East Kalimantan
The Decline of a Commercial Aristocracy
Burhan Magenda
Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
Monograph SeriesEast Kalimantan
The Decline of a Commercial Aristocracy
Burhan Magenda
Monograph Series
(Publication no. 70)
Cornell Modern Indonesia Project
Southeast Asia Program
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
1991©1991 Cornell Modem Indonesia Project
ISBN 0-87763-036-4
PRICE: $11.00
Typeset by Coraleen L. RooneyTable of Contents
Preface	v
1.	Geopolitics and History	1
2.	Oil and the Rise of the Kutai Aristocracy	13
3.	The Rise of Two Cities: Balikpapan and Samarinda	27
4.	The Moderates in Power and the Survival of the Aristocracy	37
5.	Pejuang in Power and the Collapse of the Aristocracy	55
6.	The Timber Boom and the Centralization of Power	69
Biographical Appendix	95
Glossary of Abbreviations	107
iii1
2
3
4
Tabi
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2
3
4
5
6
7
8
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viii
5
21
72
29
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32
50
71
82
84
84
86
87
87
Maps and Tables
Province of East Kalimantan
Cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda
City of Tenggarong
Ethnic Groups of East Kalimantan
Population of Balikpapan in 1930 according to ethnic group
Population of Tarakan in 1930 according to ethnic group
Population of Samarinda in 1930 according to ethnic group
The results of the 1955 election by kabupaten and party
Population changes in East Kalimantan
The changes in employment in timber concessions between
1969 and 1975
Indonesia’s timber exports between 1971 and 1978
Log exports from East Kalimantan 1970-1975
The income of the East Kalimantan provincial government
and the central government from timber, 1969/1970 to
1977/1978
The results of the 1971 election
The results of the 1977 election
IVPreface
In recent studies of Indonesia’s regional politics one important aspect has largely been
neglected—the role of the local aristocracies which dominated many of the regions outside
Java from the precolonial period through to the formation of the independent Republic of
Indonesia in 1949. In his work Burhan Magenda has begun to remedy this neglect. He has
studied the aristocracies in various regions of the Outer Islands from the colonial period
through into the New Order government of President Suharto. In covering their history he has
examined the strategies used by the local aristocrats to survive and attempt to continue their
domination of political power in their regions.
The focus of this present monograph is East Kalimantan, where the local aristocracy was
commercial in nature, tracing its origin back to the establishment of a “spice trade” route in
the sixteenth century. The decline in the nineteenth century of the main harbor principality
of Borneo, Banjarmasin on the south coast, opened the way for other states on the island to play
a greater role, in particular the sultanate of Kutai in eastern Borneo.
In the harbor principalities, the commercial aristocracies stood at the top of the social
pyramid and dominated important positions in the states, from the Sultan down to lesser levels.
Their main source of power was the wealth they acquired from their trading activities and their
monopoly of force. As trade flourished, arms were easily purchased from the Western powers,
and the mercenaries, hired by these aristocracies and using these arms, came to occupy the
second stratum in the social structure—in Kutai made up largely of Buginese adventurers.
The harbor principalities did not exercise actual authority over the interior people of
Kalimantan, controlling only the market and contact with the outer world. The power base of
the aristocracies of these commercial states also remained largely independent of the peoples
of the interior, unreliant on the surplus agricultural accumulation there, since the harbor states
could acquire wealth through their trade activities. This independence, however, did leave the
aristocrats without any foundation of population support outside their own mercenaries and
slaves.
After the Dutch consolidated their power during the nineteenth century the local commer-
cial aristocracies of East Kalimantan granted Dutch companies oil concessions, and in return
benefited in terms of military protection and commissions. When the Netherlands expanded
its bureaucracy into the Outer Islands in the 1910s, although many of the upper echelons were
staffed byJavanese priyayi, Dutch colonial officials in East Kalimantan based appointments
to the bureaucracy there more on the candidates’ standing in the local aristocratic hierarchy
than on their educational qualifications. This administrative corps thus became the bastion of
the local aristocrats.
Because of its cooperation with the colonial power, in particular the close relationship of
Kutai’s Sultan Parikesit with the Dutch, it has been more difficult for East Kalimantan’saristocracy than for that of some other regions to continue its traditional role in the post-
independence period. Nevertheless, members of the aristocracy continued to form an
important part of the local bureaucracy which was transformed into the provincial civil service
after the establishment of the unitary Indonesian state in early 1950, thereby maintaining the
aristocrats’ importance in, if not dominance of the local government. In the early 1960s the
Kutai aristocracy lost much of its power at the hands of a coalition consisting mostly of
Javanese officers and the Banjarese civilians who had led the Republican movement against
the Dutch during the independence struggle. However, under the post-1965 New Order
government of President Suharto, the aristocracy has made a partial recovery within the
bureaucracy and the leadership of the officially sponsored centrally directed government
party—Golkar.
Burhan Magenda’s well documented study opens a new perspective of fundamental
importance to our understanding of both the past and current political and economic
development of East Kalimantan and of its relationship with the central power in Jakarta. It
provides an illuminating analysis of strategies by which members of the aristocracy have
succeeded in surviving under widely varying conditions. Clearly, despite the challenges they
have encountered over the past 45 years, these aristocrats have shown a surprising political
resilience.
Audrey Kahin
Ithaca, August 1991
viMap 1. Province of East Kalimantan. Source: Indonesia, no. 35 (1983).
vuiChapter l
Geopolitics and History
The province of East Kalimantan has a total land area of 221,400 square kilometers.1
Approximately 80 percent of this, or about 17.3 million hectares, consists of forests. The
Kapuas Hulu and Muller mountains physically separate East Kalimantan province from
its neighbors on the island of Borneo, and largely preclude development of effective trans-
regional communication. The province itself is extremely mountainous with low-lying land
scarce and mostly located along the banks of rivers. Alluvial plains also form a narrow
belt along the 500 miles of the East Kalimantan coast. Many small and large rivers originate
in the mountainous interior. The profusion of mountains and rivers has had a marked impact
on the distribution of the population and patterns of communication. The location of flat
land primarily near the rivers has meant that the focus of settlement has been riverine.
Moreover, because of the difficulties of traveling overland, rivers have provided the main,
and sometimes only, line of communication between the various towns and human settlements
of East Kalimantan. Indeed, to this day, almost no roads exist, the longest single road
stretching only about 125 kilometers.2 Hence, major towns and large settlements were
established at the mouths of rivers navigable by large ships from the outside world. These
river setdements later became the largest population centers in the whole province.3 Accordingly,
we find that the major towns of Samarinda, Tenggarong, Balikpapan, Tanah Grogot, Tanjung
Redeb, and Rangjung Selor all lie at the mouths of long rivers which originate deep in
the interior. (See Map 1, “Province of East Kalimantan,” for the locations of important
towns.)
Though it is easier to travel by river than by land, river communication is by no means
always easy. An American explorer, William Krohn, noted in 1927 that “much of the
course had to be chosen at the moment without any such tangible guide marking the way.
As we shifted from one side of the river to the other, I thought we were simply doing
so as the result of some inexplicable ‘hunch’ on the part of the captain. For example,
I noticed that we always chose as the ship’s course the side of the river where the nipa
palms were growing on the bank to the very water’s edge. It was explained that it was
because the nipa palms grow only near deep water, so in following them as our guide
we were in no danger of sandbars or mud-banks.”4 Moreover, it should be noted that
1	For basic data on East Kalimantan, see M. Saleh Djaya, B. Sabran, and A. Moeis Ahmad, Guide to East Kalimantan
(Samarinda: Yayasan Zamrud Nusantara Press, 1972), pp. 1-5.
2	A road was built between Samarinda and Balikpapan in 1980 and there will soon be a road connecting Samarinda
to various places in the north.
3	The main centers of population are found along the Mahakam River, from Long Iram to Samarinda.
4	See William O. Krohn, In Borneo Jungles: Among the Dyak Headhunters (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1927),
pp. 74-75.
12
river currents are quite strong for up-river sailing, and that most of the rivers of East
Kalimantan are unnavigable.
Geography has also had its impact on the indigenous political system. Since human
settlements were scattered, especially in the difficult terrain of the interior, it was hard
for any single political entity to control the whole population. The so-called “Dayak” peoples
were so divided along geographical and linguistic lines that their only commonality lay
in their differences from the coastal Malays.5
The old kingdoms of East Kalimantan were situated near the river mouths. The oldest
among them, the Kutai sultanate, was established late in the fifteenth century along the
Mahakam River. Its first capital is believed to have been in the interior, at the site of
the present-day town of Muara Muntai. It appears that the old Kutai sultanate was of the
Hindu type, resembling the Majapahit sultanate in Java.6 By the early sixteenth century,
the Kutai sultanate had its capital at the mouth of the Mahakam River, near the town
of Samarinda. The relocation of the capital reflected changing circumstances within the
old sultanate. Formerly, the sultanate had actually been a loose federation of many Dayak
communities with a Malay raja at the top. The new Kutai sultanate, on the other hand,
was a Malay sultanate par excellence, comparable to the many contemporaneous Malay
sultanates in the coastal areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Up to the nineteenth century, the Kutai sultanate’s revenues mainly came from the
taxes levied on forest products transported down the Mahakam River. The sultanate acted
as a go-between in the forest products trade. The interior Dayak peoples actually collected
the forest products which had come to play a vital role in the region’s trade, and in return,
the Kutai sultanate supplied the Dayaks with basic goods they needed, especially salt.
The forest products were then sold for cash mainly to Buginese traders who at that time
controlled the southern part of the Makassar Straits. In spite of its trade relations with
the Buginese, the Kutai sultanate was not immune from attacks by the Sulu pirates, who
dominated the northern part of the Makassar Straits prior to, and even after, the establishment
of British rule in Sabah towards the middle of the nineteenth century.7
The Buginese formed the bulk of Kutai’s armed forces. Upon their advice, the capital
of Kutai was moved again in the seventeenth century to a new town, Tenggarong, about
30 miles up the Mahakam River from Samarinda.8 By relocating the capital to the interior,
the Kutai sultanate was able to prevent the Sulu pirates from taking over their kingdom
as had happened to many small kingdoms in the northern part of East Kalimantan. Meanwhile,
the Kutai sultanate continued in its role as a middleman in the forest products trade through
the use of Buginese traders.
5	For studies on Dayak communities, see for example, Victor T. King, “Notes on Punan and Bukat in West Kalimantan,**
Borneo Research Bulletin, 6, 2 (1974); 39-42. See also Joseph Aaron Weinstock, “Land Tenure Practices of the
Swidden Cultivators of Borneo*’ (MA thesis, Cornell University, 1979). See also, Carl L. Hoffman, “The 'Wild
Punan’ of Borneo: A Matter of Economics,” in The Real and Imagined Role of Culture in Development: Case
Studies from Indonesia, ed. Michael R. Dove (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988), pp. 89-118.
6	See Aji Raden Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah Kesultanan Kutai,” (typescript in author’s possession), p. 20.
7	See James F. Warren, “Trade, Raid, Slave: The Socio Economic Patterns of the Sulu Zone, 1770-1898,” (PhD
dissertation, Australian National University, 1975), p. 23. Also J. H. Moor, Notices of the Indian Archipelago
(London: CASS, 1967), and Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Magindanao, 1860-1888: The Career of Datu Uto Buayan” (Ithaca:
Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1971).
8	See Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 16.3
Beginning in the eighteenth century, and especially after the nineteenth century, there
was a significant influx of Banjarese migrants to the Kutai sultanate. This influx reached
its peak after the dissolution of the Banjarese sultanate in 1886. Though large numbers
of Banjarese also moved to the eastern coast of Sumatra and to the various parts of Java,9
most Banjarese preferred to stay in Borneo, and so moved north. Many Banjarese settled
along the Barito River in northern Borneo, and mixed with the Maanyan and Ngaju Dayaks.
Still others settled at the mouths of the various rivers along the eastern coast of Borneo.
This influx of Banjarese migrants during the latter part of the nineteenth century had
a considerable impact on the political landscape of the Kutai sultanate. Prior to the Banjarese
influx, the sultanate had faced many difficulties in maintaining regular contacts with the
Dayak peoples in the interior. The Banjarese migrants provided the help so badly needed
by the sultanate to run its large domain. The Banjarese also settled along the Mahakam
River, establishing small towns, bringing with them their skills in trade and organization.
Indeed it was the Banjarese who established the small towns along the Mahakam River,
from Samarinda to Long Iram. While most of the Banjarese engaged in trade activities,
some were absorbed into the newly reorganized Kutai administration and became the Sultan’s
representatives in their newly established towns. Moreover, marriage between the Banjarese
traders and the women of the Kutai aristocracy was common, facilitated by their similar
Malay dialects. Only a very small portion of the Banjarese migrants, however, were in-
corporated into the Kutai administration. The majority of them remained completely outside
the immediate control of the Sultan, and resided in the towns of Samarinda and Balikpa-
pan.
In Samarinda, the former capital of the sultanate, the Banjarese built a new settle-
ment across the Mahakam River from an old Buginese settlement. When the Dutch con-
solidated their power over the Kutai sultanate, Samarinda became the seat of the Dutch
Resident for the whole East Kalimantan region. Not only did Samarinda come to have
the largest population in East Kalimantan, but its administrative status was eventually
changed, coming under direct Dutch administrative rule. In time, Samarinda became a
Banjarese city par excellence, outside the reach of the Kutai sultanate. Though many of
the colonial offices recruited Samarinda’s Banjarese as low-level officials once Samarinda
became a Dutch administrative center, most Banjarese remained engaged in trade activi-
ties. In fact, the Banjarese became the dominant traders in the region, a position once
occupied by the Buginese, who had now become sailors and fishermen. By virtue of their
contacts in Java, the Banjarese of Samarinda were in time to become the educated elite
of East Kalimantan, from which most of the bureaucracy’s officials were to be recruited.
As stated previously, the other city with a large Banjarese population was Balikpa-
pan. Prior to the end of the nineteenth century, Balikpapan was a small outpost for the
Kutai sultanate, comparable to the many little coastal towns along the Makassar Straits.
Since it was not connected to the resource-rich interior areas, its role was not that important.
The discovery of oil at the end of the nineteenth century, however, radically altered its
commercial significance, and Balikpapan quickly came to be the largest city in East
Kalimantan. As with Samarinda, most of Balikpapan’s population were Banjarese migrants
9 The Banjarese diaspora was to continue until the early twentieth century. On the east coast of Sumatra alone,
the Banjarese numbered about 30,000 persons according to the 1930 census. See Volkstelling 1930, Deel TV Sumatra
(Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1935). For an insightful analysis of Banjarmasin history, see Idwar Saleh, Sedjara
Bandjarmasin (Bandung: Balai Pendidikan Guru, 1959). A large number of Banjarese also settled in Cianjur (West
Java), Surabaya, and Lombok.4
who came early in the twentieth century. However, while the migrants to Samarinda were
mainly middle and upper class individuals from around the region of Banjarmasin, most
of the Banjarese settlers in Balikpapan came from the Hulu Sungai area, and worked as
laborers in the oilfields. Whereas Banjarese migrants in Samarinda came to dominate trade
in that city, only a few of the Banjarese migrants in Balikpapan were able to obtain ad-
ministrative jobs connected to oil production. These differences in origins, occupational
experiences, and class backgrounds had a far-reaching effect on the political development
of the Banjarese communities in Balikpapan and Samarinda.
The discovery of oil also attracted a large number of Javanese laborers to East Kalimantan.
They were brought in by the Dutch companies under contractual provisions and conditions
similar to those imposed on the Javanese laborers used on the plantations of East Sumatra.10
These Javanese laborers were not only present in the various oil-towns around Balikpapan,
such as Semboja and Sanga-sanga, but were also concentrated in the city of Balikpapan
itself. In addition to its Banjarese and Javanese inhabitants, Balikpapan also had its Buginese,
Makassarese, and Minahassan communities. The oil industry was also the economic mainstay
of these other ethnic communities. Thus, for example, while the Dutch dominated the upper
echelon of the oil companies’ hierarchy, the lower administrative staff was mostly Minahassan.
Hence, Balikpapan’s population was more ethnically heterogeneous than Samarinda’s.
Moreover, unlike Samarinda, all the various segments of the population in Balikpapan
were tied in one way or another to the oil industry.
Unlike Samarinda, Balikpapan never became a city under direct Dutch rule. The Kutai
sultanate kept Balikpapan under its control through the appointment of an assistant wedana
(district chief) for the area. Despite this formal control, communication difficulties prevented
the Sultans in Tenggarong from having effective control over Balikpapan’s population.
Moreover, the huge profits from their share of oil royalties encouraged the Sultans more
or less to surrender Balikpapan into the hands of the oil companies as a sort of “extra-
territorial” zone. Balikpapan’s ambiguous position with regard to the Kutai sultanate is
important in explaining the later emergence of a radical anti-sultanate movement among
Balikpapan’s educated elite.
Apart from Balikpapan, the oil industry built the key town of Tarakan. Tarakan is
located offshore of the Bulungan region in the northern part of East Kalimantan. It not
only houses many of the employees working the off-shore oil drills in the Makassar Straits,
but also has become an important transit port for the region. Its population is composed
of a mixture of Javanese laborers, Banjarese traders, and other outsiders. Its population
has increased so dramatically over the past decades that in 1979 it became the third largest
town in East Kalimantan, after Balikpapan and Samarinda, with a population of 40,000.n
Nevertheless, the large populations in the cities of Samarinda and Balikpapan make
these two cities the most important political arenas for regional politics in East Kalimantan.
The other East Kalimantan localities, with their own indigenous political systems, have
10	For a good discussion of the experiences of the Javanese laborers in East Sumatran plantations, see William
J. O’Malley, “Indonesia in the Great Depression: a Study of East Sumatra and Jogjakarta in the 1930s” (PhD
dissertation, Cornell University, 1977),” pp. 104-43, and AJ.S. Reid, The Blood of the People (Kuala Lumpur:
Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 40. According to Reid, the number of Javanese laborers was about 240,000
in 1929.
11	In 1980, Tarakan was given special status as a kotamadya administratif (administrative city) with the power
to govern itself while still under Bulungan*s bupati.5
Map 2. Cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda6
always been in the background, due mostly to their small populations and their geographi-
cal isolation. For example, there were four small kingdoms in the early twentieth century,
namely, Pasir, Gunung Tabur, Sambaliung, and Bulungan. Pasir was originally a Buginese
outpost located near the border with South Kalimantan. Its population was mostly a mixture
of Buginese and Banjarese traders, Bajau fishermen, and a few Arab merchants who
intermixed with the local people. Pasir had traditionally been at the center of a territorial
conflict between the Kutai sultanate, which claimed authority there with the help of some
Buginese, and the Banjarese sultanate. Although Pasir had long been under the effective
control of the Banjarese sultanate, the nineteenth century dissolution of the sultanate made
Pasir an independent kingdom.12
As was the case with Pasir, the sultanates of Gunung Tabur and Sambaliung were
created by Malay traders who imposed their authority over the Dayak of the interior. The
populations of these two sultanates were very small. In the early twentieth century, each
kingdom had less than 5,000 people under its control. The Sultans lived from trade, sometimes
by leasing trading monopolies to foreign merchants. It was in these two sultanates that
a British merchant, William Lingard, established his own authority in the nineteenth century
to an extent almost comparable to James Brooke’s rule as the “White Rajah” of Sarawak.
He was made a Pangeran (Prince) by the Sultans and was called the “Raja Laut Captain
of Berau.”13 However, unlike James Brooke, Lingard’s main interest was in the monopoly
of trade, and not in the accomplishment of territorial rule. Hence, he was granted by the
Sultans of Gunung Tabur and Sambaliung the monopoly over forest products and wax
from 1863 to 1870.14
The condition of many kingdoms on the coast of East Borneo up to the middle of
the nineteenth century has to be seen in the context of the trading and pirating activities
prevalent in the Straits of Makassar during that period. Until the partition of Borneo be-
tween the British and the Dutch in 1892, and the agreement between the Spanish and
the British in 1878 regarding the Sulu islands and North Borneo proper, the Straits of
Makassar were full of pirates. Indeed, the situation in the Makassar Straits was compa-
rable to the state of affairs in the Malacca Straits prior to the establishment of British
rule in Singapore.
In the northern part of the straits, the Taosug from Jolo and Sulu were dominant up
to the middle of the nineteenth century when they were defeated by the Spanish. There
were also small kingdoms in the Bulungan region whose leaders consisted of Tidung Malays,
Kenyah Dayaks, and Buginese chiefs and traders. These kingdoms were forced to pay
tribute to the Sultan of Sulu who often raided them in order to gain control of the river
entrances.15
12	Pasir had always been under the tripartite influence of the Buginese, the Banjarese, and the Kutai sultanate.
Only after the consolidation of Dutch power was it given its own ruler. See, for example, Djokoprawiro et al.,
“Sejarah,” p. 19 on the role of the Buginese in Pasir.
13	See Warren, “Trade,” p. 234.
14	Ibid., p. 236. For a more literary glimpse into the conditions prevalent in East Borneo during that period, see
Joseph Conrad’s two novels, Lord Jim and An Outcast of the Islands (London: John Grant, 1925). William Lingard’s
nephew, James Lingard, provided the inspiration for the creation of the main character of Lord Jim.
15	Warren, “Trade,” p. 130.7
Tarakan and Berau were the focal points of the trade that linked Kutai and Sulawesi
to Sulu. Taosugperahu came together in Tarakan before going to the mouth of the Bulungan,
Sibuco, Sambakong, and Berau rivers. At the heart of Bulungan’s trade with Sulu was
sago and rice, as well as usual forest products such as wax, birds’ nests, trepang, gold,
and some saltpeter.16 From other areas, such as the islands south of Sulawesi (Kalatoa
and Tana Jampea), as well as from Flores, Komodo, and Sumba, the Taosug raided the
surrounding indigenous communities and sold indigenous peoples as slaves to the Buginese
traders.
The Illanun people of southern Mindanao were then also famous as pirates who sold
slaves to Buginese traders from Batavia and Singapore in return for gunpowder. The Buginese
traders themselves were known for their slaving activities. They raided the interior of South
and Central Sulawesi in search of slaves for the growing markets of Batavia, Palembang,
and Singapore.
Perhaps of equal importance to the slave trade was the role played by South Sulawesi’s
aristocracy who had set up many intermediary markets along the east coast of Borneo.
The disintegration of many kingdoms in South Sulawesi after the coming to power of
Bone’s Aru Palakka around 1670 had forced many aristocrats to look outward for their
financial sustenance. The aristocracy of Wajo especially came to depend on trading activities.
They established many trading outposts on the eastern coast of Borneo where slaves came
to be a key commodity.
When the Taosug eventually withdrew from the Bulungan and Berau areas, the Buginese
filled the vacuum, especially in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Hence, while
the Taosug from the Sulu sultanate continued to dominate the northern part of the Makassar
Straits, the Buginese expanded their sphere of influence in the south. They controlled the
entrance to the Mahakam River to such a degree that only after signing a treaty with
the Dutch was the Kutai sultanate able to retrieve the powerful job of Samarinda’s syahbandar
(port master) from the Buginese punggawa (local ruler).17
At the same time, the Sultans of Bulungan, Sambaliung, and Gunung Tabur were caught
in the middle of the Buginese-Taosug rivalry. Accordingly, the three sultanates were
sometimes tributary to the Buginese, sometimes to the Taosug, and occasionally relatively
independent. To be sure, the Sultans of these petty kingdoms were by no means powerful.
They could not even control events outside their own capitals, so that raids and counter-
raids between Kenyah Dayaks and Tidung Malays over the birds’ nest trade continued
unabated for many years.
16	Ibid., p. 119. In the year of 1843, about 20,000 people were involved in the procurement of trepang. Most
of those involved in this enteiprise were Bajau Laut.
17	For an introduction to Taosug society, see Thomas M. Kiefer, The Tausug: Law and Violence in a Philippine
Moslem Society (New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1972). For the role of the Buginese in Kutai, see Warren,
“Trade,** p. 144. Kutai historians, on the other hand, tend to underplay the powerful role of the Buginese and
to present them as being at the mercy of the Kutai Sultans. See Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” pp. 16-17. It seems
that Warren’s observations regarding the role of the Buginese, however, are accurate, given the trends present
in South Sulawesi’s society at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The occupier of Samarinda was Am Paneki
of Wajo who was defeated by Arung Palakka and fled with his followers to Samarinda. After the installment of
his man, Pua Adu as the Syahbandar of Samarinda, Paneki went back to Wajo to organize an alliance with Gowa
against Bone.8
The trading enclaves of the Buginese and the Taosug on the eastern coast of Borneo
were led by commercial aristocracies very much like those of the east coast of Sumatra.
The character of these commercial aristocracies was best described by J. Zwager, who
visited the Kutai sultanate in 1853 as a representative of the Netherlands East Indies gov-
ernment. He wrote that:18
Pangeran Perbala Sari, uncle of the Sultan of Kutai, resided in Muara
Pahu. His job was to extract money with the help of his aides who were
all opium addicts. Two other uncles of the Sultan, Pangeran Anum and
Pangeran Raja Nata, rarely came to Tenggarong. They lived from monopolies
and extortion.
He also reported at length on several cases involving the killing of traders on the
orders of the aristocrats, who simply wanted to rob them of their money. His report also
mentioned his difficulty in dealing with the Sultan of Gunung Tabur who “pirated all the
perahu on the coast.”19 In fact, the Raja Muda of Gunung Tabur was even famous for
his pirating activities within his own region. He was known for seizing everything he
discovered, including even kitchen utensils.20
Thus up to the mid nineteenth century the region of the Straits of Makassar was marked
by its instability and by the violent political competition between the Taosug and the Buginese.
It was in this context that one has to see the coming of what Irwin called the “British
speculators” to the island of Borneo. They were mostly traders who were able to persuade
the local Sultans to grant them lands. Later, by obtaining monopolies over trade and mining
activities, they achieved the position of “White Rajahs,” such as Sir James Brooke in
Sarawak.21
While William Lingard established himself as “Raja Laut” of Berau, another English
trader, George Peacock King, had earlier been involved in business activities in Samarinda.
The Sultan of Kutai offered him a monopoly over customs in Samarinda, which carried
the monthly tax of 600 guilders. King refused the offer and, instead, got a concession
for coal exploitation in 1853.22
Although the Dutch were well aware of the activities of the British traders on the
eastern coast of Borneo, they could not do much to impose their own rule in that territory.
For one thing, the Dutch did not have enough warships to control the troubled waters
of the Makassar Straits. In his report to Batavia, the Dutch Assistant Resident for East
18	See his report, translated into Indonesian, “Kerajaan Kutai di Pesisir Timur Kalimantan dan halihwalnya dalam
tahun 1853,” in Sejarah Lokal di Indonesia, ed. Taufik Abdullah (Yogyakarta: Gadja Mada University Press,
1979), pp. 61-104, at pp. 68-69. Zwager later became Assistant Resident for East Kalimantan.
19	Ibid., p. 81.
20	Ibid., p. 83.
21	The best description of nineteenth century Borneo is still the one given in Graham Irwin, Nineteenth Century
Borneo: A Study in Diplomatic Rivalry (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1955), especially pp. 191-214, on the partition of
Borneo. For the history of James Brooke in Sarawak, see Robert M. Pringle, Rajahs and Rebels: The Ibans of
Sarawak Under Brooke Rule, 1841-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970).
22	See Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 50. According to Warren, King was a Bengal-born Englishman who
monopolized the rice trade of Lombok in the 1830s. He then established his headquarters in Samarinda and sent
his agents to various parts of East Borneo in the 1850s. See Warren, “Trade,” p. 234.9
Borneo, J. Zwager, wrote in 1853 that:23
the Government had only one destroyer at its disposal which was sta-
tioned in Makassar. It was impossible to sail along the eastern coast of
Borneo because of bad weather and insecurity, with that destroyer. The
people of East Borneo did not see the presence of this destroyer as a
protector for them. They felt no protection whatsoever from the Gov-
ernment.
Beyond this, Zwager went on to say that, for the people on the eastern coast of Borneo,
the name of James Brooke was quite popular. It was believed that, in the near future,
James Brooke would travel inland from Sarawak to Kutai. There was confusion among
the members of the Kutai sultanate as to whether or not they should welcome the possibility
of a visit by Brooke. Although the sultanates of East Borneo were bound by the 1850
Treaty with the Dutch, the aristocrats believed that they would be in a better economic
position if they tied themselves to a British ruler, such as James Brooke. Moreover, the
presence of only one employee of the Dutch government underscored the feeling among
the economically motivated aristocrats of Eastern Borneo that they were being neglected
by Batavia.24
Though the Dutch were generally unable to stop the activities of the British traders,
they did take decisive actions against William Lingard. When Lingard broadened his trade
activities in Berau through the use of Arab and Buginese traders under his command, the
Dutch sent The Celebes warship from Makassar to ensure that he would not become another
James Brooke. (The son of Lingard’s Arab associate, Sayid Abdullah Aldjuffi, would take
over Lingard’s business in 1886.) Lingard’s eventual departure from die region in the
1870s ended most British activities in East Borneo, to the delight of the Dutch who had
just started to explore mining possibilities in that region.25 However, it was not until the
1890s that the Dutch gave much attention to East Borneo.
By that time, the activities of the British traders in the Indonesian zone of the Malay
archipelago had declined, and the famous trade route between Singapore-Banjarmasin-
Lombok-Makassar and eastern Borneo had been reduced in importance by two developments.
The first was the start of the Dutch consolidation of rule in the Outer Islands in the late
1890s and early 1900s. The Dutch used force, when necessary, to conquer the kingdoms
of the Outer Islands. In a few instances, the Dutch had actually confronted some British
traders who supported the local rulers, such as in the case of the kingdom of Selaparang
in Lombok.26 From this time onward, the Dutch, wanting other Western colonial powers
to recognize their rule over the Netherlands East Indies, rigorously enforced the provisions
of the formal treaties they had signed dividing the region into different spheres of influence.27
23	See Zwager, “Karajaon” in Abdullah, ed., Sejarah, p. 87.
24	Ibid.
25	See Warren, “Trade,” pp. 236-43.
26	For the history of British and Dutch rivalry in Lombok, see Alfons van der Kraan, Lombok: Conquest, Colonization
and Under Development 1870-1940 (Singapore: Heineman Asia, 1980).
27	For an examination of the failure of Acehnese diplomacy, see Anthony Reid, The Contest for North Sumatra:
Aceh, the Netherlands and Britain, 1858-1898 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1969), pp. 119-55.10
Because of these Dutch actions, the British had to order their traders to withdraw
from the NEI territory. At the same time, the British had secured strategic positions in
Southeast Asia, particularly with the growing importance of Singapore. In Borneo, they
had also consolidated their rule both in Sarawak and North Borneo (Sabah).28 It was the
consolidation of British rule in Sabah through the North Borneo Charter Company that
led to the phasing out of British interests in East Borneo.
