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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the communist movement on both sides of the border in Sarawak and West Kalimantan around 1965 when the September Thirtieth Movement (abortive coup) took place in Jakarta. The people in Sarawak were seeking independence and opposed to being integrated into the Federation of Malaysia in the first half of the 1960s. However, after the September Thirtieth Movement, the communist movement in Sarawak started losing support both domestically and internationally (especially support from Indonesia). Nevertheless, even with the persecution by Suharto’s army, the Sarawak guerrillas and the Indonesian Communist Party in West Kalimantan cooperated in their struggle for a few years after 1965. This situation was aided by the remoteness of these areas from the centers of the nation-states (Malaysia and Indonesia) and also by the cooperation between the guerrillas and the local Chinese in West Kalimantan.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Resona Foundation for Asia and Oceania under grant number 2602.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In the early hours of 1 October 1965, a small group of conspirators in the Indonesian Army abducted and murdered six high-ranking generals, and they stated that they had acted to safeguard President Sukarno from a coup planned by right wingers. However, that day, Major General Suharto commenced counter operations to crush the movement, and suppressed it in a day.
2. In the hinterland of West Kalimantan and Sarawak, the Chinese community had been engaged in gold mining since the second half of the eighteenth century.
3. Lin, Xijia fengyun.
4. Such as Cai, Nuhai yangfan; Gan, Shalayue zuoyi; Lu, Ranshao de suiyue; Lu, Manman qiusuo lu; Luo, Shayin Bianjie fengyun; and Yang, Siliaman xingdong shimo.
5. Lu, Manman qiusuo lu.
6. Hendropriyono, Operasi Sandi Yudha.
7. Yamamoto, Datsu shokuminchi ka, 73–6.
8. Ibid., 272–8.
9. Azahari went to Indonesia at the time of the revolution and was very impressed by the Indonesian independence.
10. Suzuki, “Surutan omaru ari saifuddin.”
11. Hara, Mikan ni owatta, 104–5.
12. James Brooke was awarded the title of Raja (king) by the sultan of Brunei because of distinguished service of quashing the revolt of Sarawak against the domination of Brunei. Thereafter, a member of royalty did not recognize this and declared war against Brooke. Brooke cooperated with the British army and controlled the power of this royal family and attained sovereignty over Sarawak. In the end, the Brooke family ruled Sarawak for three generations just before the Japanese occupation.
13. Tamura, “Mareshia renpou ni okeru,” 10–11.
14. Yuan, Chinese Democracies; Somers Heidhues, Golddiggers, Farmers, and Traders, 48–84.
15. Somers Heidhues, Goldiggers, Farmers, and Traders, 23–7.
16. Hara, Mikan ni owatta, 167.
17. Tan, Indonesian Confrontation and Sarawak, 131.
18. Ibid., 150.
19. Ibid., 151. Radio Sarawak was established in 1954, using short wave, broadcasting in English, Malay, Chinese, and Iban languages. Apart from scattering leaflets from the sky, using radio broadcasts to persuade guerrillas in the jungle to surrender was conducted for the first time in Malay Peninsula under proclamation of the state of emergency at the beginning of the 1950s. See Kibata, Teikoku no Tasogare, 206–7.
20. Tan, Indonesian Confrontation and Sarawak, 151.
21. Ibid., 151.
22. Ibid., 169.
23. Hendropriyono, Operasi Sandi Yudha.
24. Lu, Manman qiusuo lu, 97–8
25. Ibid., 327.
26. Tamura, Taminzoku kokka singaporu.
27. Suzuki, “Gureta mareshia 1961–1967,” 142.
28. Lu, Manman qiusuo lu, 104–5. The original text was written in Chinese.
29. Interview with ex-guerrillas of North Kalimantan People’s Army, Sibu, 22 December 2013.
30. Davidson et al., “Indonesia’s Unknown War,” 57.
31. Ibid.
32. Darul Islam movement was the long-term revolt against Sukarno’s government in the 1950s–1960s, insisting on the Islamic state in the Indonesian region. This movement destabilized the domestic situation at that time.
33. Davidson et al., “Indonesia’s Unknown War,” 61. The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI) was established by politicians who were against left leaning Sukarno in Bukittinggi in the central part of Sumatra Island in 1958. However, Sukarno’s Indonesian army quashed it quickly.
34. Ibid.
35. This is a compound word by Sukarno derived from Indonesian words, nasionalisme, agama, and komunisme, that is, nationalism, religion, and communism, respectively. This ideology emphasizes the integration of these matters as motto of Indonesian politics.
36. Interveiw (anonymous), a participant of the guerrilla activity in West Kalimantan, Bandung, 5 February 2011.
37. Interview (anonymous), a participant of the guerrilla activity in West Kalimantan, Bandung, 4 February 2011.
38. Lin, Xijia fengyun, 70.
39. Ibid., 68–71.
40. Davidson et al., “Indonesia’s Unknown War.”
41. Hara, Mikan ni owatta, 69.
42. The Indonesian Communist Party led by Sofyan became active at the beginning of the 1960s with support of local Chinese community.
43. Lin, Xijia fengyun, 68.
44. Ibid., 69.
45. Interview with A Khiong, Singkawang, 28 December 2011.
46. Lin, Xijia fengyun, 69.
47. The memoir of Buntoro in Ibid., 147–82.
48. The memoir of He Ping (nom de plume) in Ibid., 184–7.
49. Ibid., 70.
50. Davidson et al., “Indonesia’s Unknown War,” 62–3.
51. Lin, Xijia fengyun, 77.
52. The memoir of Mr. Buntoro in Ibid., 147–82.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Interview with Phiong Lip Kiu, Kali Asin (near from Singkawang city), 6 July 2012.
56. Lin, Xijia fengyun, 108.
57. Ibid., 54–5.
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Toshio Matsumura
Toshio Matsumura, PhD, is a research associate at Waseda University, Institute for Asia-Pacific Studies (WIAPS), Tokyo. For his doctorate he focused on the Chinese community in Indonesia and wrote his dissertation on the history of the Chinese in West Kalimantan based on his own field research.