Atjèh's accession to the Negara Islam Indonesia (1953)

Atjèh’s accession to the Negara Islam Indonesia was the armed rebellion proclaimed on 21 September 1953 by Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh, by which Atjeh joined the Negara Islam Indonesia (N.I.I.) led by the Imam Kartosuwirjo and took up arms against the Republic of Indonesia. Henri J. H. Alers’s Om een rode of groene Merdeka devotes a full chapter to the episode, treating it as the culmination of years of friction between Atjeh’s autonomous, Ulama-led administration and a central government in Djakarta bent on unification — and as a rebellion whose strategic importance, unlike the parallel risings in West Java and South Celebes, threatened to become genuinely international in scope.

Background: from autonomy to incorporation into North Sumatra

Since the 1945–1946 social revolution, Atjeh had been governed, in practice if not always in law, as a self-contained Ulama state under Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh as republican military governor. A visit by the head of the Republic’s Emergency Government, Sjafrudin Prawiranegara, in August 1949 confirmed Atjeh’s status as a de jure autonomous province, only for the central government to partially disavow the concession — and then, in early 1951, to fold Atjeh into the merged province of North Sumatra alongside Tapanoeli and the former federal state of East Sumatra, reducing it to a mere residency under a Javanese resident-coordinator, Danubroto. Daoed Beureuh, removed from the governorship and denied any further role, began from 1951 onward denouncing central-government officials as “kafirs” (unbelievers) — a charge Alers reads as reflecting his genuine conviction that the Republic’s own revolutionary legitimacy and his own Islamic revolution shared common roots that Djakarta refused to recognise.

The political trigger of 1953

Alers argues that Daoed Beureuh restrained himself so long as the national government remained in Masjumi hands, under Prime Ministers Sukiman Wirjosandjojo and Wilopo. The fall of Wilopo’s cabinet after the 17 October 1952 crisis, and the formation on 1 August 1953 of a cabinet under Ali Sastroamidjojo from which Masjumi was excluded, removed his last motive for patience.

Warning signs and the proclamation

By early September 1953 the Atjeh police coordinator, Njakumar, had begun placing guards on public buildings in response to intelligence; an illegal arms shipment was intercepted at Pangkalan Bandan on 11 September, the post at Kuala Simpang was fired on by 16 September, and by 19 September the authorities held a nearly complete plan for an attack on Kota-Radja. On 20 September the uprising became general, and on 21 September 1953 Atjeh’s accession to the Negara Islam Indonesia was formally proclaimed. Kartosuwirjo named Daoed Beureuh his governor for Atjeh, and the prang sabil — holy war — against the “kafir government” began immediately. Green-and-white, or sometimes plain green, flags bearing the crescent and star were raised across the province; telephone lines were cut, railway track torn up, and numerous raids carried out.

Military dimensions

Pamphlets announced that the rebel forces, too, had been consolidated into a Tentara Islam Indonesia, styled in Atjeh as Divisie Tje’ Dit’Do; Atjeh itself became the N.I.I.’s Vth military territory (North Sumatra having been the Republic’s Ist). Desertions from the T.N.I. to the rebel T.I.I. occurred on a considerable scale — Alers cites the case of an Ibrahim Salek at Sidikalang, whose entire company deserted save for its non-Atjèhnese members — and the regents of Langsa and Takengon disappeared on the very first day of the revolt. Government police posts at Peureula, Alor Gading, Langsa, Sigli, Idi, Meulaboh, and Alor Pidi were attacked as early as 20 September, and a major assault was launched on Loh Semawée; hundreds of republican loyalists evacuated to Medan, and the evacuation of the small European population also began. By 27 September 1953 — not yet a week after the proclamation — nearly all of Atjeh was in rebel hands. Groot Atjeh joined the N.I.I. as a body under Teuku Sulaiman Daud; government forces held only around Kota-Radja and Langsa on the East Coast, the garrison at Kuta Tjané in Central Atjeh, and Meulaboh and Tapatoean on the West Coast — even these under continual pressure. Rebels attacked an Alri naval vessel landing arms for Kota-Radja on 24 September.

International dimension and the government’s strategy

Alers stresses that Atjeh’s rebellion, unlike the parallel risings of Kahar Muzakkar in South Celebes, carried real international risk. He notes that the World Muslim Conference’s secretary-general, Inamullah Khan, declared on 27 September 1953 that Muslim states should side with the West against any “red” cause — a declaration Kartosuwirjo seized on, circulating a pamphlet to foreign embassies in Djakarta charging the Republic’s government with serving as an instrument of international communism. Alers connects this to the contemporaneous secret negotiations between the United States and Pakistan over arms deliveries, and observes that President Sukarno, speaking at Bone on 14 October 1953, alleged that Kartosuwirjo had sought American aid — an appeal Alers judges could only sensibly concern the strategically significant Atjeh, given the negligible strategic value of South Celebes. Recognising this risk, the government adopted a deliberate strategy of first securing the coasts, the main roads, and the principal towns of Atjeh, reducing the conflict as quickly as possible to the scale of “roving bands in the interior” so as to forestall any international complication.