Since the departure of Lingard from Berau in the 1870s and the end of King’s coal
concession in Kutai in the 1880s, the British had abandoned East Borneo. Instead, they
concentrated their efforts in the newly acquired territories of Sabah where they built several
trading posts. One of these posts, Tawao, was to become an important trading center with
Dutch East Borneo, and it compensated the British for the loss of their former trading
interests in the Berau, Bulungan, and Kutai areas.29
After their departure, the British traders were not replaced directly by the Dutch. Thus,
there was a power vacuum in East Borneo’s trade activities between the 1870s and the
discovery of oil in 1902. It was a period of difficulty for the sultanates of East Borneo
for they did not have much to offer to Western traders. Worse still, few Western traders
and capitalists wanted to make investments in that region.
In spite of these difficulties, the shrewd Sultan of Kutai, Mohammad Sulaiman, was
able to get some former Dutch officials to explore coal mining in Kutai. In 1888, a Dutch
company, the Steenkolen Maatschappij Oost Borneo (SMO) got the right to exploit coal
along the Mahakam River.30 However, the various diseases suffered by the coal workers,
and the decline of the sugar industry in Java caused this coal exploitation venture to fail.
Eventually, this venture was closed in 1893 after its only ship was destroyed. The venture
had lost about f. 800,000 by the time of its closing. It was later sold to another com-
pany, the Oost-Bomeo Maatschappij (OBM).31
The failure of coal exploitation forced Sultan Sulaiman to offer still other opportunities
to Western capitalists, aside from the traditional trade opportunities in forest products.
Thus, for example, he tried to encourage coffee and tobacco plantations near Tengga-
rong. These plantation ventures, however, met with little success mainly because they could
not compete with plantations in Java and East Sumatra which had lower costs of production.
The higher cost-benefit ratio of production of the Tenggarong plantations was primarily
due to the lack of an adequate local supply of labor and to the difficulties attached to
the importation of Javanese workers.
However, luck was on the Sultan of Kutai’s side, with the help of a Dutch engineer,
J. H. Menten. Having failed to exploit coal in large quantities, Menten still believed that
other minerals could be found in Kutai. In 1902 he succeeded in discovering oil in the
Sanga-sanga field owned by the OBM. OBM then leased its oil exploration rights to a
joint-company of British and Dutch stockholders, the Dutch Bataafsche Petroleum Maat-
28	For the history of Sabah, see K. G. Tregonning, A History of Modem Sabah, 1881-1963 (Kuala Lumpur: University
of Malaya Press, 1967), especially pp. 4-30.
29	See Tregonning, A History, pp. 31-48.
30	See Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 50. It seems that both in East Borneo and Sabah, coal was never to become
economically important for the colonial rulers. For Sabah, see Tregonning, A History, p. 97.
31	Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” pp. 51-52. In the forests of East Borneo malaria caused the death of 265 out
of 888 workers in 1893. Ibid., p. 51.11
schappij (BPM), and its oil marketing and distribution rights to the British Anglo-Saxon
Petroleum Company.
The discovery of oil in Kutai, and later in Tarakan island in the region of Bulungan,
was to change the history of East Borneo. The discovery of oil furnished the Kutai sultanate
with the economic means through which it could maintain its position of dominance and
wealth, not only in East Borneo, but also among the other kingdoms in the NEI. Moreover,
this wealth enabled the commercial aristocracies to maintain their dynasties and power
to a degree not previously known in Kutai history. Dutch protection eliminated the possible
danger of outside attacks which had normally characterized the history of this commercial
kingdom. Within the reorganized territory of the Dutch East Borneo residency, the Kutai
sultanate was undoubtedly the leader of the many small kingdoms nearby. These lesser
kingdoms received small subsidies from the sultanate in the form of oil royalties to support
their status as commercial kingdoms.
This wealth also enabled the Kutai aristocracy to adopt the higher standard of living
of the Europeans; thereby legitimizing the Kutai sultanate in the eyes of older kingdoms
and aristocrats in Java and other parts of the NEI. From being a weak commercial aristocracy
dependent on the protection of the Buginese punggawa and Taosug pirates, the Kutai
aristocrats came to be very important Dutch subjects.
The discovery of oil also suddenly changed the Dutch attitude toward Kutai from one
of benign neglect in the mid nineteenth century to one of considerable concern for an
area now regarded as strategic in the early twentieth century. At a time when the Dutch
administrators in Batavia were concerned about the high cost of maintaining the admin-
istrative unity of the NEI after having consolidated their rule in the Outer Islands, Kutai
was to become a priceless prize. From then on, the history of East Borneo was to be
seen by the Dutch as the history of Kutai, and especially of its oil. The emergence of
oil exploration and production as the main activity in Kutai and East Borneo has generally
shaped much of the history of the region and, particularly, the fate of the Kutai aristoc-
racy.Chapter 2
Oil and the Rise of Kutai Aristocracy
The modem founder of the Kutai sultanate was Sultan Mohammad Sulaiman who
reigned from 1845 to 1899 before the discovery of oil. He had great talent in commercial
activities, leasing out Kutai’s lands for coal exploitation and plantation purposes. Since
the Dutch at that time only exercised minimal control in East Borneo through the ap-
pointment of a political agent in Samarinda, Sultan Sulaiman more or less had a free hand
in governing Kutai. Sultan Sulaiman worked so closely with the English traders that he
had learned to speak the English language from them. He also took advantage of the presence
of other merchants, such as the Arabs, in eastern Borneo.
Aside from the taxes collected by Samarinda’s syahbandar, Sultan Sulaiman received
various royalties from coal and plantation activities. Altogether, he was believed to have
a monthly income of f. 60,000. The Kutai sultanate was absolutist in nature; most power
was accumulated in the hands of the Sultans. Despite its monthly income from various
types of businesses, the sultanate did not have a bureaucracy with any real power or regular
salary. As in the commercial kingdom of Eastern Sumatra, power rested in the hands of
the Sultan alone.32 Hence, the distribution of patronage and favor depended solely on the
Sultans’ discretion. This was particularly true during the reign of Sultan Sulaiman, who
only paid a regular salary to his syahbandar. The sultanate’s other functionaries, including
the Ministers, were paid irregularly according to the Sultan’s mood or whim.
This power structure created two problems for the Kutai sultanate, common to all
the other commercial kingdoms. The first problem was the intense competition surrounding
the process of succession. The spread of the practice of polygamy among the Sultans made
the throne a source of struggle not only among the aristocracy, but also among the many
sons of the Sultan. The lack of any definite rule for succession was not favored by the
Dutch who later intervened directly in the succession decision, much to the benefit of
the Sultan’s sons.
The second problem was the arbitrary behavior of the aristocracy toward the other
classes in Kutai society. Milner’s description of the aristocracy’s piracy against wealthy
traders in a commercial kingdom provides an apt picture of aristocrat-merchant relations
in Kutai, Berau, and Bulungan. In his report to the NEI government in Batavia, Zwager
did not hide his anger and hostility toward the aristocracy of East Borneo who killed and
robbed the traders. The fact that the aristocracy did not receive a regular salary legitimized
this activity in the eyes of the Sultans, who sometimes took a portion of the aristocrats’
32 Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 56.
1314
profits.33 As has been described by a Dutch missionary, Dr. A. W. Nieu, the power of
the Sultans was of an economic rather than a political or religious nature.34 By accumu-
lating all the taxes and royalties in his own hands, the Sultan created a dependent aristocracy
without any independent source of economic power.
Having discovered oil in East Borneo, it was in the ultimate interest of the Dutch
to minimize the power of the Sultan and to make him financially dependent on them.
In order to insure the flow of oil for their own benefit, they had to control the Kutai
sultanate. The Dutch achieved this objective when the successor to Sultan Sulaiman was
chosen.
The Dutch were able to reduce the power of the Sultan through the renewal of a
political contract with the new Sultan. Although the Dutch had exerted formal control
over Kutai ever since the reign of Sultan Mohammad Salahuddin in 1844, that control
was not effectively administered on a daily basis until the discovery of oil in 1902. Dutch
political control was aimed primarily at stopping the threat of British expansionism posed
by their traders. Aside from King in Kutai, and Lingard in Berau, another English cap-
tain, Sir Edward Belcher, sailed his ship HMS Samarang along the coastal kingdoms of
Gunung Tabur and Bulungan in 1845, and succeeded in getting letters from these Sultans
agreeing to enter into a formal Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with Great Britain.35
Accordingly, Sultan Sulaiman had considerable scope for attracting Western traders other
than the Dutch. In reaction to this, and because of the requirements of the Cultivation
System (iCultuur Stelsel) in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Dutch felt the
need to exert pressure on the Kutai sultanate.
Their first political contract with the sultanate had been between a certain Major Muller,
who represented Batavia, and Sultan Salahuddin of Kutai on August 8, 1825. It stipulated
that the treaty was a friendship agreement requiring the Dutch to give protection to the
Kutai sultanate and to provide an annual payment of f.8,000 to the sultanate in return
for its agreement.36 The Dutch at this time were more interested in controlling the flow
of trade along the Mahakam River than in economically exploiting the Kutai sultanate.
The second treaty signed by the Dutch and the Kutai sultanate was related to a mili-
tary assault launched by the Dutch in March 1844. Claiming that Sultan Salahuddin had
arranged for a pirate attack by Kutai soldiers on a Belgian ship, Le Charles, two weeks
before, the Dutch sent four war frigates from Makassar to Kutai as a punitive expeditionary
force. Sultan Salahuddin refused to meet the leader of the expedition, Lieutenant Hooft.
Instead, he retreated to Kota Bangun, a small town upriver on the Mahakam. The four
Dutch warships then sailed to the capital of Kutai, Tenggarong, with about 190 soldiers.
On April 6,1844, they burned the old town of Tenggarong.37 The Dutch attack on Tenggarong
33	See Zwager, “Kerajaan,” in Abdullah, ed., Sejarah, p. 71.
34	Quoted from J. R. Wertmann, “The Sultanate of Kutai: A Sketch of Traditional Political Structure,” Borneo Research
Bulletin (December 1971): 2.
35	See Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of the Voyage of HMS Samarang, Volume I (London: Pall Mall,
1970), pp. 236-37, for a reprint of the letter.
36	Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 23.
37	Ibid., pp. 29-34.15
was also aimed at discouraging further contact between the Kutai sultanate and the vari-
ous British traders active in the northern part of eastern Borneo.
The treaty of 1844 stipulated that the Dutch were the owners of the Kutai sultanate,
and that this ownership “had to be recognized by the future Sultans.”38 The treaty also
described the borders of the Kutai sultanate and the areas under its control. Beyond this,
it provided that the Kutai sultanate was to be governed by a Resident in Banjarmasin.
In 1846, the Dutch also started the practice of appointing an Assistant Resident for East
Borneo in Samarinda, the first of these being H. Von Dewall.
When Sultan Salahuddin died in 1845, Sultan Sulaiman was still too young to rule
so he was assisted by three ministers. In October 1850, the Dutch were able to extract
a new treaty from the three ministers. While carefully preserving the borders of Kutai,
this further reduced the power of the Sultan. The treaty stated that “the Dutch had given
the Kutai sultanate to Sultan Sulaiman as a loan” and that all regulations from Batavia
had to be implemented.39 By appointing a young son of the deceased Sultan as the new
Sultan, the Dutch gained the cooperation of the older ministers who were happy to govern
Kutai until the young Sultan achieved maturity. A new treaty was drawn up in 1863 when
Sultan Sulaiman took over the sultanate from the three ministers.
Under the 1863 treaty Sultan Sulaiman was required to assist the Dutch with manpower,
gunpowder, and ships in case of war. It also stipulated that the Dutch would appoint their
own administrators in many parts of Kutai to whom the Kutai sultanate had to grant certain
lands. With the activities of Lingard in Berau in mind, the treaty also stressed a prohibition
against other foreigners acting as cultivators of the land in Kutai. The treaty, however,
mainly stressed the dependent nature of the Sultan’s rule over Kutai and the absolute loyalty
he owed the Dutch.40
To summarize, despite his dealings with other Western traders, Sultan Sulaiman’s rule
had effectively been limited by the terms of the treaty. Moreover, under the treaty he
was forced to help the Dutch fight their wars, including the Dutch war against the Banjarmasin
sultanate in the 1860s. Not only did he provide soldiers for the Dutch, but he even led
his own forces in attacking the retreating force of the Banjarmasin near Muara Tewe,
in Central Borneo.
The discovery of coal in the nineteenth century opened up new economic opportunities
for the Dutch, but required them to exercise tighter control over the Kutai sultanate as
a precondition for effective exploitation of these resources. Upon the death of Sultan Sulaiman
in December 1899, the Dutch appointed his eldest son, Pangeran Prabu, as the new Sultan,
with the title Sultan Muhammad Alimuddin. The new Sultan had to sign another treaty
in June 1900 in which the Kutai sultanate gave the Dutch certain rights over taxes. Among
those taxes affected were the opium tax, the gambling tax, the Mahakam River transport
tax, and the monopoly over the possession of arms.41 By this time, the Assistant
Resident working from Samarinda (Palaran) had effectively taken over control of
Samarinda harbor.
3g Ibid., p. 39.
39	Ibid., pp. 36-37.
40	Ibid., pp. 38-39.
41	Ibid., p. 58.16
When Sultan Alimuddin was to take over the Kutai sultanate formally in August 1902,
the Dutch made him sign another treaty which for the first time provided for the for-
feiture of some of Kutai’s territory. The treaty also stipulated that the Ulu Mahakam (Upper
Mahakam) district (Onderafdeling) was to be governed directly by the Dutch. For that
right, the Dutch agreed to pay the Kutai sultanate f.6,000 per year. In 1907, the Dutch
got the one square mile area of Samarinda that was to be governed directly as the center
of government for the Assistant Residency of East Borneo. With the acquisition of Ulu
Mahakam and Samarinda, the Dutch gained the ability to control traffic along the Mahakam
River and thereby placed the Kutai sultanate under their military control. A company of
the Dutch army was then stationed in Long Iram, the capital of the Ulu Mahakam dis-
trict, while the Assistant Resident had his office in Samarinda.
The Dutch further weakened the Sultan’s power by establishing a sultanate bureaucracy,
which was staffed by Kutai aristocrats. The treaty with Sultan Alimuddin in 1902 had
stipulated the establishment of a small cabinet for the Sultan. The cabinet had four members,
responsible for justice, police, governmental, and financial affairs. The ministers, in fact,
were half-brothers of the Sultan. By creating a permanent cabinet with specific functions,
the Dutch minimized the possibility of quarrels among the sons of the old Sultan over
the throne.
Moreover, the establishment of ministries and, later on, districts enabled middle-level
members of the aristocracy to get involved in governmental affairs. The establishment
of districts in Balikpapan, Jembayan, Muara Kelinjan, Muarapahu, and Melak in 1906,
opened the way for middle and lower aristocrats to enter the sultanate bureaucracy. Some
bureaucrats even came from non-aristocratic and non-Kutai backgrounds, and were given
the aristocratic title of “Aji” by the Sultan.42 It was from this group that the bureaucratic
elite of the Kutai sultanate emerged. Possessing the proper educational training, this group
came to dominate the daily affairs of the sultanate after the 1920s.
The emergence of this bureaucratic aristocracy was partly due to the reluctance of
the immediate family of the Sultan to move out of Tenggarong. These family members
were satisfied to work within Tenggarong’s ministries since their ministerial positions allowed
them to stay closer to the Sultan. Moreover, the presence of Dutch Controlleurs in the
districts outside Tenggarong had put an end to the arbitrary abuses that had marked relations
between aristocrats and commoners. Hence, from the economic point of view, it was better
for the aristocrats to stay in Tenggarong where they could pursue an easy-going life, ex-
emplified at its best by the Sultan himself.
The creation of a simple bureaucracy in Tenggarong required the separation of the
sultanate’s operational budget from the Sultan’s own expenses. Under Sultan Sulaiman,
all revenues had been concentrated in his hands. He had then distributed the salaries
according to his own discretion. The Dutch changed this practice when they appointed
Sultan Alimuddin. They gave the Sultan a fixed salary every month in the amount of
f. 25,000, and also granted him 50 percent of the oil royalties and 10 percent of the
42 Most of these bureaucrats were Banjarese officials of the Kutai sultanate who had married women from the Kutai
aristocracy. The title “Aji” was reserved for people of high aristocratic background, either on the father’s or the
mother’s side. There were three types of Aji titles: Aji Bambang, Aji Raden, and Aji Pangeran. The last of these
was only given to sons of Sultans who were appointed as members of Kerapatan (Ministries). For a discussion of
the nature of aristocratic titles, see Wertmann, “The Sultanate,” p. 3.17
royalties coming from forest products.43 The rest of the royalties went to the sultanate’s
financial ministry to cover the expense of an ever-expanding bureaucracy.
The Sultan’s salary was reduced further when Sultan Parikesit officially took over
the position in 1920. When his father died in 1910 Parikesit was only 15 years old and
was studying at OS VIA in Serang, West Java. Between 1910 and 1920, while Parikesit
finished his schooling, Kutai was governed by the brother of the late Sultan Alimuddin
and Parikesit’s uncle, Pangeran Mangkunegoro. Under Mangkunegoro, Kutai’s bureaucracy
was to gain a strong institutional foundation and considerable administrative expertise upon
which Sultan Parikesit could depend. Perhaps most significantly, Mangkunegoro estab-
lished a Dutch-medium elementary school, HIS, in Tenggarong, financed by the sultan-
ate.
The bureaucracy built by Mangkunegoro functioned so well that when Parikesit as-
sumed the sultanate in 1920 governmental affairs were the responsibility of the cabinet,
including Mangkunegoro. From 1920 until 1940, Parikesit was aided by the cabinet members
appointed during the reign of his father, the late Sultan Alimuddin. Hence, he was in a
position not to worry much about governing his sultanate and could concentrate instead
on leading an easy life. With the new treaty, the Dutch reduced the Sultan’s salary from
f.25,000 to f.7,000 per month.44 However, he still got annual expenses of f.30,500 and
a 5 percent royalty from the oil, coal, and forest concessions in Kutai. Aside from this
income, the Sultan still owned lands in Bongan and Bengalon in the coastal areas of Kutai
which furnished him with additional income from forest products. The Dutch also gave
the cabinet and the Sultan f. 16,500 a year for the rights over the Upper Mahakam region
and for the control of all taxes. All in all, Sultan Parikesit had more than f. 10,000 a month
to spend, which made him one of the richest Sultans in the NEI.45
Since assuming office in 1920, Parikesit had broadened his private interests, acquiring
expensive habits. He was known as a collector of cars, motorboats, and speedboats. Al-
though he had graduated from OSVIA in Serang, he took little interest in governmen-
tal affairs. In view of this fact, Mangkunegoro objected to the Dutch proposal to send
the young Sultan to the Indologie School in Leiden,46 though he did go to the Netherlands
in 1928 for the first of his many journeys.
43	Interview with Aji Bambang Abdurrachman, June 15, 1979.
44	Ibid. The reason behind the reduction was that Sultan Parikesit* s salary was not to exceed the salary of the Dutch
Governor General which was f. 12,000 per month.
45	See Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 64. In the late 1930s, the sultanate of Langkat in East Sumatra and the
central government in Batavia had borrowed money from the Kutai sultanate, in the amount of f.200,000 each. Interview
with Aji Bambang Abdurachman, June 26, 1979. As a comparison, it should be noted that Parikesit’s fellow OSVIA
graduates only had a starting salary of f.50. For a more detailed discussion, see Sewaka, Tjorat-Tjoret dari Djaman
kedjaman (Bandung: n. p., 1955), p. 13.
46	Interview with Aji Bambang Abdurachman, June 26,1979. It seems that by refusing the Dutch offer, Mangkunegoro
could still rule Kutai while Parikesit was busy pursuing his hobbies. Upon his appointment as Sultan, Parikesit was
to divorce his wife, a daughter of the bupati of Serang, and marry Mangkunegoro *s daughter. Ibid. The tradition
of sending the Sultan’s sons to the Netherlands had been started by Sultan Sulaiman. He sent his son, Aji Raden
Mangkuwidjojo, and his grandson, Aji Raden Atmogondowidjojo, to study the science of government in 1895. See
Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” p. 57.18
The extravagance of Parikesit was such that an American scholar who visited Kutai
in 1927 could not hide his surprise:47
The furnishings of the palace surprised me, in that they were in no way
indigenous to the jungle country or to the East Indies, but were all imported
from Europe. Draperies, beds, canopies, tapestries, rugs, tables, chairs,
clocks, candelbras, pictures and all the furnishings, were such as one sees
in the magnificent palaces at Vienna and other continental capitals. The
novelty and strangeness of the furnishings add to their splendor, thus more
deeply impressing the people in this jungle country with the royalty of
their sovereign.
On the indulgence of Sultan Parikesit in buying automobiles, Krohn wrote further:48
He owns three cars, two of American make and one of European manufacture,
any one of which would tickle the vanity of a war profiteer in the United
States. But the Sultan lives in a country where there are no motor roads.
His one thoroughfare is the Mahakam River, and that is best navigated
by his beautiful yacht. There are several footpaths in his village, but no
road fit for an automobile. There is, however, one narrow street about
three-eighths of a mile in length. But this is too narrow to permit of turning
a motor-car around in it. It is said that the Sultan orders out all three
of his cars and first drives the full length of this three-eighths of a mile
bumpy street and then, there being no room in which to turn the car,
he reverses gear and backs up to the starting point, stops, gets in his
second car and repeats the dose, and does likewise with his third car.
Although Krohn’s impression was a little exaggerated with regard to the availability
of roads in Kutai, the luxurious life of Sultan Parikesit was well-known among the Sultans
in the Dutch Indies. Members of his cabinet (Kerapatan Besar) got a monthly salary of
f. 3,500 while lesser officials could get about f. 1,000 a month. In comparison with most
aristocrats in the Dutch Indies, Kutai’s aristocrats enjoyed a good life and high salary.
While the sultanate could even afford to lend money to the central government of the
NEI in Batavia and other sultanates in financial difficulties, the upper aristocrats in Kutai
were also able to profit from the royalties the sultanates got from the oil concessions.49
It should also be remembered that in the 1920s, the actual number of upper aristocrats,
those descended from the previous Sultans who had the title of Aji, were not that many.
They were estimated to number less than 500 people, most of whom lived in Tenggarong.
The top of the pyramid was comprised of the immediate family of the Sultan who got
a monthly salary of more than f. 1,000 for each head of family.
The structure of the Kutai aristocracy itself was not very complicated. The Sultan
was chosen from the sons of the previous Sultan and his Permaisuri (consort)—formally,
the Sultan could have four wives at one time in accordance with Muslim law. After the
47	See Krohn, In Borneo, pp. 117-18.
48	Ibid., p. 120.
49	Interview with Aji Pangeran Kertanegara, former member of Kutai’s Ministries, June 20, 1979.19
Dutch gained control, the new Sultan was always chosen from among the previous Sultan’s
sons who were still young, in order to minimize the new Sultan’s power while he was
coming of age. Thus, for example, Sultan Sulaiman was only seven years old when he
was chosen as the new Sultan, while Sultan Parikesit was only fifteen years old.
Although a genealogical record exists of the Kutai sultanate from the sixteenth century
on, a properly maintained record only started to be kept in the middle of the nineteenth
century after Dutch protection had guaranteed the continuation of the Kutai dynasty. By
the early twentieth century, belonging to the Sultan’s family guaranteed a regular stipend
and offered the possibility of a position in the newly created bureaucracy. The sultanate
spent a total of f.200,000 in monthly salaries, excluding the Sultan’s salary which was
paid directly by the Dutch.50 The Kutai sultanate could easily manage to pay for its employees,
even after 1910 when the Dutch further reduced the Sultan’s share of royalties and revenues
in a new treaty.51
Kutai’s aristocracy was then, on the whole, a very financially dependent aristocracy.
The aristocrats depended on the Sultan’s patronage for their appointment to the various
positions within the bureaucracy, especially since most of them had never attended any
Dutch-medium school. Nonetheless, in the 1920s, recruitment among the aristocrats was
determined by their education, especially at the level of District Heads (Kepala Penjawat)
stationed outside Tenggarong. Although the Kutai sultanate had its own HIS in Tenggarong,
further educational opportunities had to be pursued outside Kutai, either at OSVIA in
Makassar, Serang, or Probolinggo, or at MULO in Banjarmasin.
The immediate family of Sultan Parikesit was reluctant to pursue further study outside
Kutai, given the easy life they enjoyed at home. Moreover, the possibility of being stationed
in a hostile environment in Balikpapan or Semboja, or in other district capitals, further
discouraged them. The jobs in Tenggarong, although uninspiring, satisfied most of them.
As a result, most students who went to OSVIA in Makassar were of middle aristocratic
backgrounds. These middle aristocrats were the descendants of nineteenth century Sultans,
and still had the right to use the title Aji. Their families, however, had intermarried with
commoners and non-Kutais, mostly Banjarese and Arabs. It was they who later formed
the backbone of the newly educated Kutai bureaucracy. Ironically, precisely because of
their educational qualifications, the Dutch had appointed them to important bureaucratic
positions, passing over higher aristocrats without similar educational credentials. Later all
of these middle aristocrats were to play prominent roles in East Borneo politics. Included
among them were persons such as Aji Raden Afloes, Aji Raden Sayid Mochsen, Aji Raden
Djokoprawiro, Aji Raden Sayid Mohammad, and Aji Raden Kariowiti.52
Aside from these middle aristocrats, there were two other groups of Kutai’s aristocracy
which would become important in later periods. Both the groups were made up of the
Kutai sultanate’s abdi dalem who were considered lower aristocracy. The first group
originated from the Kutais who had served in the sultanate’s army. They had been given
50	Ibid. Kertanegara was in charge of the Kutai sultanate's finances.
51	Various people in Samarinda confirmed the report that Pangeran Mangkunegoro brought special servants with
him to carry money in trays while he shopped.
52	For a brief biography of these individuals, see the entry in the biographical appendix to this monograph. See also,
Buku Daftar Riwayat Hidup Anggota MPR 1977 (Jakarta: Lembaga Pemilihan Umum, 1978), p. 670, for a brief
biography of Aji Raden Sayid Mohammad.20
the title of Awang and had their own quarter in Tenggarong, the Kampung Panji.53 The
second group was composed of the non-Kutai Malays who had aided various Sultans in
their rule. They were given the right to use the title of Encik Mas and resided in the
Kampung Melayu of Tenggarong.54 (See Map 3.)
These two groups had also taken advantage of the educational opportunities offered
by the Kutai sultanate. Since they did not threaten to exacerbate rivalry within the Kutai
aristocracy, they were given important jobs by the Dutch, especially outside Tenggarong.
Moreover, as a group they were able to maintain their position, because when the Kutai
aristocracy came under attack they were not affected, because they were not considered
part of that aristocracy.
At the same time while the Dayaks comprised about 40 percent of the population
of the Kutai sultanate in the 1920s, they were not represented at the court in Tenggarong.
The Sultan governed them indirectly through their own adat chiefs (Kepala Adat) who
once a year came to Tenggarong to pay respect to the Sultan. Moreover, in Ulu Mahakam
where the Dayaks constituted about 90 percent of the population, governmental affairs
were in the hands of a Dutch Controlleur because of the region’s status as a directly ruled
area.55
The Sultan controlled the Dayak chiefs mostly through the taxes that were imposed
upon their forest products. The Sultan of Kutai never required Dayak manpower for his
army, because in the old days, before Netherlands protection, the Sultans’ own mercenaries
were utilized in economic projects and pirate activities. To satisfy the Dayak chiefs, the
Sultan conferred upon them various titles such as Temenggung and Demang. However,
the granting of titles was “so indiscriminate that their prestige became grossly devalu-
ated.”56 Moreover, various Dayak sub-groups never achieved important positions during
the colonial period, mostly because they lacked educational opportunity. Although the Sultan
formally opened the school at Tenggarong for Dayak students, only a few of them were
given fellowships to enable them to study there.57
The Sultan of Kutai had also governed directly the Buginese in Samarinda Seberang
ever since the middle of the nineteenth century. After the installation of a Dutch Assistant
Resident in Palaran in 1846, the sultanate needed to insure that the Buginese would respect
the agreement they had made with the Dutch. To this end, Sultan Sulaiman appointed
53	See for example, A. Badaranie Abbas, “Pengaruh Faktor Lingkungan Terhadap Aspek-Aspek Tradisionil Dalam
Birokrasi Kesultanan Kutai di Tenggarong,” in Dari Swapraja kekabupaten Kutai, ed. Dr. Aslie Amin (Tenggarong:
Pemda Kutai, 1975), p. 137. See also an interview with A.P. Kertanegara, June 20, 1979. According to Kertanegara,
the Awang and Encik were the traditional inhabitants of each kampung and had no blood relationship to the Sultans.
See also, Prajogo, “Stratifikasi Sosial di Tenggarong” (MA thesis, IKIP Malang, 1968), p. 40.
54	Prajogo, “Stratifikasi,” p. 42.
55	According to the 1930 census, in the Ulu (Boven) Mahakam, the Dayaks constituted 86.9 percent of the population
while in nearby Apokayan region, they formed about 99.60 percent of the population. See VolksteUing 1930, Deel
V Borneo en Celebes (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1936), p. 26.
56	See Wertmann, “The Sultanate,” p. 3.
57	Among those who graduated from HIS Tenggarong, there was one individual who was supported by the Kutai
sultanate to study at OS VIA Makassar. He was to become a member of the Kutai delegation to the Malino Conference.
After converting to Islam, he adopted the name Sampan Zainuddin.21
Map 3. City of Tenggarong22
a Banjarese police officer, Ince Miril, as his representative in Samarinda Seberang, with
the title of Pangeran Bendahara, an appointment which the punggawa of the Buginese
community, Pua Adu, saw as a threat to his own position. To enhance his authority over
Pua Adu, Sultan Sulaiman dissolved the office of punggawa and in lieu of it, appointed
many Anreguru (officials for security) and petty officials within the Buginese community;
thereby facilitating the assimilation of the Buginese into Kutai society. The dissolution
of the punggawa office had a deep effect on the well-being of the Buginese community
as a whole. Sulaiman’s actions effectively left the Buginese behind in Kutai’s development;
they have ever since constituted the lower class within Kutai society. However, some
of those who were assimilated to Kutai and Banjarese society did achieve important
positions.58
The fate of the Buginese in Kutai differentiated the Kutai sultanate from its neighbors
in the north, Berau and Bulungan. These two sultanates did not play a very important
role in East Borneo’s politics, mostly because they did not possess as much wealth as
Kutai. Berau consisted of two small sultanates, Gunung Tabur and Sambaliung, which
were the remnants of the old kingdoms of the days of Lord Jim. After the departure of
William Lingard in the 1870s, Gunung Tabur and Sambaliung had declined in importance.
