Rebellion under the Banner of Islam

Preface

It was never originally my intention to write a book on Darul Islam in Indonesia. The idea of writing an article of this subject grew gradually while I was doing research for a study on political developments in Indonesia in general between 1959 and 1973, when it appeared necessary to gather more information on the various attempts to establish an Islamic state there. The volume of — for the greater part unused — material about these Darul Islam attempts, about which so far very little has been published, turned out to be so vast that the article developed into a book. This way I ended up with the present book on Darul Islam instead of the previously planned one on the political developments after 1959 (although a work on the latter subject has been mentioned under my name as a completed thesis in at least one bibliography on Indonesian politics, cf. Sritua Arief and Melanie Sritua Arief (1978)).

The point of reference, however, remained the same. Thus, one should not expect a treatise concentrating on the religious aspects of the efforts to establish an Islamic state in Indonesia. The Darul Islam movement, which presented the Islamic State of Indonesia as an alternative to the religiously neutral Indonesian Republic, is dealt with within the framework of the political situation in Indonesia since 1945, and the varying outlooks of different competing groups on the concrete structure of the Indonesian state.

In the preparation of this study much valuable help and support was received from a number of people and organizations. Its completion would never have been possible without the generous assistance of the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV), which has helped me in many ways. First of all its board gave me permission to devote part of my time to research for the book. Later it granted me leave of absence for a considerable length of time for this purpose. It also contributed financially to the costs of my visits to Indonesia in June and July 1976 and from June to September 1978. The

VI Rebellion under the Banner of Islam second trip was made possible also by a travelling grant from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO). Very kind assistance was also received from the library staffs of the KITLV and of the National Museum in Jakarta.

A special word of thanks is due to Anita G. van 't Oostende, who typed the draft of the manuscript. I am especially indebted to Hans Borkent for drawing the maps, and in conclusion, to the KITLV’s Editorial Department for its contribution to the completion of the definitive version. Maria J.L. van Yperen corrected my “Dutch” English. Heleen Tigchelaar en Frieda de Back made the final draft ready for the press.

VII

A NOTE ON THE SPELLING OF INDONESIAN NAMES AND TERMS

Since in 1972 a new spelling system, the Ejaan Bahasa Indonesia yang disempurnakan, was introduced in Indonesia, a few words on the rules followed for the spelling of Indonesian names and workds in this book may not be amiss: The names of Indonesian organizations and associations are spelt according to the new system, as are all Indonesian words and sentences guoted in the text. For the spelling of geographical names, Indonesia and Portuguese Timor. Official standard names approved by the United States Board on geographic names, 2nd ed., Washington D.C., 1968, has been followed, with adaptations to the new orthography where relevant. For personal names the spelling used by the persons concerned themselves or that in general vogue during the period under consideration was chosen. As the resultant spelling is as a rule that of the old system, everywhere a person is introduced for the first time the transcription of his name in the new orthography is added between brackets in order to avoid confusion, though this procedure calls for an apology to scholars familiar with Arabic, who may be shocked at seeing such Arabic names as Ahmad and Wahid spelt, via the old spelling in Indonesian with “ch”, as Akhmad and Wakhid. In personal names the (old) ‘oe’, however, is generally written as (new) ‘u’, except where the personal preference of the person concerned is known to have been for ‘oe’, as in the case of Soeharto, Soekarno and Roem.

For the benefit of readers unfamiliar with the Indonesian language, it should be pointed out that the consonants ch, j, nj, sj, and tj of the old spelling have become respectively kh, y, ny, sy and c in the new one. For Arabic words in an Indonesian context the new Indonesian spelling has also been used. In the few instances in which this has not been done the system of the Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, Leiden, 1960, was adopted.

