The pardon of Teukoe Oemar on 30 September 1893 — the Government’s forgiveness of all that the Atjehnese chief had formerly committed against it, followed by his oath of loyalty and submission — crowned the popular movement against the robber bands that had terrorized the boundaries of the concentrated line, and opened the brief season of prosperity that preceded his defection of 1896.
The road to the pardon
When in 1893 the Government ended the prohibition of exports to outside the line, the free trade traffic between the population within and that outside the line brought with it an ever more brutal action of the resistance-fighters: the well-disposed people from outside who came in to sell produce and buy necessities lay constantly exposed, on their way, to the robbery-lust of the evil elements, who ventured even within reach of the guns of the Dutch posts to provide themselves with the necessaries by way of robbery and murder. From those robberies arose a movement among the population — principally that of the IV Moekims — to try to end the nuisance of the robbers. At the head of that movement placed himself the well-known Teukoe Oemar, who saw in it the fittest means to satisfy the Government’s earlier demand: that clear proofs of his good disposition toward the government were needed before the Government would lend its ear to his repeatedly made offer of submission — the Government remembering, perhaps, his treachery in the Nisero affair.
The pardon
Teukoe Oemar’s action as head of the said movement against the resistance-fighters, supported by the Dutch military power, made the Government decide, on 30 September 1893, to grant him pardon: whereupon he swore “eed van trouw en onderwerping aan het Gouvernement” (“the oath of loyalty and submission to the Government”). “Hem werd vergiffenis geschonken voor hetgeen hij vroeger tegen het Gouvernement had bedreven; straffen of boeten deswege werden hem niet meer opgelegd” — he was granted forgiveness for what he had formerly committed against the Government; punishments or fines on that account were no longer imposed upon him. At his submission he had received the title “Teungkoe Djohan Pahlawan”.
Prosperity
This important event in the political field, Langhout records, benefited trade in ample measure: the rise of prosperity showed in a number of new dwellings and toko’s gradually arising at Koeta Radja, in the renewal and improvement which European and foreign traders caused their shops and magazines to undergo, and in the many applications for building-sites coming in to the government. The general calm lasted until rumours, and on 29 March 1896 certainty, that Teukoe Oemar had “thrown off the mask” (see Betrayal of Teukoe Oemar (1896)).
See Also
- Teukoe Oemar
- Betrayal of Teukoe Oemar (1896)
- The Concentration in Atjeh (1884-1898)
- Nisero affair (1883-1884)
- 1893
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 70–71.