PETA — the Pembela Tanah Air, “Defenders of the Fatherland,” known in Japanese as giyūgun (“volunteer army”) and in Malay as lasjkar ra’jat — was the Japanese-organised Indonesian militia established in Atjèh on 22 November 1943 as a “people’s army” intended as the kernel of an indigenous military organisation with its own officer corps for the defence of Sumatra. Recruited heavily from the Poesa-inspired youth and officered in part by veterans of the Fujiwara-kikan’s fifth-column apparatus, PETA grew to more than 5,000 men by the Japanese capitulation of 15 August 1945 and was absorbed, along with the Maibkatra and the Kapal Oedara Atjèh, into the mass body Permai on 20 January 1945.
The establishment of 22 November 1943
“The establishment on 22 November of the ‘people’s army’ (Jap. giyūgun, volunteer army, lit. gi-righteousness, ‘suum cuique’, yū-courage; Mal. lasjkar ra’jat) meant, after the recruitment for ‘special police’ (tokubetsu-keisatsutai) and ‘auxiliary troops’ (heiho) already discussed above, a new call on the manpower of the Atjèh people for the benefit of the warfare. Unlike the ‘auxiliary army’, which formed merely an addition to the Japanese army, the ‘people’s army’ was intended as the core of its own military organization, in due course with its own officers, for the defense of the fatherland.” On 9 November 1943 Resident lino addressed a thousand-strong crowd at the great mosque in Koetaradja to announce the levy. “‘The intention is,’ said Resident lino, ‘that the people’s army will perform the light work, while the heavy work will be done by the Japanese army’. ‘Moreover,’ he continued, ‘when the Japanese army advances to London and Washington, the people’s army will ensure the defense of the fatherland Sumatra’.”
The shift toward Indonesia Merdéka
The establishment of PETA marked, in Piekaar’s reading, the ideological pivot of the occupation: “We clearly see here demonstrated how, at this time still not five months after the circular of Masubuchi—the Japanese political policy was already gradually being shifted in the direction of the ‘Indonesia Merdéka’ idea. The appeal to the love for one’s own fatherland was gradually beginning to take the place of the appeal to the common prosperity sphere within the framework of a Greater East Asia.” Characteristic of the new line was the article in the Atjèh Shimbun of 16 October 1943 in which the main board of the Maibkatra held up “the love of and defense of the fatherland (mentjintai dan mempertahankan tanah air)” as “a sacred duty (kewadjiban soetji).”
The officer corps and the F-organisatie
“We find many old acquaintances from the F-organization back in the officer corps of the ‘people’s army’.” The corps was heterogeneous: it included scions of oelèëbalang families — among them Moehamad Nazir, the son-chó appointed by the Japanese as oelèëbalang of Tapa’toean, “later an officer in the ‘volksleger’” — alongside Poesa-aligned youth. In 1944 a “people’s army week” was organised from 19–25 November 1944 to mark the first anniversary, with testimonials and gifts distributed to those who had distinguished themselves in recruitment. The training of Atjèhnese officers was “vigorously undertaken”; in May 1944 the Atjèh Shimbun reported that fifteen young men of Atjèhnese blood had completed their training somewhere on the East Coast of Sumatra.
Dissolution and aftermath
At the Japanese capitulation PETA’s strength “would have amounted to more than 5,000 men.” The militia had already been formally dissolved into Permai on 20 January 1945, but its apparatus survived intact: “The large number of Pusa-inspired youths among them would make this organization, after the capitulation, a usable weapon in the hands of the Pusa leaders.” When the oelèëbalang class was overthrown in the 1945–1946 “social revolution,” PETA’s trained and armed cadres formed the principal military instrument of the oelama party. “The Acehnese officer corps, on the other hand, as a result of its heterogeneous composition, would disintegrate at the outbreak of the civil war, and several of its staunchest officers would lose their lives on the side of the oelèëbalangs.”
See Also
- lino
- Masubuchi
- Maibkatra
- Permai
- Poesa
- Fujiwara-kikan
- Atjèh Shimbun
- Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh
- 22 November 1943
- 1945
Source
Atjèh and the War with Japan, by Dr. A. J. Piekaar, translated from the Dutch original Atjèh en de oorlog met Japan (1949) (‘s-Gravenhage/Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve; English edition), Glossary and Chapter VII §§ 2–4.