Other than having Buginese trader outposts and Bajo fishermen communities, Berau had
coal which was exploited by the Dutch for a brief period of time.
The coal was exploited by a Dutch company, SMP (Steenkolen Maatschappij Parapatan)
in about 1911, but the reserves in Teluk Bayur were so small that it was soon abandoned.
There was also an unsuccessful attempt to discover oil off-shore of Pulau Seudang in the
1930s. Because of its poor economic resources, Berau never played an important role in
East Borneo’s politics. In fact, part of the budgets of Sambaliung and Gunung Tabur were
provided by the Kutai sultanate through the Dutch. While in the 1850s Gunung Tabur
and Sambaliung could still depend on their royalties from forest products, the discovery
of oil in Kutai and Bulungan left Berau behind economically.59 The importance of trade
58	Only a few have become public figures, such as Rustam Hafidz, head of the political bureau in the Governor’s
office who was proposed as a candidate for Mayor of Samarinda in 1979. The Buginese have achieved a more prominent
role in Bulungan, where the Camat of Nunukan, Andi Achmad BA, is of Buginese descent. The first Bupati of Bulungan
in 1959, Andi Tjatjo gelar Datu Mihardja, came from Bulungan and was of Buginese descent. In 1986, Rustam Hafidz
was appointed as Bupati of Kutai, the most important position ever held by someone of Buginese descent.
59	For a comparison, the figures below give a glimpse of the wealth of each autonomous region:
Annual Budget in 1857
Autonomous Region
Sambauban
Budget in Guilders
924 guilders
9,700 guilders
5,220 guilders
40,557 guilders
235,150 guilders
45.057	guilders
55,080 guilders
45.057	guilders
Pagatan
Pulau Laut
Pasir
Kutai
Sambaliung
Bulungan
Gunung Tabur
Source: Potitiek-verslag der Residentie Zuid en Ooster Afdeeling van Borneo over het jaar 1860, Book I.23
in accumulating wealth had been replaced by oil royalties. Moreover, the departure of
Lingard had discouraged trade activities in Berau, and Samarinda had emerged as the center
of trade in the southern part of the Makassar Straits. The overall result was the economic
eclipse of Berau by Kutai and Bulungan. The total population of the onderafdeling Berau
in the 1930 census was a little more than 10,000 people, a figure which was less than
the population of the emerging oil town of Tarakan off the coast of the Bulungan
area.60
To the Dutch, the Bulungan sultanate was far more important than the Berau sultanate.
As the melting pot of three ethnic groups—the Buginese, the Kenyah-Kayan Dayaks,
and the Sulu/Taosug—Bulungan had provided a cushion between the Buginese and Taosug
traders and pirates. The Taosug aristocrats {datu) dominated Bulungan up to 1860 as part
of the Sulu sultanate. During these years of Taosug dominance, the Taosug perahu from
Sulu rendezvoused at the island of Tarakan before they went to the interior of Bulungan
to trade with the Tidung people.61
The treaty of 1878 between the British and the Spanish over the Sulu islands ended
the influence of the Sulu sultanate over Bulungan. In 1881, the British North Borneo Chartered
Company placed North Borneo (Sabah) under British jurisdiction, despite the Dutch refusal
to recognize British jurisdiction in North Borneo. However, the Dutch recognized the Brit-
ish borders in 1915 after a long negotiation.62
By that time, the BPM had discovered oil off-shore of the islands of Bunyu and Tarakan.
Moreover, Tawao on the British side of the border (Sibuco River) dominated the trade
of inland Bulungan. The Kenyah Dayak and other interior groups were only too happy
to cross the border and go to Tawao to trade. Bulungan’s towns, such as Tanjung Palas
and Tanjung Selor, had declined in importance.
Meanwhile, Tarakan had emerged as the center of oil activities and as the Dutch
administrative capital for the Berau and Bulungan area. However, the Dutch had to pay
royalties to the Sultan of Bulungan, who then resided at Tanjung Palas. Dutch protection
and BPM’s royalties sustained the Bulungan sultanate to the extent that it survived up
to the abolition of the sultanates in 1959. It should be remembered that the Bulungan
sultanate’s power base was weaker than that of the Kutai sultanate, because it depended
solely on Taosug support prior to the Dutch consolidation of power in the early twentieth
century. Rivalry between the Kenyah, the Buginese, and the Taosug descendants was to
continue, especially given the fact that oil royalties had strengthened the power of the
Taosug Datu at the expense of the other groups.
While Bulungan was dependent on the sultanate of Sulu, the Pasir sultanate in the
southern part of East Borneo was the domain of the Buginese. Formerly a Buginese trading
outpost in the eighteenth century, Pasir became a sultanate under Dutch protection in the
nineteenth century. Aside from its function as an outpost for traders between Makassar,
60	According to Warren, in 1812, the sultanate of Gunung Tabur had a population of about 5,000 people. See Warren,
“Trade,” p. 150. In 1930, the census saw a population of 7,006 for Gunung Tabur, an increase of only 40 percent
during the course of more than a century. See Volkstetting Deel V, p. 128.
61	See Warren, “Trade,” pp. 146-47.
62	See Tregonning, A History, p. 23.24
Samarinda, and Pulau Laut, Pasir was of no immediate economic interest to the Dutch.
The Pasir sultanate was maintained by the Dutch primarily to create a buffer kingdom
between the Kutai sultanate and the Banjarmasin domain, from which the Dutch could
manipulate either one of these two rival groups at any particular time. Like the Bulungan
aristocracy, Pasir’s aristocracy was a Dutch-created one which the Dutch used and
manipulated in accordance with Dutch interests.
********
The nature of East Borneo’s aristocracy, then, changed markedly after the discovery
of coal and oil in the 1880s. Whereas before, it was merely a commercial aristocracy
mainly composed of the descendants of pirates active in the Straits of Makassar, the
consolidation of Dutch power formalized and institutionalized the aristocratic status and
rank of its members.
Up to the 1870s, prior to the discovery of oil and coal, trade was at the center of
the aristocrats’ activities. They had established trade outposts for themselves in the small
towns at the mouth of the rivers, populated by a few thousand people. They also had
never shown any interest in land ownership and cultivation, although they were interested
in the trade in forest products.
Intense rivalry and competition among the aristocrats over power and succession to
the throne were quite usual, similar to the situation existing in East Sumatra’s kingdoms
as described by Milner. There was no rule of succession; ascension to the throne depended
on the alliances and coalitions the aristocrats could forge. Slaves were not only a common
source of labor in the region; but were an important trade commodity up to the abolition
of slavery by the Dutch in the late nineteenth century.
The commercial aristocracy itself came from many different groups. In Kutai the
aristocracy was Malay; in Bulungan it was a mixture of the Taosugs and the Buginese;
in Pasir and Berau it was a combination of the Buginese, the Arabs, and the Malays. The
Dayaks had always lived separately in the interior, although they did have important relations
with these aristocrats.
The consolidation of Dutch power and the discovery of oil strengthened the position
of these aristocrats. As had been the case in East Sumatra, the Dutch then found willing
and important allies among these aristocrats. They not only gave highly lucrative concessions
to the Dutch, but also relied on Dutch protection. The Dutch then instituted a quasi legal
succession procedure through which they could further control the sultanates. Whereas
before, the aristocrats had relied on private mercenaries to protect their status and interests
from challenges from below, now the aristocrats rested at ease, convinced that Dutch rule
in East Borneo and the presence of Dutch soldiers in the region would protect them from
any populist challenge.
Moreover, the payment of oil royalties and Dutch subsidies to the non-oil sultanates,
enabled the aristocrats to increase their standard of living and status to a level quite similar
to that of the European landed aristocracy. The upper echelon of the aristocracy of Kutai
and Bulungan, for example, could maintain a life-style higher than that of the Javanese
Sultans. Though the origins and genealogy of their sultanates were unimpressive, the oil
royalties had substituted for their poor dynastic background and had placed them in the
forefront of the sultanates of the NEI. Their wealth alone placed them among the wealthiest25
of the Outer Island sultanates, such that intermarriages were sought between their daughters
and the sons of the other wealthy East Borneo sultanates.63 However, it was precisely these
oil royalties which in the end put the aristocracy’s future in jeopardy.
63 For example, the daughter of the Sultan of Langkat was married to the son of the Sultan of Bulungan, while the
Court Prince of Kutai, Parikesit married the daughter of the Bupati of Serang, Raden Ajeng Hasanah. However,
the rule of succession fostered the intramarriage of the aristocracy, for it demanded that only sons of mothers originating
within the Kutai aristocracy (pure blood sons—darah murni) could be appointed as the new Sultans. Hence, the
succession rale worked to prevent them from establishing strong family ties with powerful sultanates in Java or
elsewhere in the NEI. While the aristocrats of Kutai and Bulungan might have wanted to marry the daughters of
Javanese bupati, their political future within Kutai would be endangered by doing so. The result was that such marriages
were rare. In the end, this practice left them very vulnerable to the anti-aristocratic attacks of the period of “Guided
Democracy” because they were left without any familial help from the other aristocracies in the NEI.Chapter 3
The Rise of Two Cities:
Balikpapan and Samarinda
The discovery of oil resulted in the emergence of centers for oil exploitation and pro-
duction within the Kutai and Bulungan sultanates. While the Sultan maintained a hand-
some palace in Tenggarong, oil activity was centered in the town of Balikpapan, near
the oil drilling sites in Sanga-sanga and Semboja.
Balikpapan stood on its own as the region’s oil production center, geographically sepa-
rated from the rest of the Kutai sultanate, especially its capital, Tenggarong. Prior to the
twentieth century, Balikpapan had not played an important role in East Borneo’s trade
activities, as it was not located near any of the long rivers connecting the exterior with
centers of forest products in the interior.64 Hence, it could not function as a transship-
ment center for the trade in forest products as Samarinda, Tanjung Selor, and Tanjung
Redeb did for the Kutai, Bulungan, and Berau sultanates. Prior to the consolidation of
Dutch rule, then, Balikpapan was only a small village of mostly Buginese traders.
However, the discovery of oil in the Semboja area placed Balikpapan in an advantageous
position. Only about 39 miles away from the oil fields Balikpapan was easily accessible
by pipeline to them. Moreover, the BPM was eager to build its own port outside the control
of the Kutai sultanate. Located within the well-protected Gulf of Balikpapan, Balikpapan
was the best place the Dutch could choose to center their oil activities. Although it was
under the Kutai sultanate’s jurisdiction, its lack of land communication effectively rendered
Balikpapan a separate pohtical-administrative entity. Hence, the BPM had a free hand
in dealing with its oil business in Balikpapan, a town far from the Sultan’s control.
The BPM soon built its own refinery in Balikpapan for the wells in Semboja and
Sanga-sanga, and another refinery in Tarakan for the Tarakan and Bunyu wells. The NEI
government, under the new concession amendment in 1918, got a high return from this
oil exploitation, namely a 20 percent tax on oil profits, a 4 percent excise on the value
of crude shipped, and a 20 percent tax on corporate profits.65 Oil exploitation provided
the NEI government with a sizable income, especially since the NEI only gave a fixed
annual budget to the Kutai sultanate which owned the land under concession.
The growth of Balikpapan into a major oil city was to occur especially after 1910
when the joint Dutch and British Shell Company monopolized the production of oil in
East Borneo at the expense of American companies. By 1921, the Nederlandsche Indische
64	The longest river in Balikpapan is the Manggar River which is 19 kilometers long. There are no towns in its
upper reaches. In comparison, the Mahakam River is 920 kilometers long. See Desa Di Kalimantan Timur (Sektor
Selatan) (Samarinda: Akademi Pemerintahan Dalam Negeri, 1974), p. 10.
65	See Anderson G. Bartlett III et al., Pertamina: Indonesian National Oil (Tulsa: Amerasian Ltd., 1972), p. 47.
See also J. S. Fumivall, Netherlands India: A Study of Plural Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1939), p. 328.
2728
Aardolie Maatschappij (NIAM), a subsidiary of the Dutch and British Shell Company in
which 50 percent of the shares were owned by the NEI government, was given the oil
concessions in East Borneo.66 The NEI government thereby gained a real stake in East
Borneo’s oil exploitation business centered in Balikpapan.
A rapidly expanding oil industry in the 1910s created various labor needs in Balikpapan.
The first was the need for oil workers, which was largely met through the recruitment
of surplus labor in the Javanese countryside that resulted from the Cultivation System (Cultuur
Stelsel). It was not rare to find that contract laborers (kuli kontrak) were transported back
and forth from Java to the plantations in East Sumatra before they finally landed in the
oil fields of East Borneo.67
The number of oil laborers in Balikpapan alone was to reach about 2,000 persons
before the Second World War. About 80 percent of these laborers were Javanese, creating
their own Kampung Java in Balikpapan (see Map 2). They formed the bulk of the radicalized
workers of Balikpapan during the Revolution and were to play an important political role
thereafter.
The oil industry’s skilled workers and technical staff in both Balikpapan and Tar-
akan, on the other hand, were mostly Minahassan. They formed about 75 percent of the
staff positions {kerani), although their total population in Balikpapan was only about 668
persons. The rest of the kerani were Banjarese who mostly migrated from South Borneo
in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It was from this kerani group that the leadership
of the early political movements in Balikpapan emerged.
Although the oil industry directly employed less than 3,000 persons of the 39,092
people then living in Balikpapan,68 the city itself depended on oil-created jobs. Balikpapan
itself was not self-sufficient in terms of food production. It did not have an agricultural
hinterland, and its soil was not fertile enough to be cultivated and planted with rice.69
All consumer products from rice to meats had to be imported, giving rise to a vast network
of jobs and distributional channels with the agricultural areas outside East Borneo. The
66	Bartlett III et al.f Pertamina, p. 48.
67	Many of the Javanese laborers in Balikpapan had first worked in the East Sumatra plantations before being
rotated to the oil fields in East Borneo. Interviews with various officials of Pertamina Unit IV, East Kalimantan,
June 7 and 8, 1979 conducted in Balikpapan. See also interview with S. Mewengkang, June 28, 1979. For an
account of the fate of the Javanese laborers in East Sumatra, see Ann Laura Stoler, Capitalism and Confrontation
in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870-1979 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), especially Chapter
2.
68	For the population of Balikpapan in 1930, see Volkstelting, Deel V, p. 127.
69	The soil in Balikpapan has a large percentage of sand. See Monografi Kecamatan Tarakan (Tarakan: Bappeda
Kalimantan Timur, 1975), part I, page 11. Figures of rice land in East Kalimantan for 1976 are below:
These figures are from Statistik Daerah Tingkat I Kalimantan Timur, 1976 (Samarinda: Bappeda Kalimantan
Timur, 1977), p. 64.
Kutai
Berau
14,006 hectares
1,412 hectares
4,616 hectares
6,875 hectares
2,815 hectares
948 hectares
Bulungan
Pasir
Samarinda
Balikpapan29
Table 1. Population of Balikpapan in 1930 according to ethnic group
Number
Javanese	10,222
Banjarese	7,389
Buginese	1,951
Mandarese	610
Sundanese	805
Minahasan	668
Makassarese	526
Madurese	292
Kutais/Malays	52
Dayaks	32
Europeans	993
Chinese	4,427
Other Orientals	1,151
Others	9,974
Total	39,092
Source: Volkstelling 1930 Deel V Borneo en Celebes.
Table 2. Population of Tarakan in 1930 according to ethnic group
Ethnic Group	Number
Javanese	4,082
Kutais/Malays	1,777
Banjarese	670
Minahasan	349
Makassarese	348
Sundanese	246
Buginese	237
Dayak	31
Others	1,841
European	567
Chinese	3,063
Other Orientals	197
Total	13,388
Source: Volkstelling 1930 Deel V Borneo en Celebes.30
Dutch, with the help of Chinese traders who had recently migrated to East Borneo, exploited
this consumer goods dependency to the advantage of their commodities distribution com-
pany, Borsumij (Borneo Sumatra Maatschappij).
The role of the Chinese traders was quite important in the region’s economy since
they exerted a monopoly over the local distribution of consumer products. In the oil cities
of Balikpapan and Tarakan Chinese numbered 4,427 (11.4 percent) and 3,063 (22.9 percent)
of the total population, respectively (see Tables 1 and 2). The economic life of Balikpapan,
in effect, was dominated by the Europeans and Chinese, working together at the expense
of the Indonesian ethnic groups.
But although the Indonesian ethnic groups generally shared a subordinate position in
the economy, they were by no means homogeneous in terms of the political or economic
power they wielded. While the Javanese workers could not organize politically because
of strong government controls and were weak economically because of their restrictive
labor contracts with the Dutch, the Banjarese were in a better political and economic po-
sition. The Banjarese first migrated to East Borneo as part of the “Banjarese exodus” following
the collapse of the Banjarmasin sultanate in the 1860s. Beyond this, the decline of rubber
plantations in South Borneo in the 1920s significantly increased the number of Banjarese
migrants to East Borneo prior to the Depression in the 1930s. Banjarese, known for their
skills as traders and supported by a national network of Banjarese migrants, soon were
able to compete with the Chinese in retailing and distributing consumer products to the
urban oil centers in East Borneo. In particular, a sizable number of Banjarese settlers played
an ever-increasing role in the economy there, using their perahu to transport rice and other
food stuffs from the center of the rice-producing areas in Hulusungai.
Aside from the Banjarese, the Buginese also played a significant economic role in
the region. They were active in the transport of food products (mainly beef) from the
Pare-pare region to Balikpapan. However, unlike the Banjarese, they had neither the
economic means nor political leadership to voice their grievances. Hence, it was the Banjarese
who were to play an important leadership role in the political movements representing
all the Indonesian ethnic groups. Later on, the Javanese and the Minahassans came to
occupy important leadership roles in these political movements.
Their grievances were aimed at the Chinese traders and their Dutch protectors and,
no less importantly, at the Kutai sultanate. It was the sultanate, and especially the Sultan,
which came to provide a central frame of reference for nationalist opposition in Balikpapan.
The nationalists not only resented the easy life of the Sultan and his family financed by
the oil royalties, but also his careless attitude toward the welfare of his subjects, especially
in Balikpapan.
While Samarinda was under direct Dutch rule, Balikpapan was still under the domain
of the Sultan, represented by a Kepala Penjawat (Head of District). The Kepala Penjawat
was supervised by a Dutch Controlleur as a civil servant of the Onderafdeling of South
Kutai.70 Hence, Balikpapan’s population was still under an obligation to pay for Kutai’s
treaty liabilities with the Dutch. They had to pay a head-tax and to provide corvee labor
for 24 days a year.71 Since the Javanese workers and Minahassan professionals were on
70	Abbas, “Pengarah,” p. 194.
71	Interview with Aji Bambang Abdurrachman, June 26, 1979. The amount to be paid by each head of family
was 4 guilders a year.31
the BPM’s payroll, the Sultan could not force them to fulfill their corvee labor obligations.
Thus, the obligations of the Kutai sultanate had to be paid by the Banjarese who had
no administrative ties to the BPM.
Moreover, the Sultan rarely used the Kutai sultanate’s oil royalties to improve the
welfare or living conditions of Balikpapan’s population. While the sultanate built its own
HIS in Tenggarong in 1913, and a few other primary schools afterwards, Balikpapan lagged
far behind in the educational opportunities it offered. It was only in 1928 that it got an
elementary vocational school, years after the sultanate had built higher-level schools in
Tenggarong. For the majority of the people in Balikpapan, living conditions did not improve
with the erection of Dutch oil industry facilities. The oil industry’s professional staff lived
in their own luxurious enclaves, with access to such modem amenities as hospitals and
electrical and clean-water facilities.72
Furthermore, even though the Sultan extracted significant oil revenues from Balikpa-
pan, and taxes and labor from its population, he never visited that city. In fact, Balikpapan
was run by the Dutch Controlleur on behalf of the BPM. Having received his percentage
of the oil royalties, the Sultan saw no need to visit this region of his sultanate. Formally,
Balikpapan was under Kutai rule, but in reality it was an extra-territorial area under Dutch
control. Conditions were thus ripe for the growth of a strong nationalist movement, especially
among the Banjarese traders and Javanese workers.
Precisely because of its unique position, Balikpapan was to become one of the centers
of the nationalist movement for East Borneo. Living in an industrial city with a sizable
European population, Balikpapan’s population received certain political rights from the
Dutch without the consent of the Sultan of Kutai. Whereas in Tenggarong, for example,
the Islamic tabligh had to get the Sultan’s approval in advance, Balikpapan’s population
was quite free to organize political movements. Some wealthy Banjarese traders even gave
financial support to these movements, both in Balikpapan and Samarinda.
By 1937, Balikpapan’s political groups had had contacts with the nationalist movements
in Java. Some prominent members of the national movements had visited the region,
including such Gerindo (Gerakan Rakjat Indonesia) leaders as Adnan Kapau Gani and Adam
Malik, who visited Balikpapan on their way to Samarinda in 1937 and 1939. While Ger-
indo had a branch in Samarinda, the moderate party Parindra (Partai Indonesia Raja) had
branches in both cities. In Balikpapan, a Parindra branch office was established as early
as 1933 by a nationalist leader, Achmad Nino Hadjarati, who was also prominent in the
prewar nationalist movements in South Sulawesi.73 By 1939, both in Samarinda and Balikpapan,
the nationalist movements had advanced to the extent that they could form branches of
Gapi (Gaboengan Politik Indonesia) and M3AI (Madjlisul Islamil a’la Indonesia).
Prior to the Japanese occupation, then, the nationalist movement in Balikpapan had
a strong anti-sultanate and anti-Dutch orientation, fed by the daily difficulties and frustrations
that most Indonesians had to endure in that oil city and the realization that most Indonesians
72	Interview with Husein Jusuf, June 7, 1979. It was the Chinese company, Wang Phing Trading Co. which
controlled the business of supplying the needs of the oil companies. See Syahbandi, et al.t Sejarah Kebangkitan
Nasional Kalimantan Timur (Samarinda: n.p., 1978), p. 39.
73	Prior to and during the Japanese occupation, Hadjarati was one of the prominent members of the pergerakan
movements in South Sulawesi. See La Sidek Daeng Tapala, Sejarah Kebangkitan Nasional de Sulawesi Selatan
(Makassar: Departemen P. & K., 1977), p. 55. For his role in Balikpapan, see Syahbandi et al., ‘‘Sejarah,*’ p. 43.32
could only hope for a life of hardship under that regime. The feeling was especially strong
among the Banjarese traders and retailers, who had to compete with the Dutch-supported
Chinese, and the Javanese workers, who were without any organizational protection.
Moreover, the different political conditions and economic arrangements and relationships
in Balikpapan set the nationalist movement there organizationally and ideologically apart
from the nationalist movement in Samarinda. Thus, Samarinda and Balikpapan emerged
as two distinct and separate centers for the nationalist movements and political ideologies
of East Borneo.
One of the most striking differences between Samarinda and Balikpapan lies in the
composition and function of the Indonesian ethnic groups residing there. Whereas in
Balikpapan, Kutai ethnic groups were largely absent, Samarinda’s ethnic composition was
quite different (see Table 3). The Banjarese were in the majority and constituted 54.93
percent of the indigenous population. Most of the first generation of Banjarese came directly
to Samarinda from the Banjarmasin-Martapura complex of the old Banjarmasin sultan-
ate. While they mostly had strong anti-Dutch feelings, they did not harbor as strong a
sentiment against the sultanate as did Balikpapan’s Banjarese.
For one thing, the Banjarese of Samarinda did not depend on the oil industry and
were not subject to the taxing authority of the sultanate. Ever since the late nineteenth
century, Samarinda had become the center of trade for forest products. Having gained
a regular income from its oil concessions, the Kutai sultanate had given its rights to tax
forest products to the Dutch authorities. The Banjarese had taken over the role played
by the Buginese and Taosug, and came to play an important role in trade activities.
Although they faced fierce competition from the Chinese, they were able to do quite well.
In short, as traders, the Banjarese had fared better in Samarinda than in Balikpapan. At
the same time, some had become administrative officials in the Dutch civil service and
had been given important jobs such as Kepala Penjawat by the Dutch.
Table 3. Population of Samarinda in 1930 according to ethnic group
Ethnic Group	Number
Banjarese	4,620
Kutai/Malay	1,225
Javanese	1,167
Buginese	572
Bajo	257
Dayaks	30
Others	540
European	270
Chinese	2,201
Other Orientals	204
Total	11,086
Source: Volkstelling 1930 Deel V Borneo en Celebes33
Moreover, unlike Balikpapan, Samarinda was under direct Dutch rule and officially
outside the sultanate’s authority or jurisdiction. It was also the seat of the Assistant Resident
for Kutai and Pasir74 where many Dutch officials resided. As had been the case with cities
elsewhere in the NEI, the population was relatively freer to exercise its political rights
in Samarinda under direct Dutch rule than in Kutai under indirect Dutch rule. Finally,
it should be noted that, whereas in Balikpapan the Banjarese did not even constitute an
important educated elite, in Samarinda they dominated political life.
In contrast, the Kutais and the Buginese in Samarinda were not active in political
movements because they were still connected in one way or another with the sultanate.
Most of the Buginese worked as laborers in the harbor or in other low-wage, low-skill
jobs. Similarly, most of the Javanese were engaged in low-paying occupations. A few
Javanese were technicians and professionals of the NEI administration, while the vast majority
attempted to make a living as vegetable farmers and peasants. The peasantry was composed
mostly of Javanese who had been encouraged to transmigrate by the Dutch in the 1930s.
They were usually sent to Loak Ulu but the Dutch transmigration schemes there, as elsewhere,
met with little success. In time these transmigrants moved on to Samarinda in search of
farming opportunities.
Precisely because of its position as the center of administration for East Borneo,
Samarinda had attracted many educated people of non-Banjarese origins. Most of them
were nationalists who migrated to Samarinda because they considered it a haven for political
activity. Horas Siregar, a journalist who moved from Pulau Laut to Samarinda and established
a nationalist newspaper, Panggilan Waktoe, in 1933, is illustrative of this group of mi-
grants.75 Siregar soon came to lead a branch of Parindra in Samarinda, with the support
of a Banjarese financier. In 1935, the local branch of PBI (Partai Buruh Indonesia) merged
into Parindra, led by a Banjarese politician who had just come from Kotabaru, Roestam
Effendi.76 Parindra was to achieve considerable strength, so that in 1936 it was able to
establish its own HIS. In 1937, the party’s strength was further boosted by the visit of
its leader from Jakarta, M. Husnie Thamrin who was also a member of the Volksraad.
Consequently, Parindra was quite active in the prewar nationalist movements in East Borneo
and was able to hold several public meetings in Samarinda, Sangkulirang, and Sanga-
sanga.
Of equal importance to Parindra’s organizational growth was its ability to attract young
nationalists who had just graduated from the few elementary schools in Samarinda through
its youth organization, Surya Wirawan. Indeed, the availability of an elementary education
in Dutch-medium schools for Samarinda’s children accounts in large measure for the very
different place the nationalist movements occupied in Samarinda and Balikpapan, and the
very different social basis available to the nationalist leadership in these two cities.
As early as 1923, the Dutch had established the HIS in Samarinda, attended mostly
by Banjarese children. Moreover, Tenggarong was only four hours’ sailing upriver from
74	For a description of the administrative divisions extant during the period of Dutch colonial rule, see Syahbandi
et al., “Sejarah,” p. 31.
75	Ibid., p. 42.
76	The town of Kotabaru in Pulau Laut used to be a prosperous area due to coal mining done on that island.
However, its coal-mining activities declined in the 1920s and Balikpapan was to attract many of KotabanTs educated
people. See ibid., p. 44.34
Samarinda. Road communication was also available between the two towns, making it
possible for Banjarese children from Samarinda to attend many of the elementary schools
funded by the sultanate in Tenggarong. A few Banjarese children were even accepted at
the HIS Tenggarong, guaranteeing their fathers an income of more than f.100 a month.
But most Banjarese children attended elementary schools such as Teachers’ Schools and
Vervolg Schools.77 The availability of educated Banjarese in Samarinda had made pos-
sible their appointment as lower officials not only in the Dutch administration, but also
in Kutai’s bureaucracy. They were mosdy stationed in the interior towns of Kutai as camat
(lesser officials), positions which had been refused by Kutai officials. In fact, the dominant
position of the Banjarese migrants in interior towns such as Damai, Kota Bangun, Muara
Kaman, and Muara Muntai was further strengthened with the influx of Banjarese traders
who soon came to dominate retail trading along the Mahakam River. This influx of migrants
was rather similar to the influx of the Banjarese along the Barito River to the interior
of Central Borneo, following the collapse of the Banjarmasin sultanate at the end of the
nineteenth century.78
Hence, the Banjarese of Samarinda had relationships with the Kutai sultanate to a
degree that was not matched by the Banjarese of Balikpapan. While they resented the
extravagant life-style of the sultanate’s officials, they did not translate these grievances
into personal attacks on the members of the sultanate’s power structure. Rather, the Banjarese
focused their attention on the institutional inadequacies of the sultanate. This institutional
political orientation was further reinforced by the fact that many Banjarese intermarried
with Kutai aristocrats. Hence, moderation always characterized the Samarinda Banjarese,
while the Balikpapan Banjarese were in the forefront of those advocating radical solutions,
especially with regard to the Kutai sultanate.
While Samarinda had a strong branch of Parinda, it also had a weaker branch of Gerindo.
Led by Banjarese youths, Gerindo had a lesser status than Parinda. It was in Balikpa-
pan that Gerindo did have a stronghold. Samarinda also had a strong branch of the Islamic
movement, Penjadar, led by a former leader of Sarekat Islam, A. M. Sangadji, an Ambonese
who had been exiled by the Dutch from Jakarta to Loak Ulu. Sangadji was a close friend
of Sarekat Islam leaders, Oemar Tjokroaminoto and H. Agus Salim. Penjadar could be
characterized as a cooperative political movement, especially when compared to the early
Sarekat Islam with its radical stance vis-a-vis the Dutch.
Nevertheless, Sangadji was able to attract many followers within the Islamic community
of the Samarinda-Loak Ulu complex. He was to become the focal point of young nationalists
in Samarinda who felt that they were lucky to have a national leader as their adviser.
