AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA TREATY

WHAT’S NOT SAID IN THE LOMBOK TREATY
© Duncan Graham 2006

There’s a critical five-letter word absent from the Framework for Security Cooperation agreement signed Monday 13 November in Lombok between Indonesia and Australia.

The missing word is ‘Papua’.

Despite its invisibility this is at the heart of the seven-page document dubbed the Lombok Treaty by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda.

Discussions leading to the pact have been running for two years. But the decision by Australia to give asylum to 43 Papuan refugees who sailed to Australia last January put fuel in the negotiators’ tanks.

The document is full of motherhood terms and rubbery words – diplomatic delights like ‘reaffirming’, ‘recognising’ and ‘emphasising.’ If these help establish trust then quibbling is out of place.

Inevitably the Lombok Treaty is short on what will actually be done in real terms, although Article 6 includes an ‘implementing mechanism’. This commits the two countries to ‘take necessary steps’ and ‘meet on a regular basis’.

When there’s a dispute – which is certain given the great gulf between the two countries’ values and cultures – this shall be ‘settled amicably by mutual consultation or negotiation.’ There are no sanctions.

One issue has already been determined: If there’s any strife about interpreting the bi-lingual document then the English text will prevail.

Although the emphasis is on security this isn’t a military alliance. Such a treaty is prohibited under Indonesian law. The issue here is terrorism and just seems to reinforce already existing arrangements with the police and the military.

Nor is the treaty a law. Ahead lies ratification by both governments. In the wash-up only mutual goodwill will make this agreement work.

As anticipated there’s a clause on drug trafficking. Watch out if death penalties are enforced against Australian drug runners and the talkback radio vitriolic shock jocks start slandering Indonesia again, demanding Canberra intervenes. Then the lines on ‘good neighbourliness and non-interference in the internal affairs of one another’ will get a real acid test.

There’s no doubt the Australian government and opposition fear the ‘Balkanisation’ of the Republic and want a unified and stable Indonesia.

Canberra, the region’s perceived deputy sheriff, is facing multiple crises among the alleged ‘failed states’ of the Pacific, along with problems in Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea. It certainly doesn’t want more regional hassles.

The key point on Papua is Article 2, Item 3 – a black-letter lawyer’s gem:

“The Parties, consistent with their respective domestic laws and international obligations, shall not in any manner support or participate in activities by any person or entity which constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other Party, including by those who seek to use its territory for encouraging or committing such activities, including separatism, in the territory of the other Party.” (‘Party’ means nation.)

Does this mean that any future boat people who dig their toes into Australian sand won’t have claims for refugee status recognised?

The answer will come when and if that happens. But any careful reading of the words above – particularly the phrase about ‘domestic laws and international obligations’ - doesn’t score out a repeat of this year’s successful bids for asylum.

At that time the Australian government said it was powerless to act under law once an administrative decision had been made. It also knew the electorate was backing the Papuans.

When the government tried to buttress immigration law this was interpreted as an attempt to appease an inflamed Indonesia. The bid failed in August when Prime Minister John Howard withdrew the Migration Amendment Bill once he foresaw defeat. Even a few members of his own coalition were barracking for the Papuans.

If that same Papuan refugee scenario is rerun in the months ahead, the Indonesian outrage that led to ambassador Hamzah Thayeb being recalled for three months could erupt again.

Indonesians who recall with pleasure the Suharto New Order administration still find it difficult to understand that in a democracy governments are not all powerful.

The shrill lobby groups in Australia seeking a free Papua (which they call West Papua) are unlikely to be muzzled by this treaty. They won’t get any taxpayers’ money. Their demands will be ridiculed and rejected by the government - and probably the Labor Party opposition that has so far given the treaty its cautious blessing.

Yet none of this is likely to quench the determination of the NGOs, church groups and minority party politicians. In fact it could help their cause. In the court of Australian public opinion where ‘getting a fair go’ rules debate, being the underdog is always the favored position.

So the more the Papua separatists are rubbished and their statements undermined, the more their allegations of human rights abuses will get an airing and an audience. These claims will infuriate the Indonesian government and people, and ensure Papua remains the new pebble in the shoe of relations between the neighbors.

