“Strange, a country without an army,” Oerip Soemohardjo
muttered, the words hanging in the humid air like a death sentence. The taste
of unease coated his tongue as he sat in his KNIL uniform, the fabric suddenly
feeling foreign against his skin. His mind churned with the impossible
contradiction—how in God’s name could a nation declare independence without men
ready to bleed for it?
The year was 1945, and Indonesia was a newborn baby
screaming in a hospital where all the doctors had fled. Oerip knew—hell, even
the lizards clinging to the ceiling knew—there were at least two damned good
reasons they needed a military, and they needed it yesterday.
First off, the wolves were circling. Not one pack, but
three: Japanese soldiers with nowhere to go but still armed to the teeth; NICA
troops riding the coattails of Allied forces, their Dutch commanders licking
their chops at the thought of reclaiming their colonial prize; and worst of
all, the cancer of internal conflict spreading through the nation’s vital
organs.
Second, Christ, the militias. They were everywhere, like
ants at a summer picnic. Local boys with homemade weapons and store-bought
courage, fighting without strategy, without command, without hope. These ragtag
bands were like loaded guns in the hands of toddlers—dangerous to everyone,
especially themselves.
On October 5, 1945, Sukarno’s voice crackled through radio
speakers across the newborn nation. The proclamation came not with thunder, but
with the desperate pragmatism of a man who knew the house was burning: “To
strengthen public confidence, the People’s Security Army (TKR) is established.”
Oerip Soemohardjo found himself Chief of Staff of this
infant army. It was like being handed the keys to a car still rolling off the
assembly line, missing half its parts, with the dealership on fire.
* * *
Remember the ‘80s flick Naga Bonar? Sure you do. That
pickpocket from Medan who woke up one morning and decided, what the hell, I’m a
general now? He wasn’t alone in that particular brand of madness.
Picture the scene: Naga Bonar and his boys sitting around,
divvying up military ranks like Halloween candy. Murad gets colonel. Barjo gets
lieutenant colonel. Lukman gets major. Then there’s poor Bujang, standing in
the corner, hat in hand.
“What about Bujang?” someone asks.
Lukman snorts. “He carries chairs and tends the horse. Make
him a corporal.”
But Naga Bonar—even thieves have their loyalties—won’t hear
of it. “How about sergeant?”
Lukman’s face darkens. “Nowhere in the history of any
military in the world has anyone been promoted twice in five minutes.”
Oh, but this wasn’t Hollywood fantasy. This was Indonesia in
the throes of revolution, where reality often made fiction look reasonable by
comparison.
* * *
The real-life Naga Bonar was a jengkol and vegetable peddler
named Timur Pane. Before independence turned the world upside down, he’d been
picking pockets at Pasar Sambu in Medan, just another street tough with quick
fingers and quicker lies.
When independence came, Pane found his true calling in
chaos. He gathered around him the worst elements of society—thieves, con men,
thugs—and called it the Flying State Militia. Later, he’d upgrade this merry
band of miscreants to the Marsose Brigade. And himself? Why, Major General
Timur Pane, of course.
The man had the audacity of a demon at Sunday service. He
strutted around in a uniform heavy with imaginary honors, extorting a cool ƒ120
million per month from Governor S.M. Amin. His threat was simple and direct:
pay up, or I’ll paint the streets red.
Major General Suhardjo Hardjowardjojo—a man with a
legitimate claim to his rank—watched this circus with mounting fury. But Pane
was unmovable, clutching his self-bestowed rank like a child with a stolen toy.
They finally lured him with the oldest bait in the
book—legitimacy. Integrate his “brigade” into the real army, they said. Command
the Sumatra Command’s Assault Legion, they promised.
Then came July 27, 1947. The Dutch came ashore at Pantai
Cermin with 500 men, their boots heavy on Indonesian soil. Mohammad Hatta
called upon Timur Pane’s legion to hold the line at Lubukpakam.
Remember how Pane had boasted he could reclaim Medan from
the Dutch in 24 hours? When the moment of truth arrived, his troops scattered
like roaches when the kitchen light flicks on.
By 1948, when Hatta introduced the Reorganization and
Rationalization policy, Pane’s paper empire crumbled. His precious rank, his
identity, his power—all stripped away like bark from a dead tree.
* * *
A.H. Nasution, writing years later, would reveal the twisted
truth of those early days. This newborn nation, still wet behind the ears,
somehow had to sustain more than half a million soldiers and militias. Among
them, sixty men who called themselves “general.”
Sixty generals. In any other context, it would be a
punchline.
The explosion of brass wasn’t just ego run amok—though God
knows there was plenty of that. It was the inevitable result of a system with
no system, where power grew from the barrel of a gun and whoever commanded the
most men made the rules.
Nasution told a story once, the kind that makes you laugh
until you realize it’s not funny at all. A sergeant major—just imagine some
sweaty, overweight middle-aged man with bad teeth and worse ambition—“donated”
a few car tires to a general. Tires were gold in those days, black rubber more
valuable than black gold.
In the blink of an eye, that sergeant major leapfrogged up
the chain of command. No tests. No training. No time served. Just the
miraculous alchemy of rubber into rank.
Compare that to the KNIL, where officers spent decades
climbing the ladder. Twenty years to make major. Twelve years to make captain.
Seven to ten years just to pin on the single bar of a first lieutenant.
The contrast was stark as a lightning flash against
midnight: on one side, a colonial military where rank was earned through years
of service and oceans of sweat; on the other, a revolutionary army where rank
could be claimed, bestowed, or purchased like produce at a market stall.
Was it any wonder the early TKR resembled a house of cards
in a hurricane?
And yet, somehow, against all odds and logic, this
imperfect, improvised army would eventually coalesce into something real. The
chaos would find order. The pretenders would fall away. The true warriors would
emerge.
But that’s another story, for another dark night.
Comments
Post a Comment