Indeed, it was Penjadar which gave a significant political voice to Islamic politics and
77	Ibid., p. 18, for the regulation regarding parents* income and the school entrance. For a discussion of educational
policy in the NEI prior to the Second World War, see Christian Lambert Maria Penders, “Colonial Education Policy
and Practice in Indonesia: 1900-1942** (PhD dissertation, The Australian National University, 1968), especially
pp. 70-99.
78	The Banjarese diaspora to the upper reaches of the Barito River had led to ethnic conflict with the Dayak Ngaju.
For this history, see Douglas Miles, Cutlass and Crescent Moon: A Case Study in Social and Political Change
in Outer Indonesia (Sydney: University of Sydney, 1967), p. 104.35
compensated for the weakness of other Islamic political movements in Samarinda, such
as the Nahdhatul Ulama, Muhammadiyah, and Musyawarattunthalibun.79
The weakness of Islamic organizations in prewar East Borneo can be attributed to
these organizations’ orientation toward Banjarmasin. Whereas Gerindo, Penjadar, and Parindra
established direct relationships with their headquarters in Jakarta, the Islamic organiza-
tions were branches of the Banjarmasin office. The effect of this organizational subordination
was to prevent the Islamic leaders of East Borneo from directly linking and interacting
meaningfully with the nationalist movements. Moreover, the absence in East Borneo of
any Islamic schools (pesantren and madrasah) channeled the Banjarese children to Dutch-
medium schools. Thus, although later on the post-independence Islamic parties showed
a considerable presence in East Kalimantan’s politics, their main basis of support was
in the pengajian (religious activity) groups, and not in the pesantren.80
Aside from Samarinda and Balikpapan, the nationalist movement had gained impetus
in Tarakan where half of the population was Javanese. However, its geographical separation
and the strict control maintained by the Dutch Assistant Resident there discouraged the
emergence of any trend toward political activities. In addition, since Tarakan was entirely
dependent on oil activities, the population did not have alternative economic resources
for financing the nationalist movement, such as was provided by the independent traders
of Balikpapan and Samarinda. Hence, Tarakan was never to develop a strong prewar
nationalist movement, despite its large potential membership pool of Javanese workers.
Hence, the centers of anti-aristocratic feeling in East Borneo were in Balikpapan,
followed by Samarinda. It was in these two cities that the two necessary elements for
the emergence of a nationalist movement were present, namely an educated elite and an
independent economic base. However, the ideological differences between the nationalist
movements in these two cities, especially with regard to the position of the Kutai sultanate,
had led the nationalists there to formulate two different approaches to the way of best
dealing with East Borneo’s aristocracy.
79	For the role of A.M. Sangadji in East Kalimantan, see Syahbandi et al., “Sejarah,” pp. 50-51. In East Kalimantan,
the branches of Muhammadiyah, Nahdhatul Ulama, and Musyawarattunthalibun were led from their regional offices
in Banjarmasin. The latter was a Banjarmasin-based orthodox Sunni organization, founded in 1930 to counter
the reformist Muhammadiyah. See Mohammad Taufik, “Perkembangan Muhammadiyah di Kalimantan Selatan
dari 1925-1942” (MA thesis, IKIP Malang, 1972), p. 69.
80	In Kutai kabupaten, for example, there were about 27 madrasah in 1975, managed by several Islamic organizations
and the government. Up to 1978 there were only three well-known pesantren in East Kalimantan. Two of them,
in Tenggarong and Balikpapan, were founded by their Banjarese Bupati, with the support of government funds.
The third one has been managed by the Pare-pare-based Darul Dakwah al Irsjad (DDI) which has established
madrasah and pesantren as far away as Long I ram and Bulungan. See Laporan Survey Keadaan Kehidupan Beragama
dan Atiran-aliran Kepercayaan dikabupaten Kutai dan Pasir, ed. Hamri Has (Samarinda: Fakultas Tarbiyah, IAIN
Sunan Ampel Samarinda, 1975), especially pp. 22-49.Chapter 4
The Moderates in Power and the Survival of
the Aristocracy
Their experiences during the Japanese occupation and, especially during the Revo-
lution, further widened the differences between the Samarinda and Balikpapan national-
ist movements. The radical position of the Balikpapan nationalists was strengthened by
the military training provided by the Japanese, although that training only lasted a few
months. It was in Balikpapan that the Japanese established their training center for youths
from both Samarinda and Balikpapan. The recruits numbered about fifty and were given
the task of guarding the important oil city alongside the Japanese army.81
But it was the Revolution which brought Balikpapan’s youths to the forefront of the
struggle (perjuangan). Balikpapan, which was the headquarters of the Japanese during their
occupation, in 1945 became the headquarters of the Allied forces. Though the Japanese
had improved the Sepinggan airport for use by their own Air Force, the Allies used it
when they arrived from Tarakan in June 1945. These Allied forces were part of General
Mac Arthur’s command, and they took over the important oil installations in Tarakan and
Balikpapan well ahead of British-led Allied forces entering Indonesia from Singapore.
Allied strategy made Balikpapan an important point of entry for further penetration
into Indonesia, for it was there that arsenals and weaponry were accumulated for the move-
ment of Allied forces into Indonesia, especially to Makassar and Banjarmasin. A sizable
number of the Allied troops in Balikpapan were Australians, mostly draftees and many
previously members of the governing Labor Party. Quite a few of these soldiers were sym-
pathetic to the Indonesian Revolution, and from them the pejuang of Balikpapan not only
obtained information about the independence struggle, but also weapons.82
Few though they were, the pejuang of Balikpapan had at their disposal sufficient arms
to start guerrilla warfare when the Dutch KNIL [Koninklijk Nederlandsch Indisch Leger,
81	See Syahbandi et al., “Sejarah,” p. 73. See also, Asnawi Musa, “Gejolak Revolusi 45 di Kalimantan Timur”
(typescript).
82	Interview with Husein Jusuf, August30,1978. The Australian military also played a sympathetic role in Banjarmasin.
Two Australian military leaders brought with them pamphlets about Indonesia's independence struggle and met
with prominent leaders of the pergerakan (nationalist movement) in Banjarmasin. See Dhany Yustian, “Gerakan
Rakyat Banjarmasin Dalam Menghadapi Pendudukan Belanda di Banjarmasin, 1945-1949” (MA thesis, IKIP Malang,
1976) pp. 64-68. It should be noted that the Australian troops which took Balikpapan, Tarakan, and Banjarmasin
were under the command of Brigadier Sir Thomas Blarney. This 8th Australian brigade, in turn, was under the
overall command of General Mac Arthur’s Southwest Pacific Command of the Allied Forces which had earlier
recaptured the Philippines. Only under the Potsdam Agreement was MacArthur prevented from taking over most
of the NEI islands. For this interesting piece of Allied policy, and its impact on Indonesia's independence, see
William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur; 1880-1964 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978), p. 429.
3738
Royal Netherlands Indies Army] returned a few months later. Balikpapan was among the
first places the Dutch needed to control militarily, because of the importance of its oil
fields and the presence of around a hundred Dutch nationals who were prisoners-of-war
in the region. The necessity of gaining military control and of restarting oil-pumping
operations put the Dutch in direct confrontation with armedpemuda pejuang (young fighters),
aided now by about 50 deserters from the Dutch police force.83 Among the pejuang there
was a strong semangat (spirit) or conviction that the prewar status quo could not be allowed
to be put back into place again by the Dutch.
The superiority of Dutch firepower made it difficult for the small bands of guerrillas
to sustain their attacks. Moreover, the lack of communication and the low population density
obliged the guerrillas to operate only in the villages near the towns. Sporadic attacks were
initiated by the guerrillas in areas such as Semboja, Sanga-sanga, and Balikpapan. There
was also a small guerrilla unit in Pasir which had been sent by Hasan Basri, Commandant
of ALRI Divisi IV in Banjarmasin to assist the pejuang in East Borneo, under the command
of a certain Abdurrachman, alias RM Noto Sunardi.84 This unit never made it to Balikpapan
and was crushed by the Dutch in Long Ikis, Pasir.
By March 1946, there was no further military threat to the Dutch from the pejuang.
The KNIL had taken over control of Balikpapan and its oil installations, and had prepared
the way for the political maneuverings required for the creation of a Dutch-controlled
federation-type state in Borneo. Meanwhile, the pejuang of Balikpapan emphasized their
experience of armed struggle against the Dutch, notwithstanding their small numbers and
the short-lived nature of their struggle, using this experience to substantiate the claim that
Balikpapan was “a city of struggle (kota perjuangan).”*s
Aside from a short-lived armed struggle, the Balikpapan pejuang also organized a
political movement of their own. This was made possible by the availability of a few
educated leaders at the end of 1945. Prominent among them was Aminuddin Nata, a Banjarese
who had graduated from HBS (Hoogere Burger School, Citizens High School) in Jakarta
and had even enrolled at RHS (Law School) for a short period of time.86 Another leader
was a Minahasan, Siebold Mewengkang who had worked for the BPM as a middle level
official in its accounting division.87
The first political movement to emerge from the armed struggle was named Komite
Indonesia Merdeka (KIM), and was led by young groups of former Heiho (conscripted
Indonesian laborers who were incorporated into the Japanese army). KIM was able to organize
a mass demonstration on November 14, 1945, from which eager supporters for subsequent
83	According to Asnawi Musa, about 50 police members went to the pejuang side, under the command of a Minahasan
officer, Pangemanan. See Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 5.
84	For the history of Abdurrachman Aziz alias RM Noto Sunardi, see Hassan Basri, Kisah Gerilya Kalimantan
(Banjaimasin: Yayasan Lambung Mangkurat, 1961), p. 65. See also Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 51, and Sejarah Kodam
IX Muiawarman, p. 14.
85	The best-organized guerrilla unit was a platoon strength group, led by Herman Runturambi, a former policeman
of Minahasan origin. His platoon took part in the recapture of Sanga-sanga Dalam on January 27, 1947. However,
the guerrilla units were never to become a formidable opponent of the Dutch troops. Although some units continued
to fight until the end of 1949, their military strength was negligible. See Musa, “Gejolak,” pp. 75-82, for an account
of the last campaign of the Dutch against the guerrillas, prior to the establishment of Federasi Kalimantan Timur.
86 For a brief biography, see Biographical Appendix at the end of this monograph.
87 For a brief biography, see Biographical Appendix at the end of this monograph.39
nationalist movements were recruited. Moreover, on November 29, 1945, a few days after
the arrest of the leaders of KIM by the NICA (Netherlands Indies Civil Administration),88
various leaders of the pejuang movements created a local front, Fonds Nasional Indonesia
(Foni).
Foni was of a different character from KIM, especially in terms of its leadership.
Whereas KIM had accommodated many young leaders with strong semangat for mass dem-
onstration and armed struggle, Foni was mostly interested in developing a long-term political
movement to support the Revolution. Its founders were Aminuddin Nata and Siebold
Mewengkang. Having realized that the Dutch were increasingly capable of controlling
Balikpapan militarily, they concentrated on politically organizing and consolidating the
various groups within the Republican forces.
On June 5, 1946, when the Dutch had consolidated their control in East Borneo, Foni
was reorganized as a party, Ikatan Nasional Indonesia (INI). It had its headquarters in
Balikpapan, with Aminuddin Nata as chairman. It included many pejuang in its leadership,
such as former KIM leaders Husein Jusuf and Tayib Kesuma. Siebold Mewengkang was
to become the vice chairman and also the chairman of its affiliate labor organization for
oil workers, Serikat Kaum Buruh (SKB).89 The SKB was to become the forerunner of
an independent oil workers’ organization, Serikat Kaum Buruh Minyak (SKBM), still under
Mewengkang’s leadership, in the 1950s.
The momentum for INI’s expansion came after the Malino Conference in July 1946.
Republican forces in East Borneo had responded to the Dutch plan for the creation of
a federal state by establishing INI branches in important towns. On August 6, 1946 INI
had set up a branch in Tenggarong, to be followed in September by ones at Sanga-sanga
and Melak, in November 1946 by ones at Tarakan and Muara Muntai, and in December
1946 by ones in Tanah Grogot, Samarinda, and Sangkulirang.90 By January 1947, INI had
branches in Berau as well.
INI’s main aim was to insure that East Kalimantan be included as part of the Republic
of Indonesia through mass action and other political activities. Its leaders had contacted
the Republic’s Governor of Kalimantan, Pangeran Mohammad Noor, who was then directing
the Republican efforts from Yogya.91 Aminuddin Nata had traveled to Tenggarong in early
July 1946, to persuade Sultan Parikesit not to send a delegation to the Malino Conference.
He failed, and East Borneo was represented both at the Malino and Denpasar Confer-
ences by its aristocrats, Aji Raden Afloes, Sampan Zainuddin, and Datu Muhammad.92
88	See Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 42. See also in Sejarah Singkat Kodam Mulawarman (Balikpapan: Dinas Sejarah Kodam
Mulawarman, 1975), pp. 8-9.
89	See Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 42 and interview with Mewengkang, June 28, 1979.
90	Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 42.
91	During his appointment as the first Governor of Kalimantan, Ir. Pangeran Mohammad Noor had never come
to visit the region under his administration. He stayed in Yogya and could not reside in Banjaimasin because
of Dutch control over that city. He was to become the focal point of the Banjarese Republicans in their struggle
against the Dutch. For a brief biography, see Biographical Appendix and Baku MPR 1977, p. 64.
92	For a complete list of the prominent aristocrats who attended the Malino Conference, see Henri J. H. Alers,
Om Een Rode of Groene Merdeka: Tien Jaren Binnenlandse PoUtiek Indonesia 1943-1953 (Eindhoven: Vulkaan,
1956), p. 138. See also, interview with Aji Raden Djokoprawiro, July 7, 1979, Malang. According to him, he
was elected by the Dewan Kalimantan Timur to go to the Denpasar Conference. However, he was prevented from
so doing by the Dutch who at that time doubted that the Borneo state would be created.40
The KIM element within the INI leadership in Balikpapan was furious about the par-
ticipation of East Borneo’s aristocrats in the Malino Conference. They viewed this participation
as the first step in an effort, fully backed by the Dutch, to return the aristocracy to power.
In defiance of INI’s formal position, they sponsored a series of mass meetings in Balikpapan
and sent a telegram to Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir that stated that “the Balikpapan people
were behind the Yogya government and had nothing to do with the Denpasar Conference.”93
Prior to the Denpasar Conference of December 18, 1946, Balikpapan was full of
revolutionary spirit, activated by the young pejuang who were dissatisfied with the slowness
of INI’s leadership. Oil workers had joined the pejuang leaders in their activism, creating
a crisis situation for the Dutch oil industry. The crisis was so serious that rumors were
spread on December 10, 1946 that the feared “Zeven December” battalion of the Dutch
KL would massacre all 2,000 oil workers in Balikpapan. This rumor was strengthened
by the “Westerling Affairs” in South Sulawesi on December 11,1946 which had intimidated
anti-Dutch elements prior to the Denpasar Conference.94
The Dutch decided to wait until the end of the Denpasar Conference to arrest INI’s
leaders, partly because one of them, Mewengkang, was attending the conference as an
observer. Finally, the Dutch arrested prominent INI leaders in Balikpapan and Samarinda
on January 24,1947. Among those arrested in Balikpapan were Aminuddin Nata, Mewengkang,
Djamaluddin Jusuf (a leader of Balikpapan’s pejuang), and Mas Sarman (vice chairman
of INI); while in Samarinda, the list embraced all the radical Republican leaders, including
Djunaid Sanusi, Harun Nafsi, Mrs. Suwito, R. P. Juwono, and Sandijo.95
The effect of this mass arrest was to leave Balikpapan’s Republicans without any
leadership. The pejuang had lost their armed struggle because of Dutch military superiority,
while the political organization, forced to continue without armed support, disintegrated
due to the lack of leadership. Moreover, by that time, the Dutch had been able to impose
their own political solution through the creation of the East Kalimantan Federation in February
1947.96 Nevertheless, Balikpapan’s pejuang refused to recognize this federation because
of the terms and conditions this new political entity entailed. As a result, the Balikpapan
pejuang were not represented in the federation, to the advantage of their rivals, the Samarinda
leadership of INI.
Samarinda’s fate during the Japanese occupation had been significantly different from
that of Balikpapan. First, Samarinda benefited during the occupation from its non-oil
activities. The Japanese did not impose strict military control on Samarinda, and continued
to take advantage of Samarinda’s function as a forest products’ harbor. Prior to the war,
the Japanese had their own timber concession in Sangkulirang which continued operating
during the war.97 Hence, in Samarinda, the Japanese presence was represented by people
93	See Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 44.
94	Ibid., p. 73.
95	Ibid., pp. 80-81.
96	See Alers, Om Een, p. 153. See also A. Arthur Schiller, The Formation of Federal Indonesia, 1945-1949 (The
Hague: Van Hoeve, 1955), p. 185 and Repubtik Indonesia: Propinsi Kalimantan (Jakarta: Kementerian Penerangan
RI, 1954), p. 41.
97	The concession was in Sangkulirang, Kutai, and the rights were owned by a company under the name of “Nanyo
Ringyo Kabushiki Kaysha” (NRKK). See Syahbandi et al., “Sejarah,” p. 55.41
who had resided there during the prewar period, whereas in Balikpapan, the Japanese
militarily occupied the city in order to control the flow of oil.
Second, the Japanese had been aided in Samarinda by the Islamic leader, A. M. Sangaji
who worked with their administration as its religious adviser. Sangaji campaigned tirelessly
throughout Samarinda, Loak Ulu, and Sangkulirang, especially when the Japanese wanted
to persuade the people to send their sons to be trained as Heiho in Balikpapan, at the
end of 1944.
At the end of their occupation, it was thought that the Japanese were planning a massacre
of the Indonesian educated elite in Samarinda, as they had done in West Borneo.98 They
did kill several Dutch administrators, but no massacre of Indonesians materialized. The
educated elite became the focal point of Samarinda nationalist political movements following
independence. Their principal leader was a Javanese medical doctor, Dr. Suwadji, supported
mostly by Javanese and Banjarese nationalists.99
Under his chairmanship, Dr. Suwadji formed a committee to defend Indonesia’s in-
dependence, known later as “Gerakan Dokter Suwadji” (the movement of Dr. Suwadji).
He was assisted by several Banjarese youths, including Badrun Arief, Oemar Dachlan,
and Djunaid Amin. Because of his activities, the Dutch transferred him from his Samar-
inda post to a small town in the interior in November 1945. However, his political work
was furthered by another Javanese leader, R. P. Juwono who merged all independent
movements in Samarinda into a para-military organization, Barisan Pemberontakan Rakyat
Indonesia (BPRI).100
BPRI was quite different from Suwadji’s movement in that it also incorporated many
lasykar (militias) from around Samarinda. Juwono’s assistants, such as Djunaid Sanusi
and Harun Nafsi, were young pejuang of Banjarese origins. They established contacts with
similar lasykar such as Barisan Sedewa in Samarinda, Banteng Indonesia in Tenggarong,
and another BPRI, Barisan Pembela Rakyat Indonesia, in Sanga-sanga.
As was the case in Balikpapan, many lasykar were short-lived in Samarinda. The KNIL
in Samarinda were harsher than their colleagues in Balikpapan. Soon, most of the lasykar
had to retreat into the interior where the Dutch never pursued them, so that pejuang “hit
and run” operations continued until the Round Table Conference in The Hague in 1949.101
The Dutch were able to crush the Republican movements, mostly through arresting their
leaders, or, as in the case of Dr. Suwadji of Samarinda and Dr. Suwondo of Tenggarong,
simply removing them to unimportant places.102
98	For an account of the massacre of the Indonesian elites in West Borneo, see Republik Indonesia: Propinsi
Kalimantan, pp. 108-11. It is estimated that about a thousand Indonesian leaders, many of them doctors, were
killed by the Japanese in 1943.
99	See Musa, “Gejolak,” p. 39.
100	Ibid., p. 40.
101	The guerrilla units of pejuang were incorporated as a new battalion, Battalion C of the Infantry Regiment of
East Kalimantan, on December 14, 1949, by Lieutenant Colonel Sukanda Bratamenggala as a delegate from Army
Headquarters. See Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, pp. 18-19.
102	Dr. Suwondo was removed to Palu, Central Sulawesi, after years of service in East Kalimantan, including service
in Long Iram. He was to become the Deputy Governor of Jakarta, between 1966 and 1977, when he retired. Later
in 1977, he was active as the chairman of the PDI in the Jakarta region. Moreover, he became the PDI representative
at the MPR in 1978 until his death in 1979. Dr. Suwadji became a lecturer at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta
where he subsequently pursued a quiet teaching career.42
The Samarinda branch of INI was established only in December 1946, long after INI
had been formed in Balikpapan. Moreover, Samarinda’s leadership was not involved in
the Samarinda-based lasykar, BPRI. Headed by a Banjarese, Abdul Muis Hassan, INI
Samarinda had its own different political strategy for the Republicans in East Borneo.
INI’s members realized that the lasykar were no match for the Dutch army, and saw
no hope in pursuing the military struggle. Having observed Indonesia’s independence
movement, they believed that East Borneo’s fate would depend on events elsewhere,
especially in Java. Moreover, they did not harbor particular resentment against the sul-
tanate itself, aside from the fact that it was a dependency of the Dutch. In short, they
tried to make the best of the difficult situation posed to the Republicans in East Borneo,
always true to Samarinda’s commitment to moderation. Whereas Balikpapan’s lasykar and
pejuang were mostly Banjarese and Javanese, Samarinda’s moderates were mostly Banjarese,
with a few Melayus. The local INI’s vice-chairman was a Samarinda-Melayu, Inche Abdul
Muis, who had just come back in 1947 from attending a university in Japan.103
The arrest of prominent leaders of INI in Balikpapan moved INI’s political initiatives
and leadership to Samarinda. By February 1947, the Dutch had succeeded in persuading
the aristocrats to support the creation of the East Borneo Federation (Federasi Kaliman-
tan Timur), which was to consist of the four swapraja (self-governing territories):104 Kutai,
Sambaliung, Gunung Tabur, and Bulungan. Pasir was included for a short time, but was
later transferred to the Southeast Borneo Federation (Federasi Kalimantan Tenggara) with
its capital in Kotabaru.105
The return of the Dutch meant also the return of the old days for East Borneo’s aristocrats.
The Kutai and Bulungan Sultans were to have their own oil royalties again and Sultan
Parikesit was also appointed as chairman of the Federation. The Federation had its own
executive office, headed by a pro-Republican Kutai aristocrat, Aji Raden Afloes. The
appointment of Afloes persuaded the Samarinda INI leadership to attempt to cooperate
with the federal scheme. They also received a green-light from Governor Pangeran Noor
in Yogya, who urged fellow Republicans in Borneo to enter various Dewan (councils)
in their respective regions, with the ultimate aim of preventing the establishment of a
Borneo State.106
The decision by Samarinda Republicans to enter the East Borneo Council was not
surprising, given the fact that many Republicans had done the same thing in the East
Indonesian State (NIT), and later on, in Dewan Banjar in Banjarmasin.107 They had also
103	For a brief biography of Inche Abdul Muis, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1977, p. 991.
104	See Schiller, The Formation, pp. 185-86. For an explanation of the significance of the autonomous region
within the governmental structure of NEI, and Indonesia, see Usep Ranuwidjaja, Swapradja: Sekarang dan dihari
Kemudian (Jakarta: Djambatan, 1955), pp. 41-42 on East Borneo.
105	Schiller, The Formation, p. 188. The Federasi Kalimantan Tenggara originally consisted of the Pulau Laut,
Pegatan, and Cantung Sampanahan Autonomous Regions.
106	Interviews with Tajib Kasuma, former member of Dewan Kutai, June 14, 1979; and Pangeran Mohammad
Noor, Jakarta, November 25, 1977.
107	For a discussion of how the Republicans used the Federal scheme to enhance their cause, see George McT.
Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), pp. 351 -90. The Republican
faction in NIT’s Parliament was led by Arnold Mononutu. In its final days, NIT was governed by a Republican
cabinet under the Premiership of Ir. Putuhena. See Republik Indonesia: Propinsi Sulawesi (Jakarta: Kementerian
Penerangan RI, 1953), pp. 171-75. In South Kalimantan, the Republicans had established a political party, Serikat43
succeeded in putting forward the candidacy of Sultan Parikesit as a potential first president
or Walinegara (State Head) of Negara Borneo. Parikesit was nominated as Walinegara
of Borneo partly because his half-brother Aji Pangeran Pranoto was pro-Republican and
partly in order to counter the candidacy of pro-Dutch Sultan Hamid Algadrie II of Pontianak.
However, the Borneo State never materialized, thanks mostly to the opposition of Dewan
Banjar and the rejection by many of Borneo’s Dewan of the possibility of Sultan Hamid
Algadrie II of Pontianak being appointed as the Walinegara.108
Because of pro-Republican sentiments among the Kutai aristocrats, especially the
middle-level aristocrats, the Samarinda Republicans formed a working relationship with
them at East Borneo’s Dewan. However, the Samarinda Republicans were angered by the
Dutch policy of abolishing the prewar special status of Samarinda. Instead of being governed
directly by the Dutch, Samarinda was put under the sultanate’s administration. This policy
led to the emergence of an anti-swapraja movement among the Samarinda Republicans
in the early 1950s. The Dutch policy of appeasement towards the Kutai aristocrats also
included the appointment of a Resident for East Borneo in Samarinda, and the appoint-
ment of Sultan Kutai’s half brother, Aji Pangeran Kertanegara, who was a member of
the Kerapatan (Kutai’s cabinet), as a minister of state in the BFO (Bijeenkomstvoor Federal
Overleg, Federal Consultative Assembly) cabinet in Jakarta.109
But from 1948 onward the Kutai aristocrats were quite different from prewar Kutai.
Young aristocrats with Republican sympathies, such as Afloes and Kariowiti, had important
positions that enabled them to help the Republican cause. Jealousy within the immediate
family of the Sultan had led some of them to forge ties with the Republic, especially
after the appointment of Kertanegara as minister. His half-brother, Aji Pangeran Temenggung
Pranoto, was the police chief of Kutai, and in his official capacity had turned a blind
eye to lasykar activities within his territory.110 Given the uncertainty of the outcome of
the conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesian Republicans, Kutai aristocrats were
in the position of playing both sides of the street. As a result, they ruled differently and
afforded better treatment to Kutai’s population than in the prewar period. Moreover, the
Kerakjatan Indonesia (SKI), that had close relations with the guerrillas. When the Dutch insisted on establishing
the Dewan Banjar, SKI sent a delegation to meet Vice President Hatta in Yogyakarta. Hatta agreed with the condition
that SKI, and the Republicans, had to dominate the Dewan Banjar, which they did. See Mugnie Djunaidi, “Peranan
Serikat Kerakyatan Indonesia (S.K.I.) Dalam Perjuangan Menegakkan Kemerdekaan Indonesia di Kalimantan Selatan”
(MA thesis, IKIP Malang, 1975), pp. 101-8.
108	In addition to the traditional rivalry between the various Sultans, many members of the Dewan Banjar and
Dewan Kalimantan Timur disliked the idea of having Sultan Hamid II as Walinegara. He was considered very
pro-Dutch, having achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the KL (Dutch Royal Army). Sultan Hamid’s candidacy
was backed by West Borneo’s Dayak leader, J.C. Oevang Oeray (interview with AR Djokoprawiro, July 7, 1979).
East Borneo wanted to have Parikesit as Walinegara since his apolitical nature would allow the daily government
functions to fall into the hands of pro-Republican administrators. The opposition of Dewan Banjar to the Borneo
State proposition was a crucial one, because the Dutch had planned to place the Borneo State’s capital in Banjarmasin.
Moreover, the guerrillas of Hassan Basri gave additional strength to the Republicans in Dewan Banjar. See Djunaidi,
“Peranan,” p. 111. See also, Rentjana Garis Besar Negara Kesatuan Kalimantan (Banjarmasin: Panitia Perantjang
Negara Federasi Borneo Kalimantan, November 1948), p. 10.
109	Aji Pangeran Kertanegara was appointed by Van Mook as Secretary of State for Affairs of the Self-Governing
Lands (Menteri Negara Urusan Swapraja) in the so-called “Interim Federal Government” of Indonesia in March
1948. See Schiller, The Formation, pp. 45-46.
110	Interviews with Aji Raden Djokoprawiro, Malang, July 7, 1979, and Tayib Kasuma, Tenggarong, June 19,
1979.44
existence of Dewan at the swapraja levels had given the population considerable leverage
over the Sultans. The leadership of the Dewan had mostly fallen into the hands of pro-
Republican aristocrats, such as Afloes and Kariowiti in Kutai.111
In joining the Dewan, the Samarinda Republicans were in a difficult position. On
the one hand, they still resented the Kutai sultanate and had formed an anti-swapraja
movement. On the other hand, the Samarinda Republicans were accused by the Balikpapan
pejuang of having cooperated with the Dutch-created Dewan. The feeling was especially
bitter because Samarinda Republicans had taken over the leadership of INI, an organi-
zation known to have been established by the Balikpapan pejuang. Moreover, Samarinda
Republicans, working together as a cohesive group, had been able to use INI as their own
political vehicle, much to the disadvantage of the Balikpapan pejuang who were quite
divided on the Dewan participation issue. Hence, the differences between Samarinda and
Balikpapan were further widened by their different experiences during the Revolutionary
period and their different tactical responses to the conditions they faced.
Soon after the agreed upon termination of the conflict at the KMB (Round Table
Conference) discussions at The Hague in 1949, the Samarinda Republicans made close
contact with some Kutai aristocrats who had pro-Republican leanings. It was hoped that
these contacts would speed up the transfer of East Borneo from RUSI (Republican Union
of States of Indonesia) to the unitary state.112 Indeed, East Borneo was effectively incor-
porated into the unitary state in April 1950, four months before the formal incorporation
ceremony of August 1950. The ceremony took place in Samarinda. At it, Afloes, then
the Acting Resident of the RUSI for East Borneo, handed over his authority to Dr. Murdjani,
who had just been appointed Indonesian governor of Kalimantan by the Central Govern-
ment.113 Afloes was soon to be replaced by Roeslan Muljohardjo as the first Republican-
appointed Resident of the East Kalimantan Residency in Samarinda. Hence, East Kalimantan
was to be incorporated into the Indonesian administration as well.