Unless serious political and administrative reforms are made to the satisfaction of the locals, effectively neutering the Australian agitators.

It happened in the most western province of the Republic – so why not in the most eastern part?

(First published in The Jakarta Post 17 November 06)

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DONI REKRO HARIJANI

THE DIFFERENCE IS CHANCE © Duncan Graham 2006

“Never underestimate the potential of Indonesian village women. And never doubt their intelligence.

“The only difference between them and people in the city is chance. The chance to get a broad education. The chance to encounter different people and ideas. The chance to travel.”

Now opportunities are becoming available as more women from the regions seek higher education or go overseas to work. And according to Dra Doni Rekro Harijani they’re returning home with ideas both good and bad – but which are changing Indonesian rural life.

Doni, 67, who was trained as an educator and administrator, has published a book on the issue – The Work Ethic of Village Women. This is based on research she conducted while her husband Soetrisno was the regent of Nganjuk, about 150 kilometres south west of Surabaya.

Her study was undertaken in Karangsemi, where women specialise in handicrafts, usually making plastic handbags.

“I don’t know why I chose that village,” she said. “I’d never been there before but I felt drawn to it. It’s a mixed farming area and not well off.

“Most of the women are mothers, wives or daughters of landless farm laborers,” she said. “Many earn more than their men but they play down their income and achievements to honor their husbands.

“They are seen as the second provider in the family and just claim to be helping their husbands. My research showed they often get up to double their husband’s income.”

Doni said the lives of rural women were changing as three major influences impacted – education, the media and work overseas. However she said not all experiences were beneficial.

On one occasion she overheard young women chatting on their way home by plane from Hong Kong.

The maids were talking about boyfriends and urging one to ‘try before you buy’, meaning to check compatibility prior to marriage by living together. This practice, regarded in Indonesia as a Western evil, is usually known as ‘free sex’.

In some overseas countries maids are treated as equals by the family and sit together at meals. “That would never happen here,” Doni said. “The distance between the maid and the mistress is not too great, but it’s still there.

“Workers who have gone overseas have seen how other people live and the way that women are treated. They read newspapers and magazines. They watch TV. Back in Indonesia the women want a better life.”

Now her husband has retired to live in Surabaya, Doni teaches home economics at a vocational school. Next year she’ll go to Suriname (the South American republic and former Dutch colony) to teach the descendants of Indonesian laborers the elaborate make-up arts used in Javanese weddings.

Doni said life for village women was hard. They were expected to do all the domestic chores, care for the family and earn money.

One of the things they could not do was refuse their husbands’ sexual demands.

“In Javanese culture each gender has its responsibility,” Doni said. “It’s just expected. It’s not ordered. It’s automatic. The pressures are social.

“There are no rape-in-marriage laws in Indonesia and it’s impossible that a wife could refuse sex however tired she might be. It’s her role to obey – she can’t plead a headache!

“I once asked a group of men: ‘When you wake up in the morning do you ever fold the blanket?’ Not one confessed to ever doing that simple job. It’s difficult to change the mindset of men and women. It’s happening, but slowly. Step-by-step. It depends on the individual.

“The old proverb banyak anak, banyak rejeki (many children, good fortune) no longer applies. Women know that a large family means low education and poverty. They fully understand the need for family planning.

“Girls now marry older and teenage pregnancies are getting rare. Unfortunately marriages sometimes take place with a couple that’s related. They want to keep their land and other possessions in the family rather than share with outsiders.

“This can lead to children being born with handicaps like deafness, and birth defects.

“Money is status. It helps give women independence so if there’s a dispute in the marriage she no longer fears being kicked out and becoming destitute. However some estranged couples stay together, maybe sleeping in separate rooms, to preserve the social conventions. Divorced women still have status problems.

“Close communal living also puts constraints on domestic violence because it’s difficult to hide from neighbors.

“Working with the local government we introduced a credit scheme where families were able to borrow Rp 1 million (US $110) to start home enterprises. The annual interest was about one per cent. This was a success.