PETA — the Pembela Tanah Air, “Defenders of the Fatherland,” known in Japanese as giyūgun (“volunteer army”) and in Malay as lasjkar ra’jat — was the Japanese-organised Indonesian militia established in Atjèh on 22 November 1943 as a “people’s army” intended as the kernel of an indigenous military organisation with its own officer corps for the defence of Sumatra. Recruited heavily from the Poesa-inspired youth and officered in part by veterans of the Fujiwara-kikan’s fifth-column apparatus, PETA grew to more than 5,000 men by the Japanese capitulation of 15 August 1945 and was absorbed, along with the Maibkatra and the Kapal Oedara Atjèh, into the mass body Permai on 20 January 1945.
The establishment of 22 November 1943
“The establishment on 22 November of the ‘people’s army’ (Jap. giyūgun, volunteer army, lit. gi-righteousness, ‘suum cuique’, yū-courage; Mal. lasjkar ra’jat) meant, after the recruitment for ‘special police’ (tokubetsu-keisatsutai) and ‘auxiliary troops’ (heiho) already discussed above, a new call on the manpower of the Atjèh people for the benefit of the warfare. Unlike the ‘auxiliary army’, which formed merely an addition to the Japanese army, the ‘people’s army’ was intended as the core of its own military organization, in due course with its own officers, for the defense of the fatherland.” On 9 November 1943 Resident lino addressed a thousand-strong crowd at the great mosque in Koetaradja to announce the levy. “‘The intention is,’ said Resident lino, ‘that the people’s army will perform the light work, while the heavy work will be done by the Japanese army’. ‘Moreover,’ he continued, ‘when the Japanese army advances to London and Washington, the people’s army will ensure the defense of the fatherland Sumatra’.”
The shift toward Indonesia Merdéka
The establishment of PETA marked, in Piekaar’s reading, the ideological pivot of the occupation: “We clearly see here demonstrated how, at this time still not five months after the circular of Masubuchi—the Japanese political policy was already gradually being shifted in the direction of the ‘Indonesia Merdéka’ idea. The appeal to the love for one’s own fatherland was gradually beginning to take the place of the appeal to the common prosperity sphere within the framework of a Greater East Asia.” Characteristic of the new line was the article in the Atjèh Shimbun of 16 October 1943 in which the main board of the Maibkatra held up “the love of and defense of the fatherland (mentjintai dan mempertahankan tanah air)” as “a sacred duty (kewadjiban soetji).”
The officer corps and the F-organisatie
“We find many old acquaintances from the F-organization back in the officer corps of the ‘people’s army’.” The corps was heterogeneous: it included scions of oelèëbalang families — among them Moehamad Nazir, the son-chó appointed by the Japanese as oelèëbalang of Tapa’toean, “later an officer in the ‘volksleger’” — alongside Poesa-aligned youth. In 1944 a “people’s army week” was organised from 19–25 November 1944 to mark the first anniversary, with testimonials and gifts distributed to those who had distinguished themselves in recruitment. The training of Atjèhnese officers was “vigorously undertaken”; in May 1944 the Atjèh Shimbun reported that fifteen young men of Atjèhnese blood had completed their training somewhere on the East Coast of Sumatra.
Dissolution and aftermath
At the Japanese capitulation PETA’s strength “would have amounted to more than 5,000 men.” The militia had already been formally dissolved into Permai on 20 January 1945, but its apparatus survived intact: “The large number of Pusa-inspired youths among them would make this organization, after the capitulation, a usable weapon in the hands of the Pusa leaders.” When the oelèëbalang class was overthrown in the 1945–1946 “social revolution,” PETA’s trained and armed cadres formed the principal military instrument of the oelama party. “The Acehnese officer corps, on the other hand, as a result of its heterogeneous composition, would disintegrate at the outbreak of the civil war, and several of its staunchest officers would lose their lives on the side of the oelèëbalangs.”
See Also
- lino
- Masubuchi
- Maibkatra
- Permai
- Poesa
- Fujiwara-kikan
- Atjèh Shimbun
- Teungkoe Moehamad Daoed Beureu-éh
- 22 November 1943
- 1945
Source
Atjèh and the War with Japan, by Dr. A. J. Piekaar, translated from the Dutch original Atjèh en de oorlog met Japan (1949) (‘s-Gravenhage/Bandung: N.V. Uitgeverij W. van Hoeve; English edition), Glossary and Chapter VII §§ 2–4.