Belawan

Properties2
tagsplace, harbour, colonial, dutch, east-coast-sumatra, buitenbezittingen, aceh, areo-baai-plannen
aliasesBelawan-Deli, Belawan Deli, Belawan haven, the harbour of Belawan, Belawan oceaanhaven

5 min read

Belawan (also rendered Belawan-Deli) was the principal harbour of the East Coast of Sumatra residency — the anchorage at the mouth of the Deli river that served the city of Medan and the surrounding Deli plantation district. In the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913, Belawan appears as one of the two principal commercial opponents of the project to develop Arube Bay as a deep-water harbour — together with Pangkalan Brandan. The Belawan trade feared that the development of Arube Bay would be “a threat to the long-cherished wish: Belawan oceaanhaven for the deepest ships” (Belawan oceaanhaven voor de diepste schepen).

Account from De Buitenbezittingen (1917) — Belawan

The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of Belawan appears principally in the chapter on the Atjeh-tramway’s Aroe-baai-plannen. The Bureau’s narrative of the commercial conflict over the 1913 extension plans notes that “the defenders of the development of the Belawan-haven strove in vain against the Aroe-baai-plan, which was of evident interest to the whole gouvernement Atjeh and was maintained, even when, in place of Belawan-Deli, the equally inadequate roadstead of Pangkalan Brandan was put forward as the desired terminus of the Atjeh-tram.”

The Bureau’s framing of the Belawan-Deli trade as the principal commercial opponent of the Aroe-baai-plannen places the Belawan interest at the centre of the wider conflict between the Atjeh residency and the East Coast commercial establishment. The Belawan trade feared that the development of Arube Bay would threaten the long-cherished project to develop Belawan itself as an oceaanhaven (ocean port) for the deepest ships — a project that the Bureau’s account treats as a long-cherished but unrealised aspiration of the East Coast commercial interest.

The Bureau’s account of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij’s network also identifies Belawan-Deli as the maritime anchorage at the northern terminus of the original 1888 spoorweg: “the original aanleg was completed in 1888, and was confined to a lijntje from the ankerplaats Belawan-Deli via Medan to Deli-Toea, with a zijlijntje to Timbang-Langkat (Bindjai).”

Significance

Belawan is, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the principal harbour of the East Coast of Sumatra and one of the two principal commercial opponents of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913 — together with Pangkalan Brandan. The Belawan interest’s fear that the development of Arube Bay would threaten the long-cherished project to develop Belawan itself as an oceaanhaven places the Aroe-baai-plannen in the context of the wider commercial rivalry between the Atjeh and East Coast residencies for control of the northern Sumatran export trade.

Account from DLP-84-Atjeh — Atjehhaven and the 1935 trade statistics

The DLP-84-Atjeh pamphlet frames Belawan as the principal seaport of Sumatra’s East Coast (Dutch: Sumatra’s Oostkust, abbreviated S.O.K.), situated near the city of Medan and functioning de facto as the largest Atjehhaven (Aceh harbour) for the neighbouring residency of Atjeh. In the early twentieth century, Belawan served as the main outlet for the export of plantation products — rubber, palm oil and sisal — handling the majority of the maritime commercial traffic for Acheh due to its superior port facilities and integration into the plantation economy.

Belawan’s harbour facilitated the movement of commodities to Buiten Indië (outside the Indies) and linked Aceh’s economy to global markets. The value of exports from the interior regions of the S.O.K. was often overstated, because a large share of the products originating from or destined for Acheh passed through Belawan rather than local Acehnese ports.

Despite Acheh possessing its own coastline, the region increasingly oriented its import and export economy through the S.O.K. and Belawan. By 1935, colonial statistics indicated that more than one-third (1/3) of Acheh’s total imports and one-quarter (1/4) of its total exports passed through Belawan. In 1935, the total import value for Acheh was ƒ 2,280,000, and the total export value was ƒ 4,198,000 — a significant portion of which transited through Belawan rather than local Acehnese ports, cementing the harbour’s role as the economic gateway for the region.

Account from J. Roest (1916) — Belawan’s dredging success and the end of the great Aru Bay design

J. Roest’s article De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (1916) — the sequel of his own earlier piece Belawanhaven en Atjeh-tram in the December 1912 issue of the same journal — gives Belawan’s place in the whole plan: it was on the assumption that the dredging in the Belawan channel would fail that the government had designed the whole Atjehtram and picked the future ocean harbour of the East Coast on the Aru Bay, as the then Chief Inspector of Railways Van Stipriaan Luïscius openly declared to the direction of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij.

In connection with the advices of the engineers Kraus and De Jongh and the hopeful first results reached with the suction dredger Java for the deepening of the Belawan channel, the originally grand harbour plan at Telok Taboehan was set aside in 1915: what had been the Government’s ocean-port alternative to Belawan fell away, and Roest’s article — written as the work at Belawan prospered — closes the decade of the debate with his own judgement “a fair chance” given to the Aru Bay.

See Also

Sources

De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), pp. 69-72 (section “De Atjeh-tram”), p. 71 (section “De Spoor- en Tramwegen ter Oostkust van Sumatra”).

DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf, p. 10.

DLP-84-Atjeh.pdf (Part 5 of 5), p. 16. Centrale Boekerij Kon. Inst. v.d. Tropen, Amsterdam.

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