Australia a haven in independence war

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.