The resistance in Atjeh 1913

The resistance in Atjeh of 1913–1918 was the closing phase of the Atjeh-oorlog, in which the time of resistance on a large scale — the struggle against great bands and influential band-heads — was past and the task became, in du Croo’s phrase, “the methodical, systematic, obstinate search for needles in an impossibly large haystack” — the methodical, systematic and stubborn search for needles in an impossibly large haystack. Alongside it ran the phenomena of the Atjeh-moord and sporadic local outbreaks of resistance in quiet, pacified districts.

The nature of the task

The short reports became ever shorter in their political section and ever fuller in their economic section; the news of resistance melted away into “political situation favourable and very favourable” (“political situation favourable and very favourable”) and into “geen bijzonders.” (“nothing particular”) It was 1913, the fifth year of Swart’s administration; Swart had allowed himself five years for the pacification and had not miscalculated in line or direction.

But apart from the administrative work proper there remained here and there the fijne afwerking. Unfindable irreconcilables still wandered about; carbines and rifles that had been lost were still in the hands of those wanderers; and so long as they had not been brought to submission there remained a chance of band-formation, sudden disturbance of the peace and revenge on the population. So long as those carbines and rifles were not safely stored in the rustkamer of the Kompeuni, the pacification was not complete.

The task was difficult and demanded a great deal of patrol commanders and patrols alike, and above all skill, tact, a sixth sense and patience. Eight, nine or ten times a raid could fail or a trail be lost after a harsh patrol and days or weeks of slogging; and then the ninth, tenth and eleventh time one had to march out again with the same obstinacy and the same confidence in eventual success.

By that time the patrol commanders had been formed in the hard school of the preceding years, and Swart knew himself surrounded by picked forest-runners and trackers, by marechaussée brigades that had grown into almost perfect units for this kind of warfare. To them, and when they departed to the successors they had trained, this work was entrusted; and it is characterised by the fact that at Swart’s retirement in 1918 only one unfindable man had remained unfound: T. Radja Tampo’ in the bottomless marshes of Seuneu’am and Tripa near Meulaboh, an irreconcilable who even in 1939 still wandered as a legendary figure held holy by the population, who undoubtedly had and kept contact with the chiefs and the people, but who was never betrayed by anyone.

The Algemeene Instructie of 26 February 1912

The searchers worked according to the General Instruction for Commanders of columns and patrols of 26 February 1912, which entered in great detail into the treatment of the population and thereby gave a survey of Swart’s views.

The list of 1913

The list of the principal band-heads and resistance leaders who still refused to submit was no longer large in 1913:

In Pidië: Pang Bintang, the unfindable robber chief; T. Dagang, the man whom Schmidt had sought for years in the Tangsé country and had struck only in his kawans; a few survivors of the Tirò band under Tgk. Ma’ Aréh di Lam Goet; and the so-called Tjoebo-bende.
In Lho’ Soekon: Tgk. di Mata Ië, survivor of the three great resistance leaders of whom Tgk. Sjeh di Paja Bakong and Tgk. di Barat had already fallen; and T. Radja Sabi, “the wandering youngster.”
In the Meergebied: Pang Intan.
In Meulaboh: T. Radja Tampo’, the wanderer of the Seuneu’am marshes.
In the Gajò Loeös: Pang Manap.

The year 1913

For many of them 1913 brought the end. It began in January: in Lho’ Soekon the foragers of Tgk. di Mata Ië were vigorously driven off by the population; at Sigli, after the remnants of the Tirò band had twice been surprised, the hiding-place of Tgk. Ma’ Aréh di Lam Goet was found by marechaussée from Lam Meulò: the Teungkoe was taken prisoner and five men fell. The rest reported themselves the very next day, handing in all their firearms: “Central Pidië was cleared.”

In February the head of the still-wandering Lampehan-bendetje in Bireuën reported himself, “and Bireuën too was clean.”

Simultaneously T. Dagang’s hiding-place was found and cleared; Pang Meurandéh, his principal subordinate commander, submitted with nine men; and then T. Dagang too gave up, since Schmidt was on leave in Holland and his threat to bury T. Dagang beside the landschapshoofd he had murdered had lost its force: “Tangsé was clean.”

Pang Bintang also took two knocks — five kawans and one rifle.

At Lho’ Soekon the last followers of T. Radja Sabi reported themselves; he now wandered alone until 1919. In that sub-division the search was now only for Tgk. di Mata Ië and a few followers of the late Tgk. di Barat.