“Things are now much better than ten years ago. The quality of life for the women and their families has improved. One woman has become the first from Karangsemi to get a university education.

“Village women have a strong work ethic, but they suffer many cultural and social constraints. They need encouragement from the wider society along with moral and material support to help them feel more confident.

“Many things still need to be done. Next time you go to a shopping mall look in the up-market boutiques.

“You’ll see handicrafts priced for Rp 400,000 (US $44). Maybe the women who made them have been paid only Rp 20,000 (US $2). They don’t have anyone who can promote their work.

“When I started doing this my friends asked why I was bothering. My husband had a good position and status. I didn’t need to work and study.

“But it’s my duty to share my education and knowledge with others.

“If we don’t do this our learning is like a big tree – but one which carries no fruit.”

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(First published in The Jakarta Post 14 November 06)
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JOKO DOLOG

FAT BOY AND THE MYSTERIES OF MAJAPAHIT
© Duncan Graham 2006

Visitors to Indonesia’s second biggest city should not be misled into thinking they’ve come to the heart of modernity.

Remain undistracted by the hectares of tinted glass and columns of reinforced concrete. Do not assume that the steel communication towers of Babel pushing into the sky, the black rivers of cars, the flimsy facades of Futureland mean progress has swamped the past.

In the darkness of this 700-year old city lurks mystery and it’s not far. Only a few steps from the shrill gaudiness and crass commercialism of Mammon Central, Tunjungan Plaza, Surabaya’s most popular and central shopping mall.

It’s just beyond the remit of neon, where the shadows thicken, the street lamps are spare and their wattage dim. Peer carefully and at a three-way junction you’ll spot a thicket of old fig trees, their dangling aerial roots fingering the asphalt, seeking entrance to the underworld.

Around this coppice a low iron fence. There’s a narrow gate. A little path. A strange avenue of hammered rocks, more like headstones. These lead to a pagoda. And inside you’ll be confronted by an ancient carving of a Buddha.

If you’re fearful of the dark visit on a Friday morning for evidence of the previous night’s rituals. There’ll be yellow garlands around the Buddha’s neck, a dusting of petals, offerings of rice in wee wicker baskets, spots of hard wax dripped from candles. The little parasols will have been spruced up. A saffron shawl may have been added.

Then you’ll know you’ve found the right place. Joko Dolog, or Buddha Akshobya.

The 1.5 metre high statue of the Buddha probably doesn’t belong here, though his weathered expression gives no indication of homesickness. He’s supposed to have been moved to Surabaya by the Dutch in the 19th century.

Maybe he came from Candi Jawi near Tretes, 55 kilometres south of Surabaya, where there are tales of a missing statue.

Joko Dolog (sometimes spelt Jaka in archaeological literature) is known locally as the ‘fat boy’. Which implies he’s regarded with irreverence, though there are no signs of mistreatment.

On the contrary, for this is a worship site, special to Hindus, Buddhists and followers of Kebatinan, the traditional religion of Java.

That one statue could combine three beliefs is a tribute to the syncretism of faiths in Indonesia. It’s also a window into the past because around the base is a clear inscription in Sanskrit.

A Buddhist scribe called Nada apparently wrote this in 1289. It reports on East Java being split into two kingdoms – Janggala and Kediri - during the 11th century reign of King Airlangga.

The division followed a succession dispute when Airlangga’s daughter Sanggramawijaya chose to live as a hermit rather than preside as a ruler.

The inscription then says the lands were later reunited under a new king, Sri Wishnuwardhana. This opened the way to the Majapahit era, Java’s ‘Golden Age’ of prosperity and conquest.

The Buddha was carved to celebrate this coming together. It was commissioned by Wishnuwardhana’s son, Kertanagara.

Sadly there’s none of this information at the park holding Joko Dolog, and even less at the provincial museum known as Mpu Tantular. This has been named after the Majapahit poet who wrote of religious reconciliation and used the phrase Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), now part of the nation’s crest.

