Kemal Idris, soldiering on with renewed determination

Kemal Idris, soldiering on with renewed determination

By Sabam Siagian

JAKARTA (JP): Some time in early 1945 the Netherlands East
Indies government in exile, which was based outside Brisbane,
prepared a memorandum for the Royal Netherlands government in
exile in London. Lt. Governor-General Hubertus Jan van Mook wrote
from Brisbane that when the Dutch East Indies administration
returned to Java, the natives would certainly welcome them back.
Considering the suffering Indonesians had endured during the
Japanese occupation, a few ships loaded with food and textiles
would do the trick and Indonesian families with a solid Dutch
education would certainly welcome the Netherlands' flag to
restore law and order in the country.

As it turned out Van Mook's optimistic estimate was totally
wrong and the main reason was the commitment and sacrifice shown
by young Indonesians like Kemal Idris. Lt. Gen. (ret.) Kemal
Idris launched his memoir last night in conjunction with his 50th
wedding anniversary. He dedicated his book, titled Bertarung
dalam Revolusi (Fight in the Revolution), to his wife Herwinur.
They were married in Sukabumi on July 13, 1946, after Kemal
Idris' military unit had had to leave the Tangerang area because
of the aggressive British and Dutch military patrols, and settled
in the southern part of West Java province.

The remarkable element in this is that the families of both
the young officer Idris and his wife Herwinur, were the epitome
of Indonesian families molded by Dutch colonial education.
Mohammad Idris, a veterinarian went to Utrecht in the Netherlands
for his postgraduate studies and, his son, the seven-year-old
Achmad Kemal went along and stayed for six years in the
Netherlands. Herwinur's father, Raden Panji Singgih, completed
his law studies at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands
and upon his return to the East Indies was actively engaged in
the nationalist movement against Dutch colonialism.

The Japanese invasion in 1942 and the subsequent three-and-a-
half-year occupation brought an abrupt end to life under Dutch
colonialism. It also meant the closing down of the Dutch
educational system and the establishment of all sorts of training
institutions that would imbue Indonesians with a fiery fighting
spirit against the onslaught of the enemy. That enemy after 1945
was the Allied powers. But for many Indonesians the enemy was
specifically the Dutch, who wanted to reclaim their precious
colony.

Kemal Idris, 19 years old, inadvertently enrolled himself in
an educational institute in Tangerang, west of Jakarta, which he
thought would prepare students for their tertiary education. As
it turned out it was a special training school set up by Japanese
military intelligence to test whether Indonesian youths were
tough enough to be included as an integral part of an overall
defense system. The training was very rough, almost brutal. Kemal
and his friends initially decided to desert, but after intense
discussions they came to the conclusion that they were actually
fortunate to be selected for this group. After all, they could
later apply their acquired military skills to defend an
independent Indonesian state, which they were convinced would
come into being.

In a number of chapters Kemal Idris describes his intense
experiences as an officer of the Siliwangi Division defending the
infant Republic of Indonesia, which was established after the
proclamation of independence on Aug. 17, 1945, two days after the
surrender of Imperial Japan. A ceasefire resulting in the so-
called Renville Agreement between the Netherlands and the
Republic in January 1948 stipulated that units of the Siliwangi
Division should evacuate West Java and be stationed in
Yogyakarta, then the Indonesian Republic's wartime capital, and
the surrounding countryside. His unit was involved in crushing
the communist revolt in Madiun in September 1948 and Maj. Kemal
Idris could not forget the atrocities committed by the
communists, which he describes graphically.

When the Dutch launched their lightning attack on Yogyakarta
and captured almost the entire leadership of the Republic --
President Sukarno, Vice President Hatta and several cabinet
ministers -- all the Siliwangi battalions were ordered to return
to West Java on a long-march. How Maj. Kemal Idris led his Kala
Hitam (Black Scorpion) battalion through the mountain ranges of
Java to the Cianjur area could have been the centerpiece of the
book.

How he led a unit of more than 1,000 people, including his
soldiers' wives and children, on a journey of more than 500
kilometers, overcoming all sorts of problems including a fiery
Dutch air attack when approaching the village of Bantarkawung
near the border of West Java, could surely be developed into a
moving story that will remind readers of the costs that had to be
paid for defending a free Indonesia. Instead, he describes that
epic episode in just two chapters, covering not more than five
pages (pp.101-105).

I asked the writer recently why he was so economical in
writing about one of the most exciting parts of Indonesia'
struggle against the Dutch during the Independence War, namely
the long march of the Siliwangi Division back to their home
grounds in the West Java area. His answer was that originally he
had intended to concentrate on writing his critical views on the
current situation in Indonesia, and how to correct the regime's
shortcomings and imbalances, based on his involvement during the
Independence War. But the team of editors thought it wiser to
postpone the publication of those chapters, partly so that the
present book would not become too lengthy.

The origin of the book was a request by the Oral History
Project of the National Archives to record his experiences. Out
of the transcript of those recordings the rough draft of the book
was produced. It was later enriched with subsequent interviews
and edited. H. Rosihan Anwar, a well-known columnist, wrote the
introduction. He is also a member of the team of editors, besides
Ramadhan KH, Ray Rizal and Din Madjid. They have done an
excellent job of producing a good read dealing with an important
segment of Indonesia's modern history as told by one of the most
involved participants.

