Thoughts along Jl. Sudirman (2)

Thoughts along Jl. Sudirman (2)

By Sabam Siagian

This is the second of two articles based on an introduction
for the book on the late Gen. Soedirman, the Supreme Commander of
the Indonesian National Army from December 1945 until he passed
away in January, 1950. The book was written by Lt. Gen. (ret)
Tjokropranolo, Gen. Soedirman's senior aide, and will be launched
at the end of this month in Perth, Australia.

CANBERRA: How striking that on Dec. 19, 1948, three years
after Gen. Soedirman was appointed Panglima Besar (Supreme
Commander) of the National Indonesian Army, that he was faced
with a decisive test of his leadership when the Netherlands
military forces launched a lightning attack at Yogyakarta, the
Republic's war capital, by dropping paratroops. The previous day
the deputy chief of staff, Col. T.B. Simatupang, who was the
senior representative of the Indonesian military forces at the
negotiation table with the Netherlands delegation, saw Gen.
Soedirman on his sickbed. He briefed Gen. Soedirman on the
current state of negotiations and shared with him his intuition
that the Netherlands side was up to something.

Gen. Soedirman on that day of infamy, still recovering from a
lung operation, rose from his sickbed and went to the
Presidential Palace. On that particular day he showed so
impressively his fine qualities as a patriot and a military
leader. The Indonesian government at that time was engaged in
serious negotiations with the Netherlands on finding a peaceful
solution to the Netherlands-Indonesia conflict, assisted by the
United Nations Commission for Indonesia.

Vice president Mohammad Hatta, who was also prime minister and
minister of defense, as leader of the Indonesian delegation was
holding talks with members of the United Nations Committee in
Kaliurang, a mountain resort north of Yogyakarta. He had
breakfast with Thomas Critchley, the Australian member of the UN
mediation committee when the Netherlands Air Force was strafing
Yogyakarta to prepare the landing of the paratroops. Mohammad
Hatta rushed to the Presidential Palace in Yogyakarta in order to
chair an emergency cabinet meeting. It was decided that president
Sukarno, vice president Mohammad Hatta and other government
leaders would remain in Yogyakarta and let themselves be detained
by the invading Netherlands military forces.

When a weakened Gen. Soedirman arrived at the palace and
president Sukarno tried to persuade him to remain with him so
that he could obtain medical treatment from the Netherlands
military doctors, it was hard to describe Gen. Soedirman's
bewilderment. It was already difficult for Gen. Soedirman to
comprehend the logic of the political decision taken by the
cabinet to remain in town instead of leaving Yogyakarta in order
to wage a guerrilla war, as was stressed before in several
inflammatory speeches. It was all the more unfathomable to hear
the president of the Republic of Indonesia, who installed him as
Supreme Commander, try to persuade him in what amounted to
personal surrender. I heard this story from the late T.B.
Simatupang who was present at the Presidential Palace on Dec. 19,
1948.

Quietly the military leaders, the seriously ill Gen. Soedirman
and all the military personnel, with a few exceptions, left
Yogyakarta to wage a guerrilla war as previously planned. They
were also joined by the civil service, teachers, doctors, nurses
and students, in short, citizens of all walks of life, which made
the resistance against the invasion a true people's war.

The top leaders of the Republic, however, remained in town
based on a political decision as a consequence of their
calculations of international political reactions, which would be
favorable to the Republic of Indonesia, responding to the blatant
military aggression waged by the Netherlands about one week
before Christmas.

The sorrow that had seized the officers, soldiers and
civilians in leaving the Republic's capital, but at the same time
their determination to overcome the immediate disaster, was aptly
described by Col. T.B. Simatupang in his memoirs. He jotted down
his thoughts and inner feelings as he walked towards the
countryside:

"Yogyakarta has fallen. The President, the Vice President, and
our other top leaders have been captured. But is this the end of
our Republic? There's a writer (Machiavelli, if I'm not mistaken)
who once said that the last fortress of a state existed in the
heart of its soldiers. Whether or not our Republic will live or
die now, mainly depends indeed on the question of whether or not
it is still alive in the hearts of the officers, non-commissioned
officers, and soldiers of the Indonesian National Army. The
answer to this question will be given by developments in the days
and weeks to come."

Lt. Gen. Tjokropranolo's story is mainly centered on what
happened during the months after Gen. Soedirman left Yogyakarta
on Dec. 19, 1948, until he entered the capital on July 10 the
following year. It is a moving story of a military leader who led
his army while carried around on a chair and took his oath of
office very seriously ("determined to defend the sovereignty and
independence of the Republic of Indonesia until the last drop of
his blood"). It is not only heroism in the classical sense of the
word that is so prominent throughout Tjokropranolo's book, but
also that strong sense of unity among Indonesians, so important
for a nation inhabiting the largest archipelagic state in the
world, consisting of a great number of ethnic groupings. I am
referring to the happenings in Yogyakarta during the second week
of July 1949. The Netherlands military forces had vacated the
Residency of Yogyakarta which covered the Yogyakarta Sultanate.
The top leaders of the Republic (president Sukarno, vice
president Mohammad Hatta and others) were released from the
detention camp on the island of Bangka, off Sumatra, and were
enthusiastically welcomed when they arrived in Yogyakarta on July
6, 1949.