Two years ago the museum was moved from Surabaya to Sidoarjo, a town 30 to the south of the East Java capital.

Despite having new buildings and plenty of space the museum’s collection has been badly organised. It’s a bit of a sunset home for public servants who either know nothing of their responsibilities – or if they do are unwilling to share.

There are bits and pieces of inscribed stone from the Singosari and Majapahit kingdoms, but no clear provenance. So the only way to discover more is through papers written by archaeologists.

The museum has been built on a collection assembled by a German magpie and educator GH Von Faber in the 1920s. Till recently it’s had a peripatetic life, and when its benefactor died in 1955 several critical pieces vanished.

What has survived and is well worth seeing are the photographs of old Surabaya. Unlike many other collections where the prints are blurred, these are sharp and clear. Some marvellously carved Madurese drums and a few other artefacts justify a visit – but be prepared to fill in the gaps yourself through your own research.

Some attempts at translation mar (or lift) the experience according to your sense of humour. ‘Cannon used in the war for killing the enemies and horses even though it was used in the sea war’ was a particular gem – and there are many other splendid examples.

But of Joko Dolog, surely the most important of all exhibits in Surabaya – no news. Some say he’s not promoted lest he arouse the wrath of fundamentalists who might see idolatry in the weekly worship rituals.

So find him yourself. He’s tucked away just behind the statue of Governor Suryo in the street named after the first post-colonial administrator. Doubtless he was a fine fellow, but the sculptor shows him as a stern-faced bureaucrat.

Nothing like the figure squatting among the trees 300 metres behind looking, well, enigmatic.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 November 06)
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AUSTRALIA-INDONESIA TREATY

SEE THE DETAILS, FIND THE DEVIL © Duncan Graham 2006

Jaw-jaw is better than war-war. Former British prime minister Harold Macmillan.

The planned signing of a proposed new treaty between Indonesia and Australia this Monday (13 Nov) by the two foreign ministers, is being boosted in the nation next door as a significant advance in relations between the neighbors.

What impact will it have on the average person on either side of the Indian Ocean? Probably not a ripple – though that doesn’t mean the exercise is worthless.

Whatever the backslapping top-level bureaucrats in Western suits (Indonesians) and batik (Australians) say, things aren’t looking good down below.

Poll results released last month (Oct) by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy show almost two thirds of those surveyed think Indonesia is a threat to Australia.

So any initiative, however bland and unformed, has to be positive. Then maybe the hearts and minds of the populace will follow. Maybe …

The only public badmouth so far has been Senator Bob Brown, leader of the minority Greens party. He claims the treaty – properly named the Framework for Security Cooperation – will encourage the development of nuclear power in Indonesia and suppress the Papuan independence movement.

Though the agreement hasn’t been publicly released some details have been leaked.

The seven-page document will have 10 formal articles. One apparently commits the signatories to ‘not in any manner support or participate in activities by any person or entity which constitutes a threat to the stability, sovereignty or territorial integrity of the other party.’

This is a masked reference to the activities of the Papuan independence lobby in Australia that Senator Brown supports.

But then so do the majority of Australians according to a survey earlier this year. Canberra can give Jakarta bucketsful of assurances, but in a robust democracy a government can’t shut down non-terrorist organisations it doesn’t like.

Nor can it easily change the public’s mindset with a few ads, which are apparently also being planned. They’d have to be better than the failed American attempts to portray the US as a peace-loving nation that treats Muslims as equals. That campaign bombed.

The Papua lobby in Australia includes academics notably around the University of Sydney’s West Papua Project, Protestant and Catholic churches, NGOs linked to the Australia West Papua Association, and supporters of human rights. They’re not going to shut up anytime soon, though a campaign is underway to discredit their claims.

This has been led by academic Rodd McGibbon who spent six years in Indonesia working for the UN and US Aid. In a paper titled Pitfalls of Papua released last month (Oct) for the Lowy Institute and neatly laying a welcome mat for the treaty, he argues that activists’ ‘utopian thinking’ have misled the Australian public.

