Not an army academy

In concern with your news on the front page of the Saturday May 3, 1997 edition, titled Soeharto tells children not to depend on education alone, I would like to draw your attention to your level of inaccuracy, relating to the fourth paragraph:

"After secondary school (you mean junior high school Muhammadyah in Wuryantoro?) Soeharto went to the Royal Netherlands Indies Army Academy in Gombong, Central Java, in 1940."

Neither in his autobiography The Smiling General, nor 'Soeharto, pikiran, ucapan dan tindakan saya' (Soeharto, my thought, speech and action), nor in his interviews with foreign journalists did Soeharto ever mention about a military academy in Gombong.

It should be noted, that before World War II and before Indonesian independence, there was not a single military academy in the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia). Most of the best Indonesian officers were sent to the Royal Military Academy in Breda, the Netherlands, such as Colonel Alex Kawilarang, or later they were sent to an American military academy at Fort Benning or Fort Leavenworth, such as General Soemitro, Hasnan Habib, and Soehario Kecik Padmonegoro.

I have an uncle who is still alive in Kalimantan. He is a retired chief commandant of a security service at a state-owned oil company who had never joined the Military Ordinary School of KNIL (Dutch colonial army and its members) in Gombong in 1939, also after junior high school, and testified of no military academy at all.

During Dutch colonial rule, it was really very difficult for indigenous Indonesians to achieve the rank of sergeant after graduating from the school except as common soldiers or PFCs. The Dutch were very strict and closed to giving ranks to indigenous Indonesians. Most of the old Indonesian soldiers became sergeants after they fearlessly proved themselves, in battles in Aceh, Lombok, Maluku or other hazardous military campaigns. So accuracy and historical truth should be required in rectifying any misleading or anachronistic news aspect.

WIMANJAYA

Jakarta

Note:

We based our data on a book by O.G. Roeder, The Smiling General: President Soeharto of Indonesia; 1970.