While the civil administration was having its own change of guard in Samarinda, there
had been two other important developments in the region. The first was the creation of
military headquarters for East Borneo in Balikpapan, institutionalizing the differences
between these two cities. Various lasykar were merged into one battalion of the TNI (Tentara
Nasional Indonesia, Indonesian National Army), and they took over the security of Balikpapan,
Samarinda, and other towns from the KNIL. Most of these lasykar saw Balikpapan as
their capital and, although some were residing in Samarinda, they formed a close politi-
cal alliance with Balikpapan. By December 1951, separate battalions were already stationed
in Balikpapan, Tarakan, and Samarinda under the command of Regiment 22 of TT (Ten-
tara dan Territorium, Army and Territorial Command) VI Kalimantan. The first commander
111	In the Dewan Kutai, for example, leadership was exercised by INI leaders, such as Abdul Azis Samad, while
in Bulungan, it was exercised by Rasjid Sutan Radja Emas. For a brief biography of Rasjid Sutan Radja Emas,
see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, p. 983.
112	The INI Samarinda had its representative observing the Round Table Conference in The Hague, Inche Abdul
Muis, who was also a member of Dewan Kalimantan Timur. This led to the accusation by Balikpapan pejuang
that the INI were “cooperating” with the Dutch.
113	Dr. Mas Moerdjani was replaced by Resident Sutan Kumala Pontas, and later on, by Governor Milono. Moerdjani’s
appointment as the first Governor after 1950 had created an uproar among the Banjarese Republicans who demanded
the return of their fellow Banjarese, Ir. Pangeran Mohammad Noor. Interview with Mrs. Soeminie Moerdjani, Jakarta,
August 16, 1979.45
of Regiment 22 was Major Sentot Iskandardinata, who was succeeded in 1955 by Major
Ibnu Subroto, and in 1957, by Lieutenant Colonel R. Hartojo.114
The choice of Balikpapan as the headquarters of the military establishment for East
Kalimantan had placed this city in a new position in its competition with Samarinda. In
Balikpapan, the army officers were getting along well with the pejuang, most of whom
had recently left the army. Their guerrilla experiences and armed struggle against the Dutch,
even if only in the form of mass demonstrations, had given these two groups a common
feeling of solidarity although they had fought in different places. Their close relationship
was to be institutionalized later on in the Angkatan 45 (1945 generation), a veterans’
organization under the domination of Balikpapan pejuang and the supervision of the military
commander.
The second development was related to the decline of the aristocracy’s economic
resources resulting from the transfer of the oil royalties to the hands of the Central
Government. Oil royalties were to be negotiated directly between the oil companies and
the Central Government departments. The region, thus, would no longer get its share of
royalties directly from the oil companies, but through subsidies from the Central Government,
allocated in the annual provincial budget. These subsidies were given directly to the provincial
government in Banjarmasin, from which the East Kalimantan residency would get its own
share together with the other residencies. This policy resulted in a loss of royalties for
East Kalimantan, since the provincial budget was always biased in favor of Banjarmasin
and the South Kalimantan residency, where the Governor resided.115
The biggest loser under this arrangement, nevertheless, was the aristocracy of East
Kalimantan. The immediate families of the Sultans suffered the most because they suddenly
found themselves in the position of economic pariahs. At the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, the Dutch had banned any company owned by the Sultans. Hence, the sultanates
were entirely dependent on Dutch royalties and favors. As a result, many of the companies
established by Sultan Sulaiman in Kutai were taken over by the Dutch in order to deprive
the sultanate of any economic resources of its own.116
Having felt satisfied with the royalties provided by the Dutch, the Sultan never foresaw
the possibility that royalty payments would end. Of course, even if he had foreseen these
changes, Sultan Parikesit would not have been able to hedge against them. He was not
an industrious man willing to undertake business ventures as his grandfather had been.
In sum, because of his dependency on the Dutch oil royalties, he not only lost his only
significant source of revenue, but also lost control over a once economically dependent
aristocracy that now was forced to look out financially for itself.
The only avenue open to the aristocracy was to seek appointments as pegawai daerah
(provincial civil servants) in the Kutai swapraja which continued to exist up to 1957.
114	See Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, p. 24.
115	The appointment of a non-Banjarese as Governor was partly aimed at easing the apprehensions of the other
regions regarding the fairness of the budget distributions. However, since the South Kalimantan residency was
the biggest in terms of population, it was allocated most of the budget. This led to demands for the creation of
separate provinces from the other regions of Kalimantan. See, for example, Harian Indonesia Merdeka (Banjarmasin)
January 8, 1951, on the demands of the political parties from West Kalimantan for their own province on the
basis that “[they] could not make progress as long as the capital was in Banjarmasin.”
116	For a description of the economic activities of Sultan Sulaiman, see Djokoprawiro et al., “Sejarah,” pp. 49-
53.46
However, since the provincial bureaucracy in Banjarmasin and the Resident’s office in
Samarinda were controlled by the Republicans, loyalty to the Republican cause during
the Revolution had become an important qualification for an appointment. Moreover, since
most aristocrats had paid little attention to educational achievement in the prewar period,
only a few who had graduated from OSVTA could be appointed to the really important
bureaucratic positions.
Under these circumstances the middle-level aristocrats, who in the prewar period had
not been much involved in the extravagant life style of the Kutai sultanate but had pursued
governmental careers, were able to rise politically. It was from this stratum that leaders
such as Afloes, Kariowiti, Aji Raden Sajid Mohammad, Aji Raden Usman, Aji Raden
Padmo, and Sayid Mochsen came. They were to play prominent roles in East Kalimantan
politics in the 1950s and 1960s.
Among the immediate family of Sultan Parikesit, only his half-brother, Pranoto, was
to survive the crisis. Having shown sympathy for the Republican cause in the Revolutionary
period, Pranoto was able to climb the bureaucratic ladder, so that by 1956 he was appointed
Resident of East Kalimantan. He was helped by his fellow Kutai aristocrat, Aji Raden
Djokoprawiro, who had gone to Jakarta to become a member of Parliament, representing
the PIR-Hazairin.117
The aristocracies of Bulungan, Pasir, Gunung Tabur, and Sambaliung fared better than
the Kutai aristocracy. Although they were put aside into the marginal swapraja-level
leadership positions, they were not much resented by the Republicans. Some even survived
up to the 1970s, although the Bulungan aristocracy was to be destroyed in 1964 by the
then regional military commander (Panglima Daerah Militer Pangdam) of East Kalimantan,
Brigadier General Soeharjo.118
Despite their decline, the aristocracy were able to adjust to the politics of the early
1950s. The expansion of political parties to provinces outside Java during these years was
the most important single event that helped the aristocrats. Since the national political
parties were running against time to prepare themselves for the oncoming elections, they
embraced the pre-existing factions and organizations which had existed at the regional
level. While preference was generally given to groups and organizations with compatible
ideologies and political beliefs, ideological differences were often put aside in favor of
forging coalitions that might produce an electoral victory. This policy, above all, resulted
in the accommodation of an ideologically diverse regional leadership into the national
political party system. Consequently, the various local leaders in East Borneo became the
leaders of national parties in their respective regions. There were, nonetheless, some regional
and local leaders who preferred to run their own political organization and rejected any
formal ties with the national parties.
117	Aside from promoting Pranoto, Djokoprawiro was also instrumental in persuading the new Governor of Kalimantan
in 1956, fellow PIR member, R.T.A. Milono, to appoint fellow Kutai aristocrat, A.R. Afloes, as Resident of West
Kalimantan. In promoting pamong praja members of PIR, Djokoprawiro was helped by the former minister of
interior and PIR chairman, Dr. Hazairin, and the former secretary general of the Ministry of Interior, Djanoeismadi,
who was also deputy chairman of the PIR Central Board. Interview with Djokoprawiro, July 7, 1979.
118	Brigadier General Soeharjo did not totally destroy the Berau aristocracy. In fact, the Pranoto-appointed Bupati,
fonmer Head of Autonomous Region, Aji Raden Mohammad Ajub, was to govern his kabupaten until 1964, due
mostly to his ability to become the leader of the NU at the provincial level. For a brief biography of A.R.M.
Ajub, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR, 1971, p. 764.47
Political developments in East Kalimantan in early 1950 exemplify this regional political
trend. Already by then the INI branches of Tarakan and Samarinda had proclaimed themselves
to be regional branches of the Indonesian National Party (PNI). The INI chairman, Abdul
Muis Hassan, was appointed as a member of the PNI Central Board, whereas the chairman
of INI Tarakan, Rasjid Sutan Radja Emas, was appointed as PNI representative in the
provisional Parliament.119 Most of the pejuang of Balikpapan and Samarinda, on the other
hand, joined the Murba party on an individual basis while a few entered the Indonesian
Socialist Party (PSI). Hence, they did not join a single party en bloc as the INI of Samarinda
and Tarakan had done.120 The pejuang joined Murba and PSI apparently for religious reasons.
Moreover, it was difficult to find followers of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) among
the Islamic-oriented Banjarese in Balikpapan and Samarinda. Beyond this, the Balikpapan
and Samarinda pejuang had contacts mostly with the pejuang in the Murba and PSI in
Jakarta.
Similarly, the Kutai aristocracy mostly gave its support to two different national political
parties. Pranoto and many others gave regional support to Djokoprawiro in Jakarta, becoming
leaders of the East Kalimantan branch of the Greater Indonesia Party (PIR). Another faction,
led by Afloes and Kariowiti, helped to provide a bridge between the Kutai and the Banjarese
by becoming leaders of Masjumi. Sultan Parikesit, however, took no part, and had no
interest, in political life. His half-brother, Kertanegara, also took no part in politics. He
was disqualified from pursuing a political career since he had been appointed as a BFO
(the Dutch-sponsored Federalist effort) minister. With the partisan division of the aris-
tocracy, internal rivalry within the Kutai aristocracy was subsumed into the existing political
party system.121
It should be noted, however, that the Bulungan and Berau aristocracies were not as
fortunate as other aristocratic groups. Resenting the Tarakan-based Republicans, the Bulungan
aristocracy had divorced itself from the national political scene and developed its own
informal organization, led by its own leaders. While they commanded a certain strength
within the Tanjungselor-Tanjung Palas complex, the Bulungan aristocrats had lost their
political authority in Tarakan and the interior, where Christian missionaries had significantly
influenced the Kenyah-Kayan Dayaks. The Berau aristocracy, likewise, was too small and
insignificant to play a role in provincial politics. A similar fate overtook the Pasir aristocracy,
which came to be governed by the Banjarese. Hence, among the East Kalimantan aris-
tocracies, only the Pranoto faction and Afloes group were able to adjust successfully to
the new power structure and new political game rules. These aristocratic groups had been
successful because they helped the national political parties expand into the region. Now,
due to their efforts, they could compete with the Samarinda Republicans who led the PNI
and the Balikpapan-Samarinda pejuang who were centered in the PSI and Murba.
119	It should be noted that since 1950, Rasjid has lived in Jakarta whereas I. A. Muis stayed in Samarinda until
1960. For a brief biography of A. M. Hassan, see Dr. O. G. Roeder, Who’s Who in Indonesia (Jakarta: Gunung
Agung, 1970), pp. 502-3.
120	Husein Jusuf, Djunaid Sanusie, and Mohammad Sabrie joined the Murba party while Siebold Mewengkang
joined the Partai Buruh. Oemar Dachlan joined the PSI, while Aminuddin Nata refrained from joining any political
party although he was quite sympathetic to the PSI. Fachml Baraqbah was the leader of the PKI in East Kalimantan.
All of them were pejuang during the Revolutionary period.
121	The real loser was Aji Pangeran Sosronegoro, the fourth member of the Kutai cabinet. He was also a half-
brother of Sultan Parikesit but had no strong educational background. He could not compete with A. P. Kertanegara
in the late 1940s and was left behind by Pangeran Pranoto in the 1950s.48
Aside from the pejuang's parties, the Islamic parties were to play an important role
in regional politics. Although they did not have important pejuang as their leaders, the
Islamic parties benefited from the existence of informal pengajian (religious activity) or-
ganizations, the existence of the Nahdhatul Ulama (NU), and Muhammadiyah’s impor-
tance to the Masjumi party. As a result of their performance in the 1955 election, in particular,
the Islamic parties were able to play important roles in the local political process (see
Table 4).
The 1955 election had a different impact on the three major political actors in East
Kalimantan. The PNI victory at the provincial level resulted from the party’s ability to
forge a feeling of nationalism among the various ethnic groups. The Samarinda Republicans
had been able to broaden their bases of power to the interior areas of Kutai, where the
Dayak chiefs were quite happy to identify themselves with a non-Islamic party like PNI,
the nationalist cause, and Sukarno’s leadership. Moreover, PNI’s dominant position among
the pamong praja corps enabled them to penetrate the difficult regions of the interior,
which most of the other parties had neglected.
The PNI’ s success brought its leaders into prominent positions in the PNI Central
Board. While Sutan Radja Emas had already moved to Jakarta, Abdul Muis Hassan and
Inche Abdul Muis were soon to follow him and to become known in the Jakarta political
arena. Hence, they advanced from being mere provincial politicians into being national
politicians. This national status alone differentiated them from their immediate rivals, the
leaders of NU and Masjumi, who were mostly local ulama and leaders of the Banjarese
community, without ties to national politics.
Following its electoral success, the PNI scored its first parliamentary victory with the
passage of a law mandating that by the beginning of 1957 East Kalimantan was to become
a province of its own. Ever since the beginning of 1950, the PNI had resented the rees-
tablishment of a swapraja in East Kalimantan. They particularly resented the continuation
of the late 1940s Dutch policy which had put Samarinda under the administration of Kutai.
By early 1950, they had been able to persuade Republican Resident, Roeslan Muljohardjo,
to move the Kutai swapraja from Tenggarong to Samarinda. This move in effect loosened
the Sultan’s grip over Samarinda’s daily affairs. Though Sultan Parikesit was still the head
of the swapraja, he did not want to travel to Samarinda to take care of governmental
affairs. Daily tasks then fell into the hands of the DPD (Dewan Pemerintah Daerah—Regional
Government Council) which was headed by a Samarinda-PNI man, Abdul Azis Samad.122
Despite its de facto power over the Kutai swapraja, the PNI still demanded the abolition
of the swapraja office as part of its national policy of democratizing the political process.123
East Kalimantan’s PNI leaders also disliked the fact that Banjarmasin dominated the pro-
vincial bureaucracy of Kalimantan at the expense of other regions.
The East Kalimantan pejuang, on the other hand, did not fare well in the election
of 1955. The main party representing the pejuang, Murba, was even defeated by the Catho-
lic party. Murba’s support came mostly from the Balikpapan region where almost all the
pejuang chose to join that party. In Samarinda, pejuang support was so divided among
the PSI, Murba, PSII, and even the PKI that the pejuang could not compete against the
122	When Azis Samad came to head the provincial leadership, the DPD was headed by another Banjarese-PNI
member, Mansjursjah. Interview with Azis Samad, June 20, 1979.
123	Interview with Abdul Muis Hassan, Jakarta, July 12, 1979.49
more unified Banjarese support for the PNI and Islamic parties, NU, and Masjumi. Indeed,
among the pejuang-supportzd parties, only the PSI was able to get enough votes to gain
a position for itself in the Big Four. The PSI had also gained considerable influence within
the provincial bureaucracy, due in no small part to the work of the PSI Resident, Achmad
Arief gelar Datuk Majoe Orang of Minangkabau origin.124
In contrast, in spite of its internal divisions, the aristocracy achieved quite a good
election result. Under Pranoto’s patronage, PIR had gained a fifth position in East Kalimantan,
well above its national position.125 Its bases of support were mostly in the bureaucratic
structure where Kutai aristocrats had tried to regain political power. As the Minister of
the Interior in 1954, Hazairin had been able to advance many Kutai aristocrats within
the bureaucracy, such that by 1956 Pranoto was appointed as East Kalimantan Resident
because of his seniority within the pamong praja s ranks.
Hence, by the end of the election in 1955, the Balikpapan pejuang held the worst
political position among the three major political actors. Not only were they still under
the rule of the Kutai swapraja, which placed their interests behind the interests both of
the aristocrats and of the Samarinda PNI leadership, but they had been unable to achieve
any electoral success. Having been denied access to the bureaucratic structure (due mostly
to their inadequate educational qualifications) and lacking a mass following, they could
not possibly hope to win any future elections. They could only hope to obtain political
opportunities for themselves by exploiting their personal contacts, both with fellow pejuang
among the military officers at Balikpapan and with national leaders. Contacts within the
Angkatan 45 organization, in particular, opened up political doors for them. It was through
this organization that the leader of the Balikpapan pejuang, Husein Jusuf, was appointed
a member of the Dewan Perancang Nasional (National Planning Body) in the late 1950s.126
By the end of 1956, then, East Kalimantan was ripe for further political competi-
tion between these three important groups. The appointment of Pranoto as the first Governor
of East Kalimantan in 1958 gave his faction of Kutai aristocrats a leading advantage in
provincial politics. He appointed his fellow aristocrat and PIR member, Aji Raden Padmo,
as the first Bupati of Kutai while in other kabupaten he also advanced the career of fel-
low aristocrats.127 However, his position was to be challenged by both the Samarinda-
based PNI leadership and the Balikpapan pejuang.
124	For a brief biography of Achmad Arief Datoek Madjoe Orang, see Biographical Appendix, Daftar Tjalon-
tjalon Konstituante 1955 (Jakarta: Kementerian Penerangan R.I., 1955), p. 188, and Oemar Dachlan, “Perkembangan
Pemerintahan Kalimantan Timur*’ (Samarinda: 1967, typescript), p. 6.
125	At the national level, PIR-Hazairin received only 0.3 percent of the votes and was in the 22nd position among
the contestants, with only one DPR seat. Hence, Djokoprawiro failed in his attempt to bring other Kutai aristocrats
into national politics. For the national results, see A. van Marie, “The First Indonesian Parliamentary Elections,”
Indonesia, 9 (1956) [The Hague]: 258.
126	For a brief biography of Husein Jusuf, see Biographical Appendix.
127	For a brief biography of AR Padmo, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, p. 763. Aside from
AR Padmo, Pranoto also appointed fellow aristocrats, A.R.S. Mohammad as Mayor of Balikpapan; A.R.M. Ajub
as Bupati of Berau; Andi Tjatjo gelar Datu Mihardja as Bupati of Bulungan, while the Bupatiship of Pasir went
to a Sundanese pamong praja, Yudabrata. Only the position of Mayor of Samarinda was in military hands, Captain
Sudjono AJ was the Mayor of Samarinda.50
Table 4. The results of the 1955 election by kabupaten and party
Party/Organization	Kutaia	Berau	Bulunganb	Total
PNIC	6,231	1,136	15,700	45,100
Masjumid	4,994	2,168	7,185	44,347
NUe	16,431	3,444	920	20,795
PSIf	11,865	288	876	13,029
PIR (Hazairin)8	8,933	3	335	9,271
PKIh	6,718	788	703	8,209
psir	7,018	75	308	7,401
Katolikj	3,948	6	199	4,153
Murbak	2,389	880	698	3,967
Andi Tjatjo gelar Datu				
Wihardja dkk1	61	3	3,811	3,875
Partai Rakjat Indonesia111	2,646	1	46	2,693
Parkindo11	1,440	75	1,113	2,585
PPPRI°	1,332	880	698	1,708
Gerakan Pembela Pantjasilap	587	10	1,167	1,764
Partai Buruhq	1,064	35	257	1,356
PPTP	1,129	30	83	1,242
PRNS	696	55	74	825
Parindra*	574	16	42	632
Mutung gelar Mas Perwirou	40	635	26	701
Baperkiv	293	106	137	536
Gerakan Banteng RIW	112	4	19	135
Partai Persatuan Daya (k)x	-	-	-	-
Sources: Alfian, Hasil Pemilihan Vmum 1955 untuk DPR (Jakarta: Lednud, 1971), pp. 137-41; Tjilik Riwut,
Kalimantan Membangun (Jakarta: P.T. Jayakarta Agung, 1979), p. 193; Herbert Feith, The Indonesian Election
of 1955 (Ithaca: Cornell Modem Indonesia Project, 1957), p. 70.
a In the 1955 election, the kabupaten of Kutai still administered the present-day kotamadya of Balikpapan and
Samarinda. Hence, the strength of each contestant should be seen in light of this administrative division.
b Bulungan kabupaten also included the Tarakan kecamatan where about a fifth of the voters lived.
c The candidates from the PNI for DPR were mostly Samarinda leaders, led by Abdul Muis Hassan, Anang Suleiman,
I. A. Muis and Rasjid Sutan Radja Emas. The only candidate from Balikpapan was a Javanese, Mas Tjokrosumarto.
See Daftar Tjalon-tjalon DPR 1955 (Jakarta: Kementerian Penerangan R.I., 1955), p. 163.
d The leading candidate was a Banjarese of Samarinda, Ahmad Jusuf, who was a leader of the Muhammadiyah,
and AR Kariowiti, who was then the Wedana of Balikpapan. AR Afloes was running as a lesser candidate for
the South Kalimantan electorate. Ibid., p. 164.
e The candidates of NU were mostly Samarinda Banjarese; none of them were known provincially. The only
aristocrat was Sayid Gasjim bin Sayid Idrus Baraqbah, the elder brother of Fachrul Baraqbah. Ibid., p. 164.
f The candidate from PSI was Abdul Gani, a Banjarese pamong praja.51
Table 4. Continued
8 The list of PIR candidates was led by AR Padmo, to be followed by Tajib Kasuma and a Kutai-Melayu pamong
praja, Encik Abdurrachim gelar Encik Mas Natadjaja. Ibid., p. 166.
h Fahrul Baraqbah who was from a Kutai Arabic aristocratic background was the leading candidate of the PKI.
Ibid., p. 166.
1 The candidates were mostly Balikpapan Banjarese who were not grouped into a strong party.
J At that time, the Catholic Party still did not have a local leadership of Dayak origins.
k The candidates from Murba were led by Husein Jusuf, followed by Anang Atjil and Djunaid Sanusie; all of
them were pejuang from Balikpapan and Samarinda. Ibid., p. 163.
1 Andi Tjatjo led a local slate from the Bulungan aristocracy which had won the local DPRD. It consisted of
Andi Tjatjo (later to become Bupati of Bulungan in 1960), Datu Badaruddin bin Datu Mahkota of the Bulungan
sultanate and Achmad Daud Daeng Panggiling. It was a Moslem-based group of Bulungan and Buginese people.
Ibid., p. 165.
m The PRI only represented the Javanese in Balikpapan who did not have many ties to the local groups. Ibid.,
p. 164.
n The only local leader from Parkindo was a Minahasan pamong praja, Damus Manegeng Frans, who was a Wedana
at Tarakan, and in 1959 became the first Bupati of Berau. Ibid., p. 164.
° The vote for the PPPRI mostly came from its police members and families. Since many NCOs were Banjarese,
the PPPRI benefited from this fact. Ibid., p. 159.
p The slate of the GPPS was led by A. P. Sosronegoro. The only local aristocrat who followed him was of Melayu
origin, Encik Muhammad Sjaradin. Ibid., p. 165.
q The only candidate of the Partai Buruh was Siebold Mewengkang. Ibid.,
r The PPTI had a small following among the Islamic Banjarese of Samarinda who provided its only candidate.
Ibid.
s The PRN did not have a prominent candidate from East Kalimantan. On its South Kalimantan slate, it included
AP Kertanegara, who was then residing in Surabaya. His absence from the East Kalimantan slate was possibly
caused by the fact that he could have been defeated there because of his cooperation with the Dutch.
1 Parindra’s slate was led by its prewar leader, Bustani HS from Samarinda. Ibid., p. 163.
u Mutung gelar Mas Perwiro was another local leader from Gunung Tabur who was in competition with A.R.M.
Ajub, who had his own slate.
v Despite a sizable number of Chinese, Baperki did not get many votes, possibly because most Chinese were
aliens.
w It was a Samarinda-based organization of pejuang, led by Herman Runturambi and RM Hidajat. It was considered
to be close to the Murba party.
x Despite its name, the party was mostly West Borneo-based. Its support came from the Land Dayaks, and it
did not have many followers in Central and East Kalimantan. It was led by two leaders, F.C. Palaunsuka and
J. C. Oevang Oeray. Palaunsuka later joined the Catholic Party and when it was incorporated into the PDI, he
served as member of the Central Board. In 1987, he was elected as a member of the DPR from PDI representing
West Kalimantan province. Oevang Oeray was later appointed as Governor of West Kalimantan during the period
of Guided Democracy. In early 1970 he joined Golkar and was a member of its DPR faction until his death in
1987.52
By 1959, the PNI had taken advantage of Law Number 1/1957 on local government,
under which the Governor had to work together with the Kepala Daerah (Regional Head).128
Since the PNI controlled the provincial DPRD, they elected their own leader, Inche Abdul
Muis, as the Kepala Daerah.129 With the increasing power of the PNI in national politics,
its regional leaders were able to persuade Sukarno to appoint Abdul Muis Hassan as the
new Governor of East Kalimantan in 1962, a position which combined the offices previously
held by Pranoto and Inche Abdul Muis.130
It was under Abdul Muis Hassan that the PNI started to dominate the bureaucratic
structure at the provincial and kabupaten levels to such a degree that by the end of his
governorship in 1966, Muis Hassan had been able to build a PNI-controlled pamong praja
in East Kalimantan.131 During his governorship, Muis Hassan minimized PSI and PIR control
over the bureaucracy by giving unimportant jobs to their members. Moreover, he created
young cadres of PNI-oriented pamong praja by sending young members of the PNI to
universities in Java. The majority of these cadres were Banjarese, but there were also a
few Kutai within this group.132
The creation of East Kalimantan province also had important repercussions for the
Balikpapan pejuang. The Balikpapan pejuang were again able to challenge the Kutai
aristocracy by allying themselves with the military hierarchy of Kodam (Regional Military
Command) Mulawarman, which had been established in July 1958, following the creation
of East Kalimantan province. The Kodam Mulawarman was to have territorial respon-
sibility over East Kalimantan, concurrently with the provincial civilian administration. This
territorial arrangement gave rise to a dual leadership in provincial politics. Balikpapan
was to become the military capital of East Kalimantan, and with the establishment of
the provincial branches of the national departments, Balikpapan became the site of many
government offices as well.133 Because of its communications, and especially airport,
facilities, Balikpapan was chosen over Samarinda as the site for regional government offices.
The important office of the Governor, however, remained located in Samarinda. Balikpapan’s
128	For a discussion of UU Number 1/1957, see for example, J. Wajong, Azas dan Tujuan Pemerintahan Daerah
(Jakarta: Jambatan, 1975), pp. 46-64. In other provinces, the PNI had been able to put in its men as Regional
Heads. For example, it had succeeded in making Hadisubeno the Regional Head of Central Java and Kosasih
the Regional Head of West Java. However, its attempt to place Dul Amowo as Regional Head in East Java was
blocked by a persistent pamong praja-minded Governor, Samadikoen.
129	It seems that the Samarinda Banjarese had been able to take advantage of I. A. Muis’s short tenure as Governor.
Although a prominent leader of the PNI, I. A. Muis was not that popular among the Banjarese who preferred
their own man, Abdul Muis Hassan.
130	This was made possible by Penpres (Presidential Decree) number 6/1959. By 1962 when Abdul Muis Hassan
was appointed Governor, he had been a member of Parliament and was well known in Jakarta politics. Moreover,
the military could no longer resist the temptation to replace Pranoto, who was considered the leading figure of
the Kutai aristocracy.
131	About 75 percent of the camat were PNI men, according to the leader of the PNI at that time. Interview with
Anang Sulaiman, Samarinda, June 18, 1979.
132	Among these young university graduates Djakfar Achmad, Mohammad Ardans, and Achmad Dahlan were PNI
cadres. In the mid-1960s, they started their careers in important positions at the Governor’s office as bureau chiefs.
Achmad Dahlan was appointed as Bupati of Kutai in 1965 and M. Ardans as Governor in 1988.
133	The offices of the representatives of the various government departments were located in Balikpapan, including
the Kejaksaan Tinggi (Provincial Prosecutor’s office), the Police Chief’s office, the Kepala Pos (Post Office), provincial
head office, and most of the State Bank’s headquarters.53
pejuang made use of Balikpapan’s new-found administrative importance not only to destroy
gradually their traditional arch-rivals, the Kutai aristocracy, but also to take over provincial
power from their fellow Republican rivals in Samarinda.Chapter 5
Pejuang in Power and the Collapse
of the Aristocracy
By early 1960, Kodam Mulawarman was led by a young pejuang officer, Lieutenant
Colonel R. Soeharjo. He was the Chief of Staff of the first Regional Military Commander
(Pangdam), Colonel Hartojo, and was promoted to the Panglimaship when Hartojo left
for Jakarta. The appointment of Soeharjo had a profound effect on the rise of the pejuang
in the early 1960s in East Kalimantan politics. A Javanese priyayi like Hartojo, Soeharjo
did not share the cautious and restrained mood of the former. With his strong revolu-
tionary spirit, Soeharjo was welcomed by the Balikpapan pejuang who saw in him the
leader they had long waited for.134
There were two important groups which had been looking for leadership. The first
was the Balikpapan-Samarinda pejuang who resented both the leadership of Governor Pranoto
and the rise of the Samarinda-based PNI. The second group was made up mostly of Java-
nese oil workers in Balikpapan, who were increasingly under the leadership of the PKI-
affiliated union, Perbum (Persatuan Buruh Minyak—Association of Oil Workers). Soeharjo
soon developed a close relationship with these two groups, and this put him in the forefront
of Balikpapan’s leadership to the detriment of the PNI-leaning, Samarinda-based Banjarese.
The appointment of Muis Hassan as the new Governor in 1962 and his stress on the
PNI-zation of the provincial bureaucracy had increased political competition in East Ka-
limantan. By that time, military officers were increasingly drawn into civilian jobs under
the famous “middle way” and “army dual function” philosophy of General Nasution. Soeharjo
used this philosophy to further the interest of the army by proposing army officers for
Bupatiships, steering into direct conflict with Governor Muis Hassan. He was able to press
for the appointment of his fellow Brawijaya officer, Captain Sudjono AJ, as the Mayor
of Samarinda, and then, another officer, Lieutenant Colonel Yatmo, as Bupati of Pasir.135
However, the main vehicle Soeharjo used to strengthen his position was the chair-
manship of the Front Nasional, an institution created by President Sukarno as part of his
Guided Democracy structure.136 The East Kalimantan branch of the Front Nasional was
134	Soeharjo not only had fought during the Revolution for the Indonesian revolutionary forces, but had served
as a military aide to the visiting leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh. (Interview with
General Nasution, Jakarta, July 14, 1979.) For a brief biography of Soeharjo, see Biographical Appendix and
Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, p. 24.
135	Captain Sudjono AJ was to be replaced by Soeharjo’s man, Lieutenant Colonel Ngoedijo, in 1961. Lieutenant
Colonel Sujatmo replaced a pamong praja Bupati, Zamzam.