He claims the more backing Australians give Papuan separatists, the more the TNI and hard-line nationalists will suppress the province, thereby setting back reform. He also says the average Aussie doesn’t understand the politics – particularly the strength of Indonesian nationalism.

On this last issue he’s undoubtedly right. International relationships tend to float or founder on perceptions, not facts.

It was the ‘uninformed’ voters who forced the Australian government to be more active in the 1999 East Timor referendum when the official line was to take things slowly.

The new treaty replaces the document organised in secret by prime minister Paul Keating and Indonesian president Suharto in 1995. This was ripped up in 1999 by president Habibie when Australia led peacekeepers during the East Timor referendum - an action seen by Indonesia as a betrayal.

Critics of the original treaty (including the present PM John Howard) were angry there’d been no public debate leading to the pact.

Yet the same thing seems to be happening again. It’s true the Australian government has been talking about the new document for almost two years, but we only know the headings.

These are defence, counter-terrorism, intelligence sharing, sea and air security, weapons of mass destruction, emergency relief, fish poaching, people-smuggling, drug running and other crimes.

All well and good. But how are these going to be implemented? Will there be penalties for non-compliance – and if so what? When Jakarta is next outraged by some Australian exercising her or his freedom of speech, what can Canberra do but say the press is free?

What concessions has the Australian government made? The document isn’t a defence pact, so what are the ‘security threats’?

How will the Howard government react if Indonesia kicks out academics and journalists who allege human rights abuses in Papua? Is there a chapter on that possible scenario?

The Australian Federal Police have been active in Indonesia, so will Indonesian police go to Australia and help interrogate Indonesians suspected of terrorism? And how is ‘terrorism’ to be defined? Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir would come under that heading in Australia, but not Indonesia.

Will drug law enforcement lead to more Australians on death row in Indonesia? Indonesians in Australia committing the same offences confront prison bars, not rifle muzzles. This is a major issue among voters Down Under.

In the past environmentalists have condemned nuclear power in the geologically unstable archipelago, fearing an earthquake could release radiation from a fractured plant. The treaty could allow Australian sales of uranium, implicitly encouraging the building of reactors. The Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine was 20 years ago – and people still suffer.

There are many more similar questions and concerns. The devil is in the detail and the punters in both democracies remain ignorant – just as they did with the discredited Suharto-Keating deal.

It’s been reported that the new treaty will have to be ratified by parliaments in both countries before taking effect. Maybe then the voters will get to have their say.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 November '06)
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INHERITING THE KINGDOM OF SUHARTO

FORGET THE FACTS – JUST MANUFACTURE THE MYTHS
© Duncan Graham 2006

A couple of years ago I had a verbal tussle with an Australian academic. She’d been employed by a publisher to scan the typescript of a book I’d written on Indonesia, and was critical of a passage about former president Suharto.

I claimed that while the educated city elite anguishing over human rights and the rule of law might despise him, he was still much admired in the countryside.

The checker said I’d got it wrong. As an expert on Indonesia she knew the man who’d ruled for 32 years was on the nose almost everywhere for his cronyism, corruption, exploitation and neglect of the nation’s infrastructure.

Like Suharto I stuck to my guns, though eventually made concessions. Now, after a weeklong spin through the backblocks of East Java interviewing farmers I know my observations are right. Maybe not then, but after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s first two years in office they’re spot-on.

It’s no surprise that the one-time dictator will never be brought to court. SBY has heard the unwavering voices of his country’s rural folk, and knows these are more politically potent than the mutterings of metro mopheads.

Yet the reasons for loving Suharto are perverse. Farmers certainly felt the butt- end of his policies. Many were forced by bureaucrats backed by the military to plant new high-yielding varieties of rice.

The government’s Green Revolution policy boosted yields, but at the expense of time-tested farming practices and cultural ceremonies. The result was fractured communities and poisoned paddy.

Growers who refused the imported hybrids, fertilisers and chemical pesticides could have their crops trampled or burned by soldiers. Those who persisted were labelled ‘Communists’ and threatened with jail. Or they’d just disappear.

So why would anyone who’d been subject to this awful treatment still look back on the past with misty-eyed nostalgia?

