Westerling On the Road to Massacre

FIVE parachutists jumped from an Allied plane and landed on the airfield of Medan. There, several Japanese had been waiting for them to make sure the guests didn't possess any arms. The five parachutists were then followed by the dispatch of several containers, half of which contained weapons while the rest had logistics inside. However, one of the parachutes failed to open. The commander's eyes were fixed on the sky as he anxiously hoped that the troubled container wouldn’t cause any problem with the Japanese. Soon afterwards, the container crashed into the ground.

"At the shock of landing, the container broke. There was an explosion of cigarettes. I breathed again," said the commander in his memoir, Challenge to Terror.

That commander was Raymond Westerling. He wasn't yet a captain in the squad, but an English officer, whose rank was a captain, was only a second-in-command. "Because of my special training and my nationality, in practice I was chief of the team," said Westerling.

The special force unit was tasked with "clearing the way" for the landing of Allied troops. World War II had just ended, and as agreed in the Potsdam Agreement in Berlin on August 2, 1945, the Allies would disarm and repatriate the Japanese army and take over their previously occupied territories. "The first Allied soldiers to enter Sumatra after the Japanese capitulation were a team of five parachutists who were dropped at Medan, in north-east Sumatra, to prepare the way for the Allied landings," said Westerling.

Westerling seemed to really enjoy his assignment. In his memoir, he praised the beauty of Medan and its surroundings. "I found it a charming place, with many handsome villas set in brilliant flower-gardens," he recalled.

His joy is understandable, as it was his first deployment after several failed attempts to be sent to the front line of World War II fighting in mainland Europe. After attending a series of commando training courses in Scotland, Westerling dreamed of fighting on the front lines against Nazi Germany. However, the duty given to him wasn't to fight, but to carry out the transfer of power after the war subsided.

After being preceded by the special forces under Westerling's command, a group of Allied soldiers led by Brigadier General T.E.D. Kelly officially arrived in Medan on October 9, 1945. The group of Allied soldiers consisted of an artillery unit, an administrative unit, a Punjab regiment, an Indian infantry brigade, two Rajput regiments, and two Frontier Force Rifles units. The number of Allied troops in Medan increased with the arrival of the second group on January 5, 1946.

The presence of Allied troops had a big impact on the Dutch people in Medan. "The arrival of the Allied troops, who were considered to be protecting the Dutch, made the Dutch people brave enough to organize provocations," wrote Tengku Luckman Sinar in Denyut Nadi Revolusi Indonesia (The Pulse of the Indonesian Revolution). Luckman is a historian and a descendant of the noble family of the Deli Sultanate who was affected by the social revolution in East Sumatra in 1946.

Counterespionage

Until today, Inna Dharma Deli Hotel still stands majestically at the heart of Medan. Despite some additions to the building, the original part of the hotel that was established in 1898 is still intact. Previously called Mijn De Boer, the hotel is more familiarly known as Hotel De Boer, a top-tier hotel where King Leopold II from Belgium stayed during his visit to Medan.

Westerling stayed in the hotel during his service in Medan, while at the same time establishing another headquarters located at "Pension Wilhelmina" on Jalan Bali (now Jalan Veteran), 20 minutes from Inna Dharma Deli Hotel. The "Pension Wilhelmina" headquarters was used by Dutch ex-KNIL (the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army) soldiers recruited by Westerling to be part of the NICA army.

After arriving in Medan, Westerling immediately established contact with former KNIL soldiers. He was also directly involved in freeing Dutch prisoners and suppressing guerrillas from the Republican side. Apart from Westerling, Lieutenant Brondgeest and Lieutenant Claessens, two Dutch officers who arrived with the Allied forces, also gathered former KNIL soldiers to be recruited as NICA soldiers. According to Luckman, their headquarters was located at Hotel Siantar in Pematangsiantar.

Westerling also served as head of the Dutch Counterespionage Service in Medan whose job was to organize a secret service that covered half of Sumatra Island. The day after arriving, Westerling immediately took a walk through Medan. "Since he was an espionage officer, he dressed normally," Muhammad Tuk Wan Haria, an independence war veteran, told Historia. Tuk Wan had seen Westerling in Medan before.

To take control of the city before the arrival of the Allied forces, Westerling formed a native police force, which initially only had a few personnel with less weaponry, but continued to grow as local people were constantly recruited. The unit frequently carried out ambushes against the guerrillas, which they had no choice but to do because their requests for weapons to the Japanese were never granted.

"This indirect disarming of the Japanese worked excellently. The terrorists got the weapons from the Japanese and we got them from the terrorists," said Westerling.