It was the "diplomasi", as an Indonesian would say at the
time, the diplomatic efforts waged at the United Nations in
Paris, New York, New Delhi and Cairo that resulted in increasing
international pressure on the Netherlands to cease their
aggression and negotiate with the Indonesian Republic. But could
diplomasi be effective if the people's war -- primarily waged in
Java and Sumatra -- did not increasingly show effective results
based on a strategy of attrition, since it was untenable for the
Netherlands to maintain such a long and undefined front line.

The national leaders were back in Yogyakarta but Gen.
Soedirman, the embodiment of the people's war, resting south of
Yogyakarta, hesitated to enter the city. He was still suspicious
of the opponent's motivation, that the Netherlands would launch
another lightning attack and capture him inside Yogyakarta. But
the Yogyakarta area commander, Lt. Col. Soeharto (now the
President of the Republic of Indonesia) came to see Gen.
Soedirman on July 9, and gave his Supreme Commander a full
briefing on the current politico-military situation in
Yogyakarta. The following day, Col. T.B. Simatupang, the deputy
chief of staff, came to fetch Gen. Soedirman accompanied by
another senior officer and together they rode in a car towards
Yogyakarta. Col. Simatupang's overriding concern at that time was
the estrangement, as if calling it a split was too serious,
between the national political leadership and the guerrilla war
leadership. He persuaded Gen. Soedirman to meet with president
Sukarno and vice president Mohammad Hatta before he went to
inspect the parade and accept the honors of his military units
that had entered Yogyakarta after waging a successful guerrilla
war. For Col. Simatupang, it was important that the outside world
-- as represented by UN diplomats, military observers and foreign
correspondents that were gathering in Yogyakarta for the historic
events -- did not get the impression that a split existed within
the ranks of the Republic. If and when Gen. Soedirman refused to
see the Republic's top leadership "the Americans could well make
Sukarno their Bao Dai if we don't manage to re-establish our
overall unity at that crucial time", Simatupang told me.

Using some tactful phrasing, it was stressed that Gen.
Soedirman's visit at the Presidential Palace on the afternoon of
July 19, 1949 was not a case of a military commander reporting to
the Republic's leadership, but it was a stop-over (an incomplete
translation of the Javanese word mampir). Thus, a delicate
situation was circumvented, that the highest military officer
who, although severely ill, was determined to uphold his oath
never to surrender to the enemy, had to report to the Republic's
top leaders, who based on whatever complicated political
calculations allowed themselves to be detained by the enemy. On
entering the palace, Gen. Soedirman was unable to control his
pent-up emotion that he felt almost seven months ago when the
Netherlands paratroops were approaching Yogyakarta. He embraced
president Sukarno and vice president Mohammad Hatta respectively
and laid his head on their shoulders. The photographers present
recorded this historic event. Thus, to international observers,
the perception that the unity of the Republic's overall
leadership was restored. Effective unity, however, and achieving
a sense of common purpose required some time.

The unavoidable, intense and differing experiences that took
place during the crucial seven months of war and diplomacy in
1949 were later reflected during the early 1950s in the political
dynamics occurring in Jakarta which again became the capital in
1950. However, Gen. Soedirman was saved from the complexities
caused by the increasing tension between president Sukarno and
the leadership of the Indonesian military in the early 1950s,
which eventually erupted in a confrontation that was popularly
referred to as the "Seventeen October Affair (1952)". Gen.
Soedirman passed away in Magelang on Jan. 29, 1950. Netherlands
senior military officers were present during the simple but
moving ceremony of his funeral.

My hope is that the book on Soedirman, written by someone so
close to him and translated into English with deep sensitivity by
a dedicated student of Indonesian politico-military history, Wing
Commander Ian MacFarling, will help readers comprehend and
appreciate the committed life of a true hero of the Indonesian
revolution. And if readers thereby obtain a glimpse of the
complexity of the Indonesian political culture which is still
imbued by the Soedirman spirit, though perhaps not always
obvious, then the book would have achieved its intended purpose.

The sight along Jl. Jenderal Sudirman these days is most
probably a succinct snapshot of Indonesia's efforts to telescope
the formation process of modern history. The impressive, gleaming
office towers, the five-star hotels, the shopping centers and
international airline offices indicate Indonesia's determination
to be a significant part of global economy.

At the same time, however, the name Jl. Jenderal Sudirman
reflects Indonesia's determination to achieve the status of a
respected member of the international world, through self
sacrifice, hard work, the refusal to accept defeat and an
attitude of humility.

The rough balance between those two stances: on the one hand,
the profit making motive by implementing the principle of cost
efficiency and aggressive marketing inherent in the practices of
modern corporations. When on the other hand, to remain faithful
to the Soedirman spirit and encapsulate Indonesia's current
social political situation.

Can we achieve such a rough balance which will make it
possible for Indonesia to enter the 21st century as a strong,
prosperous, democratic and just society? To rephrase the late
T.B. Simatupang: "The answer to this question will be given by
the developments in years to come."

Such were my thoughts when the traffic was moving again along
Jl. Jenderal Sudirman.

Sabam Siagian was The Jakarta Post's first chief editor (1983-
1991) and appointed as ambassador to Australia from July 1991 to
July 1995. He is currently a member of Post's Board of Directors.

Window: Gen. Soedirman was saved from the complexities caused by
the increasing tension between president Sukarno and the leadership
of the Indonesian military in the early 1950s.