The reasoning runs like this: Suharto was the father figure, a great man with good ideas. But these were badly implemented by his underlings. The New Order government was a generally peaceful period. Few demonstrated. (They didn’t dare.) The country fed its own people. Rice, fuel and other basics were affordable. If you didn’t get involved in politics you’d be left alone.

Now rice is being imported. There are high prices, demonstrations and disasters, like the Aceh tsunami, the Yogya quake and the Lapindo mud eruption. None of these things would have happened had the old man stayed in office.

For a Westerner such reasoning seems bizarre. The need to import rice has more to do with a rising population, bad planning last century and shrinking farmland than SBY’s policies. Whatever his faults, he can hardly be blamed for the slippage of sub-sea tectonic plates and bad drilling.

But it’s not like that in the minds of traditional Javanese farmers. They have little interest in the doings of democracy and researched facts, but much time for the idea that Suharto was Ratu Adil, the Just King as predicted by the 12th century seer Joyoboyo.

The present president is often criticised for his good-news photo opportunities, the apparent triumph of style over substance. The administration wants to be seen as modern and efficient. That might work with the chattering classes, but it leaves rural rustics cold.

If SBY really wants to displace Suharto in the heartlands of Indonesia he should get his minders to become mythmakers. (Maybe they already are - but let’s not commit lese-majesty, which is apparently still an offence.)

The spin-doctors could push stories of the president meditating in caves, squatting on summits (the mountain variety), having inexplicable experiences involving kris (wavy-blade daggers) and communing with the supernatural world.

Forget he’s an urbane politician with a PhD and fluent in English; just spread the word that he’s really a raw rural lad from a humble home with a mud floor – though born at the right moment in the cosmic cycle.

A trawl through flaking Javanese texts scratched on lontar leaves should surely reveal a prediction that a man with a name like an airport code is destined to be chosen by the people.

It might give the president the mystical legitimacy he seems to lack in the backward looking hamlets of the Republic. Or should that be his kingdom?

(First published in The Sunday Post 12 November 06)

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RECALLING THE BATTLE OF SURABAYA

LIVING LEGENDS: WHEN BOYS BECAME MEN © Duncan Graham 2006

This Friday (10 Nov) is National Heroes’ Day – recalling the start of the Battle of Surabaya, a pivotal moment in Indonesia’s fight for independence. Duncan Graham reports from the East Java capital:

Hartoyik remembers the day clearly – Tuesday 30 October 1945. World War II had ended in August. The Japanese had capitulated. The Indonesian Republic had been declared but the Dutch had ignored the proclamation. They wanted their colony back.

In Surabaya a British-led force had landed. The Japanese defeat had precipitated turmoil, but Indonesian authorities had already imposed order. One report said the city was ‘a strong, unified fortress.’

The unwanted invaders’ job was supposed to be arresting and deporting the Japanese, and rescuing their prisoners of war. But there was another agenda – helping the Dutch return to power.

In the late afternoon the British commander of the Allied peace-keeping force, Brigadier General A W Mallaby, 45, drove out of his headquarters at the Internatio building close by Surabaya’s Red Bridge to confront a huge mob.

Hartoyik said the Englishman carried a white flag, used a megaphone and spoke in English. He was accompanied by an Indonesian translator. Mallaby appealed for calm and promised to leave once the Allies had done their job.

But Hartoyik and the thousands of lightly armed young men surrounding the building on two flanks were fired up with freedom. They didn’t believe Mallaby’s assurances. Independence had been proclaimed two months earlier and Soekarno was the young country’s first president.

There had already been many bloody skirmishes between liberated Dutch prisoners and Indonesians jostling for power. Soekarno had flown to Surabaya the previous day and negotiated a cease-fire. He then returned to Jakarta.

For the people of Surabaya there was no way the Dutch would be allowed to become masters again. The colonial days were over.

What happened next is open to interpretation.

Hindsight is easy for those who weren’t there. Yet from the accounts by Indonesian and British onlookers it’s clear the situation could have been better handled and bloodshed avoided.

