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Scorched Earth, Soft Peace

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Scorched Earth, Soft Peace 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. .
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