Joed Mohmed Lamtengah was an elderly Acehnese man who, according to H. van Kol speaking in the Tweede Kamer on 17 November 1897, had shortly before been carried outside on a bali-bali — a low bamboo platform-bed — and then shot dead.
The allegation
Van Kol’s words were: “Nog kort geleden werd een oude man Joed Mohmed Lamtengah op een bali-bali naar buiten gedragen en toen doodgeschoten.” — Quite recently an old man, Joed Mohmed Lamtengah, was carried outside on a bali-bali and then shot dead. The sentence closed his catalogue of specific atrocities, which he summed up in the words “In één woord, ons oorlogvoeren bestaat in branden en zengen, in moorden en verwoesten.” — In one word, our waging of war consists in burning and scorching, in murdering and destroying.
The source gives no date, no place beyond the toponymic element Lamtengah in the name, and no indication of the unit or officer responsible. The prefix lam- is among the commonest Acehnese topographic prefixes and identifies the kampong from which the man took his designation.
Context
The case was one of a series Van Kol adduced as breaches of the international law of war as codified at the Conference of Brussels of 1874, which forbade the killing of an enemy hors de combat and of one powerless to defend himself. The others were the shooting of Njahim, the treacherous arrests of the Radja van Samalangan, the head of Bintara Peunang and Toekoe Njak Amat, the taking of the daughter of Wakil Joesoef as a hostage, and the killing of Toekoe Tjoet Machmoed Lam Tenzah with his family.
See Also
- Atrocities in the Aceh War as alleged in the Tweede Kamer (1897)
- H. van Kol
- Brussels Conference of 1874
- Njahim
- Toekoe Tjoet Machmoed Lam Tenzah
- Bali-bali
- 1897
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, p. 64.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.