To be fair the British had been misinformed of the political situation by the Dutch and grossly underestimated the strength of Indonesian feeling.

In the confusion outside the Internatio an unknown teenage gunman shot the Brigadier twice in the chest as he sat in his Lincoln car. He died quickly. The British-led troops opened fire, and then retreated to the building.

Hartoyik and his friends rushed back into the kampung alongside Kali Mas (Gold River) and lived to fight for their ideals – an independent Indonesia.

“We had spirit, we were determined,” he said. “We were not going to return to colonialism. The Dutch could not come back. We were patriots and we were not frightened of dying. Our slogan was Merdeka Atau Mati!” (Freedom or death.)

Indeed. They certainly had the numbers if not the weapons and experience. The Allied forces could muster about 6,000 men, mostly tough Gurkhas. They had aircraft, warships and tanks.

The young men who formed the People’s Security Army had come from all over East Java. There were about 20,000 plus another 10,000 militia. Thousands more were ready. Not all had modern weapons. Many only carried sharpened bamboo spears and machetes. A few had Japanese swords.

The furious British retaliated with threats; unless the Indonesians laid down their weapons and surrendered the Allies would bomb the city. The deadline was 9 November.

The Indonesians refused. “It was the right thing to do,” Hartoyik recalled. “War is bad but the foreigners had threatened us with an unacceptable proposal. We had to fight. We had no choice.”

On 10 November the Battle of Surabaya began.

It was expected to be over in a day or two. It lasted three weeks. It cost more than 6,000 Indonesian lives. The fallen will be remembered this Friday (10 Nov).

There’s no need to imagine what Hartoyik looked like 61 years ago. There’s a clear photo of him on the wall of his office at the Indonesian Legion of Veterans’ headquarters in Surabaya.

It was taken when he was part of a bodyguard for vice president Hatta on a visit to Mojokerto in East Java.

The picture shows a slight 15-year old in baggy pants with a helmet hanging from his waist. On his belt are three long magazines. Cradled in his arm is a sub machine gun, looted from the Japanese. Behind is his mate Asror, then 19 and carrying a Dutch weapon. Their armbands read TRI Tentara Republik Indonesia (the Indonesian Army)

About 200 of Hartoyik’s companions are still alive and will be parading with pride in their ochre caps and multicoloured medallions in the city they fought so bitterly to preserve.

The Battle of Surabaya was a brutal conflict. The bombers met no aerial resistance. There were no anti-aircraft guns. The invaders were battle hardened and well equipped. The revolutionaries had only a few plundered weapons, minimal training and their absolute determination.

This was the factor that made the difference.

The Allies, misled by Dutch propaganda, expected the ‘nationalist rebels’ to run in the face of awesome firepower. They didn’t, and their extraordinary resistance convinced the world that Indonesians were absolutely intent on keeping their independence.

The astonished British-led forces, who had earlier described the revolutionaries as ‘no higher than a third grade partisan army’ reported: ‘There is as yet no sign of any weakening of resistance ... our troops are encountering more organised opposition. General improvement has been noticed in tactical movements and fire discipline.’

Thousands of refugees fled the aerial onslaught and the street-to-street fighting. “We were forced to retreat down the road south,” said Hartoyik. “But we kept making stands at bridges.

“We continued shooting and it took them a long time to make progress. We all wanted to be in the front line. No one wanted to be posted elsewhere.”

The Allies eventually won the battle, but lost the war. The British left having suffered about 2,000 casualties. The Dutch returned but faced guerrilla action for four years and eventually gave in as the world sided with the Indonesians.

Hartoyik stayed with the military and became a professional soldier when the full-time army was created. His sons have also followed Dad and become senior officers.

Hartoyik remains spry and enthusiastic, attributing his excellent health to jamu (traditional remedies), fresh water and no smoking. He’s a chirpy little man with no apparent animosity.

“The spirit of nationalism is no longer alive with the present generation of young people,” he said. “They need direction from the government.

“War is wrong and times have changed. But we still need to be patriotic and to be united.”


(First published in The Jakarta Post 6 November 06)