, 124-5, Rights 151-2, 169, 257 Raad voor de Oorlogsschade (War Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie Damage Council) 59, 64-6, 74, 87-91, (RIOD, Royal Institute of War 94-8, 103, 113-14, 195, 221, 224 Documentation) 109 radium 136, 141 robbery 153, 155-6, 182 Raffl es Museum 227 rômusha 24-5, 145 Raja of Goa 239-40 Roosevelt, F.D. 22, 70-1, 184 Raja of Mori 239 Round Table Conference (RTC) 32, 87, Raidjua 102 90, 94, 104, 202-4, 210, 214, 248, 254, Rami 148 260 rampok 7, 29, 42-6, 48-50, 74, 78-9, 86-7, Roxas, Manuel 20, 23, 28, 184-6, 258 167-9, 181, 255 see also looting Royal Decree E 100 172, 177, 189 Rangoon (Yangon) 133, 221 rubber 15,17, 21, 30, 44, 77, 81, 83-4, 92, real estate 38, 59, 119, 121, 129, 133, 153, 124, 147-150, 152, 155, 161-2, 166-7, 159, 169, 190 172, 176, 178-9, 200-1, 203, 210-11, Rechtshogeschool 118, 157 221, 229-230, 238, 245-6, 260 Recomba (Commissioner for rule of law 1, 5-6, 11, 30, 85-6, 202, 205, Administrative Affairs) 78, 85, 239 261-2 reconstruction 2,11, 34, 40, 52, 54, 57, 59, Rules of War 6, 118, 121-3, 156, 170, 61, 65, 67, 71-3, 98, 105, 113-4, 164, 183-4, 213, 157-9 see also The Hague 214, 243, 256, 260-2 Convention Reconstruction Finance Corporation (USA) 70-1 safe deposit boxes 137-8, 140-2, 154, 239, Red Cross 62, 124, 180-1 241-2 redress 1-3, 5, 9, 11, 255-6, 259 Saibai Kigyô Kanri Kôdan (SKKK, Regent 17, 103, 161, 239-40 Corporation for the Admininstration rehabilitation 3, 54, 57, 59, 67, 70-1, 74, of Agricultural Businesses) 128, 130, 88-9, 110, 114, 215 147-9, 151 Republik Indonesia Serikat (RIS) 203-5, Saibai Kigyô Rengokai (SKR) 147-8, 212, 248 150-1, 161 reparations 2-4, 9-10, 34-36, 48, 61-4, 66, Saigon 24, 27, 125, 143, 221 88, 107-8, 116, 182, 256 Sarekat Boeroeh Perkeboenan Repoeblik reparation claims 107 Indonesia (Saboepri, Union of requisitioning 25-6, 124-5, 127, 134, 136, Agricultural Workers of the Republic 149, 153, 156, 167, 213 of Indonesia) 77, 211-12 Index 283

SCAP 7-8, 27, 32-4, 62-3, 97, 105-6, 141-2, Oorlogsschade 53 see Hens 154, 164-5, 182-3, 217-20, 223-49, 251, Committee 260-61 see also Supreme Commander Sudibyo, Slamet 43, 46 for the Allied Powers sugar 15, 18-20, 28-9, 51, 62, 72-3, 81-3, Schilling,W. 165, 224, 230, 241, 249 130, 146-8, 150-3, 161-2, 172, 178, 199- scorched earth 27, 49, 51, 77, 81, 228 200, 203, 210, 221, 245, 260 Second Police Action 31, 81, 86-7, 112, Sûjiku Kokujin Zaisan Kanri Jimusho 160, 169, 192 (Custodian for Axis Citizens’ Secured Fund 247-49 Property) 120 Security Council 31-2, 85-6 Sulawesi 14, 17, 23-4, 30, 32, 51, 86, 99, securities 22, 137, 175, 190, 196, 217-18, 132, 144, 146, 193, 239 228 Sultan of Langkat 235, 239 Seibu Sisetu Kyoku 159 Sultan of Pontianak 17, 227, 239, 242, 244 Semarang 14, 120, 168, 180, 192, 207 see also Hamid II Alkadri Sendai University 227, 234 Sultan of Yogyakarta 17, 45 Setagaya Automobile Warehouse 230, Sumatra 14-16, 24-5, 29-30, 32, 39, 42-6, 236 48, 50-1, 77-9, 81, 83-6, 102, 122, 124-6, Shiryôchi Kanri Kôsha (Corporation for 130-3, 143, 145, 155, 159-160, 162, 164- the Administration of Private Estates) 5, 168, 193, 199-201, 205, 207, 210-11, 128-130, 151 214, 227-8, 235, 239-241. Shunin Tekisan Kanrikan (enemy Sumedang 82 property administrator) 122-3 Sun Life 208 silver 128, 136-142, 155, 183, 196, 219, Sungei Gerong 160 231, 234, 246-8 Supreme Commander for the Allied Sin Po 82, 192-3 Powers (SCAP) 7, 27, 32, 228, 260 Singajaya 103 Supreme Court (Philippines) 19, 24, 102, Singapore 6, 17, 23-5, 30, 94, 102, 114, 183, 186, 195, 258 121-5, 132-3, 141, 143, 145, 162, 165, Surabaya 3, 14, 39-41, 48, 51, 79, 86, 100- 173, 179-180, 199, 219, 221, 223, 227 1, 120, 130, 134-5, 137 see also Straits Settlements Surakarta 17, 29, 45, 87, 104, 169-170, 212 Sison, T. 186 Sjahrir, Soetan 18, 49-50 Tan Swan Tong 102 