On Surabaya incident

On Surabaya incident

Allow me to make a belated comment on the May 7 letter from
David Jardine titled Historical records.

In those "revolutionary days" perhaps only members of the
fledgling army units, hastily formed, were aware of the basic
rules of the humanitarian law, in a vague and rudimentary way.
But what could one expect from those who had only minimal
education, if any at all? Beside the regular army, there were
also the rag-tag irregulars and common people who formed an angry
crowd.

Most possibly, to them, ready with newly gained independence,
the RAF military airplane was on a hostile military mission to
attack the young republic and (by some miracle) was brought down.
What ensued after the "capture" of the aircraft was a double
tragedy: they were not aware that the victims, though armed, were
not their real enemy.

By contrast, Capt. Raymond "Turk" Westerling and his men were
professional soldiers belonging to the long-established Royal
Dutch Army (KNIL). They were supposed to be well aware of the
basic rules of humanitarian law.

In an interview carried in a Dutch newspaper of Sept. 3, 1983
(De Telegraaf, if my memory is correct) retired Capt. Westerling
admitted that he preferred shooting his victims himself because
he did not want his men to bear the burden of guilt.

After the violence that befell the local population of Chinese
origin in June 1945 in West Java, the accident (or the incident)
took place during a "transitional" period, when law and order
authorities in many regions and locations were evidently barely
in existence, or effective, if at all.

Communal conflict, whatever the origin or background, could
easily explode into wide-spread violence, even in times of peace
and often for trivial reasons, let alone in a war-time situation,
when neutrality, for instance, even if only perceived, would be
regarded as suspect.

So it is or it was the "provocateurs" or instigators of the
violence who should be held responsible for the accident and not
the local authority who, for practical purposes, was not
functioning. Otherwise, the blame for the incident should, in the
final analysis, be put on those who tried to reimpose colonial
rule in Indonesia.

SOEGIO SOSROSOEMARTO

Tangerang, Banten