VIII

AB

ANP-Aneta

PR SMI

ABBREVIATIONS

Angkatan Bersenjata Indonesische Documentatie Dienst van A.N.P.- Aneta 's-Gravenhage

Berita Buana Minggu

Berita Indonesia

Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Duta Masjarakat

Djakarta Dispatches

Indonesia

Indonesia Berdjuang

Indonesia Merdeka

Indonesië van Maand tot Maand

Kalimantan Berdjuang

Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Merdeka Nusantara Officiële bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands- Indonesische betrekkingen 1945-1950 Pikiran Rakjat

Soera Muslimin Indonesia

Contents

Pee ae Sa an Ka Bat Pena ena de eat

A Note on the Spelling of Indonesian Names and Terms...

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Introduction

Since 1945 there have been several attempts in Indonesia to change the Government by forcible means, either through a rebellion or through a coup d'etat. Some of these attempts have been documented and studied in detail. So a veritable flood of books, articles and documents has seen the light on the coup d'etat of September 1965. Also relatively well studied is the Madiun Affair of September 1948.

Strangely enough, and in sharp contrast, the rebellion which both as regards duration and number and size of the areas affected was the most important of all has up to now received scant attention from scholars. Very little has accordingly been published on this so-called Darul Islam rebellion, which strove for the establishment of an Islamic State of Indonesia. Only in the most recent years have some studies on it appeared (cf. Harvey 1974: Jackson 1971). These have invariably restricted themselves to only one particular area which experienced a Darul Islam rebellion, however, not treating the movement — operative as it was in different parts of Indonesia — as a whole.

The aim of the present book is to describe each of these several Darul Islam rebellions and to identify some of the factors which may help to explain their outbreak and persistence. Starting in West Java, where the Islamic State of Indonesia, or Negara Islam Indonesia, was proclaimed on August 7th, 1949, the movement subsequently spread to parts of Central Java, to South Kalimantan (Borneo), to South Sulawesi (Celebes) and to Aceh. Darul Islam activity was also reported in the Lesser Sunda Islands, the Moluccas and Halmahera. In these regions, however, it took the form of a process of infiltration from South Sulawesi, without developing into a full-scale guerilla, nor did it become as widespread as in the other regions. In most of these other areas the rebellious movement showed remarkable tenacity and spread over a fairly large area for quite some time. It was not until the early sixties that the Indonesian Army successfully suppressed the various risings. In West Java it was stamped out around 1962, in Kalimantan around 1963, and in Sulawesi around 1965. In the remaining areas this did not take quite as long. In Central Java the irregularities came to an end around 1955, while in Aceh, where the rising began relatively late, in 1953, a compromise was reached in 1957, with the last rebels surrendering in 1962.

Each of these different Darul Islam movements of course has its own history. It is even open to question whether in treating them all as part of a single movement we are not distorting reality. Nevertheless, it is useful to look for common denominators. For in the first place, there were contacts between the various Darul Islam movements which resulted in a blueprint for an Islamic State of Indonesia Government encompassing the whole of the territory of Indonesia. Secondly, the tracing of common factors may provide some insight into the problems of nation-building in newly independent states in general.

This study sets out first of all to reconstruct the factual history of the Darul Islam rebellion and the events leading up to its outbreak. In the absence of easily accessible literature to which one may refer, the description of the movement in the various areas had necessarily become rather lengthy. Use was made primarily of books and articles with scattered references to the rebellions and/or connected events, such as regional monographs, military histories, biographies, and reports in national and regional newspapers. For the consultation of these materials the libraries of the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology (KITLV) in Leiden and of the National Museum (Museum Nasional) in Jakarta proved invaluable.

