Australia a haven in independence war

By Deddy Mulyana

BANDUNG (JP): Few of us are aware that the fight for independence in 1945 also involved Indonesians in foreign countries. One of those countries was Australia.

In 1942, the Dutch colonialist government transferred 300 Indonesian political prisoners from the notorious Boven Digul jail in Tanah Merah, Irian Jaya, to the New South Wales town of Cowra in Australia, following the Japanese invasion in Indonesia. Later, the prisoners were sent to other places as well.

The Dutch also sent thousands of Indonesian servicemen, clerks, medical staff and merchant seamen to Australia. Many of the merchant seamen and mutineers from the Dutch army, as well as illegal immigrants, ended up in jails in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

It is estimated that, apart from the descendants of Javanese workers and the existing pearlers, there were about 10,000 Indonesians who spent different periods of time in Australia between 1942 and 1945.

After Australians helped secure the Boven Digul political prisoners' release from jail, they developed a movement in Australia that supported Indonesia establishing a republic, long before Indonesia proclaimed its independence on Aug. 17, 1945. They sponsored organizations to support the struggle for Indonesia's independence in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Mackay.

In Mackay, for instance, they established the Indonesian National Party, the Indonesian Political Exiles Association and the Committee for Indonesia's Independence. The organizations held meetings that attracted a lot of public attention. Brisbane in particular had been considered as a shadow capital for the Indonesian revolutionaries outside their homeland. In Melbourne, the refugees were placed in Roemah Indonesia of the Metropole Hotel. Here, from 1943 to 1945, Indonesians entertained hotel guests with gamelan instruments they produced while in prison in Digul. They also performed traditional dances and dramas like wayang orang and ludruk.

At the same time, many Indonesians had also started making contact with military policemen and prison wardens. When they felt they had more freedom and received better wages, they began to socialize with Australians, with quite a few marrying Australians. Generally they found Australians less likely than the Dutch to discriminate, despite Australia's White Policy.

The displaced Indonesians in Australia continued to struggle against the Dutch after Indonesia proclaimed its independence, since the Dutch intended to recapture its former colony. The political prisoners in Roemah Indonesia refused to cooperate with the Dutch and were forced to leave the hotel. Australians, particularly the workers (unionists), supported the struggle.

After the Central Committee for Indonesia's Independence in Brisbane issued an appeal on Sept. 1 calling on all Indonesians in Australia to protest, there was a boycott against Dutch ships by Indonesians on Sept. 22 and Sept. 23. The boycott was supported by Indian, Chinese and Malay seamen, Australian waterside workers and trade unionists in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Many of the Asian seamen taking part in the campaign were imprisoned, deported or deprived of their livelihood.

During the boycott, Indonesian soldiers resisted and ignored orders from Dutch officers to help them fight the Indonesian republic. Along the same line, on Sept. 24 Australian waterside workers enacted a boycott on the loading, in all Australian ports, of Dutch ships supposed to leave for the Netherlands East Indies.

The boycott was documented in Indonesia Calling. Although the film was initially banned in Australia, it was later shown and disseminated not only in Australia but also in many other countries throughout the world.

When Indonesia became independent and relatively stable, most of its displaced citizens returned to their home country, although a few remained in Australia. The largest group of almost 1,500 people, comprising merchant seamen, ex-servicemen, and civilians, was brought on the British ship Esperance Bay from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in October 1945. During the following few years hundreds of Indonesians again returned to Indonesia.

Based on a decree made by the Australian minister of immigration, all Indonesian refugees had to leave for their homeland in 1946. Some Australian women married to Indonesian men had to leave for Indonesia as well or remained in Australia. Problems arose when Indonesians married to Australians tried to remain in Australia.

This problem was encountered, for instance, by Annie O'Keefe. Initially this woman was married to a Maluku journalist -- they had seven children. They all fled to Melbourne in 1942 after Ambon was occupied by the Japanese. After her husband was killed in his journalistic duty in Irian Jaya, this woman married James O'Keefe. Annie O'Keefe insisted on staying in Australia and this gave rise to polemic as to what decision should be made about this case. Finally, in February 1949 the government decided that she could stay in Australia.

According to the Australian minister of immigration, Arthur Calwell, 3,768 Indonesians were repatriated to Indonesian territory up to February 1949 and just 19 still waited for repatriation. Quite a few of the remaining Indonesian migrants worked in Australia in the 1950s.

These people included Raden Moenandar, who was recruited in 1943 to work for Radio Australia when it started to have an Indonesian section and broadcast programs in the Indonesian language.

During the rebellion against the Dutch in Indonesia in the 1920s, Moenandar was arrested and sent to Digul. Upon his arrival in Australia (as a refugee) Moenandar was initially imprisoned in Cowra, then he was sent to Melbourne as a free man and began working for Radio Australia. But he returned to Indonesia after Indonesia became independent, and he left his Digul gamelan instrument in Melbourne.

Moenandar died in Jakarta on July 30, 1969 in his late 60s. There is not much information about the relationships between Indonesian political prisoners and the military, except that the relationships were formal and superficial, but the Australian military police and wardens were more friendly than the Dutch.

Pontjopangrawit was another prisoner who made a gamelan instrument in Digul. Pontjo also fled from Tanah Merah to Australia and took with him a gamelan he had made in Irian Jaya. Like Moenandar, he also returned to Indonesia and left his gamelan in Melbourne.

Most of these people had returned to Indonesia by the end of the 1940s, after they had enjoyed good relationships with Australians, particularly through some Australian-Indonesian associations which existed until the end of the decade in almost all states of Australia. In their homeland they continued to defend Indonesia's independence.

These associations were the precursor of the present Australia-Indonesia Association which was set up in 1956, although the former associations were politically more radical in character and had much smaller memberships than the latter.

The Boven Digul prisoners left their gamelan instruments in Melbourne, until they were finally taken and maintained by the Department of Music, Monash University.

The Indonesian struggle for independence in Australia was the best compared to other similar movements in other foreign countries.

The writer is a graduate of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Monash University, Australia.