The Japanese and RI independence war

The Japanese and RI independence war

Chisato Hara's interesting article, Legacy of Japanese
'Merdeka' veterans lives on, published in The Jakarta Post on
Sunday, June 27 -- about the Japanese who fought for Indonesia
after the end of World War II -- leaves out a very pertinent
question or two.

Under the terms of the Yangoon Agreement between Lord Louis
Mounbatten for the Allies and Field Marshal Teraguchi for the
Japanese, the latter's forces were to surrender their arms to the
victors at such time as the Allied forces arrived.

Until that arrival took place the Japanese were to be
responsible for law and order, and no arms were to leave their
control. That they did was a clear breach of the terms of the
surrender.

Given that substantial war crimes had been committed by the
Imperial Army, not least in the horrific treatment of Javanese
romusha (slave laborers) and Allied prisoners of war on such
labor-intensive projects as the Pekanbaru railway, it would be
interesting to see if any of these men, who went over to the
cause of Indonesian independence, did so as a means of escaping
prosecution.

Equally, it would be interesting to know if any were involved
in clashes with units of the Imperial Army that were used by the
British against Indonesians, such as in Semarang, Central Java,
and Tebing Tinggi, Sumatra.

That the British used Japanese soldiers against Indonesians as
they did against Vietnamese nationalists is, to my mind, a
shameful matter.

DAVID JARDINE
Jakarta