The descriptions of the Darul Islam risings in the respective provinces are meant to serve three additional purposes. Firstly, because it is so scantily described, the great impact which the rebellion as a whole had at the time and the hardship which it caused tend to be easily overlooked or underestimated, whereas in actual fact it rendered large parts of Indonesia insecure for years, with many people actively supporting one of the two sides, either of their own volition or under duress, or being caught between two fires. Secondly, in the analysis of the motives inducing people to rise in rebellion it appeared to be necessary, in order to gain an understanding of the Darul Islam, to take the developments during the Indonesian struggle for independence between 1945 and 1950 into consideration. As the local circumstances varied greatly during this period, and each of the various regions was affected differently by the war against the Dutch, the relevant events in each area had to be described. This way it was possible to bring out the differences within the overall similarity, or, to rephrase the Indonesian national device, the “diversity in unity”. Thirdly, and connected with the preceding point, the emphasis on and relative strength of the contributing factors varied from region to region. In Aceh, for instance, the rebellion combined religious inspiration with opposition to the increasingly pervasive influence of the Central Government. In South Sulawesi the demobilization of former guerillas after 1950 was decisive. In South Kalimantan the underestimation of local achievements in the struggle for independence figured prominently. In West and Central Java the Darul Islam rising was the result of a conflict over territorial autonomy, with strong Islamic overtones, sometimes mixed with millenarian beliefs.

In all the areas concerned the social processes which provided a fertile soil for disorders and uprisings in general had been under way already for some time. The authority of the traditional elite had been undermined by its association with colonial rule; the established mechanism whereby rural society took care of its destitute members had been weakened by the commercialization of agriculture and the opening up of the interior; differences in wealth and land ownership had become more pronounced; and the mobile work force of the estates and the mining industry had increased in size.

The first chapter of this book sketches the life and background of the most important Darul Islam leader and the architect of the Islamic State of Indonesia: Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwirjo, generally simply referred to as Kartosuwirjo. It traces his prewar political career and describes his views on the attitude the Islamic community should adopt in a colonial society. In the same chapter attention is given to the constitutional debate in 1945 on the ideological basis of the Indonesian State. For the discussions in this connection taking place just before and after the proclamation of independence testify to the sensitive nature of this issue, the questions raised then still occasionally coming up today. It is impossible to understand post-war Indonesian political problems without taking them into consideration, in fact. This also applies to the Darul Islam. One cannot place this movement in its true perspective within the Indonesian Islamic community as a whole without being aware of the delicacy of these discussions and of the actual options open. Broadly speaking, there were three alternatives: an Islamic state, a state based on the Pancasila as set out in the preamble of the 1945 Constitution as the former’s “secular” antipode, and a state form as defined in the Jakarta Charter as a compromise solution.

This Jakarta Charter, representing a variant version of the

Pancasila, prescribes the obligation for Muslims to observe Islamic law, being the reflection of a compromise reached between proponents of an Islamic and those of a “secular” state in June 1945. In the end, on August 18th, 1945, it was dropped from the constitution again. Its importance lies in the fact that in later years it became a political vehicle for those Muslims who rejected the violent Darul Islam course, and who wished to achieve their Islamic ideals by legal, constitutional means. This gives rise to the intriguing question of why some people were prepared to take up arms in the pursuit of their ideals and others were not, and why armed resistance was restricted to particular areas.

In the search for an answer to this guestion, which prompted the present study, the recent history of the regions concerned has been traced and an attempt has been made to identify those Characteristics that set these regions apart from other areas in Indonesia. So in the next five chapters the political history of the relevant regions — West Java, Central Java, South Sulawesi, South Kalimantan and Aceh — and their respective Darul Islam risings is outlined. Each of these historical outlines consists of two parts. The one deals with the relation between the official Republican Army and the irregular armed groups operating alongside it, in particular the Muslim ones, during the struggle for independence, as well as with the attempts to impose central authority and the reactions this provoked. The other is concerned with the Darul Islam itself in the relevant region: its activities, its struggle against the Republican Army, its internal conflicts, and its ultimate defeat.

In the seventh and concluding chapter the guestion of why people joined the Darul Islam is discussed. Four contributing factors are suggested. Two of these have already been mentioned above, namely the relation between the official Republican Army and the irregular guerilla units, and the expansion of Central Government control with its administrative and economic consequences. The other two are the changes in landownership and Islam.

The first factor, that of the relation between the official Republican Army and the irregular guerilla units, had its roots in the special conditions of the war of independence between 1945 and 1950. In Indonesia this war was not fought by one single official Republican Army. Many other armed groups participated in the struggle besides, and a great many irregular units, sometimes referred to as “wild guerilla groups”, operated alongside the official Republican Army, which controlled these only on paper. These irregular units all possessed a local, an ideological and an ethnic character, but can be broadly classified into three groups, according to the emphasis that is placed upon one or other of these facets.