sliding scale conversion 174-6 Tanakadate Hidezō 227 Smits, R.E. 175-6 Tañada, L. M. 185 smuggling 158, 222 Tanaka Precious Metal Company 146 Soekarno 18, 27, 29, 35, 108, 161 Tangerang 44 Solok 45 Tanjungkarang 81 Sômubu Tekisan Kanrishitsu (Chamber Tanjung Perak 40 of Enemy Property, Department of Tanjung Pinang 44, 123, 192 General Affairs) 135 Tanjung Priok 40, 44 South Africa 22 Tanjung Pura 102 Soviet Union 27, 44 Tansey, Patrick H. 224, 237-8, 241-2, 245 spoliation 5, 118, 217 Tarakan 17, 23, 27, 37, 39, 125 Spoor, S.H. 31, 102, 167 Taiwan Bank 143-4, 183 squatting 211 tea 15, 77, 81, 83, 147-150, 163, 172, 178, Staat van Oorlog en Beleg (SOB, State of 203, 210 War and Siege) 22, 93-4, 101 Tegal 17, 78 Staatsmobilisatieraad 22 Teikoku Bank 143 Stanvac 42 Tekisan-han 154 State Department 28, 61, 73, 106, 248-9 Tekisan Kanri Jimusho (Enemy Property Steamer ‘Reael’ 228, 242 Administration) 126 Stikker, D.U. 35, 106-7 Tekisan Kanri Kyoku (Bureau for Enemy Straits Settlements 162, 179, 220-1 Property Control) 130 Studiecommissie Materiele Tekisan Kanribu 126-137, 158, 160-1, 227 284 Index

Tekisan Kanrika ( Enemy Property USAFFE (United States Army Forces in Department) 131 the Far East) 22-4 Telukbetung 81 US Air Force 97, 99 Temporary Council for the Restoration US Congress 4, 19, 32, 67, 71-2, 115, 182 of Rights (Dutch East Indies) 58, 166, 172-3, 176-182, 187, 189 Van Roijen-Rum agreement 32, 87 Teno Maru see Op ten Noort Verenigde Staten van Indonesië (VSI, Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, United States of Indonesia) 90 see Indonesian National Army) 77-8, Republik Indonesia Serikat 80-2, 87 Teppema, P.E. 249 Verordening Rechtsverkeer in Terauchi Hisaichi 27 Oorlogstijd (Legal Transactions in Ternate 98 Wartime Ordinance) 118 Thailand 21-2, 88, 217, 219-222, 227 Vietnam 21, 35, 220-1 see also Indo-China The Hague 54, 87, 91-3, 112, 115, 176, Villeneuve, C.H.V. de 191 207-8, 250 Volksraad (People’s Council) 17-8, 33, The Hague Convention 6, 118, 183-4 37-8, 47, 52, 58, 74, 113-5, Timor 100, 102 tin 17, 40, 166, 221, 223, 229-230, 238, war damage assessment see damage 245, 251 assessment, damage estimates Tjang Wei Chang 101 war damage claims 34, 48, 65, 105-6 Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, war damage compensation 1, 4-7, 9-10, A.W.L. 23 29, 35, 38-9, 48, 51-9, 63-7, 69-75, 87- Tjia Sien Bien 99 93, 95-7, 99, 103, 105-6, 110-11, 113-16, Tjideng camp 139 157, 173, 177, 190, 255-6, 258, 261-2 Tjoa Ing Tjhioe 100-1 war damage legislation 98, 91 Tjoeroek rubber plantation 83 War Ministry (Japan) 127, 132, 154, Tobacco 17, 77, 83, 92-4, 201, 210-11 232 Tôgyô Kôdan (Corporation for the Warmenhoven, K.A. 222 Administration of the Sugar Washington 20, 23, 27-8, 35, 65, 79, 105, Industry) 150 228-9, 248 Tôgyô Rengô Kai (Ofﬁ ce of the weeskamers 119, 207 Federation of Sugar Businesses) 147, Wertheim, W. 118-9 150-1 Widjojoatmodjo, Abdulkadir 85, 239 Tôjô Hideki 132 Wilhemina, Queen 97-8, 109 Tokyo 24-5, 32-3, 36, 40, 114, 119-122, 127, 132-3, 136, 141, 143, 150, 165, 219, Yamamoto Hiroshi 127, 137-9, 166, 219 224-5, 227-8, 230-1, 234-6, 242-3, 245, Yamashita Tomoyuki 3 247, 249, 252 Yogyakarta 9, 17, 31, 45, 81, 87, 112, 126, Tokyo Diamonds Tool Company 143 192, 201, 212 Toronto 208 Yokohama 124, 247 Truman, H.S. 27, 71, 106, 182, 217 Yokohama Specie Bank (YSB) 128, 133- Tulungagung 82 4, 139-140, 143, 164-5, 241-2 Twisk, K. van 101 Yoshida Shigeru 35, 106-7 Tydings, Millard 19, 28-9, 71-3 Yoshida-Stikker agreement 106 Tydings-McDufﬁ e Act 19, 71 zaibatsu 21, 33-4, 132, 147, 151, 155, 164, unclaimed commodities 178 218-19, 232 United Nations Temporary Sub- Zaimu-bu (Finance Section, military Commission for Economic administration) 153 Reconstruction of Devastated Areas Zorab, E.A. 66-7, 87-91, 94, 98, 129, 205-6 61 Zwang, A. 196