A Day of Terror in Rengat

THE day had just dawned over Rengat, the capital of Indragiri Regency, Riau Province, on the central eastern coast of Sumatra. That morning, at around 6, Junior Lieutenant Wasmad Rads, a TNI soldier from Battalion III Regiment IV Division IX Banteng Sumatra was taking his morning walk around the town.

All of a sudden, a pair of red-painted planes flew low from the southeast of Rengat. Those P-51 Mustang bomber fighters had three colors painted on their fuselage: Red, White, and Blue.

The Dutch had come to attack.

"They dropped bombs on the streets, the market square where people gathered, and on people' houses. They even shot at people standing on the ground," Wasmad Rads recalled in his memoir Lagu Sunyi dari Indragiri (Song of Silence from Indragiri).

In no time, a barrage of bullets rained down all over the city. Army headquarters, markets, residential neighborhoods and other civilian bases were hit by the red-nose fighters from the air. That day, 5 January 1949, was recorded as a bloody day in Rengat. Until now, every year the people of Rengat commemorate it as a day of mourning.

Spilling Blood, Extracting Oil

The airstrike lasted until almost noon. However, the suffering of the people of Rengat was not yet over. A moment later, seven Dakota transport planes carrying 180 Dutch special forces (Korps Speciale Troepen/KST) were dispatched to occupy Rengat.

The parachute operation, code-named Mud Operation, took place at 11am with a landing point in the swampy area around Kampung Sekip (Sekip Village). The leader of the Green Beret troops was Lieutenant Rudy de Mey, who was a trusted compatriot of Captain Raymond Westerling, the former KST commander.

According to the book Sejarah Daerah Riau (History of the Riau Region) published by the Department of Education and Culture in 1987, there were two motives behind the Dutch military offensive in Rengat. Firstly, according to the Dutch intelligence service (NEFIS), the Indonesian army’s base in Indragiri was the strongest in Riau. In addition, there was a weapon factory located in the Air Molek area, west of Rengat. Since the first military aggression, the Dutch had seized Indonesian motorboats loaded with weapon supplies from that area several times. The second reason was none other than the presence of an oil refinery in the Lirik Village, north of Rengat. Oil was a very important resource for the Dutch war machine to continue its penetration into the hinterland of Sumatra.

When the KST paratroopers landed in Rengat, the Republican army's defenses were not as strong as NEFIS had expected, mainly due to the Reorganization and Rationalization (Re-Ra) policy of the army in 1948.

However, Jaap de Moor in Westerlings Oorlog (Westerling’s war) said, De Mey faced fierce resistance from Indonesian soldiers who tried to escape from Rengat. The shootout claimed victims, not only combatants but also civilians, especially women and children.

Rengat was like a dead city back then. The Indragiri River was red from the blood of the fallen soldiers and civilians.

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On the other hand, the Indragiri Hulu Regency government revealed that the Dutch soldiers in camouflage uniforms infiltrated the city center in a short time. The government centers were all controlled. The occupation of Rengat was followed by the arrest and massacre of the people.

"The paratroopers wiped out everything that moved. Soldiers and civilians who were hiding under culverts or waterlogged ditches were shot dead. The murky ditch water turned red," the book Peristiwa 5 Januari 1949 di Kota Rengat Indragiri Riau (The Events of 5 January 1949 in the City of Rengat Indragiri Riau), edited by Suwardi, mentioned.

Wasman Rads explained in his memoirs that those caught by the Dutch troops were gathered and lined up on the banks of the Indragiri River. Then, one by one, they were shot from behind until they fell into the water. Wasmad himself managed to escape into the forest, before eventually being captured by a squad of KNIL soldiers and imprisoned until the recognition of Indonesia's sovereignty.

By late afternoon, the remaining people were forced to throw the dead bodies strewn across the city streets into the Indragiri River. The systematic killing was continuing. One person held the hands, another held the feet. On the count of three, the corpse was thrown in, followed by bullets targeting the two living people, making all of them fall into the river to their death.

One of the civilians who became victims was Tulus, the regent of Indragiri. Tulus, father of poet Chairil Anwar, was killed when his house was raided by Dutch soldiers. Apart from Tulus, Abdul Wahab (a wedana or head of a district), Korengkeng (a police chief) and his deputy, Kasim also died in the massacre.

At 4pm, Rengat fell to the Dutch. Mrs. Miri, an eyewitness who was still a child at that time, described the 1949 incident in Rengat.

"Rengat was like a dead city back then. The Indragiri River was red from the blood of the fallen soldiers and civilians. For two months, people refused to eat river fish because they found human fingers in the fish's stomach," she told Marwoto Saiman in a research report, "Semangat Nasionalisme Rakyat Rengat" (The Spirit of Nationalism of the Rengat People) at Riau University.

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The Omitted History

The number of victims of the Dutch military operation in Rengat is still under debate. Indonesian sources from oral history and testimony claim that almost 2,000 people died. Meanwhile, Dutch's documentation in the Excessennota of 1969 believes that the total number of victims was 80 people, which was determined from an investigation by the Dutch civil government through the Riau Residency.

"However, this story of violence has no place in the national memory of either country," says Anne-Lot Hoek, historian at the University of Amsterdam, in correspondence with Historia.

Anne-Lot, who is also a journalist for the NRC Handelsblad, specifically researched the Rengat Tragedy. Before traveling to Sumatra to cover the anniversary of the Rengat Tragedy in January 2015, Anne-Lot visited the Dutch National Archives in The Hague. The Excessennota report states that the Dutch government wasn’t unaware that this was a crime against humanity.

The Dutch military even took part in the investigation on the instructions of General Simon Spoor, commander of the Dutch army in Indonesia. Spoor was apparently agitated by the rumors about the inhumane actions of his men in Rengat. The minutes of the examination contain 22 confessions from Indonesians at Kampung Sekip. The facts collected by the military police team directed by Jan-Willem Huizinga and Lambert de Lange in June 1949 unraveled brutality.

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In the NRC weekly 13-14 February 2016 edition, Anne-Lot included several stories. A woman named Waitem testified that her husband was killed in an ambush while her 24-year-old daughter was raped. Waitem herself was put into another room where a soldier began to undress her.

Another testimony revealed by a man who was hiding in a riverside hole with his 16-year-old daughter. His daughter, who was pregnant, was killed instantly when a bullet from KST troops pierced her forehead. Half an hour later, the man found his house being looted.

The report also discloses sad portraits of Rengat: a woman killed with a baby in her arms, a father killed with his three sons, and stories of people forced to dump bodies into the Indragiri River.

"However, there was no follow-up to this military investigation. The Excessennota doesn't even mention the eyewitness’ accounts," Anne-Lot said.

It is likely that the Dutch government regarded the carnage in Rengat as a "murder among Indonesians". This refers to the large number of ethnic Ambon soldiers in the KST unit who took part in the military operation to Rengat. In addition, in the second half of 1949, the Netherlands was under increasing diplomatic pressure to let Indonesia go. The war crimes, as a result, were overlooked and concealed.

On the other hand, not many residents of Rengat dared to speak out, given the ferocity of the Dutch soldiers and the residents’ fear of retaliation from the soldiers who were still on guard. From time to time, the 5 January 1949 incident was only familiar to the local residents. Nonetheless, the memory is not to be forgotten. After the Republic gained sovereignty, the name of Kampung Sekip was changed to Sekip Sipayung. Payung means umbrella, referring to the "deadly" Dutch paratroopers who set foot on Rengat and stained the land with blood.