Firstly, there were the virtually purely local guerilla groups, which each operated in a small and well-defined area. They recruited their members almost exclusively from among the local population and had as sole concern the struggle against the Dutch. Even so, they might constitute a potential source of trouble for the Republican Army where the latter entered the home base of such local groups.

With the second type of irregular units the ideological, or religious, aspect was predominant. These units might be affiliated to or come under the auspices of a particular political party. Alternatively, they might have gradually broken away from the relevant political party and continued the struggle for the realization of their ideological or religious aims without an institutionalized relation with any political party. This type included such groups as Hizbullah and Sabili’llah, which were originally Masyumi units. Units of this type might also possess a strong local component. None the less, their ideological foundation gave them a national perspective that set them apart from the purely local groups.

In the case of the third type of irregular units the ethnic component was predominant. It included two sub-types, the one consisting of units operating in their home area, the other of units with headquarters in Java which were made up of people from other islands who had migrated to Java. The objective of this second sub-type was partly to fight the Dutch in Java, partly to achieve the liberation of their own region. Examples of this are the Kebaktian Rakyat Indonesia Sulawesi (KRIS), Pemuda Indonesia Maluku (PIM), and Ikatan Perjuangan Kalimantan (IPK). Both sub-types differ from the first type, that of the purely local groups, in that the area for which they claimed responsibility and from which they recruited their members was very much larger, and comprised not just villages or districts, but entire ethnic communities, provinces, and even whole (large) islands.

Some of these “wild” guerilla units provided the core of the Darul Islam Army, the Tentara Islam Indonesia (TII), or Islamic Army of Indonesia. In Java these were the Hizbullah and Sabililah, in Sulawesi the KRIS (and the organizations that subseguently developed from it), and in Kalimantan the ALRI Div. IV, or Fourth Naval Division.

Armed clashes between the Republican Army and the irregular units and between the irregular units themselves occurred as early as the first years of the struggle for independence. The causes of these were mostly conflicts over arms, which were very scarce at the time, alleged encroachments on regional and military autonomy, and competition for hegemony. The mutual hostility grew stronger from 1948 till around 1955, when the Republican Army's superiority was increasingly felt and the irregular units experienced the impact of its policy of reorganization and demobilization. The reguirements for admission to and promotion within the Republican Army were such that the members of the irregular units — with their poor level of military training and general education — were at a distinct disadvantage. Disillusionment over their demobilization or at the position assigned them in the Republican Army induced many of the ex-guerillas to join the Darul Islam. In one instance, in South Sulawesi, this even constituted the immediate cause of an uprising of large units of former guerillas.

The problems with the irregular units are related to the second factor, that of expanding central control. The conflicts with the Republican Army had their parallel in those provoked by the Civil Administration. Here, too, local interests had to give way to Central Government ones. The attempts to build up aloyal regional administration gave rise to accusations that it was trying to Javanize the civil service. To make matters worse, in areas outside Java many local incumbents of functions in the Republican Civil Administration in 1945 and 1950 were replaced, or at any rate refused recognition as such. As in the case of the Republican Army, the confrontation was in part again one between knowledge and skill on the one hand and revolutionary élan on the other. An additional difficulty was that the loyalty of the Armed Forces and Administration in the outer regions was supposed to lie first and foremost with the Central Government and not with the region concerned. Furthermore, the Republic's acceptance of a federal structure for Indonesia meant a sacrifice of the interests of those inhabitants of the Member States who had carried on the struggle for a unitary Indonesian Republic and had established counter-administrations in these Member States, as was most evident in South Kalimantan.

In the economic field as well the Central Republican Government was accused of advancing the interests of the Javanese to the detriment of the outer regions. It was felt that Java was getting a disproportionate share of the export earnings which ought in the first place to accrue to the exporting regions themselves. Moreover, local foreign trade was adversely affected by Central Government schemes aimed at establishing control over that sector, while other schemes regarding the production and guality of certain export crops gave rise to conflicts with local producers.