Counter-guerrilla Militia

Westerling used those who were against the Republic to secure the city by recruiting them as spies. "I had my spies in the different groups and they reported to me on the state of mind of the bandits," said Westerling.

Based on information from these spies, one afternoon, by his own admission to a British officer who was with the Allied forces, Westerling entered a guerrilla’ house. As soon as the guerrilla came home, he immediately captured him, put him in the bathroom and fed him. In a flash, Westerling slit the guerrilla's throat completely. He then showed the head to an English officer whom he met at the Hotel De Boer.

These brutal acts were not only committed by Westerling, but also by his men, former KNIL soldiers, who lived at the "Pension Wilhelmina" headquarters. On October 13, 1945, a young man named Abdul Wahid Marbun was beaten by KNIL soldiers because he refused to remove the red-and-white badge on his chest.

For this story, Medan historian Nasrul Hamdani told another version: Wahid refused to follow the order of the KNIL soldiers to swallow the red-and-white badge he was wearing. Wahid managed to escape and told about the incident to the other youths such as L.F. Hutapea and Abdul Manaf Lubis.

"On the same day, many youths and merchants attacked the Pension Wilhelmina boarding house," said Muhammad Tuk Wan.

When NICA replaced the Allies, Pao An Tui became more aggressive. Not all Chinese were happy with the presence of PAT.

During the clash, a man in an arriving jeep suddenly opened fire on the youths and merchants. That man, according to Muhammad Tuk Wan, was Westerling. As a result of the conflict, seven KNIL soldiers, a captain named Groenenberg, and two Swiss nationals were killed. The number of injured victims was 99, including three women. On the Indonesian side, the number of casualties was uncertain, but the incident killed at least six Acehnese. Brigadier General T.E.D. Kelly subsequently issued an edict on October 18 prohibiting people from owning and using firearms. In the same edict, the Allies instructed the surrender of weapons owned by guerrillas. Over time, the situation was getting out of control as conflicts were increasingly frequent.

The Chinese were the ones most affected by the revolution in Medan. The Republicans' suspicion of them was so excessive that almost all Chinese were labeled as Dutch spies. In his research, historian Nasrul Hamdani said many Chinese were subjected to crimes in the name of patriotism and to accusations of being Dutch henchmen.

To solve this, the Allies ultimately allowed the formation of the Chinese Security Corps (CSC), or as the Medan Chinese called it, Pao An Tui (PAT) on January 1, 1946. Headquartered at Wai Yat Hotel, the militia was led by Lim Seng, a former Chung Hua Chung Hui administrator in Medan. The PAT functioned more as village watchmen and only operated within the demarcation line (known as Fixed Boundaries Medan Area). However, when NICA replaced the Allies, PAT became more aggressive. Together with KNIL soldiers, the thousand-strong militia supported by Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party of China) continued to patrol every two to five days in search of guerrillas. In every important corner of the city, there was a post occupying Chinese houses.

PAT personnel frequently conducted searches, including of Chinese shops. Not all Chinese were happy with the presence of PAT, who were notorious for being cruel to leftist Chinese to ensure that there were no guerrillas hiding there. Coordination between PAT and Dutch forces remained intensive. During an operation in Deli Tua on December 11, 1946, the PAT ransacked people's houses, seized people's belongings, and interrogated those who were captured. The arrested guerrillas had to face a life-and-death situation. The thicket on Jalan Tempel, Deli, became a place of execution as well as graves for the intruders and troublemakers.

Westerling himself killed several guerrillas in Medan. Apart from slaughtering a guerrilla in his house, according to his own admission, he also slit the throat of a guerrilla named Terakan (possibly Tarigan). Westerling did that after a British officer approached him and said that the British troops had trouble capturing him. Westerling bet he could do it in 24 hours, and he was right. After finding Terakan in his hut, Westerling's sword immediately slashed his victim's neck. There were four Republican guerrillas who met their unfortunate death at the hands of Westerling.

"By doing so, I put an end to their crimes, which had hundreds of innocent victims," said Westerling.

The atrocities of NICA-PAT terrified many local people. Governor of Sumatra Mr. Teuku Muhammad Hasan was actually against the establishment of the PAT from the beginning, as he considered PAT to be overstepping his authority as the official security guard. PAT-NICA clashes against paramilitary units were also frequent, and battle after battle continued from the end of October 1945 until the end of revolution in 1949.

Westerling had left Sumatra way before the revolution ended. He first thought his duty in Sumatra would end with the landing of Allied forces in October 1945, but he only left the "Golden Island" on July 26, 1946.

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