Historical sites a Dutch legacy for military

Historical sites a Dutch legacy for military

JAKARTA (JP): There are no explanations available to why the
military always occupies the city's historical buildings, which
are mostly legacies from the Dutch colonial era, for their
headquarters or offices.

A man whose family witnessed the capital's history over the
last century, said recently that the habit probably originated
from an unwritten agreement among Indonesian freedom fighters
that they would utilize the buildings, seized from the Dutch
colonists, to serve as their military base.

"After seizing the buildings from the Dutch, the freedom
fighters used them as a home base for military operations. They
also used the buildings as interrogation and detention centers
and even as a site for executing alleged Dutch spies," said
Sapnan, an occupant of the Landhuis historical building on Jl.
Bekasi Timur in Jatinegara subdistrict, East Jakarta.

Sapnan, who was born in 1943 in Jakarta, sells books and his
kiosk stands in front of the Jatinegara railway station in East
Jakarta.

The Sapnan family can not stand to be separated from the
history of the building, also described by many as Regenscaamp,
or the Regent's house. Sapnan's late father, Naen bin Miran, was
a centeng (watchman) for Djayusman, an East Jakarta regent during
the colonial era in the early 1900s. Naen was born in 1879 and
died in 1976.

Djayusman granted Naen's family a small house located on the
left side of the building. Sapnan said the small house, in which
his family now lives, used to be a kitchen for the regent's
family.

Sapnan said that after independence in 1945, the building was
then used as the Komando Militer Kota Besar Djakarta Raya, or
KMKB-DR, (Greater Djakarta Raja Military command) in 1953, before
it became the headquarters for the East Jakarta District Military
Command in 1959.

Sapnan, a father of 12 children from two wives, said several
parts of the building were later used as a detention house for
the alleged members and supporters of the outlawed Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI) in 1965 for a year.

"The military personnel arrested the PKI members and used the
building to interrogate and torture them to get information," he
said.

After decades of military occupation, the building has been
designated by city administration to become a museum for the home
affairs ministry. The building, protected under the 1993
Gubernatorial Decree on national trust buildings in the capital,
was vacated last year by the East Jakarta Military Command.

The military command has moved to new headquarters in Klender,
also in East Jakarta.

The building, which occupies a 5,600-square-meter parcel of
land, was built in the 19th century. Years before it was used by
the military, the building, which has a European-style facade,
was a regency office under Dutch colonial rule.

Now the building is used by the Wijayakarta Military Resort,
which oversees four military district commands, including the
East Jakarta Military District Command.

The military resort began to occupy the building early this
year. The military resort had its headquarters before on Jl.
Sentra Primer, Pulo Gebang subdistrict in East Jakarta.

The main building has seven rooms with walls around 40
centimeters thick, big doors, tall windows and high ceilings.
Behind the main building are small houses occupied by 10
families, as well as a small mosque.

Col. George Toisutta, the commander of Wijayakarta Military
Resort, said recently that they would occupy the building
temporarily.

"The owner of the building is the city administration. If they
want it back, we will move to another place," he said.

The commander acknowledged some parts of the building were in
poor shape after being vacant for one year.

"We have renovated some parts of the building by patching up
the leaky ceilings," he said.

The military command has partitioned off the building's
biggest room to make several others in order to maximize the use
of it as the military's office complex. (asa)