As the Darul Islam rising was a rural rebellion, the third factor discussed is that of the agrarian structure. It should be borne in mind here that this rebellion took place in relatively prosperous parts of Indonesia, and that it was not just an incidental, short-lived, local outburst of local discontent. On the contrary, it displayed considerable tenacity and encompassed large areas.

In attempts to explain the underlying basis of agrarian unrest in Indonesia and other areas in Southeast Asia some authors have pointed to the disruptive effects on village life of colonial rule or Western economic penetration. Under the influence of increasingly freguent contacts with the outside world a change occurred in the existing economic and social relations. Jacoby (1961:37), for example, has stressed the importance of “the introduction of Western economic methods, the disintegration of the old village economy, and the disruption of the traditional uniformity of village life” in his discussion of the strong rural base of the nationalist movement in Indonesia before 1950. Scott (1972) mentions the commercialization of agriculture and the effects of colonial rule on the patron-client relationship in this connection.

The problem is, however, as Van Nieuwenhuijze (1958:175) has pointed out, that the changes brought about by contact with the West took place gradually, and that “since in general these changes were not catastrophic, little attention was accorded to them in the pre-war years, and none at all in the troubled post-war period”. He concludes that “although there are accordingly few guideposts\to follow in this field of enquiry, it can safely be assumed that gradual changes have been taking place in Indonesian society for a considerable time, changes which verged on the catastrophic during the Japanese occupation and the post-war revolution and its aftermath”.

Van Nieuwenhuijze is one of the few authors to have written about the Darul Islam, and one of the even fewer to have taken the socio-economic aspect into account, though he has simply acknowledged its existence without further elaboration. In fact, apart from studies dealing with the pre-war period, like Sartono

Kartodirdjo's (1966), there are none which treat rural risings in Indonesia, perhaps because the Darul Islam has escaped the attention of scholars. If any attention is given to the subject at all, this is only in the negative sense of explaining why this kind of movement was absent in this country (cf. Mortimer 1974). The present study argues that, with some modifications, the regions that experienced a Darul Islam rebellion were affected by processes which are generally suggested as contributing factors in explanations of peasant rebellions in other countries.

My point of departure is Wolf's observation (1969:278) that the changing status of land, namely from an attribute of the kinship group or community to a private commodity, is a factor underlying peasant rebellions. Indeed, pre-war studies on the relevant regions indicate that this process was most advanced here as compared with other parts of Indonesia. Its conseguences were a certain concentration of land ownership and the growth of a mobile group of labourers available for work as farmhands or on estates and in industry. In the section on the agrarian structure this development is briefly outlined. With respect to West Java this is followed by a discussion of the study on the Darul Islam of West Java by Jackson (1971). The latter argues that the choice of villagers in the matter of whether or not to join the Darul Islam was determined by the position taken by their leaders, as bearers of traditional authority. The definition of this latter concept given by Jackson and the methods used by him in his study do not, however, justify his conclusion.

Judging from the literature on the regions concerned of before the war and the years immediately following it the Darul Islam areas, as Vink (1941) has shown, were those in which the individualization of land ownership was most advanced. Whereas in particular in Central and East Java the reaction to colonial pressure involved a process of “shared poverty”, in the Darul Islam areas it led to one of increased differentiation in wealth and land ownership precisely because the social mechanism whereby traditionally a surplus was redistributed within the community lost in effectiveness. Outside backing diminished dependence on local approval and support, while improved access to the markets increased the opportunities for disposal of food and other commodities.