In July, and in the entirely quiet, directly administered territory of Groot-Atjeh, Pang Bintang fell. Overste Scheepens, then Civil and Military Authority at Sigli, described the chance of it in one of his last letters to Schmidt before his death in October: after the transfer of controleur Roos van Raadshoven there was at last to be patrolling in the XXII Moekims; Van Andel, since posted at Lam Meulò, got the first patrol and began to poke about in the V Moekims Mon Tasië’ and the adjacent hills. “Unfamiliar with the terrain and without the slightest information, he ran on the very second day, near the former Koeta Ba’ Teuë, straight into the band’s hiding-place. Astonishment was great on both sides, but with it Pang Bintang and his men were despatched into eternity. The hiding-place lay only three-quarters of an hour from the gampong Aneu’ Ngóm and was even connected with it by a well-trodden path. A few friends will be punished, but unfortunately the greatest thieves go free…”

October brought the end for Pang Manap in the Gajò lands: he was laid low in an encounter with police oppassers and the population. The greater part of his band, including his brother, reported themselves, handing in a carbine.

1914 and after

In April 1914 Takèngön in the Meergebied reported: “contact was at last obtained on 2 April with those in resistance under Pang Intan; the said band, seven men strong, was surprised by a patrol at the Waih ni Wis; Pang Intan fell with four followers.”

In March 1914 T. Radja Tampo’ provided a diversion by levying tribute on some inhabitants of Tadoe and Tripa near Meulaboh; he set fire to a few padi barns and then disappeared without trace into his haystack again.

And so of the great resistance men only Tgk. di Mata Ië and T. Radja Tampo’ remained. The first fell in 1917, likewise as it were in a chance encounter, related by H. C. Zentgraaff: “The kompeuni hunted him from 1905 onward, and for twelve years he managed in the mountains and forests to escape the sharpest pursuit. When our hunters made things too hot for him, he withdrew for a time to the then still almost unknown region of Samarkilang and the eastern Gajò country. Almost all the good patrol leaders of those years found his trail at one time or another; Van der Vlerk and Behrens were sometimes close on his heels, yet he always escaped, and this made the fame of his mystical powers greater still. People spoke of him in the villages as of someone who stood above this world.”

In 1913 Behrens had fallen upon him by the Aloeë Garöt so quickly that his turban and rosary remained caught in the bushes, “like Absalom’s hair,” and he was wounded in the leg. “So his invulnerability had apparently come to an end; nevertheless he maintained himself for four years more.”

It was, Zentgraaff wrote, almost chance that a patrol under the native sergeant Toegimin passed on 10 July 1917 through Samarkilang and found in the forest an insignificant ladang with two little houses on it. Two unknown Acehnese were shot; the leg of one corpse was much swollen, presumably from an earlier wound. Doubt remained until a few Acehnese of Samarkilang, seeing the body, threw themselves to the ground in deep reverence, afraid of the curse of the dead, and cried out: “Teungkoe, be not angry — it was not our fault.” The Teungkoe’s wife finally recognised him by his ankle rings. “His spirit long went on working; out of his last followers there formed the well-known Samarkilang band, whose leader was only taken prisoner in 1937 — twenty years later!”

The Atjeh-moord

While seeking their needles, the keepers of the peace also had to confront other disturbances: the Atjeh-moord and the sudden re-outbreak of resistance in quiet, pacified districts — both a logical consequence of the long, fanatical struggle with its deep grain of religious conviction, but neither of so far-reaching a nature as was often suggested in many a newspaper and many a political speech.

“Atjeh-moorden … zij run like a thin red thread through the monthly reports over virtually all the years after 1912]] — they still occurred even twenty years later.” Du Croo listed:

March 1913: the controleur of Idi and an accompanying official are attacked with a parang by an Acehnese and both wounded; “the perpetrator refused to speak and died that same evening in hospital.”
June 1913: a fourteen-year-old boy armed with a rentjong forces his way into the canteen at Samalanga and attacks the station master who happened to be staying there.
July 1913: two Acehnese armed with knives run amok at the station at Bireuën; two non-commissioned officers are killed and two soldiers wounded. The reason: their chief had refused them permission to travel to Koeala Simpang.
10 October 1913: the murder of overste Scheepens, civil authority of Pidië, during a sitting of the Landschapsgerecht at Sigli by the landschapsrechter T. Béntara Titeuë; the wounded man died on 17 October.
September 1913: the murder of a train conductor, in which the perpetrator also lost his life. The reason: the hot-tempered young Acehnese had been thwarted by his parents in his marriage plans, felt himself maloe before his gampong, thought he could not go on living, but decided first to stab an unbeliever — any unbeliever he might meet at the tram halt.
May 1914: an Acehnese attacks the sentry at Lam Meulò. The reason: shame, because his mother had squandered his paternal inheritance and had begun a love affair with her own son-in-law. “So: shame, and therefore a murder.”
December 1914: two young Alassers force their way into the Moesapat hall at Koeta Tjanè, wound controleur Christan and some oppassers, and are laid low. The investigation pointed towards the acting Kedjoerön of Bambél; when the presumed instigator had been arrested, three Alassers attacked the bivouac guard in March 1915 in an attempt to free the prisoner, but were struck down, costing the guard two killed and two wounded. The investigation finally showed that the attack on Christan was a purely personal act of revenge and that the suspect Kedjoerön was entirely innocent.
January 1915: the murder of a Chinese at Sigli.
June 1915: the murder of onderluitenant Müssig at Tangsé, a personal act of revenge, the perpetrator being caught and sentenced; a light wounding of the officier van gezondheid De Vos at Lho’ Soekon during vaccination, the perpetrator being “afgemaakt” by the bystanders; and the wounding of an overseer of the tram at Pantòn Laboe by an Acehnese woman.
1916: an attack on the tram clerk Beets and his wife; Beets died of his wound; the assailant was seized and sentenced to death. Attacks on soldiers occurred repeatedly, both at tram halts and on the keudé’s; some assailants proved insane or feeble-minded.
1917: a leper at Lho’ Soekon murdered the officier van gezondheid dr. J. Ph. Andriesse during examination; this perpetrator too was sentenced to death. At Langsa an Acehnese in a fit of religious mania attacked Messrs Jahnke and Roberecht; the first died of his injury.
11 March 1918: an attack at Lho’ Soekon on the civil authority, the well-known lieutenant Schouten, who soon recovered; the perpetrator was laid low.
12 February 1919: an attack at Koeta Radja on Hense, manager of the Oranjehotel and a former marechaussée sub-officer, who lost his life; the perpetrator proved to have acted from religious fanaticism and also from disappointment in his married life.