136	The Front Nasional scheme was used to include the PKI in positions of national and local leadership which
had been otherwise denied to them. For a discussion of the period of Guided Democracy, see Herbert Feith, “Dynamics
of Guided Democracy,” in Indonesia, ed. Ruth McVey (New Haven: HRAF, 1963), pp. 309-409.
5556
created by a Presidential decree on April 15, 1961, and its membership was dominated
by the pejuang,137
Aside from Soeharjo, the Provincial Board of the Front Nasional included Samarinda
pejuang, Harun Nafsi and Sayid Fachrul Baraqbah. The former represented the Angkatan
45 while the latter represented the PKI. The leader of Perbum in Balikpapan, M. Turangan,
was a member of the daily board, while the secretariat was headed by Soeharjo’s fellow
officer, Major Roesmono. A provincial leader of the PKI-affiliated women’s organization,
Gerwani, Mrs. Soetedjo, was appointed as deputy secretary. The only leader of the Samarinda-
based Banjarese PNI, Asmuransjah, became its deputy chairman.
By including the PKI in the leadership of the Front Nasional, Soeharjo gained a strong
constituency among the oil workers in Tarakan and Balikpapan who had been under strong
Perbum influence. In his capacity as Pangdam, Soeharjo increased the influence of Perbum
by arresting Mewengkang, the leader of its rival labor organization, on the basis of vague
allegations. Mewengkang was to become the first victim of Soeharjo’s efforts to consoli-
date his power. He was released only after Soeharjo was replaced by Brigadier General
Sumitro in March 1965.138
Within the provincial leadership of the PKI, Soeharjo found a willing ally in the person
of Fachrul Baraqbah.139 Fachrul was believed to be disappointed with the non -pejuang
domination of the provincial leadership, although in 1960 he had been elected as one of
the deputy chairmen of the DPRD. His closest associate was the leader of Perbum, Mar-
tono. Both men were close associates of Soeharjo.
In establishing the office of the provincial Front Nasional in Balikpapan, Soeharjo
had also undermined the power of the Governor in Samarinda by appointing his own protege,
Lieutenant Colonel Sudjono, as Commander of Samarinda’s Military District (Kodim).
Hence, Fachrul and Harun Nafsi were to become the Front Nasional’s men in Samarinda
and, together with the Kodim, would become the center of anti-PNI forces in that capital.
Whereas Fachrul was a close associate of Colonel Soeharjo, his elder brother, Sayid
Mochsen, was acting as a close adviser to Governor Muis Hassan. Hence, the two broth-
ers were to become important actors in the politics of East Kalimantan and were the only
Kutai aristocrats, albeit of Arabic origins, to do so.140 Muis Hassan also worked closely
with Abdul Azis Samad who was the Chairman of DPRD. In the Governor’s office, young
cadres of university-educated PNI members were starting to enter the bureaucracy, having
137	For the list of membership see Almanak Lembaga Negara dan Kepartaian (Jakarta: Departemen
Penerangan, 1961), pp. 412-13.
138	Interview with Siebold Mewengkang, Balikpapan, June 28, 1979.
139	For a brief biography of Sayid Fachrul Baraqbah, see Biographical Appendix in this monograph.
140	The three brothers, Sayid Mochsen, Sayid Gasjim, and Fachrul Baraqbah were actually political leaders during
the Guided Democracy period. Their prominence gave rise to some resentment among the Kutai aristocrats who
considered them to be living extravagantly in exclusive surroundings. However, this resentment was probably more
an outcome of the intense competition for bureaucratic and leadership posts that characterized this period. For
a discussion of the resentment engendered by the Kutai “Arab” aristocrats’ reluctance to let their daughters marry
the Kutai aristocrats’ sons, see Djokoprawiro, et al., “Sejarah,” p. 37. See also, interview with AR Djokoprawiro,
Malang, July 7, 1979. Such a feeling of resentment toward these three brothers was not prevalent among the members
of other political groups, such as the PNI Banjarese or Islamic Banjarese, both of which had chosen these individuals
of Arab descent as their leaders for the 1955 election.57
just returned from Java. They were the children of Samarinda Banjarese who were given
fellowships by the Yayasan Mulawarman, an education foundation jointly funded by the
Kutai swapraja and the provincial government. Their rise within the PNI-dominated provincial
bureaucracy was quite fast, so that by 1965 some of them had been appointed as Bupati.
Achmad Dahlan and Saleh Nafsi, for example, were appointed Bupati of Kutai and of
Pasir, respectively. Another sarjana of PNI orientation, M. Ardans, was to rise within the
provincial bureaucracy to become Sekwilda (provincial secretary) in 1979 and deputy
governor in 1985. He was elected as Governor in 1988.141 Some of the students who came
from the lower levels of the Kutai aristocracy, the Awang, were embraced by the dominant
PNI leaders.142
The Samarinda-based PNI also expanded its influence in accordance with the PNI’s
increasing power within the Guided Democracy structure in Jakarta. The PNI did not
circumscribe its exercise of influence to the government bureaucracy. A branch of a PNI-
affiliated university, Untag was established in Samarinda in 1963 and was later incorporated
into the newly established state university, Universitas Mulawarman. The university served
as a recruiting ground for young PNI cadres, broadening the bases of PNI support.
While attempting to expand its political power, the PNI had also begun to develop
certain business activities. The most well-known was the shipping company PT Mahakam
which provided regular service between Java and East Kalimantan. Since East Kaliman-
tan was dependent on outside supplies for its daily consumption needs, a shipping company
should have been a good business, especially with the backing of the PNI-dominated
provincial bureaucracy. Inche Abdul Muis directed the company from Jakarta, and he used
his Tokyo connections to get some ships from Japan. Up to 1965, the company was doing
quite well, but poor management practices prevented it from becoming an important liner
service in the late 1960s and 1970s.143 In fact, by the time of the timber harvesting boom
in East Kalimantan in the late 1960s, PT Mahakam was in near bankruptcy and hence
could not benefit from that boom. It was the Chinese-owned shipping companies of Surabaya
that initially made profits from the transportation of timber from East Kalimantan in the
late 1960s. But at that time, the exploitation of East Kalimantan timber was only partly
underway, due mostly to the confusing array of regulations delineating the timber concession
rights of the provincial government vis-a-vis the Directorate General of Forestry in Jakarta.
141	Achmad Dahlan is the younger brother of a PSI pejuang, Oemar Dahlan, while Saleh Nafsi is the younger
brother of another Samarinda pejuang, Harun Nafsi. Both of these young university graduates were considered
to be close to the PNI, although later on they became prominent leaders of Golkar. In 1987, Ahmad Dahlan became
a member of the DPR in Jakarta representing Golkar until his death that year in a car accident. His wife was
the daughter of prewar pejuang, A. M. Sangaji. The third university graduate, M. Ardans, married the daughter
of a prominent bureaucrat of Kutai aristocratic origin, AR Padmo.
142	These students were the sons of PNI members. Awang Faisal and Awang Badaranie, for example, were the
sons of PNI members Awang Ishak and Awang Abbas, respectively. In 1978, both Faisal and Badaranie were
appointed Bupati, of Kutai and Pasir respectively.
143	PT Mahakam was formed in 1952 by the I. A. Muis family. In 1954 it was able to obtain sailing routes to
East Kalimantan. With three ships, it sailed to Balikpapan, Samarinda, and Tarakan. Due to bad management it
went bankrupt, and by 1976 it only owned one ship. Its shipping route was taken over by PT Nagah Berlian,
a company owned by a Lampung-bom Chinese, Ang Tiauw Bie. Ang has been able to profit from the great need
for shipping services fueled by the timber boom. For a detailed discussion of the shipping industry, see Howard
Dick, “The Indonesian Interisland Shipping Industry: A Case Study in Competition and Regulation” (PhD dissertation,
The Australian National University, 1977), p. 143 and pp. 180-83.58
Despite Muis Hassan replacing Pranoto as Governor, the aristocracy managed to maintain
its power in kabupatan Kutai. Aji Raden Padmo was still the Bupati, although various
key positions in the Bupati’s office had begun to be filled by Samarinda members of the
PNI. Throughout East Kalimantan the PNI had largely gained power in the provincial
bureaucracy mostly at the expense of PIR and PSI members. The PSI bureaucrats, however,
were able to take advantage of their ethnic identity as “Samarinda-Banjarese” so that they
were not driven out of office entirely. They held low-ranking jobs, waiting for a time
when they could take revenge against the PNI-dominated bureaucracy. In fact, their opportunity
for revenge came after the fall of Muis Hassan in 1966. Although they were relegated
to meager positions by Muis Hassan, these PSI bureaucrats did not want to join forces
with Soeharjo whom they considered too radical for their taste.
When President Sukarno made his declaration of Confrontation against Malaysia in
1963, Soeharjo undertook to lead East Kalimantan with his strong revolutionary spirit.
Located strategically on the borders of both Sarawak and Sabah, East Kalimantan was
to be placed under the military control of the Pepelrada (Pembantu Pelaksana Dwikora
Daerah, the Regional Holder of the Dwikora Command) in which Soeharjo was the Pan-
glima. The emergency power given to Soeharjo had made it possible for him to arrest
all his political opponents. Moreover, he was supported in his efforts by the new police
commander of East Kalimantan (Pangdak), Brigadier General Drs. Sumartono, and the
commander of the Navy Station in Tarakan, Lieutenant Colonel Sudirman. Both men were
strong supporters of President Sukarno’s Confrontation and initiated several incursions into
Sabah in 1964 and early 1965 under the coordination of Soeharjo.144
The military side of the Confrontation in East Kalimantan was not highly important.
With only three battalions of its own, Kodam Mulawarman could only maintain border
posts in places such as Nunukan, Malinau and Longnawang. Unlike in West Kalimantan,
where the strong Brigade Mondau was assembled under Brigadier General Supardjo,145
forces in East Kalimantan were never of brigade strength. Several platoons of paratroops
(RPKAD) were stationed along the borders but they were put under Soeharjo’s command.
Thus, there were no RPKAD officers with key troops under their own command to rival
the leadership of Soeharjo in East Kalimantan.
Since incursions across the land border were quite difficult, infiltrations took place
mostly under the supervision of the KKO (Marines) at Nunukan. Furthermore, after the
declaration of Dwikora (People’s Two Commands) in May 1964 battalions of volunteers
were sent to East Kalimantan. However, those volunteers did not really work as auxiliary
troops. Most of them were given jobs as teachers in the interior of East Kalimantan, es-
tablishing strong rapport with the Dayak people.
144	For the complaints leveled by the Malaysian government over the Indonesian intrusions, see Indonesian
Involvement in Eastern Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Ministry of External Affairs, 1964), pp. 16-20. It
should be noted that the KKO (Marines) launched an infiltration from Nunukan. The police have had a strong
Mobile Brigade battalion in East Kalimantan since the 1950s for the purpose of operating against Ibnu Hadjar’s
Kesatuan Rakjat Jang Tertindas (KRJT) rebels in the Pasir and Pagatan areas. See also J.A.C. Mackie, Konfrontasi:
The Indonesia-Malaysia Dispute, 1963-1966 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 200-75. Also
George McT. Kahin, “Malaysia and Indonesia,” Pacific Affairs (Fall 1964): 253-70. For the Indonesian view,
see Gelora Konfrontasi Menggandjang Malaysia (Jakarta: Department of Foreign Affairs, 1964), p. 6.
145	Brigadier General Supardjo was to become the leader of the G-30-S Affair as the vice chairman of the
“Revolutionary Council.” He was executed by the army in 1968 after an Extra Ordinary Military Court (Mahmilub)
proceeding.59
While the military side of Confrontation was less apparent in East than in West
Kalimantan, where fighting was taking place on the border with Sarawak, the political
atmosphere it created did have a substantial impact in the East as well. As a distant relative
of First Vice Premier Dr. Subandrio, Soeharjo was able to use the strategic importance
of East Kalimantan for his own political advancement. Soeharjo was considered a protege
of President Sukarno himself. Accordingly, he reported first to the President when he went
to Jakarta rather than to either the Chief of Staff, General Yani, or to the Minister of
Defense, General Nasution.146 In fact, Soeharjo’s relations with General Yani reached
such a low point that it is believed that in 1965 Yani himself decided to relieve Soeharjo
of his job and send him to the Army Staff College in Moscow.147
Despite the opposition towards him from the Samarinda Banjarese (including those
with PNI, PSI, and Islamic leanings) and the aristocracy, Soeharjo was quite popular among
the East Kalimantan people, especially the various Dayak groups in the interior. He led
a modest life in Balikpapan and was known for his puritanical behavior, especially his
lack of womanizing. He never rode a car (sedan) and traveled in his old Russian-made
jeep. He was remembered as the only Pangdam who had traveled throughout East Kalimantan
using perahu as well as land transportation.148 To the pejuang and to his troops, Soeharjo
was the personification of a real revolutionary leader: honest, austere, and attentive to
his anak buah (followers) and the people. Such virtues had made him quite memorable
among the pejuang of East Kalimantan who saw his political actions as a kind of per-
juangan (struggle).
By early 1964, the Confrontation campaign had gained the necessary momentum for
Soeharjo to undertake radical measures. In January 1964 the British oil company, PT Shell
Indonesia, was taken over by the Kesatuan Aksi Buruh Minyak (Oil Workers United Front)
as part of an anti-British campaign. In Balikpapan, the oil workers were mostly members
of Perbum, while the PNI-affiliated Kesatuan Buruh Marhaenis played a minor role. The
oil workers’ leaders were put in charge of the company until President Sukarno intervened
and placed the management of the company under Indonesian white collar managers. The
participation of Perbum leaders in the oil company’s management gave them the funds
needed to undertake radical political activities that were in line with Soeharjo’s policies
in East Kalimantan.149
146	Interview with General Nasution, July 14, 1979.
147	Soeharjo was in Moscow when the G-30-S Affair occurred. However, contrary to many reports, Soeharjo was
apparently not involved in the Affair. He did not report to the Embassy in Moscow after finishing his course
and was considered a deserter. (Interviews with Harun Nafsi, Samarinda, June 20, 1979; Abdul Muis Hassan, July
12, 1979; and General Nasution, July 14, 1979.) Having been persuaded by then Foreign Minister Adam Malik,
R. Soeharjo returned to Indonesia in January 1977.
148	He is described in Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, p. 25, as the only Pangdam to travel by foot in the interior
of Kutai and Bulungan. (Also corroborated in interviews with Husein Jusuf, June 7, 1979; Harun Nafsi, June 20,
1979, and Abdulmutalib, June 23, 1979.) According to Abdulmutalib, Soeharjo was at that time still friendly
with the PSI leaders in Samarinda, despite the banning of the PSI by the central government in 1960.
149	For some reports on this, see Bintang Timur (Jakarta), January 21 and March 1, 1964. It was believed that
Soeharjo’s anti-British attitude resulted from his mistreatment at the hands of the British troops in Surabaya during
the battle of Surabaya, which included physical abuse. (Personal communication from Benedict R.O’G. Anderson.)
Soeharjo, however, explained his attitude toward PT Shell Indonesia as stemming from his nationalist feelings
and his desire to help the workers. (Interview with R. Soeharjo, December 17, 1934.)60
Hence by early 1964, Soeharjo had consolidated his power in East Kalimantan with
the solid support of the army, the pejuang in Balikpapan and Samarinda, and the oil workers.
His activities on behalf of the army and Sukarno’s Confrontation campaign had given him
national stature as a pejuang leader.150 Such stature got another boost when President Sukarno
convened all the Pangdam in Jakarta on March 17, 1964. On that occasion, Sukarno spoke
of the British scenarios on the Confrontation, providing documents taken from the British
Embassy. It was part of the beginning of a new stage in the Confrontation campaign.
At this conference, the President also proclaimed the founding of sukarelawan (volunteers)
corps to fight against Malaysia. Soeharjo went back to East Kalimantan full of “fighting
spirit” against Malaysia.151
After his return Soeharjo acted quickly. In April 1964, he reportedly found a document
which appeared to prove that the Bulungan aristocracy had ties to Malaysia, in that it
stated that these aristocrats would proclaim merger with Sabah, Malaysia. Prior to Con-
frontation members of the Bulungan aristocracy had visited Sabah frequently because they
had blood ties with the Sabah aristocrats that went as far back as the Sulu sultanate. Soeharjo
feared that the Bulungan aristocrats could well become Malaysia’s “fifth column” should
the British troops attack Indonesia as was widely rumored. His fear was shared by the
commander of Tarakan naval station, Lieutenant Colonel Sudirman. Their common ob-
jective was to establish a strong frontier in Bulungan where the Sukarelawan Tempur Dwikora
(Auxiliary Troops of the Dwikora campaign), already assembled in Jakarta under a Brawijaya
officer, Colonel Sabirin Mochtar, would be posted.
The discovery of arms in the former palace of the Sultan in the third week of April
1964 provided the pretext for the purge of the Bulungan aristocrats, although there had
previously been doubts about the truth of allegations questioning their loyalty.152 On April
24, Soeharjo ordered his troops stationed in Tanjung Selor to arrest all members of the
Bulungan aristocracy. The aristocrats were separated into several groups. All the male
members were put into one group and into one boat, while the women and children were
placed in a separate boat. They were supposed to be transported first to Tarakan and from
there taken to Balikpapan. This plan never materialized. Off the shore of Tarakan, all
of them, about 30 persons in total, were gunned down by their own guards from Kodim
Bulungan. Their bodies were thrown into the sea.
Although there are several differing accounts of this incident, all of them agree on
the number of persons involved and the brutality of the killings.153 Within the immediate
family of Sultan Bulungan, only two sons survived because they had been able to escape
150	See for example, a report in Bintang Timur, March 6, 1964, on how Colonel Soeharjo and Brigadier General
Rukman, Deputy Kasad (Army Chief of Staff) for East Indonesia “have escaped from the attacks of British
planes.”
151	See Bintang Timur, March 12, 17, and 18, 1964.
152	The finding of the arms cache itself became a source of controversy. Most anti-Soeharjo groups, believed that
Soeharjo himself had engineered the whole arms cache incident as a pretext to move against the Bulungan aristocracy.
The pejuang who were sympathetic to Soeharjo, considered the finding of the arms cache as possibly true, given
the relations between the Bulungan and Sabah aristocrats. (Interviews with Abdul Muis Hassan, Husein Jusuf,
Harun Nafsi, and Anang Sulaiman.)
153	Most accounts state that 30 persons were killed. This figure was provided by Hiefnie Effendy, a prominent
journalist in Samarinda since the 1950s. In contrast, the aristocratic groups tended to place the death toll at as
high a figure as 77. Interviews with AR Padmo, June 25, 1979, and Hiefnie Effendy.61
at the time of the arrests. They fled to Sabah. Another son of the late Sultan Bulungan
was summoned by Soeharjo from his school in Malang. Upon his arrival in Balikpapan,
he was arrested and was never heard of again.154
This killing of the Bulungan aristocrats came to be known locally as the Bultikan
affair. It was widely believed that it was directed by Soeharjo himself. Even his fellow
Brawijaya successor, General Sumitro has acknowledged that Soeharjo himself directed
the actions.155 However, there have been many different opinions regarding the motives
and reasons underlying the purge.
For most Samarinda Banjarese, especially those from the PNI group, the Bulungan
affair was only the worst example of Soeharjo’s ruthlessness. They believed that in an
effort to consolidate his power, he had overstepped his mandate and used the finding of
the arms as a pretext to further his objective of eliminating the East Kalimantan aristocrats.
While not particularly fond of the aristocracy, the Samarinda Banjarese did not appreciate
Soeharjo’s violent attacks against them. Soeharjo’s allegation that the aristocrats were Ma-
laysian agents was categorized by the Samarinda Banjarese as a post-facto justification
of the killings.
On the other hand, the pejuang tended to support Soeharjo’s accusations. They believed
that the Bulungan aristocrats were trying to recapture their lost power by aligning themselves
with a foreign power, a tactic which historically had quite often been pursued by com-
mercial aristocracies elsewhere. Although the pejuang questioned the appropriateness and
the necessity of the killings, they could accept them as a necessary cost of the Confron-
tation policy. In such a charged political atmosphere, the silent killing of the Bulungan
aristocrats was considered an outgrowth of the radicalization the Confrontation policy had
fostered.
The affair itself received little attention outside East Kalimantan. Indeed, even within
East Kalimantan few protested against Soeharjo’s move, as the Bulungan aristocrats were
not widely known. Having lived only in Bulungan the aristocracy did not have any connections
with the powerful bureaucracy in Samarinda nor marriage alliances with other aristoc-
racies. Hence, when they were killed, there were no outside supporters who could protest
Soeharjo’s actions. Political groups such as the Samarinda PNI simply watched on quietly.
Even the army headquarters, Mabad, (Markas Besar Angkatan Darat) which did not always
agree with Soeharjo, did not dare to take punitive actions against him, because he was
a rising star within the political context engendered by Guided Democracy.
By May 1964, Soeharjo had become a celebrity in the left-wing politics of Guided
Democracy, bearing the image of a popular general who could be counted on to provide
a revolutionary kind of leadership. Indeed, Yani’s leadership within the army was seen
as the counterpoint to Soeharjo’s populist and dynamic leadership style. His success at
the Afro-Asian Film Festival held in Jakarta in late April added further to his revolutionary
leadership credentials among the political elite of Jakarta. He won the “Lumumba Award”
for best direction while his film, “Tangan-Tangan Yang Kotor” [Dirty Hands] won the
154	Anang Sulaiman, who was the representative of PT Mahakam in Malang at that time, has stated that “[he felt]
guilty because [he had given] him the ticket to Balikpapan.” (Interview with Anang Sulaiman, June 16, 1979.)
155	Soeharjo’s successor, the then Brigadier General Sumitro, has acknowledged the occurrence of “silent killings,”
although he emphasized that these killings had occurred as part of the general tense climate of Confrontation.
(Interview with General Sumitro, May 7, 1978.)62
Bandung award, the highest award of the festival.156 His national reputation as well as
his strong backing from Jakarta’s elite, particularly from President Sukarno, the Indonesian
Communist Party, and the Indonesian Party (Partindo) added to his power at the provincial
level.
With his increased power, Soeharjo was ready to strike a decisive blow against the
pejuangs’ arch-enemy, the Kutai aristocracy. Soeharjo decided to strike against them in
August 1964. Since kabupaten Kutai was located outside the first military defense line,
a mass arrest of the aristocrats could not easily be justified on the basis of the aristocrats
forming a “fifth column.” Soeharjo, however, was easily able to find another pretext.
He accused the Kutai aristocrats of attempting to revive the swapraja. Soeharjo’s troops
were sent to Tenggarong where they arrested prominent members of the Kutai aristocracy,
including Sultan Parikesit, his half-brother and former Governor, Pranoto, the Bupati of
Kutai, AjiRaden Padmo, and the chairman of the Kutai DPRD, aPNI man named Mansjursjah.
They were put in a temporary jail within the military compound in Balikpapan. Pranoto
was also accused of mishandling the provincial budget and embezzling several million
rupiah. Although the accusation proved to be true, it was generally believed that Pranoto
was not personally taking the funds for himself.157 However, Pranoto, alone, was sent to
the feared-RTM (Military Detention Center) in Jakarta, where he eventually died.158
In addition to putting Parikesit and Padmo in Balikpapan’s jail, Soeharjo further
humiliated the Kutai aristocracy by burning publicly the celebrated attributes of the Sultan.
In front of supporting spectators, Soeharjo ordered the burning of the Sultan’s clothes in
the yard of Tenggarong Palace. His plan to bum the palace, as he had done in Bulungan,
was prevented by Muis Hassan, who sent Banjarese police to protect the building.159 Soeharjo
was an appreciative spectator of the burning of the Sultan’s attributes, witnessing the event
from a boat in the Mahakam River. A young Javanese pamong praja, Drs. Roesdibjono
was chosen to replace Padmo as the Bupati of Kutai. Hence, Soeharjo fulfilled the old
dream of the pejuang of taking over and destroying the Kutai aristocracy.
Soeharjo’s power continued to increase in the second half of 1964 and early 1965.
He headed the provincial leadership of Panca Tung gal (Five Regional Bodies) over Governor
Muis Hassan who was only a member of that body.160 It was headquartered in Balikpapan
where the other members of Panca Tunggal, the Pangdak (Regional Police Chief), Jaksa
156	See Bintang Timur, May 2, 1964.
157	Interviews with Abdul Muis Hassan, Harun Nafsi, and Oemar Dachlan. According to Abdul Muis Hassan, Pranoto
was guilty of mismanaging 13 million rupiah of governmental funds. Hamn Nafsi believes that the mismanagement
of this large sum of government funds was probably mainly due to Pranoto’s practice of giving away government
funds to his friends and allies as had been done in the old days of the Kutai sultanate. According to Nafsi, Pranoto
just gave money to friends he believed needed the money. Pranoto’s widow is living a poor life, having had to
rent a house in the poor section of Samarinda.
158	Pranoto died in prison because of prison conditions. (Interviews with Abdul Muis Hassan, Harun Nafsi, and
Oemar Dachlan.)
159	Interviews with Hiefny Effendy, June 20, 1979 and Abdul Muis Hassan, July 12, 1979.
160	The Pane Tunggal was also part of Guided Democracy’s scheme for the incorporation of the PKI into the
provincial leadership through the work of the PKI-affiliated Front Nasional leaders at the provincial level. However,
in East Kalimantan, the Front National was represented mostly by Harun Nafsi, a PSII-leader. Yet, Fahrul Baraqbah,
a PKI leader, sometimes used his position within the Front Nasional to enhance his leadership. (Interview with
Harun Nafsi, June 20, 1979.)63
Tinggi (Regional Prosecutor), and chairman of the Front Nasional, resided. Balikpapan
thereby reached the strongest position it would ever have in its rivalry with Samarinda
for the political leadership of East Kalimantan.
However, Muis Hassan was able to continue as Governor, despite increasing pressure
from Soeharjo to put more military officers into the provincial bureaucracy. With strong
support from the PNI Central Board and President Sukarno himself, Muis Hassan was
to survive Soeharjo’s reign. From 1962 onwards, he had expanded the PNI’s influence
throughout the bureaucracy down to the kecamatan (subdistrict) level where it was es-
timated that about 75 percent of the camat (subdistrict heads) were PNI members or sym-
pathizers.161
At the kabupaten level, Soeharjo was able to appoint his own men as Bupati and
mayors at the expense of the PNI. Accordingly, in Balikpapan, the PNI pamong praja
bureaucrat of Kutai origin, A.R.S. Mohammad, was replaced as mayor by an army officer
of Banjarese origin, Major Zaenal Arifin, a member of Soeharjo’s entourage. Similarly,
in Samarinda, Soeharjo replaced his fellow-Brawijaya mayor, Captain Sudjono AJ, with
his own man, Major Ngoedio from the Military Court in Balikpapan. And, in Berau, Soeharjo
appointed another Kodam officer, Captain Djajadi, as Bupati, replacing the former head
of the Berau aristocracy, Aji Raden Ajub. Soeharjo’s policy of appointing his own men
as Bupati and mayors enabled him to undermine Muis Hassan’s authority by early 1965.
While Muis Hassan could claim that he dominated the Governor’s office and the camat,
it was Soeharjo who controlled the Bupati and mayors. Therefore, in all likelihood, Soeharjo
was moving in a direction where he might have been able to put his own man in as Governor
in 1965, had he himself not been replaced as Pangdam in March of that year.
Soeharjo’s replacement was more the result of national political considerations than
a response to provincial resentment against him. By becoming a favorite general of Sukarno,
Subandrio, and the left-wing parties in Jakarta (most notably the PKI and Partindo), Soeharjo
had put himself in direct conflict with the Army Chief of Staff, General Ahmad Yani.
Yani had always been unhappy not only with Soeharjo’s leadership but also with his free
dealing with Sukarno and Subandrio over Yani’s head. Moreover, Soeharjo’s emphasis
on the issue of Confrontation was in direct contrast with Yani’s policy of playing it down
in order to reduce the power of the PKI. Hence, Yani saw Soeharjo as playing into the
PKI’s hands in its increasing competition with the army, and so, planned to replace Soeharjo
with his own man, also from the Brawijaya division, Brigadier General Sumitro.
By appointing the anti-Communist Sumitro, Yani was trying to halt the progress of
the PKI in East Kalimantan while preserving the interests of the army. Hence, Sumitro
reduced the support that the Kodam had given to the PKI, and, especially, to its union,
Perbum. Moreover, while maintaining the Kodam’s public posture with regard to the
Confrontation policy, Sumitro was quite cautious in embarking on any military venture
against Malaysia. He was to follow the policy of the army leadership in Jakarta, aimed
at preventing the PKI from using the Malaysia campaign for its own purposes.
While retreating from Soeharjo’s policy of close relations with the PKI and his vigorous
anti-Malaysian campaign, Sumitro did not dismiss most of Soeharjo’s appointees who,
like him, were Brawijaya officers. Although Sumitro differed from Soeharjo in his at-
161 Interviews with Sjahrumsjah Idris and Anang Sulaiman, both chairmen of East Kalimantan’s PNI branch since
the 1960s, June 16 and 18, 1979.64
titude towards the PKI, he shared a similar revolutionary spirit with regard to the aristocracy
and the non-pejuang. To this end, Sumitro took over the leadership of Balikpapan’s pejuang
from Soeharjo, especially with regard to its competition with the Samarinda-based PNI.
Although his tenure as Pangdam was quite short, only nine months, Sumitro’s leadership
was very important in determining the future of East Kalimantan politics. By containing
the progress of the PKI, Sumitro was able to prevent a build up of political tensions during
1965. Consequently, by the time of the September 30 Movement (G-30-S), Sumitro was
easily able to arrest the prominent leaders of the PKI and Perbum without much intervention
from the other political parties. He also arrested fellow Brawijaya officers who were known
to be close to the PKI, all of whom were Soeharjo’s appointees. In doing so, Sumitro
was largely able to prevent in East Kalimantan the kind of bloodshed that the G-30-S
Affair produced elsewhere in Indonesia.
When Sumitro was promoted to the position of the Assistant for Operations of the
Mabad Army Chief of Staff in Jakarta, Colonel Soekadijo became leader of Kodam in
Balikpapan. A Brawijaya officer, like Soeharjo and Sumitro, Soekadijo could command
the loyalty of Kodam officers, most of whom originated from the important Brawijaya
division. Brigadier General Mung Parhadimuljo, also from the Brawijaya, was appointed
as Sumitro’s successor, but he had spent most of his life in the RPKAD and was considered
a political general.162 Thus, Soekadijo took over the political leadership of the army in
East Kalimantan in the confusing months following the G-30-S Affair.