It must have been a great honor for the Kala Hitam battalion
under Maj. Kemal Idris to enter Batavia (Jakarta) in early
December 1949, when the Netherlands finally agreed to recognize
the sovereignty of an independent Indonesia based on an agreement
reached at a peace conference in The Hague. It was a moving
experience for the Kala Hitam battalion, Siliwangi Division, to
be part of the ceremony in front of the palace on Dec. 27, 1949,
when the Dutch flag was lowered and the Indonesian flag raised.

Only a few months previously, the same soldiers had been
involved in intense fighting against communist insurgents in East
Java and had made the long march to the southern part of West
Java.

But Kemal Idris' story goes further than that. The army that
emerged victorious from a short but intense people's war, and the
national leadership under president Sukarno, which was
established in part through pressures of international diplomacy,
did not always share the same political chemistry.

In October 1952, Lt. Col. Kemal Idris, commander of the 7th
regiment of the Siliwangi Division, ordered his artillery units
to be placed in front of the presidential palace. It was part of
a stern message conveyed by the army to president Sukarno that
something had to be done to stabilize the political situation in
which an unelected parliament (a large percentage of its members
had formerly served in the Dutch-occupied areas) could topple
successive governments with an average age of eight months. But
Sukarno had a different interpretation. Kemal Idris was blamed as
a hothead. He said he was only carrying out the orders of Col.
Nasution, the chief of staff of the army.

President Sukarno queried Col. Alex Kawilarang, the commander
of the Siliwangi Division, about the background of the young
officer who commanded the 7th regiment. Kawilarang told President
Sukarno of Dr. Mohammad Idris' family and the solid Dutch
education which young Kemal had enjoyed.

"Aha," Sukarno exclaimed. "Now it is clear that Kemal must
have been poisoned by Dutch colonialism. Otherwise, how could he
dare point his howitzer guns at the palace of the President of
Indonesia." Kawilarang told me this interesting story in a recent
conversation.

Obviously, the career of Lt. Col. Kemal Idris suffered because
of this October 17th Affair. Although he was promoted to colonel,
he did not get any important assignments. "I was put in a cold
freezer," he said.

He became restless, was quickly irritated and had occasional
outbursts of temper. One day his wife Herwinur, who had quietly
been observing her husband's deterioration, had a frank
discussion with him. She told Kemal bluntly that she did not mind
sharing the sufferings and economic hardships because her husband
was being bypassed for important assignments. "But if you can't
stand this anymore, why don't you go to the palace tomorrow and
kiss Sukarno's ass. However I would not respect you after that."

That blunt conversation with his wife reminded Kemal Idris
that he was first and foremost an officer of the National Army of
Indonesia and so he soldiered on with fresh determination. He
eventually got more interesting assignments: as commander of the
Indonesian contingent in the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo
and commander of a combat brigade stationed in North Sumatra
preparing for an amphibious landing on the Malay peninsula as
part of President Sukarno's konfrontasi policy. This was only
canceled when an attempted coup by the Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI) was thwarted on Oct. 1, 1965. The effective counterforce
was the Army's Strategic Reserves (Kostrad) commanded by Maj.
Gen. Soeharto.

Kemal Idris' moment of history, as it turned out, arrived when
General Soeharto asked him to be Kostrad's chief of staff towards
the end of that year while the student protest movement was
swelling against president Sukarno's regime. The students
suspected that Sukarno at least acquiesced in the PKI's attempted
coup by eliminating almost the entire General Staff of the Army.
And so they demanded the disbandment of the Communist Party by
organizing street demonstrations and blocking cabinet meetings.

On the other hand president Sukarno applied his delaying
tactics to buy time while trying to restore his political base.
Soeharto calmly waited until the situation was ripe and
instructed Kemal Idris to make sure that the students would not
be harmed by Sukarno's palace guards.

It was this deep unwritten understanding during those crucial
months of early 1966 -- between the calm and smiling Soeharto
from Central Java, with only a modest formal education and coming
from a simple social background, and the sometimes compulsive but
cosmopolitan Kemal Idris from West Sumatra, with a Dutch
education and knowledge of a number of European languages -- that
was so instrumental in achieving the fine orchestration of time
and forces that led to president Sukarno's letter of empowerment
to General Soeharto to restore law and order on March 11, 1966.

In other words, Sukarno was checkmated. Kemal Idris could not
help remembering when describing the victory parade on March 12,
1966, with students climbing on the armored cars and people
cheering his troops jubilantly, that it was quite some time after
what had happened on October 17, 1952, before political
rejuvenation finally took place.

It is to be expected that the author, especially after his
illustrious military career was terminated on his posting as
ambassador to Tito's Yugoslavia, ponders on the future of the New
Order. He is so keen to see that the New Order maintains its
inner capability to implement constant renewal. He is critical
about the excessive implementation of the Armed Forces' dual
function, as is written in Chapter 47 of the book.

Hopefully an English translation will be published in the near
future. Kemal Idris' book reveals the humane side of the
Indonesian revolution until the birth of the New Order and
beyond, which so often is misinterpreted not only by foreign
observers but sometimes also by fellow Indonesians.

The quality of the book suffers from the lack of a good index
and inadequate captions to explain the significance of what is an
interesting collection of rare pictures. Undoubtedly, the Pustaka
Sinar Harapan publishing house deserves to be congratulated for
the handsome production and the timely publication of General
Kemal Idris' memoirs.

The writer is a former chief editor of The Jakarta Post and
Indonesian ambassador to Australia. He is currently a board
member of The Post's publishing company and president of the
Indonesia-Australia Business Council.