Explanation of the Atjeh-moord

These murders, du Croo argued, can and must be explained from the emotional disposition of the Acehnese, his conviction that whoever falls as sjahid, a witness of the faith, is awaited in the hereafter by immediate paradise, and the spiritual and economic dislocation resulting from nearly thirty-five years of war.

During the fierce general struggle the emotional Acehnese who felt himself disappointed in his domestic or married life, in his family, his life-wishes, his social existence, his relation to his chief or fellow villagers — who had thus become maloe (embarrassed, at a loss, ashamed) — found the solution to his difficulties close at hand and immediately available: he joined a band. Through and with that band he could avenge himself; by becoming a band member he made good what he had done wrong, and he could moreover die as sjahid in the struggle against the kaphé.

That band system had now been rooted out. And with it disappeared the ready solution, precisely at a time when the years of struggle in the rimba had estranged countless younger and older Acehnese from the quiet existence of farmer and cattle-keeper and had increased their instability — there were then far more cases of derangement and insanity in Atjeh than in the rest of the Indies. Those unbalanced men now sought the new solution, when disappointed, in difficulties or fierce emotions, thus when they felt themselves maloe, “in the killing of an entirely arbitrary unbeliever and in becoming a martyr in that way after all.”

Almost all attempts at renewed resistance can be explained in the same way. When the outburst came, when the attack on officials or on a patrol had been carried out, it seemed — especially to the outsider — alarming because inexplicable: the political situation was very favourable, the harvest looked good, the heerendienst was properly performed, the tax came in normally, the chiefs gave no reason for complaint, school attendance was improving — “and then suddenly: the blow!” But a patient investigation by someone who knew land and people, family relations and the mutual relations of the eternally intriguing chiefs, and who moreover possessed their confidence, as a rule brought the explanation fairly soon: an intellectual author who felt himself maloe about some trifle, and a number of actual executants who were in the same case, or who did not dare or could not refuse — itself a case of fear of becoming maloe.

Such a flare-up of resistance was almost always declared in the press and by the spraakmakende gemeente more important and more alarming than it was in reality. Nowhere — not even in 1925/1926 — did such resistance attain an extension of any significance; nowhere did it spread to other districts in such a way that one might speak of contagion, of “aansteken.”

Local outbreaks

Du Croo then treated a series of local outbreaks of the years 1913–1918 in detail: the vaccination unrest in Groot Atjeh of April 1914; the murder of civil authority W. van Kregten and the resistance in Daja and Lhong of May–August 1914; the unrest at Linggö in the Meergebied in 1916; the religious movement at Serbödjadi of December 1917; the attack on lieutenant Gosenson at Djeuram of 29 December 1917; and the Teungkoe Moet affair and the “coconut and sugar-cane excursion” in the Boven Wòjla of April 1918.

Significance

The years 1913–1918 completed the pacification not by battle but by attrition, and demonstrated — in du Croo’s reading — that the remaining violence was social and psychological in origin rather than political. At Swart’s departure in 1918 the province could be handed to a purely civil governor.

Source

Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter XII, pp. 116–129.

tags	event, resistance, aceh-war, colonial, dutch, achehnese, pacification, 20th-century
aliases	Atjeh resistance 1913-1918, the needles in the haystack, the needles in the haystack, resistance 1913-1918

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The resistance in Atjeh 1913–1918