The G-30-S Affair had a considerable adverse impact on the power of the army in
East Kalimantan, especially with regard to its officers who were in civilian jobs. All of
the army’s Bupati and mayors, as well as many of its Kodim commanders were arrested.163
They were placed in a military jail in Balikpapan. However, since Sumitro was a Brawijaya
man, he was easily able to replace them with other officers from that division. Hence,
the ranks of Kodam Mulawarman remained dominated by Brawijaya officers.
Moreover, this decline in the army’s power had its civilian parallel in the provincial
bureaucracy in Samarinda. The PNI’s control over the provincial bureaucracy since 1960
had stimulated the growth of a group within the Banjarese community who were strongly
opposed to the PNI. Most of the members of this Banjarese group came from Masjumi,
PSI, and HMI backgrounds. They not only resented the PNI’s domination of the bureaucracy,
but also its domination of academic life. By that time, a new generation of university-
educated people with Islamic leanings had emerged from the Banjarese community in
Samarinda.
Prior to the emergence of this new university-educated generation, the Islamic organizations
in Samarinda, such as NU and Muhammadiyah, had strong ties with Banjarmasin from
where many of their leaders were recruited.164 In the early 1960s, through the IAIN in
162	For a brief biography of Mung Parhadimuljo, see Biographical Appendix in this monograph.
163	Those who were arrested included the Mayor of Balikpapan, Lieutenant Colonel Bambang Sutikno; the Kodim
of Balikpapan, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Sukartono; and the Fifth Assistant to the Pangdam who was also the
Secretary of the Provincial Front Nasional, Colonel Rusmono. The former Kodim of Samarinda, Lieutenant Colonel
Sudjono, was also jailed, as well as the Bupati of Pasir, Lieutenant Colonel Sujatmo.
164	For the origins of the Islamic movements in East Kalimantan and their ties to Banjarmasin, see Taufik,
“Perkembangan.” In contrast, the secular organizations such as the PNI, PSI, and PIR had established direct relations
with their headquarters in Jakarta.65
Banjarmasin, Islamic organizations in Samarinda were able to form a branch of IAIN in
Samarinda. For the first time, together with the students of the state university, Universitas
Mulawarman, the Islamic-leaning Banjarese in Samarinda were to have their own educated
elite. The HMI (Islamic Students Organization) was soon to compete with the GMNI (PNI
student organization) for the domination of Mulawarman University.
In various universities in Java, students from East Kalimantan had established their
own organization, KPMKT (Keluarga Pelajar Mahasiswa Kalimantan Timur—Family of
Students from East Kalimantan). It was dominated by HMI members and students coming
from Islamic backgrounds. Most of them did not get fellowships from the provincial
government, since the provincial government fellowships were mostly given to the children
of PNI leaders. Hence, they resented the PNI leadership in Samarinda, not least because
they saw no career chance for themselves within the power structure that leadership headed.
Moreover, at the KPMKT national board in Jakarta many students of Banjarese origins
were playing important roles in the national student movements of KAMI (Kesatuan Aksi
Mahasiswa Indonesia, Indonesian Student Action United Group) and KAPPI (Kesatuan
Aksi Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia, Indonesian Secondary School Students and Youth United
Group). In line with the growing political polarization of Guided Democracy, these KPMKT
students actively confronted the PNI-affiliated GMNI both at the national and provincial
political levels. Hence, the children of the Samarinda Islamic groups were in the forefront
of student organizations prior to the G-30-S Affair.
Moreover, in the early months of the post-coup period, Samarinda was flooded with
South Kalimantan’s student leaders who took refuge in East Kalimantan from a heavy-
handed pro-Sukarno Regional Commander, Brigadier General Sabirin Mochtar. A Brawijaya
officer like Soeharjo, Sabirin Mochtar was known for his harsh measures against the KAMI-
KAPPI students. He was very active in the campaign against Malaysia and was once the
head of the Sukarelawan Tempur Dwikora. The arrival of the Banjarmasin student leaders
also laid the groundwork for ending the PNI’s political dominance in Samarinda.
In the aftermath of the G-30-S Affair, these student organizations formed the Samarinda
branches of KAMI and KAPPI, under the leadership of non-GMNI students. Regional
Commander Mung Parhadimuljo himself was quite sympathetic to the students, as the
RPKAD troops had been in Jakarta. Since the power to grant and to stop demonstrations
rested in the hands of the Kodam as the Laksus Kopkamtib for East Kalimantan, the regional
command used this power to settle its account with the provincial political leadership in
Samarinda. The students, became one of the components of the political game skillfully
played by Parhadimuljo’s Chief of Staff, Colonel Soekadijo, who wanted the governorship
for himself. Thus the K AMI-K APPI students in Samarinda were granted considerable freedom
in holding demonstrations and public rallies.
The target of the student demonstrations was Governor Muis Hassan and his PNI-
dominated provincial bureaucracy. Since he had opposed the PKI’s domination and influence,
he could not be considered a pro-Communist Governor. However, with the increasing anti-
Sukarno tone at the national level, Muis Hassan was accused of having had close relations
with Sukarno and was labeled a Sukamoist.
When Sukarno was removed from the actual power of the Presidency by the army
in March 1966, student demonstrations demanding the dismissal of Governor Muis Hassan
increased in East Kalimantan. The political slogan was changed from “anti G-30-S” to
“anti Orde Lama (Old Order),” causing many Governors to resign. By the end of 1966,66
Muis Hassan bowed to political pressure and refused the offer of the then Minister of
Interior, Basuki Rachmat, to remain in office for a while longer.165 It should be noted
that while the PNI members were strong enough at the regional level to stage counter
demonstrations, they refrained from doing so, due to the party’s decline at the national
level.
Basuki Rachmat then appointed his fellow Brawijaya officer, Colonel Soekadijo, as
Acting Governor for East Kalimantan. Although he had the support of the Pangdam Mung
and the Kodam bureaucracy, Soekadijo was not well placed politically at the provincial
level due to his past role as Soeharjo’s deputy. Hence, he was soon opposed by the non-
PNI Banjarese groups in Samarinda who resented the possibility of the appointment of
a Javanese Governor.
It was in this critical situation that the KPMKT proved the usefulness of its political
network in the important cities of Java. In view of the increasing power of the military
in post-coup Indonesia, the KPMKT realized that it had to oppose the appointment of
Colonel Soekadijo with the candidacy of another military officer. A candidate was found
in the person of Colonel Wahab Sjahranie, then Deputy Assistant for Functional Affairs
to the Kasad in Jakarta. Colonel Sjahranie came from an aristocratic Banjarese family
in Rantau, South Kalimantan. Although he came from South Kalimantan, he could well
be considered a “putra daerah” (native son) of Banjarese-dominated East Kalimantan. He
had spent most of his army career as a teacher at SESKOAD in Bandung so that he became
the chairman of the Infantry Department before he was called to Army Headquarters. Prior
to the war, he was a pamong praja official, working as a camat in South Kalimantan.166
While he was close to the Kasad and General Panggabean, he was also a close associate
of the powerful commander of SESKOAD, Lieutenant General Suwarto. Hence, he was
better placed politically at the national level than Soekadijo. Moreover, Sjahranie was a
more attractive candidate at the regional level because the demands for a putra daerah
for Governor were too strong to be resisted by the central government. Wahab Sjahranie,
then, was a welcome candidate to the non-PNI Banjarese of Samarinda, for by taking
over the Governorship he removed the possibility of Soekadijo, a Javanese, assuming that
position.
The ethnic dimensions of the competition over the Governorship could not be taken
lightly in the aftermath of the G-30-S Affair in East Kalimantan. For the non-pejuang
Banjarese, Soeharjo’s past leadership had shown the dangers that a Javanese leader would
pose in the increasingly competitive atmosphere between the Banjarese and the Javanese
in East Kalimantan. Javanese migrants had come to East Kalimantan in large numbers,
due mostly to the Confrontation campaign and to Perbum’s activities in Tarakan and
Balikpapan. In the aftermath of the G-30-S Affair, many of these migrants fell victim
to the charge that they had a left-wing political orientation. A large number of them were
jailed as activists of Perbum and the PKI. It was only because the Kodam was led by
fellow Javanese that these migrants were able to escape physical abuse. Hence, it was
165	Interview with Abdul Muis Hassan, July 12, 1979. According to him, Basuki Rachmat proposed that he take
the job of Deputy Governor in order to get the cooperation of the mostly PNI bureaucrats. However, Abdul Muis
Hassan rejected this offer. He was most influenced in this decision by his wife who was irritated by the demonstrations
against him, and preferred to live in Jakarta.
166	For a brief biography of Abdul Wahab Sjahranie, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, pp. 758-
59.67
in the migrants’ best interests that the Governorship be in the hands of a fellow Java-
nese. Furthermore, a Javanese Governor might also provide more avenues and incentives
for the economic and social advancement of the Javanese. It was precisely because of
this possibility that the Banjarese of Samarinda had insisted on their fellow Banjarese
becoming Governor in order to protect them from the incoming Javanese migrants in the
province. In the end, the Banjarese got what they wanted and Colonel Wahab Sjahranie
was appointed as the new Governor of East Kalimantan in 1967.Chapter 6
The Timber Boom and the
Centralization of Power
The governorship of Abdul Wahab Sjahranie was characterized by East Kalimantan’s
emergence as the leading timber exporter in Indonesia. Under the easy terms of the Foreign
Investment Law No. 1/1967, timber came to be exploited on a huge scale, especially between
1967 and 1970. The timber boom produced far-reaching changes in the social and economic
fabric of the region. In the first place, it encouraged a large wave of migrants to East
Kalimantan. These migrants came from other parts of Kalimantan, but also from Java
and Sulawesi. Many Banjarese came in from South Kalimantan, taking advantage of the
land communications to Balikpapan. These migrants were often peasants who simply left
their lands to earn cash more easily as laborers in the timber camps.
Aside from the Banjarese, a large number of Javanese arrived in Samarinda seeking
employment in the timber exploitation enterprises. They worked mostly in the timber
camps and in the various service sector jobs available in Samarinda, Tarakan, and Balikpapan.
The availability of easy transport, including log-carrier, from Surabaya to East Kalimantan
made the journey quite short and cheap. This great influx of Javanese migrants not only
changed considerably the ethnic composition of East Kalimantan, but also helped change
the ethnic balance of power in the region. Whereas earlier the Banjarese were the dominant
group in the cities of Balikpapan, Samarinda, and Tarakan, the arrival of new Javanese
migrants seriously undermined their position of dominance.
The third group of migrants came from South Sulawesi, especially Pare-pare and the
Mandar region where agricultural conditions were disrupted because of the long strife between
the Kahar Muzakkar rebels and the army. With the introduction of motorized perahu,
the migrants could reach Balikpapan in about 36 hours. Many then went further north
to Tarakan and Bulungan, especially Nunukan, where a Buginese community had existed
since the seventeenth century. Most of the Buginese who migrated to East Kalimantan
came from the lower classes. A good number of educated Buginese, however, also came
to the region looking for jobs at Mulawarman University; in fact, so many entered the
university that the Buginese came to dominate two university faculties: the Faculty of
Economy and the Faculty of Social Politics.
Additionally, a large number of Torajanese have also migrated to East Kalimantan,
especially to Tarakan. Many of them now work for the timber companies, but some also
pursue small trade activities.
The boom increased East Kalimantan’s food supply dependence, and the new rice
areas of Hulusungai were only too happy to send their produce to Balikpapan, together
with other foods, such as vegetables and meat. The intensification of forest exploitation
also forced many Dayak groups to settle in the urban centers, mostly in the kecamatan
capitals. Already in the late 1960s, a sizable number of educated people from the various
Dayak groups had emerged and were prepared to play important political roles in pro-
6970
vincial politics. Tarakan was the main center for the Kayan-Kenyah group, and Samarinda
for the interior Dayaks of Kutai kabupaten, such as the Tunjung, Bahau, and Benuaq.
Overall, this migration to East Kalimantan helped double the population of the province
from a half million people in the middle of the 1960s to about 1 million by 1978 (see
Table 5 for East Kalimantan’s demographic changes).
From Table 5 we can see that the timber boom started around the area of Samarinda,
where the population doubled between 1961 and 1971. Although Balikpapan’s population
had increased quite substantially in the late 1960s, the population expansion accelerated
rapidly in more recent years, as the systematic exploitation of the forest developed there.
It is striking that the boom has served to increase the percentage of people living in the
urban centers; the cities of Samarinda, Balikpapan, and Tarakan together now constitute
about 50 percent of the province’s entire population.
The exact ethnic composition of this population increase is quite difficult to assess
because of a lack of ethnic data in the national census. An educated guess, however, suggests
the following: The Javanese still form the majority in Balikpapan (between 35 and 40
percent), followed by the Buginese (between 25 and 30 percent) and the Banjarese (about
20 percent). The rest of the population is mainly composed of various ethnic groups from
North Sulawesi (Minahasans and Sangirese, about 5 percent) and others, including declining
numbers of Chinese. Hence, while the Javanese maintain their prewar plurality, the Buginese
now outnumber the Banjarese. Apparently most Banjarese migrants from South Kalimantan
only stop over in Balikpapan before continuing their journey to Samarinda.167
The Banjarese, however, have maintained their prewar demographic dominance in
Samarinda. They are estimated to constitute about 40 percent of the population, while
the Javanese percentage has grown to about thirty. The Buginese demographic share has
stayed put at about 10 percent, while another 10 percent of the population is divided between
Chinese and various Dayak groups. It should be noted that “Banjarese” includes people
of Melayu and Kutai backgrounds who have intermarried with the Banjarese since the
1950s.
In Tarakan the Javanese population share has jumped far ahead of the shares of the
other ethnic groups, to the extent that they probably now constitute about 50 percent of
the population. Buginese and Torajanese constitute about 20 percent, while the North
Sulawesi groups and the Chinese each represent about 15 percent of the population. The
Javanese have mainly come to work in oil-related businesses, while the Buginese and the
Torajanese work in trade and agriculture. The Dayak groups are mostly concentrated in
the kecamatan capitals of inland Bulungan, especially in Tanjung Palas, Kerayan, and
Malinau.168
However, for the province as a whole, the Banjarese are still the politically dominant
ethnic group, due mostly to their widespread representation in the kecamatan capitals along
the Mahakam River as early as the late nineteenth century. They may well constitute
167	The Banjarese from South Kalimantan have migrated mostly to Central and East Kalimantan. See Marliani
Johan sjah, “Mobilitas Penduduk di Kalimantan Selatan” (Fakultas Ekonomi, Universitas Lambung Mangkurat, 1979,
Typescript), p. 4. Compare Johansjah’s discussion with that of Hasan Basri concerning Banjarese migration to
Java in the article, “Perpindahan Orang Banjar ke Surakarta: Kasus Migrasi Inter Etnis di Indonesia,” in Prisma
(Indonesian edition), number 3 (1988): 42-56.
168	See Registrasi Penduduk Kalimantan Timur (Samarinda: Bappeda Kalimantan Timur, 1978), p. 15.71
Table 5. Population changes in East Kalimantan
No.	Kabupaten/kotamadya	1961	1971	1977
1	Balikpapan	91,706	137,340	238,141
2	Samarinda	69,712	137,918	190,393
3	Kutai	220,256	241,412	315,209
4	Berau	28,256	31,954	38,726
5	Bulungana	95,685	119,199	158,380
6	Pasir	44,967	57,192	67,719
Total	East Kalimantan	550,582	725,115	1,008,568
Sources: Registrasi Penduduk Kalimantan Timur 1977 (Samarinda: Bappeda Kalimantan
Timur, 1978), pp. 1-9.
Monografi Daerah Propinsi Kalimantan Timur 1967 (Samarinda: Kan tor Gubemur Kalimantan
Timur, 1968), jilid I, pp. 18-20.
BurhanuddinZainal Abidin, “BeberapaMasalahPengelolaan ProyekTransmigrasidipropinsi
Daerah Tingkat I Kalimantan Timur” (MA thesis, Universitas Mulawarman, 1976), p.
28.
a Including the kecamatan of Tarakan which in 1978 was designated as a Kotamadya
Administratif. It is led by its own Walikota (Mayor) who, however, still reports to the
Bupati of Bulungan. The population of Tarakan climbed from 31,118 in 1971 to 44,415
in 1977. Ibid.72
Map 4. Ethnic groups oFTiast Kalimantan73
30 percent of the provincial population, while the Javanese compose between 15 and 20
percent. Demographically, however, East Kalimantan is still predominantly a Dayak
province. These Dayak groups, however, are largely fragmented along anaksuku (sub-
group) lines and do not possess good means of communication among them. Their numbers
are estimated at between 35 and 40 percent of the provincial population, most of them
living in the kabupaten of Kutai and Bulungan.169 The nature of the demographic and
socio-economic changes in East Kalimantan worked in the long term to the advantage
of the Javanese. Although not yet the majority, the Javanese have a very strong presence
in the three important cities of the province. Occupational and educational differences
among them are great. Some work as government officials and are temporarily stationed
in Balikpapan, while many work as common laborers in the timber camps or as service
sector employees in the cities. Yet together these varied occupational groups provide the
strong Javanese constituency needed by Javanese officials at the provincial and Kodam
levels to guard against the dominance of the Banjarese.
It was in this demographic, political, and economic context that Governor Wahab
Sjahranie ruled East Kalimantan from 1967 until 1978. At the time of his appointment,
he had succeeded in winning the support of a variety of groups which traditionally had
conflicting interests and had been out of power during the days of Muis Hassan and Soeharjo.
To run the provincial bureaucracy, Wahab Sjahranie replaced Muis Hassan’s PNI men
with two different types of bureaucrats. The first were the “PST’-oriented Banjarese
bureaucrats who had been put aside by Muis Hassan. They were now given important
positions. Haji Kadrie Uning, a Samarinda-pejuang, for example, became the Mayor of
Samarinda. Others such as Munadi Arief and Haji Rifaddin, got key jobs in the provincial
bureaucracy.170
The second type of bureaucrat came from the Kutai aristocracy. A Banjarese aristocrat
himself, Wahab Sjahranie used the Kutai aristocracy in order to ensure the “de-PNI-ization”
of the provincial bureaucracy. He replaced the PNI Sekwilda Drs. Djakfar Achmad with
Aji Raden Padmo, a top Kutai aristocrat just released from Soeharjo’s jail. Other Kutai-
Melayu aristocrats, such as Encik Mas Djakaria and A.R.S. Mohammad, were also given
important positions later on, as Sekwilda (replacing Padmo) and Deputy Governor respec-
tively.171
Hence the Kutai aristocrats experienced a limited revival during Wahab Sjahranie’s
governorship. They worked as high officials in the Governor’s office, though the Bupati
of Kutai remained Muis Hassan’s appointee, Drs. Achmad Dahlan, a PNI-oriented Banja-
rese. The Kutai aristocrats, nonetheless, did not experience, a full revival mainly because
169	Ibid.
170	Haji Encik Rifaddin was jailed by Soeharjo because of his Kutai connection. He was given the title “Encik”
by the Sultan. Soeharjo did not like him because “he had forgotten his poor friends in Jakarta.” (Interview with
Abdulmutalib, June 23, 1979.) He was appointed Head of the Public Works Agency which controlled most
governmental projects by Wahab Sjahranie. Another PSI pamong praja, Abdul Rasjid, was given a job as a special
aide to the Governor, leading the PNI leaders to accuse Wahab Sjahranie of being “influenced by the PSI.” Interviews
with Sjahrumsjah Idris and Anang Sulaiman, June 16 and 18, 1979, respectively.
171	Interview with Encik Mas Djakaria, June 25, 1979. A.R.S. Mohammad was actually a member of the PNI but
he was not considered a key figure in the Samarinda-based Banjarese group which had dominated the PNI in
the early 1960s. Moreover, he was one of the few Kutai aristocrats who were available for appointment at a time
when there was a very limited pool of Kutai aristocrats in the provincial government.74
of the absence of any Kutai recruitment into the provincial bureaucracy between 1960
and 1965. Kutai interests were then still represented by the PIR-oriented OS VIA graduates
who had worked with Pranoto, such as Padmo and Djakarta. Other prominent Kutai
bureaucrats either preferred to live in Java (such as Aji Raden Afloes and Aji Raden
Djokoprawiro) or had been discredited by their involvement with the Masjumi (such as
Aji Kariowiti).
At the same time, the younger generation of Kutai aristocrats rarely came back to
East Kalimantan because of the anti-aristocratic climate of the pre-1966 period. Although
many of them got university degrees, they preferred to live in Jakarta where their aris-
tocratic background was not a disadvantage. Those who did go back to East Kaliman-
tan were mostly from the lower aristocracy of Awang origins, who had political ties with
the PNI. It is true that many of them had middle level jobs at the provincial and kabupaten
levels, but their positions were not that important.
Seen in this light, Soeharjo’s anti-aristocratic purge was decisive in preventing the
internal regeneration of the Kutai aristocrats within the bureaucracy. They had been so
humiliated by Soeharjo’s policies that most of the more enterprising younger aristocrats
now worked and lived outside East Kalimantan. The long-term effect of Soeharjo’s purge
then is quite comparable to the impact of the revolusi sosial (social revolution) in East
Sumatra, after which the local aristocratic groups were foreclosed from controlling the
provincial leadership. Hence, despite all his efforts, Wahab Sjahranie proved unable
substantially to recreate the Kutai aristocracy’s old bureaucratic power. Only the lower
aristocracy of Awangs benefitted from the absence of high Kutai aristocrats in the bureaucracy,
for they could now claim to represent the Kutais at a time of increasing power struggles
between the Javanese and the Banjarese.
Aside from the PSI-Banjarese and PIR-Kutai bureaucrats, Wahab Sjahranie also brought
in his own “kitchen-cabinet,” composed mostly of Banjarese from South Kalimantan. Some
of them were military officers while others were civilian officials, yet all had worked
with Sjahranie in the prewar period when he was a pamong praja and during his postwar
military career.172 Their presence caused great resentment among the Samarinda-Banja-
rese bureaucrats, who had been suspicious of the South Kalimantan Banjarese ever since
colonial times.
Wahab Sjahranie was not only able to consolidate his power within the bureaucracy,
but was also able to end the PNI’s domination of political life through the use of various
coalitions. At first, he maintained close relations with the leaderships of the KAMI, KAPPI,
and KPMKT who had helped him come to power. The young leaders of KAMI were
recruited into the government-supported political organization, Golkar, while many graduates
of the KPMKT were given jobs in the provincial bureaucracy. The political leaders of
KAMI and KPMKT were mostly Banjarese, from both Banjarmasin and Samarinda. They
were to constitute a counterforce to the young generation of PNI sarjana who now were
shunted aside in the provincial bureaucracy.
Wahab Sjahranie was quick to use the resentment of non-PNI political parties to
consolidate his power in the DPRDGR. He also developed a coalition among these small
172 Among those who came with Wahab Sjahranie were the head of the Social Political Bureau, Colonel Said
Sjeh and the Governor’s spokesman, Abdurrachman Musa. The head of Pertamina in Balikpapan, Colonel Burhan
Daniel, and the head of the Ferry and River Traffic Agency, Lieutenant Colonel Anwar Beck, during Sjahranie’s
tenure in office had been fellow guerrillas of Wahab Sjahranie from the ALRI Divisi IV, South Kalimantan.75
parties to counter the power of the military officers of Kodam origins, since he had not
yet established his own political apparatus within Golkar. Hence, parties such as IPKI,
Murba, and PSII always supported Wahab Sjahranie prior to the consolidation of Golkar
in 1970.
By the time of the general election in 1971, Wahab Sjahranie had been able to put
his supporters into the leadership of DPRDGR. A former member of the South Kalimantan-
based guerrilla forces himself, Wahab Sjahranie was able to enlist the support of the pejuang
in both Balikpapan and Samarinda. These pejuang saw in him a chance to defeat their
old rivals in the Samarinda-based PNI while still maintaining their Banjarese-ness at a
time when the Javanese constituted a growing political threat.
By 1968 Sjahranie had installed a Samarinda pejuang, Mohammad Sabrie, as chairman
of the provincial DPRDGR replacing Major Supeno, a Brawijaya officer from Kodam
Mulawarman who had been appointed by Colonel Soekadijo.173 Sabrie was a former member
of Murba and, with him, the whole leadership of Murba in Samarinda eventually moved
into Golkar. Sabrie’s deputy was an IPKI man, Siel Stekanggen, from the Ngaju Dayak
ethnic group in Central Kalimantan. Stekanggen was to continue his support for Sjahranie
by joining Golkar in the 1971 election.174
The collapse of the PNI also encouraged two important political segments of the Dayak
community to emerge. The first group came from the interior of Kutai itself and belonged
to the Bahau-Tunjung-Benuaq complex of Dayak peoples. Catholic missionaries had started
activities in that area in the early 1950s, soon after the dissolution of the Kutai sultanate.
(Before that, the Dutch had promised the Sultan that no missionary would be allowed
to operate within the Kutai realm.) By the mid 1960s, the first graduates of Catholic
elementary schools were finishing their university education in various places outside East
Kalimantan, such as in Yogyakarta and in Banjarmasin.
By 1966, a priest of Bahau origin, Yulius Aloysius Husin, had become the first interior
Dayak member of East Kalimantan’s DPRDGR. He soon joined Golkar, partly because
of his association with the Kodam as a military chaplain, and in 1972 he was made East
Kalimantan’s representative in the MPR.175 His steps were to be followed in 1977 by another
Bahau-Benuaq politician, Dra. Emilia Lun Hadaitullah. Their appointments marked the
emergence of the Bahau Dayak group, which resided in the interior of Kutai and had its
center in Long Iram, as a significant political force. (In the 1955 election, they had not
been represented because they did not yet have “modem” leaders of their own. While
they mostly voted for the PNI, they were dominated by the Samarinda-Banjarese PNI lead-
ership.) Their rise can in part be attributed to the political machinations of Kodam politicians
who wanted to bring the Bahau Dayak group into the Golkar leadership in order to reduce
the dominance of the Banjarese.
While the Catholic Bahau Dayaks joined Golkar, a very different Dayak group emerged
in Bulungan kabupaten. Since the 1950s, there had been missionary activities by Protestant
fundamentalist groups from America and Australia in the interior of Bulungan. After a
brief halt imposed by Soeharjo, they continued their work in 1966. The alliance of
173	For a brief biography of Mohammad Sabrie, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, p. 960.
174 For a brief biography of Siel Stekanggen, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, p. 962.
175 For a brief biography of Yulius Aloysius Husin see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1971, p. 961.76
fundamentalist churches known as Kingmi (Kongres Injil Gereja Masehi Indonesia) with
its headquarters in Bandung was an especially active missionary group after 1966.176The
hub of Kingmi’s religious activities is the kecamatan capital of Long Pujungan, while
Tarakan has become the center for its political representatives. It was also in Tarakan
that a strong Torajanese church developed to accommodate the religious needs of the
Torajanese migrants.
Unlike the Bahau group, the Kayan-Kenyah Dayaks of Bulungan preferred to join
the Protestant party, Parkindo (Indonesian Christian Party). In 1966, one of its leaders,
Lentjang BA, was appointed a member of the BPH of Bulungan kabupaten. In the 1971
election, he was elected a member of Parliament (DPR) representing Parkindo. He was
re-elected in 1977 as a candidate of the PDI and has been appointed secretary of the PDI
faction in Parliament. He is thus the first Dayak leader from East Kalimantan to play
a prominent role in national politics.177
The consolidation of Wahab Sjahranie’s power was also facilitated by the weakening
of the Kodam. Soekadijo’s failure to obtain the governorship was in part caused by the
resentment that had built up against the Kodam in Samarinda as a result of the events
that had taken place during Soeharjo’s time. Moreover, the Kodam had lacked an effective
political leadership since Soekadijo’s departure to Samarinda to become Acting Governor.
The Pangdam, Mung Parhadimuljo, was uninterested in building up the political power
of the Kodam, and there was no Chief of Staff capable of providing the leadership that
the Kodam required. Not until the appointment in 1968 of Colonel Soepamo of the Brawijaya
as the new Chief of Staff did the Kodam start to take political initiatives again. By that
time, however, Wahab Sjahranie had already assured his dominance of Golkar.
Soeparno’s arrival lifted the morale of the officers of the Kodam. A former sec-
ondary school teacher before joining the army during the Revolution, Soepamo had proved
himself an able politician. Upon his appointment as Chief of Staff, he took charge of
political operations and brought Golkar its victory in the 1971 election. In 1970, he became
the chairman of Golkar in East Kalimantan and used this position to try to stop the growing
power of Wahab Sjahranie.178
However, Soepamo’s efforts against Sjahranie were constrained by various factors.
The first was the emergence of the police as an important player in provincial politics,
due to the army leadership vacuum between 1965 and 1967. Wahab Sjahranie was quick
to capitalize on this vacuum by giving the eager police the two bupatiships of Bulun-
gan and Balikpapan. Two police majors of Banjarese origin were appointed Bupati, Asnawie
Arbain for Bulungun and Zaenal Arifin for Balikpapan.179
176	For the role of the Kingmi church, see Laporan Survey Keadaan Kehidupan Beragama dan Aliran-Atiran
Kepercayaan Masyarakat dikabupaten Berau dan Bulungan (Samarinda: IAIN Sunan Ampel, 1977), pp. 16-42.
177	For a brief biography of Lentjang, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1977, pp. 692-93.
178	For a brief biography of Colonel Soepamo, see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1977, pp. 760-61.
179	Zaenal Arifin, a major of police was appointed mayor of Balikpapan by Wahab Sjahranie in 1970. However,
he was unable to finish his tenure because he was accused of having been a member of the BPI (State Intelligence
Bureau) prior to 1966. He was replaced by a fellow Banjarese police officer, Major Asnawie Arbain, who was
then Bupati of Bulungan. The Bupatiship of Bulungan went to a Kodam officer, Lieutenant Colonel Soetadji, the
former press officer of Soeharjo. It seems that the accusation against Zaenal Arifin originated at the Kodam
Mulawarman which wanted to reduce the power of the police at the provincial level.77
Moreover, Soepamo was inhibited by the new Army Headquarters policy of limit-
ing the tenure of the Regional Commander and of Kodam Chiefs of Staff. A Chief of
Staff could now serve a maximum of four years in one Kodam, while the Pangdam had
an even shorter tenure, between two and three years. This policy was aimed at prevent-
ing these officers from building power bases in their respective regions.
