November 2, 1949 – Indonesian War of Independence: The Netherlands and the Indonesian revolutionary government agree to establish the United States of Indonesia
(Taken from Indonesian War of Independence – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia: Vol. 5)
By late 1946, the British military had completed its missionin the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), that of repatriating Japaneseforces to Japan and freeing the Allied prisoners of war following the end ofWorld War II. By December 1946, Britishforces had departed from the islands, but not before setting up mediation talksbetween the Dutch government (which wanted to restore colonial rule) andIndonesian revolutionaries (which desired independence), an initiative that ledthe two sides to agree to a ceasefire in October 1946. Earlier in June 1946, the Dutch governmentand representatives of ethnic and religious groups and the aristocracy fromSulawesi, Maluku, West New Guinea, and other eastern states met in SouthSulawesi and agreed to form a federal-type government attached to theNetherlands. In talks held with theIndonesian revolutionaries, Dutch authorities presented a similar proposalwhich on November 12, 1946, produced the Linggadjati Agreement, where the twosides agreed to establish a federal system known as the United States ofIndonesia (USI) by January 1, 1949. The Republic of Indonesia(consisting of Java, Madura, and Sumatra) would comprise one state under USI;in turn, USI and the Netherlandswould form the Netherlands-Indonesian Union, with each polity being a fullysovereign state but under the symbolic authority of the Dutch monarchy.
This Agreement met strong opposition in the Indonesiangovernment but eventually was ratified in February 1947 with strong pressurefor its passage being exerted by Sukarno and Hatta. In December 1946 in South Sulawesi, Pemuda fighters who opposed the agreement restarted hostilities. Dutch forces, led by Captain RaymondWesterling, used brutal methods to quell the rebellion, killing some 3,000Pemuda fighters. The Agreement also wasresisted in the Netherlands,but in March 1947, a modified version was passed in the House ofRepresentatives of the Dutch parliament.
Then in July 1947, declaring that the Indonesian governmentdid not fully comply with the Agreement, Dutch forces launched OperationProduct, a military offensive (which the Dutch government called a “police action”)in Java and Sumatra, seizing control of the vital economic regions, includingsugar-producing areas in Java, and the rubber plantations in Medan, andpetroleum and coal facilities in Palembang and Padang. Dutch ships also imposed a naval blockade ofthe ports, restricting the Indonesian Republic’s economiccapacity.
In early 1947, acting on the diplomatic initiative of India and Australia, the United NationsSecurity Council (UNSC) released Resolution 27, which called on the two sidesto stop fighting and enter into peaceful negotiations. On August 5, 1947, a ceasefire came intoeffect. A stipulation in Resolution 27 established the Committee of Good Office(CGO), a three-person body consisting of representatives, one named by the Netherlands, another by Indonesia, and a third, mutuallyagreed by both sides. In subsequentnegotiations, the two sides agreed to form the Van Mook Line to delineate theirrespective areas of control which, because of the fighting, the Dutch-held territoriesin Java and Sumatra increased, while those of the Indonesian Republicdecreased.
In January 1948, the two sides signed the Renville Agreement(named after the USS Renville, a U.S. Navy ship where the negotiations wereheld), which confirmed their respective territories in the Van Mook Line, andin the Dutch-held areas, a referendum would be held to decide whether theresidents there wanted to be under Indonesian or Dutch control. Furthermore, in exchange for Indonesianforces withdrawing from Dutch-held areas as stipulated in the Van Mook Line,the Dutch Navy would end its blockade of the ports.
The Indonesian Republic, already weakened politically andmilitarily, was undermined further when its Islamic supporters in nowDutch-controlled West Java objected to the Renville Agreement and broke away toform Darul Islam (“Islamic State”), with the ultimate aim of turning Indonesiainto an Islamic country. It opposed boththe Indonesian government and Dutch colonial authorities. Darul Islam subsequently would be defeated onlyin 1962, some 13 years after the war had ended.
The Indonesian Republic also faced opposition from its othererstwhile allies, the communists (of the Indonesian Communist Party) and thesocialists (of the Indonesian Socialist Party), who in September 1948, secededand formed the “Indonesian Soviet Republic”in Madiun, East Java. Fighting in September-October and continuinguntil December 1948 eventually led to the Indonesian Republicquelling the Madiun uprising, with tens of thousands of communists killed orimprisoned and their leaders executed or forced into exile. Furthermore, the Indonesian Army itself wasplagued with internal problems, because the government, suffering from acutefinancial difficulties and unable to pay the soldiers’ salaries, had disbandeda number of military units.
With the Indonesian revolutionary government experiencinginternal problems, on December 19, 1948, Dutch forces launched Operation Kraai(“Operation Crow”), another “police action” on the contention that Indonesian guerillashad infiltrated the Van Mook Line and were carrying out subversive actionsinside Dutch-held areas in violation of the Renville Agreement. Operation Kraai caught the revolutionariesoff guard, forcing the Indonesian Army to retreat to the countryside to avoidbeing annihilated. As a result, Dutchforces captured large sections of Indonesian-held areas, including theRepublic’s capital, Yogyakarta. Sukarno, Hatta, and other Republican leaderswere captured without resistance and exiled, this action being deliberate ontheir part, as they believed that this latest aggression by the Dutch militarywould be condemned by the international community. Before allowing himself to be captured,Sukarno activated a clandestine “emergency government” in West Sumatra (to act as a caretaker government), which he had arrangedbeforehand as a contingency measure.
On December 24, 1948, the UNSC passed Resolution 63 whichdemanded the end of hostilities and the immediate release of Sukarno and otherIndonesian leaders. Also by this time,the international media had taken hold of the conflict. The United States also exerted pressure on the Dutch government,threatening to cut off Marshall Plan aid for the Netherlands’ post-World War IIreconstruction. Operation Kraii alsogenerated division within USI as the Cabinets of Dutch-controlled states of East Indonesia and Pasundan resigned in protest of theDutch military actions. As a result of these pressures, a ceasefire was agreedby the two sides, which came into effect in Java (on December 31, 1948) and Sumatra (on January 5, 1949).