The reconquest

The task of reconquest fell to Colonel Simbolon of Territorium I, Bukit Barisan. His counter-offensive, launched in early October 1953, retook Seulimeum and Bajeunen on 3 October, Meureudu after heavy fighting on 10 October, Blangkedjeren and Biruën on 20 October, and finally Takengon on 24 November 1953 in a pincer movement from Blangkedjeren and Bireuën. By the end of November 1953, all major towns and connecting roads were back in government hands, sharply curtailing arms smuggling from Singapore, although sporadic fierce attacks continued and, as in West Java and South Celebes, the underlying insurgency became a protracted, unresolved affair. On 20 October 1953 Mr. S. M. Amin took office as the new Governor of North Sumatra, an appointment Alers judges was received with considerable local scepticism.

Contemporary reporting and statistics (1953–1957)

H. C. Beynon’s Nederland staat terecht in Indonesië (1957) provides a detailed chronological appendix that adds a Dutch observer’s perspective to the Alers account. Beynon confirms that the rebellion broke out on 20 September 1953 under “Daud Beureuh, bestuursambtenaar en parlementslid van de Masjumi-fractie” (“a civil servant and member of parliament from the Masjumi faction”) — a characterization that underscores the rebellion’s roots in the organized Islamic political movement rather than in purely regional grievance. On 21 September 1953, Garuda Indonesian Airways suspended all flights to Kutaradja, a concrete operational measure reflecting the collapse of normal government communications with the province. On 24 September 1953, Minister Tobing issued the formal government position: “De regering zal met kracht optreden tegen de ordeverstoorders, ook in Atjeh” (“The government will act forcefully against the disturbers of order, also in Atjeh”). On 25 September 1953, Daud Beureuh was officially designated rebel leader — public acknowledgement that the rebellion had coalesced around a single figure. And on 3 October 1953, Colonel Simbolon made his remarkable statement that the Atjeh crisis was “very serious” and that “it is not possible to resolve this question with weapons alone.”

Beynon also provides statistical information on the costs of the rebellion, presumably drawn from Indonesian government or press sources of the mid-1950s: approximately 10,000 dead, 27,000 persons in need, 100 million rupiah in material damage, 80 million rupiah in railway losses, and 70 percent of Atjeh’s railway stations destroyed. These figures, if accurate, place the Atjeh rebellion among the most destructive of the several insurgencies that beset the Indonesian republic in its first decade.

Account from De staatkundige ontwikkeling van Indonesië (1955) — the chronological survey

The staatkundige ontwikkeling survey, published by the Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen in a revised and updated edition closed in May 1955, records the Atjeh revolt in its chronological survey under the year 1953: “Augustus 1953 — Onder leiding van Daoed Beurouch breekt een opstand uit in Atjeh” — In August 1953, under the leadership of Daud Beureu’eh, a revolt breaks out in Atjeh. The survey likewise records, in its chapter on the Darul Islam, that the Darul Islam operated in “West-Java, Atjeh en Zuid-Celebes” — West Java, Atjeh, and South Celebes — alongside the areas of West Java and South Celebes where the Darul Islam’s bands were more generally active.

The August 1953 date given by the survey for the outbreak of the revolt under Daud Beureu’eh’s leadership is slightly earlier than the 21 September 1953 date of the formal proclamation of Atjeh’s accession to the Negara Islam Indonesia recorded in the Alers account above. The discrepancy most plausibly reflects the difference between the beginning of the unrest — the “opstand breekt uit” (revolt breaks out) — and the formal proclamation of accession to the N.I.I.; the August date may refer to the beginning of the underground preparations or the first incidents, while the September date records the formal proclamation. The survey’s concise entry — “Onder leiding van Daoed Beurouch breekt een opstand uit in Atjeh” — is the metropolitan Dutch retrospective on the revolt within the framework of the wider Indonesian political development, and it furnishes an independent source for the outbreak and for the leadership of Daud Beureu’eh.

Source

Om een rode of groene Merdeka: Tien jaren binnenlandse politiek Indonesië, 1943–1953, by Henri J. H. Alers (Eindhoven: Uitgeverij Vulkaan, 1956), Chapter VII §35 “De Negara Islam Indonesia in Atjeh,” pp. 265–274.

De staatkundige ontwikkeling van Indonesië in de 20e eeuw, uitgave van het Bureau Cursussen en Vertalingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, revised ed. 1955). Chronologisch overzicht: “Augustus 1953 — Onder leiding van Daoed Beurouch breekt een opstand uit in Atjeh”; and Hoofdstuk VII: “het optreden van de Darul Islam in West-Java, Atjeh en Zuid-Celebes.”

Nederland staat terecht in Indonesië: Achtergronden van de processen tegen Nederlanders in Djakarta, by H. C. Beynon (Utrecht: A.W. Bruna & Zoon, 1957), chronological appendix pp. 218–225. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, shelfmark 26526217. Delpher Digital Library, reference DLP-79.

tags	event, achehnese, religious, rebellion, military, post-colonial
aliases	Aceh DI/TII rebellion, Atjeh rebellion of 1953, Daud Beureuh rebellion, Negara Islam Indonesia in Atjeh

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