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.