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Chapter V: The Japanese Experience
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110 CHAPTER V The Japanese Experience “Even if the independence of Indonesia finally fails in being upheld by diplomatic negotiations after the termination of the war … even the enemy will not be able to deny the fundamental truth that independence inevitably follows the formative development of a people.” Japanese Foreign Ministry, 1944 The fate of Sumatra at Japanese hands was determined by high-level policy for the “southern regions”, which went through three major phases. Until the middle of 1943 Sumatra and Malaya were together regarded as “the nuclear zone of the Empire’s plans for the Southern Area” because of their strategic and economic importance, and were jointly administered by the 25th Japanese Army. A new stage was inaugurated with the shift of 25th Army Headquarters from Singapore to Bukittinggi (central Sumatra) in May 1943, its loss of administrative authority for Malaya, and General Tojo’s policy speech the following month. Tojo’s government rejected a policy of separate self-government for Java in favour of a much milder “participation in government” for the whole of the East Indies—Sumatra and eastern Indonesia being more likely to face an Allied counter-attack. Finally the Koiso statement of September 1944 belatedly set the whole of Indonesia on a course towards the “independence” which Burma and the Philippines had already enjoyed since 1943. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1944, in Japanese Military Administration in Indonesia: Selected Documents, ed. H.J. Benda, J.K. Irikura, and K. Kishi (New Haven, Yale Southeast Asia Studies, 1965), p. 242. 05 BP.indd 110 2/24/14 3:17:36 PM The Japanese Experience 111 Administrative Change In the first stage the separation of Sumatra from Java was a deliberate policy, based primarily on the importance to Japan of Sumatra’s oil and rubber, and secondarily on an assumption that nationalism on the island was undeveloped. Map 3 Kerajaan of East Sumatra, and Administrative Divisions of 1942‒46 05 BP.indd 111 2/24/14 3:17:40 PM [54.243.2.41] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 09:24 GMT) 112 The Blood of the People Even so grotesquely pro-Japanese an organization as the Three A movement in Java was forbidden by the 25th Army to operate in Sumatra. After May 1943 there was a greater tendency for Japanese policies in Sumatra to follow those in Java, yet contact between Indonesian organizations and individuals in the two islands remained virtually impossible. Pre-war Indonesian organi zations which were allowed to continue, of which the only important ones were the Islamic movements Muhammadiah and Wasliyah, were forced to operate independently at the Sumatra level. To the bitter end Bukittinggi refused to allow any propagandists from Java to enter Sumatra. Even organization at the Sumatra level became difficult. A very high degree of administrative autonomy was assumed by the Japanese chōkan of each shū (residency), and the Indonesian propaganda bodies they formed were all different in both name and character. Complete economic selfsufficiency was also progressively forced on each shū by the breakdown in shipping and other communications links after 1943. For three years the shū had to be the effective limit of Indonesian organizational horizons. It was a time of both danger and opportunity. The Japanese régime was more arbitrary, unpredictable, and ruthless than its predecessor, yet it was at the same time much more reliant on Indonesian co-operation and information than the Dutch had been for decades. Those Indonesian officials and politicians who successfully manipulated the new rulers had a real chance to affect the destiny of their people; those who went too far faced torture or execution. The basic administrative divisions of Netherlands India continued, with one exception. The former afdeling of Siak was transferred from East Sumatra to Riau shū. Pakanbaru, in Siak, became the capital of Riau, while the off-shore Riau-Lingga archipelago which had given the residency its name was made a direct Singapore responsibility. In September 1942 when the military administration assumed its definitive shape there were only 244 Japanese administrators in Sumatra, spread more thinly than the Dutch had been. Each of the ten Dutch Residents was replaced by a Japanese chōkan, and Assistant-Residents by a Japanese bunshūchō. Below this level most of the administration was Indonesian. In Aceh, as we have seen, each Dutch controleur was replaced by a prominent ulèëbalang bearing the Japanese title gunchō—a purely administrative head of the gun (onderafdeling, or district). In East Sumatra...