The Aroe-baai-plannen (“Arube Bay plans”) was the project, debated in two waves (1905–1910 and 1913), to develop Arube Bay as the natural maritime terminus of the Atjeh-tramway network — and, in its most ambitious version, as a deep-water Oceaanhaven that would compete with Belawan, Singapore, and Sabang as an outlet for the Atjehnese export trade. In the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the Aroe-baai-plannen represented the principal economic-development project of the Atjeh residency in the 1904–1914 decade, and the principal locus of commercial conflict between the Atjeh residency and the established trading interests of the East Coast of Sumatra.
Van Heutsz and the Oceaanhaven proposal (1905–1907)
The earliest and most ambitious version of the project was the proposal by J. B. van Heutsz — Governor of Atjeh 1898–1904 and Governor-General of Netherlands India 1904–1909 — to develop Telok Taboean on Arube Bay into a full Oceaanhaven for the entire Oostkust cultivation zone. Van Heutsz was the krachtig voorstander (strong proponent) of the Aroebaai scheme. His advocacy stemmed from familiarity with Atjeh’s northern geography from the Aceh War campaigns, the bay’s superior natural depth and shelter compared to Belawan’s shoaling approaches, the potential to link the bay via the Atjeh-tram (then building southeast from Koeala Simpang) directly to the cultivation zone, and the strategic desire to integrate Atjeh and Oostkust economically. The van Heutszgebergte (van Heutsz Mountains) in the Karo highlands was named after him, reflecting his association with the region’s opening.
The original project envisioned a full Oceaanhaven at Telok Taboean (on Arube Bay), where the Atjeh-tram would terminate. The bay offered two deep channels (north and south of Pulau Sembilan/Koempai) with good anchorage for large steamers, shelter from the Strait of Malaka’s swell, proximity to the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij fields at Langsa/Rantau Pandjang, and a shorter sea route to Penang/Singapore for northern cultivation areas (Langkat, Besitang).
The Handelsvereeniging Medan opposition and the Kraus-de Jongh report (1910)
The Handelsvereeniging Medan opposed the plan, arguing that Aroebaai lay too far north of the main production centres (Medan, Tebing Tinggi, Siantar), that land transport costs over the poor northern roads would negate harbour advantages, and that Belawan’s central location in the cultivation zone was economically decisive.
In 1910 the colonial government commissioned engineer Kraus-de Jongh to evaluate. His report recognized Aroebaai’s technical superiority (depth, shelter, expansion potential) but concluded that general economic grounds favoured Belawan: the cultivation zone’s centre of gravity lay south of the Asahan, and Belawan’s hinterland connections (rail, road, future canals) were already established. The government accepted Kraus-de Jongh’s advice and launched a renewed Belawan dredging program (1912 onward) using a 700 m³ suction dredger. Depths improved from 7½ ft (1907) to 19 ft at low-water spring by 1916. The Plan Nobel for a Belawan ocean harbour was approved in principle. The Aroebaai ocean-harbour plan was verlaten (abandoned); only a modest steamer jetty at Pangkalan Soesoe for the Koninklijke Petroleum Maatschappij tankers and the Atjeh-tram was built.
The 1913 Gouvernementsbesluiten and the revived Aroe-baai-plannen
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s 1917 account of the Aroe-baai-plannen is the longest single engagement with the project in the volume. The Bureau frames the plans as the natural extension of the 1913 Gouvernementsbesluiten (G. Bn. of 17 June 1913 No. 59, 16 October 1913 No. 25, 8 November 1913 No. 40) that approved the doortrekking of the Atjeh-tramway from Koeala Simpang through Tamiang to Besitang, and from Pangkalan Soesoe to Telok Taboeban on Arube Bay.
The Bureau writes: the defenders of the Aroe-baai-plannen, who see in this natural harbour a competitor of Belawan and even of Singapore and Sabang, hope, by the laying of this connecting link, to see the first step taken toward the realisation of those future plans, by the export of the Atjehnese products (pepper, rubber, etc.) — which increases steadily with the reclamation of the Tamiangsche moerassen — to be led via Arube Bay.
The Bureau then narrates the commercial conflict that the Aroe-baai-plannen provoked with the established trading interests of the East Coast: the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij’s opposition to the direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat connection; the Belawan-Deli trade’s fear of competition from Arube Bay as a deep-water harbour; the Pangkalan Brandan trade’s parallel opposition; and the eventual deferral of the direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat connection in favour of a connection from Pangkalan Brandan to the Atjeh-tram. The Bureau notes that the Aroe-baai-plannen were of evident interest to the whole gouvernement Atjeh and that they were maintained even when, in place of Belawan-Deli, the equally inadequate roadstead of Pangkalan Brandan was put forward as the desired terminus of the Atjeh-tram.
The Bureau’s account of the Cultuurraad’s deliberations on the proposed Pangkalan Brandan connection also notes the further proposal of a direct connecting line from Pangkalan Brandan with Telok Taboehan — there joining the Atjeh-net — as a compromise between the Cultuurraad’s preferred Pangkalan Brandan connection and the originally proposed direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat junction.
Significance
The Aroe-baai-plannen represent, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the most ambitious single economic-development project of the Atjeh residency in the 1904–1914 decade — the project that would, if fully realised, have transformed the Atjeh and Dependencies residency from a military-administrative territory into a coherent economic region centred on its own deep-water harbour. The 1918 Oostkust volume extends the picture: the 1913 Aroe-baai-plannen were the surviving fragment of Van Heutsz’s much larger 1905–1907 Oceaanhaven proposal, defeated in 1910 by the Kraus-de Jongh report and the Handelsvereeniging Medan — a defeat that reduced Aroebaai from a projected ocean harbour to a mere petroleum-jetty terminus for the Atjeh-tram. The deferral of the direct Besitang–Tandjoeng Slamat connection in 1913 marks the partial defeat of even the revived Aroe-baai-plannen at the hands of the established East Coast commercial interests — a defeat that, together with the 1914 outbreak of the European war, would defer the full realisation of the Aroe-baai project indefinitely.
See Also
- Atjeh-tram
- Aroebai
- Telok Taboeban
- Pangkalan Soesoe
- Atjeh-Deli Tram Connection
- Besitang
- Tamiang
- Koeala Simpang
- Tandjoeng Slamat
- Pangkalan Brandan
- Bookit Koeboe
- Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij
- Belawan
- Sabang
- Singapore
- Penang
- Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij
- Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij
- Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra
- Governor-General Van Heutsz
- van Heutszgebergte
- Kraus-de Jongh
- Plan Nobel
- Handelsvereeniging Medan
- Cultuurraad
- Langsa
- Rantau Pandjang
- 1898
- 1904
- 1905
- 1907
- 1908
- 1910
- 1912
- 1913
- 1914
- 1916
- 1917
- 1918
Sources
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 69–72 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).
De Buitenbezittingen, Deel II, Afl. 3: Oostkust van Sumatra. Eerste Stuk, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1918), pp. 50–51, 66–67, 76–77, 93–95, 106–107. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, shelfmark LS.08781.