The fourth factor to be discussed is that of religion. The title of this book notwithstanding, religion is not discounted as a motivating force. Throughout Indonesian history people have rallied around the banner of Islam to resist the infidel foreign colonizer. In the Darul Islam movement it was no longer foreigners who were singled out as an enemy and opposed, but fellow- Indonesians and fellow-Muslims. In view of this, and taking into account the religious character of the regions concerned, one may be tempted to regard Darul Islam as a movement of strict Muslims trying to establish a state in which apure form of Islam was adhered to. The real picture is much more complicated, however, with such heterodox elements as belief in the coming of a Just King or of an era of peace and prosperity accounting for at least part of the popular support the movement enjoyed. Moreover, even faithful Muslims were subject to attacks for no other reason than that they were openly critical of the movement or withheld their active support.

I have not in the present study adopted a mono-causal approach to the Darul Islam. As Jacoby (1961:37) has observed, “It is always a plurality, a combination of factors, which leads to the final historical result”. In our case the Darul Islam assumed its definite shape as the result of a combination of conflicts of interests and outlooks within the Armed Forces, resistance to an increasingly pervasive central authority, gradual changes in the agrarian structure, and Islamic views and ideals. Mutually distinct though these four were, they at the same time influenced one another. The first two, as was said above, were quite closely related phenomena. The hostile attitude towards Javanese dominance, moreover, was reinforced by distrust of the nature of the beliefs held by Javanese Muslims. Further, and in conclusion, Islam itself, with its regulations regarding private property, is only calculated to stimulate the individualization of land ownership.

Chapter One The Darul Islam, Its Prelude

The area where the Darul Islam movement first started, and from which in later years it was to spread to other parts of Indonesia, is the mountainous region of West Java, extending eastwards from Bandung to the border with Central Java. Generally when people speak of the Darul Islam rebellion it is this area that they have in mind. It is often forgotten that similar and related rebellions also occurred in other parts of Indonesia, adding to the difficulties of the successive governments of Indonesia in surpressing the rebellion, as well as strenghthening the gruesome connotation of the words Darul Islam in some circles.

Darul Islam (Arabic dar al-Islam) means literally the “house” or “home” of Islam, i.e. “the world or territory of Islam”. It refers to the Islamic part of the world where the Islamic faith and the observance of Islamic law and regulations are obligatory. Its opposite is the Darul Harb, “the territory of war, the world of the infidels”, which is gradually to be included in the dar al- Islam.

In Indonesia the words Darul Islam are used to describe the post-1945 movements which tried by force to realize the ideal of a Negara Islam Indonesia, or Islamic State of Indonesia.

During the first few years of the Indonesian revolution there was as yet no crystallization of the Darul Islam movement. Islamic leaders in Jakarta and other urban centres submitted to the agreements reached on the Constitution of 1945 and the Pancasila and recognized the Indonesian Republic as their state, which they had hopes of eventually, after the defeat of the Dutch, turning into an Islamic state. It was outside these urban centres and, as was to become clear in later years, independently of the urban or urbanized Islamic leaders that the Darul Islam would take shape. But in the rural areas as well it took some time for the Darul Islam movement to develop into a dangerous alternative to the Indonesian Republic.

The relatively late development of the Darul Islam was partly due to the fact that there was a common enemy to be defeated first. Unarming retreating Japanese units, opposing British interference and resisting the returning Dutch demanded everyone's full attention, and for a while relegated ideological differences to the background. It was partly due also to the fact that neither the Darul Islam nor the Republican leaders were at all prepared for the Japanese surrender and the subseguent proclamation of independence, and had first to organize and gain control over their following.!

The situation in Java, and even more so on the other islands of Indonesia in the months following the proclamation of independence by Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta on August 17th, 1945, was unigue. Independence was proclaimed, a Government was formed and a Parliament (actually a Central Indonesian Committee with only advisory powers) instituted, but that in fact was all. The leaders of the new Republic had had no opportunity to develop a bureaucratic and military apparatus. Formal control remained in the hands of the Japanese, made responsible by the Allies for preserving law and order until the allied troops landed. Sometimes the Japanese authorities were sympathic to the cause of the Republic and assisted it in a number of ways, sometimes they took a neutral stand. In other instances they acted contrary to the interests of the Republic, which in some places resulted in serious clashes between Japanese troops and Indonesian armed groups trying to occupy Japanese premises or to seize Japanese arms.