Furthermore, Army Headquarters made sure that the position of Pangdam of Mula-
warman Kodam was rotated between the three important Javanese divisions, Brawijaya,
Diponegoro, and Siliwangi.180 Hence, during his four years as Chief of Staff, Soepamo
had to serve three different Pangdam from three different divisions; namely, Brigadier
General Mung Parhadimuljo (1965 to 1970), Brigadier General Soekertijo (1970-1971),
and Brigadier General Mantik (1971-1973). Soeparno got strong support from his fellow
Brawijaya officer, Soekertijo, but the latter’s very brief tenure prevented any rebuilding
of Brawijaya power in East Kalimantan comparable to the power Soeharjo had exercised.181
It was Wahab Sjahranie who profited most from the weakening of Kodam unity and
its periodic lack of leadership. He himself was not only militarily senior to most of the
Pangdam, let alone Chiefs of Staff, but his tenure as Governor was firmly set at five years.
During his 10-year tenure as Governor (he was reappointed in 1972) Wahab Sjahranie
dealt with five different Pangdam and five Chiefs of Staff.182
While the above factors played important roles in consolidating Sjahranie’s power,
his main initial advantage was his control over the timber concessions in East Kalimantan.
At least prior to the centralization of timber licensing in 1970, Sjahranie was in a position
to build a system of patronage based on his authority to assign timber concessions.
The economic potential of East Kalimantan’s forests had been realized early on by
Muis Hassan. In 1963 he had invited a team of Philippine businessmen to do a preliminary
survey to assess the commercial feasibility of timber exploitation. But one month after
they started their survey, Soeharjo ordered them out of East Kalimantan. A similar fate
befell a group of Sabah businessmen. (Their interest in East Kalimantan timber can be
explained by the shortage of timber reserves in the Philippines and Sabah by the middle
of the 1960s.) While Muis Hassan could not overcome a political climate hostile to foreign
timber concessions, he was able to reduce the ownership of timber reserves of the state-
owned forest company, Perhutani (Perusahaan Hutan Negara Indonesia—Indonesian State
Forest Company). As early as 1959, the provincial government had asked for actual con-
trol over some of the timber areas in East Kalimantan then under Perhutani’s control.
180	While Hartojo was a Diponegoro man, Soeharjo and Sumitro came from the Brawijaya division. Although he
had served briefly in the Brawijaya, Mung Parhadimuljo was considered as having no special loyalty to any one
particular division and was an RPKAD man. Soekertijo was a Brawijaya officer while Mantik was a Siliwangi
man. The Pangdam after him, Brigadier Generals Sukotjo and Ery Supardjan, were both from Diponegoro. The
next Pangdam, Brigadier General Rachwono, had spent most of his time in Diponegoro but was also a member
of the Yogya military academy-generation which did not place much importance on the old Kodam divisions.
181 Soekertijo is a real Brawijaya officer, coming from the Lumayang area. He was appointed an Assistant for
Logistics (Fourth Assistant) in 1971, but retired in 1975.
182	The average tenure in office of the Pangdam and Kasdam is about two years. During such a short tenure,
they do not have the time to build their own power bases. Moreover, an appointment as Kasdam does not necessarily
follow the Pangdam appointment, making it still more difficult for the Kodam to consolidate their power within
the province. The post-1966 Kasdam have been: Colonel Soepamo (1968-1972), Colonel Soeroto (1972-1975),
Colonel H.R.N. Pajouw (1975-1977), Colonel Moergito (1977-1978), Colonel Goenadi (1978-1979), and Colonel
CZI Sarwono (1979-1981). See Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, p. 25.78
In response to these appeals, the provincial Dinas Kehutanan (Forestry Service) was created
to manage the timber areas outside the jurisdiction of Perhutani.183
Control over the timber areas was important not only in terms of the allocation of
financial rights between the provincial and central governments, but also because of the
vast size of East Kalimantan’s forests. It was then estimated that the timber-producing
area of East Kalimantan’s forest was about 17.3 million hectares. It was considered the
richest forest area in Indonesia because of its accessibility to river transportation, especially
along the Mahakam and Kahayan rivers.
The conflict between the provincial and central government over concession rights
reemerged in mid-1967 as foreigners were again allowed to exploit East Kalimantan’s
timber under Law 1/1967. Aside from the forest area already under Perhutani, the central
government also demanded the ultimate right to give concessions to other areas. The
provincial government considered the 3.7 million hectares under Perhutani already a vast
zone. Moreover, since the central government had taken over all the oil royalties since
1950, the East Kalimantan government thought that it was only appropriate for it to benefit
from local forest resources, through licenses, fees, and taxes. But the conflict between
the provincial government of Wahab Sjahranie and the Directorate-General of Forestry
(Ditjen Kehutanan) could not be legally resolved in the absence since 1956 of a law striking
a new financial balance between the central and regional governments.184
Since political conditions immediately after the G-30-S Affair did not allow the central
government to insist on a fully centralized policy, a formula was found to share the benefit
of the exploitation of timber. The Governor was granted the power to give concessions
up to 10,000 hectares, while the Bupati could give up to 5,000 hectares.
Any timber venture exploiting over 10,000 hectares had to obtain the permission of
the Ditjen Kehutanan. These ventures, moreover, had to commission a survey by a recognized
agency, sign a forestry agreement (FA), and accept certain replanting, environmental
protection, and annual planning conditions in order to qualify for a concession permit.185
Only then would the government give HPH (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan—Forest Concession
Rights) to applicants.
The concessions given by the Bupati and the Governor, on the other hand, required
no such delicate procedures. Hence, various family-owned firms were established to cut
the timber without using mechanical tools. Concessions as small as 100 hectares were
doled out, sometimes to political favorites. People in the interior could get licenses from
their camat and go to the forest to cut whatever they found. Most small firms and families
183	Perhutani was later changed into a state company for East and South Kalimantan, PT Inhutani II, under the
directorship of a Javanese, Goenari. It controls about 3.2 million hectares of forest in East Kalimantan alone. The
Dinas Kehutanan (Provincial Forestry Service) controls about 14 million hectares of forest, according to the provisions
of the 1959 regulation which set up this new provincial forestry service. However, such control has been nullified
by the power of Ditjen Kehutanan (Director General of Forestry) to grant HPH license.
184	UU number 32/1956 still provides the regulation framework for balancing the central government’s financial
claims against provincial claims. For a discussion of this balancing problem, see, for example, Raja Intan Joesoef,
“Pengaruh Bantuan Keuangan Pusat Terhadap Pemerintahan Daerah” (MA thesis, Yogyakarta: Gajah Mada
University, 1970), p. 245.
185	For a review of these licensing procedures, see M. J. Kasijanto, “Masalah Pertambangan Kayu,” Kompas, August
31, 1978. See also, Ibrahimsjah Rachman, “Industri Perkayuan di Kaltim dan setumpuk Permasalahannya,” ibid.,
June 27, 1979, and Laporan Perkembangan Pengusahaan Hutan (Jakarta: Ditjen Kehutanan, 1978), p. 12.79
used the traditional type of transport, the banjirkap (log-flood). The idea was to accumulate
the timber up river and wait until the monsoon floods came, to carry the timber, free
of charge, to the river mouths. At a time when the world price of timber was very good,
the banjirkap type of venture attracted a lot of people. Its labor-intensive nature could
absorb many workers, who came to East Kalimantan precisely for this reason. For the
license holders, the start-up capital needed was relatively small. A concession of up to
5,000 hectares could be opened with about 200 million rupiah. Moreover, the license-
holders could start with even less capital, provided they could pay the wages and minimum
living expenses of their laborers, such as food and shelter. If they could time correctly
the coming of the flood to a matter of days, they could further minimize production costs.
Hence, the banjirkap method greatly benefitted small firms, laborers, and the importers.
The latter could bargain for sales terms better than those offered by the big companies
which had long specialized in timber. Grants under 10,000 hectares also enabled the
Governor, the Bupati and the camat to have personal shares in timber enterprises. The
period between 1967 and 1970 was considered a happy and prosperous one by most of
the people of East Kalimantan who in one way or another benefitted from the banjirkap
ventures.
On the other hand, bigger companies which had got HPH from the Ditjen Kehutanan,
especially those with concessions ranging from 50,000 to 300,000 hectares in size were
unhappy with the proliferation of banjirkap ventures. It proved difficult for them to get
cheap labor, because workers preferred to work for the banjirkap ventures or for small
firms where the salaries were better. In fact, laborers who saved enough money could
even become shareholders of these small ventures themselves.
But the biggest companies, with concessions of 300,000 hectares on up, could de-
pend on their modem equipment and low labor costs to benefit fully from their huge
concessions. They were not seriously threatened by the small firms, due to their economies
of scale. Although they did face some difficulties in finding cheap workers, they could
import workers directly from Java and South Sulawesi.
However, the competitive prices of the banjirkap ventures and small firms were an
annoyance even to the biggest companies. These large companies, which were mostly
multinationals, had experience in exploiting timber in Sabah, South Korea, the Philippines,
and Taiwan. They did not like the idea that small firms and individuals could deter-
mine the price of timber at their expense. They wanted to be able to determine timber
markets, since in the end these prices would determine their profits.
These large foreign companies were able to find various powerful people within the
central government in Jakarta that worried also about the impact of the banjirkap and
small ventures. Some people at the Ditjen Kehutanan worried about the fact that timber
exploitation in East Kalimantan had not been accompanied by any timber processing efforts.
The export-oriented nature of forest exploitation was considered a waste of natural resources.
Hence, they saw the need to force the timber ventures to add an industrial phase to their
activities. To this end, these bureaucrats believed that the timber companies should be
required to establish plywood and other type of industries in order to obtain a license
to operate. This policy, it was argued, would protect Indonesia from becoming another
Sabah or Mindanao, areas which the foreign companies simply left after having nearly
exhausted their timber reserves. Others were concerned with the need to finance gov-
ernmental projects by the exploitation of timber and, especially, to increase the share of
the central government. If East Kalimantan was to be allowed to take for itself most80
of the concession rights, then other regions could well demand the same thing. Although
the banjirkap operations and small firms provided the central government with a large
amount of revenue, central government bureaucrats were certain that the centralization
of the licensing process would maximize the central government’s revenue intake. More-
over, there were some bureaucrats and politicians in Jakarta who feared that the exploitation
of timber was being used to accumulate substantial economic power outside of the cen-
tral government’s control. Still, many other central government officers were more than
attracted by the possibility that the centralization of the HPH granting process would allow
them to get funds easily for any purpose they had in mind. This was particularly true
for the many yayasan (foundations) of the armed forces, which hoped to use the funds
generated from the timber concessions to pay for the welfare of the troops in ways not
covered by the annual budget.
Prior to the taking over of all HPH by the Ditjen Kehutanan, there were only a few
foreign companies with timber concessions. The biggest of all was Kayan River Timber
Products (KRTP), a Philippine subsidiary of an American company. It had about 1.2
million hectares along the Kayan River in Bulungan. The KRTP was a typical pre-1970
company in that it was wholly foreign-owned.
The actual centralization of HPH procedures was enacted in 1970 by Presidential decree,
the Keppres No. 20/1970. The level at which the decision was made shows that the delicate
allocational issues raised by the concession rights centralization question had to be taken
at the very top. The Decree was a major victory for the Director General of Forestry,
Soedjarwo,186 who all along had argued for the centralization of HPH allocations, and later
promoted the 1982 Decree which banned the export of logs in order to promote the Indonesian
plywood industry.187
The new regulation stipulated that the minimum size of a timber concession was to
be 50,000 hectares. The Governor and the Bupati were not allowed to make any concessions,
although a limited number of small concessions of 100 hectares were permitted. Medium-
sized ventures (10,000 hectares or so) had to merge with other enterprises to achieve the
minimum of 50,000 hectares. Moreover, the labor-intensive cutting of timber was prohibited
on the basis that such practices could make replanting difficult. Timber exploitation now
had to be done by mechanical tools.
186	Soedjarwo’s power came partly from the association of his wife with the Mangkunegaran family (trah) to which
the First Lady, Mrs. Tien Suharto, also belongs. Aside from that, Soedjarwo also has led the Javanese mysticism
group, Paguyuban Ngesti Tunggal (Pangestu), which has a strong following among priyayi officials. Soedjarwo
became the longest serving high official from the Guided Democracy period to stay on during the New Order.
He remained in office from 1964 to 1988. In the 1983 Cabinet reshuffle, he was promoted from Director General
to lead his own Ministry of Forestry as a minister. In 1988 he was replaced as forestry minister by Hasjml Harahap,
but only after he completed the building of a huge forestry complex in Jakarta, Manggala Wana Bhakti, which
was financed totally by the timber companies.
187	The devastating effect of the banjirkap was mostly caused by Indonesia’s lack of log-carrier transportation
to the importing countries. Since the log-carrier facilities were monopolized by big companies, it seems that they
deliberately planned the banjirkap catastrophe in order to encourage the Indonesian government to centralize the
HPH-granting process in Indonesia. Moreover, since 1970, the big timber companies have created their own cartel,
Majelis Perkayuan Indonesia (Indonesian Timber Council) which has determined the quotas of exports each year.
Nevertheless, the government has decisive power in terms of the limits it can impose on the number of logs to
be exported in order to induce the timber companies to undertake investments in timber processing facilities and
to protect Indonesia’s forest reserves.81
This policy clearly benefitted the large companies which had strong connections in
Jakarta and the ability to work out joint-venture agreements with foreigners. Lack of
capital prevented the local companies, even those with 10,000 hectare licenses, to continue
operations without the addition of new funds. Small firms and individual ventures began
going bankrupt.188
A further effect of the new policy was to create massive unemployment among the
unskilled laborers of the banjirkap type operations as well as an increased presence of
skilled foreign workers (mostly Malaysians and Filipinos), as shown in Table 6.
The policy mainly benefitted those people in Jakarta who became “absentee concession
holders” by getting HPH licenses from the Ditjen Kehutanan and renting them out to foreign
operators. As “absentee concession holders,” they received fees of between US$ 5 to US$
10 per cubic meter of logs exported. Moreover, this “absentee HPH” system largely resulted
in the uncontrolled exploitation of Kalimantan’s timber. The adverse environmental con-
sequences of this kind of exploitation were so severe that it was feared that East Kalimantan
would soon exhibit the kinds of deforestation problems that Mindanao and Sabah had re-
cently experienced.
Because of their close relations with the politically well-connected holders of the HPH
in Jakarta, the foreign operators were encouraged to disregard the Ditjen Kehutanan’s regu-
lations. Not only did they not follow the regulations regarding the size of trees to be
cut, the Tebang Pilih Indonesia (Indonesian Selection on Cutting), but most did not even
bother to give their annual plans (Rencana Kerja Tahunan-RKT) to the Ditjen Kehutanan.
Only 21 percent of the 92 HPHs which started to operate in East Kalimantan after September
1970 started to do the reforestation required by the HPH rules. Controlling about 10.2
million hectares of East Kalimantan’s total of 17.3 million hectares of timber areas, they
cut 1.9 million hectares and replanted only 7,121 hectares (0.4 percent). As a direct
consequence, almost 2 million hectares of East Kalimantan forest became “bald land” (tanah
gundul), susceptible to forest fires at any time. Hence, the deforestation that took place
in the years between 1967 and 1980 of large-scale forest exploitation dwarfs the mere
100,000 hectares of “bald land” left by the practices of local shifting cultivators who have
been blamed so much in recent years for the region’s deforestation problems.189
The damage done to East Kalimantan’s forest by the mechanization of timber exploitation
increasingly concerned Indonesian forest experts. It was suggested that the HPH holders
should pay USS 4 per cubic meter of logs harvested to fund a replanting budget. Moreover,
it was suggested that HPH holders should be punished for their disregard of regulations,
including such regulatory violations as taking logs from corridors outside their agreement
areas and cutting timber in protected forest areas.190However, in answering these complaints,
the Ditjen Kehutanan was quick to point out that Indonesia’s laws are poorly crafted to
188	See Kasijanto, “Masalah,” in Kompas. See also, Sjafril Manan, “Manajemen Hutan Tropika Basah: Tantangan
Bagi Rimbawan Indonesia,” in Kompas, March 1, 1980 (originally a commencement day speech at the Bogor
Agricultural Institute).
189	See a report in Kompas, February 11, 1980, p. 1.
190	Ibid., February 12, 1980. It was reported that companies have cut a 50 meters wide corridor in violation of
government regulations and that about 200,000 hectares of protected forest in Bontang, Kutai were exploited without
government consent.00
to
Table 6. The changes in employment in timber concessions between 1969 and 1975
Years	Indonesians	Mechanical Foreigners	Total	%of Total	Banjirkap	%of Total	Total
1969/1970	1,901	977	2,878	19	12,500	81	15,375
1970/1971	3,216	3,511	4,727	16	25,000	84	29,729
1971/1972	6,944	2,511	9,495	32	20,000	68	29,495
1972/1973	8,185	3,022	11,027	69	5,000	31	16,207
1973/1974	12,708	3,796	16,504	100	-	-	6,504
1974/1975	13,547	2,178	15,725	100	-	-	15,725
Source: Kalimantan Timur dalam Repelita Idan II (Samarinda: Bappeda Kalimantan Timur, 1978), p. 132.83
deal with these forest exploitation abuses.191 In addition, the Ditjen Kehutanan also lacked
the personnel necessary to supervise the exploitation, not to mention the necessary political
support and clout to enforce a punishment scheme against timber operators who had obtained
important political backing from Jakarta’s power cliques. The most visible result of this
negligent and greedy form of forest exploitation was the terrible fire of 1983 which destroyed
about 3 million hectares of East Kalimantan’s forests.
At the same time, the mechanization of timber exploitation considerably increased
both timber production levels and government foreign exchange revenue levels. Tables
7 and 8 show Indonesia’s overall export figures and East Kalimantan’s share in the 1970s.
The increased activity of the HPH holders and timber exploitation business after 1970
meant that East Kalimantan was producing between 30 and 40 percent of the nation’s
exports as well as leading the timber producing provinces in exports. However, if production
for domestic consumption is taken into account, East Kalimantan was producing about
two thirds of the total national timber supply.192
The new policy also adjusted the allocation of log revenues to the benefit of the central
government. Various fees and taxes were designed to give more revenues to Jakarta. Hence,
the shifting of profit from the small firms with provincial bases to the large companies
with headquarters in Jakarta was also accompanied by a greater flow of revenues to the
central government than to the provincial government.
The 1970 regulation describes ten types of fees and taxes to be taken from timber
production and its beneficiaries.193 Of these taxes and fees, the most profitable and important
ones were taken by the central government, including the License Fee (IHPH-Iuran Hak
Pengusahaan Hutan) and the Additional Forest Royalty (IHHT-Iuran Hasil Hutan Tambahan).
Less profitable taxes were given to the provincial government, namely the Forest Product
Royalty (IHH-Iuran Hasil Hutan) and Forestry Local Government Tax (Ipeda-Iuran Pembangunan
Daerah).
Although the provincial and kabupaten governments have earned a smaller share of
the timber exploitation profits since the end of the 1970s, they have still profited immensely
from the timber business. Among the taxes that are taken by the local governments are
the timber retribution and logs pond retribution taxes. The kabupaten governments also
have their own state-run timber exploitation companies (perusahaan daerah), while the
village heads and camat benefit from the timber taxes given to them to administer.194
191	A speech by Dirjen Kehutanan, Soedjarwo, in Kompas, May 20, 1980. See also Manan, “Manajemen,” and
Kompas, February 11, 1980 in which it was stated that Indonesia does not have a law to punish the violators
of HPH licenses.
192	See Kalimantan Timur Dalam Repelita I dan II (Samarinda: Bappeda Kalimantan Timur, 1978), p. 131. Aside
from East Kalimantan, the major timber producers have been Riau, South Sumatra, South Kalimantan, Central
Kalimantan, West Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, and Maluku. For a listing of timber exporters, see PetunjukEksportir
Hasil Hutan Indonesia, 1973-1978 (Jakarta: Ditjen Kehutanan, 1979), annual publication, p. 15.
193	See Abdul Rachman Fomia, “Management Eksploitasi Hutan dan Pengaruhnya Atas Potensi Pengembangan
Daerah” (MA thesis, Jakarta: Institut Ilmu Pemerintahan, 1974), pp. 52-65. Also Kalimantan Repelita I dan //,
p. 49.
194	The Kutai kabupaten has its own company. In Tarakan, each cooperative unit of the armed forces has its own
concession, working jointly with a foreign company. See Monograph p. 5. The Korpri, government employee
organization, also has its own concession, PT Praja Mukti, working with “Limbang Timber Coy” from Malaysia.
See Fomia, “Management,” p. 38.84
Table 7. Indonesia’s timber exports between 1971 and 1978
Year	Volume (in 1,000 m3)	Value (in US$ 1.000)
1971	10,761	168.63
1972	13,891	230.34
1973	19,433	583.35
1974	18,082	725.55
1975	13,921	499.97
1976	18,521	781.75
1977	19,992	951.27
1978	19,202	939.66
Source: Laporan Dirjen 1979 (Jakarta: Ditjen Kehutanan, 1979) lampiran VI.
Table 8. Log exports from East Kalimantan 1970-1975
Year	Volume (in 1,000 m3)	Value (in US$ 1,000)
1970	2,665	not available
1971	4,548	71.66
1972	4,601	79.69
1973	6,306	123.17
1974	7,623	316.88
1975	6,929	307.43
Source: Kalimantan Timur Dalam Repelita I and II (Samarinda: Buppeda Kalimantan
Timur, 1978), p. 133.85
According to estimates of East Kalimantan’s Bappeda, about 40 percent of the provincial
budget in the late 1970s came from the fees and taxes on timber exploitation.
Table 9 shows the central government’s share of East Kalimantan’s timber exploi-
tation profits between 1969 and 1978.
The shifting of economic power from the provincial-based firms and officials to the
central government’s agencies and Jakarta-based companies undercut Wahab Sjaranie’s
political patronage system. Although the provincial-based companies still could merge,
or work as agents of the larger companies in Jakarta, most of the profits from timber
exploitation were now funneled to Jakarta or other areas outside East Kalimantan itself.
So the Governor’s loss of decision-making power to the central government in terms
of the distribution of timber licenses meant that the Governor could no longer use the
timber concessions as political tender. Up to 1970, many local operators worked in the
timber business, managing small concessions, ranging from 100 hectares to 10,000 hec-
tares. They were given the licenses by the Governor or Bupati and employed the migrants
that came from Java, South Kalimantan, and South Sulawesi.
The effect of the policy was felt particularly strongly among the Banjarese businessmen
in Balikpapan and Samarinda. They controlled the provincial and kabupaten bureauc-
racies through their fellow Banjarese, who in turn rewarded them with timber licenses.
These businessmen owned mostly small and middle-sized ventures with capital assets of
up to 100 million rupiahs. However, they employed many people in labor-intensive types
of jobs.
The new policy resulted in the concentration of concessions in the hands of individu-
als who were well connected to the central government. There were two types of concession
holders. First, there were the yayasan that were linked to the various power cliques in
Jakarta, and mostly operated directly in East Kalimantan. In many cases, these foundations
worked closely with foreign companies which had earlier amassed experience in the timber
business elsewhere. The second group of holders consisted of individuals who had been
given a license but did not have either the capital or the experience to participate in the
timber business. In most cases, these individuals subcontracted their license to other
companies, mostly from the Philippines and Malaysia.
The main losers in this new decision-making arrangement were the bureaucrats in
Samarinda and the provincial businessmen, who had depended on the provincial government
to reap the financial rewards of the timber business. Most of these businessmen were
Banjarese and resided either in Samarinda or Balikpapan. The provincial bureaucrats not
only lost the power to grant licenses, but also the chance of funding their local bid for
political power through the timber concessions.
Because the economic and political stakes involved were so high, the central government
decided to exercise a strong grip on the political process in East Kalimantan to prevent
any threat to its interests. Since the post-Soeharjo politics of East Kalimantan were dominated
by various Banjarese groups (i.e., the Samarinda-based PNI; the pejuang of Balikpapan
and Samarinda, and more recently, the groups around Wahab Sjahranie), the central gov-
ernment had been particularly concerned with reducing the power of the Banjarese leadership.
It should be noted that, despite his close association with many Banjarese groups such
as the PS I group and the pejuang, Wahab Sjahranie was still an army officer whose loyalty
had always been to the national cause and central government. Sjahranie’s leadership,
however, was acceptable to many Banjarese groups who saw in his leadership a solution
to the growing presence of the Javanese in East Kalimantan. Nevertheless under the Kodam86
Table 9. The income of the East Kalimantan provincial government and the central
government from timber, 1969/1970 to 1977/1978a
Year	Income of Pemda Income of Pusat (both in million of rupiah)	
1969/1970	1,847.2	257.2
1970/1971	1,805.3	516.8
1971/1972	2,493.8	1,342.4
1972/1973	3,009.4	5,110.5
1973/1974	4,739.6	6,700.1
1974/1975	3,663.5	5,431.8
1975/1976	3,216.4	4,993.0
1976/1977	5,923.6	7,150.4
1977/1978	8,333.1	8,200.6
Source: Perkembangan Reboisasi dan Penghijauan di Kalimantan Timur (Samarinda:
Bappeda Kalimantan Timur, 1979), p. 15.
a Not including foreign exchange, which is mostly taken by the Center and only returned
to daerah in terms of the local currency subsidy.
leadership of Pangdam Soekertijo and Kasdam Soepamo, competition increased between
the Javanese and Banjarese over the distribution of positions and other political benefits
provided by Golkar’s 1971 election victory.
The solid victory of the Islamic parties (later to be merged into a single party, PPP)
in the Balikpapan and Samarinda areas, in a way replaced the PNI’s power base in the
Banjarese community. While a few of the Banjarese were still loyal and voted for the
PNI, most Banjarese in these two cities realized that in their competition with the Javanese,
the Islamic parties were the answer. Some other Banjarese, however, especially the former
PNI bureaucrats in Samarinda and Kutai, voted for Golkar. (See Tables 10 and 11 for
the election results in 1971 and 1977.)
The political climate prevalent during the 1971 election was heavily influenced by
the central government ’ s takeover of timber exploitation in East Kalimantan. Many Banjarese
felt threatened by the central government, and through it, by the Javanese in East Ka-
limantan province. Hence, the Islamic party in the 1970s was seen as the party of the
Banjarese, as the PNI had been in the 1950s and 1960s. Within the PDI itself (which
emerged in 1972 from the forced merger of all non-Islamic parties), the Samarinda-based
PNI was losing ground to the increasingly powerful Kenyah-Kayan-based Parkindo. Old
top leaders of the PNI, such as Muis Hassan and Inche Abdul Muis, had moved to Jakarta,
while provincial leaders, such as Azis Samad and Sjachrumsjah Idris, had kept a low profile,
due to the strong anti-PNI campaign in the late 1960s.
The effect of this political configuration was to make Wahab Sjahranie the new leader
of the Samarinda group, and of the Banjarese, against an increasingly politically consoli-Table 10. The results of the 1971 election
	Kabupaten	Golkar	PPP	PDI
1.	Samarinda	30,317	25,780	4,518
2.	Balikpapan	34,613	17,726	4,606
3.	Kutai	61,204	34,249	22,370
4.	Berau	10,217	4,316	474
5.	Bulungan	28,259	7,229	15,118
6.	Pasir	15,518	9,767	2,599
Total East Kalimantan		180,128	99,067	49,685
Source: Panitia Pemilihan Indonesia, Lembaga Pemilihan Umum.
Table 11. The results of the 1977 election
	Kabupaten	Golkar	PPP	PDI
1.	Samarinda	39,282	41,730	6,196
2.	Balikpapan	36,091	51,502	9,477
3.	Kutai	81,126	45,843	12,902
4.	Berau	13,572	5,399	922
5.	Bulungan	49,076	9,740	4,088
6.	Pasir	32,982	7,832	811
Total:	East Kalimantan 252,129		162,046	34,396
Source: Lembaga Pemilihan Umum.88
dated Kodam, led mostly by Javanese officers. This configuration also worked to the
advantage of Kutai aristocrats such as AR Padmo who was appointed a member of the
MPR representing East Kalimantan. Neither Wahab Sjahranie nor the Kodam leadership
wanted to exclude the Kutai aristocracy from provincial politics and government. The
former believed that the Kutai aristocrats could be counted on as supporters in dealing
with the Kodam, while the latter realized that the Kutai and other indigenous groups, such
as the Bahau, could be used to reduce the power of the Banjarese.
At the same time, local Javanese profited from the rivalry between the Kodam leadership
and Sjahranie. While nearly 20 percent of the province’s population was Javanese, they
were behind the Banjarese economically. They mostly worked in the oil sector as laborers
and in the timber business, also as workers. The establishment of Skarda (Staf Kekaryaan
Daerah—Regional Functional Staff) assured the Javanese of Kodam institutional support
in protecting their local interests.195 Important positions within the Skarda were held mainly
by Javanese officers who maintained close contact with the labor leaders in the oil sector
and the businessmen from the timber sector, who were mostly non-Banjarese. From 1974
onward, the Kodam, led by the Kaskarda (Kepala Staf Skarda) took many new initiatives
in dealing with provincial problems. The person who headed these initiatives was a Brawijaya
officer, Colonel Jhonet Hutomo. In 1974, the Chairmanship of the DPRD was taken over
by a fellow Brawijaya officer, Colonel Sukotjo SM, who had once been the Kodim of
Kutai during the Soeharjo era. In that year, another Brawijaya officer from the Soeharjo
era, Lieutenant Colonel Soetadji, was appointed as Bupati of Bulungan.196
Meanwhile, the Kodam had been able to reduce the power of the police, which had
grown to fill the power vacuum in Balikpapan in the late 1960s. The MPR members
from East Kalimantan’s police were reduced from two in the 1971 elections to none in
the 1977 election, excluding the provincial chief of police.197 However, after 1973, the
Pangdam always came from the Diponegoro division, preventing the full consolidation
of Brawijaya power. While they differed on who should lead the Kodam, these officers
were all determined to give a larger share of power to the non-Banjarese in East Kalimantan.
In short, the presence of the Kodam helped to guarantee a larger share of power to the
non-Banjarese and to defend the interests of the central government in timber exploitation.
Nevertheless, his seniority and his handling of the short tenure of the Pangdams did
enable Wahab Sjahranie to gain the upper hand in the provincial branch of Golkar. He
195	The Skarda office is headed by the Fifth Assistant to the Pangdam and responsible to the Skarwil (Staf Kekaryaan
Wilayah) at the Kowilhan (Defense Regional Command) level. However, because the officers in the Skarda office
change regularly, the real power at the Kodam level lies in the highest ranking officer who has stayed longest
in the job relating to functional affairs. In East Kalimantan, officers such as Colonel Soetadji and Colonel Sukotjo
could well brief the new Skarda who would not know much about the political situation of the province.
196	Despite rumors to the contrary, Colonel Soetadji was reappointed as Bupati of Bulungan, an office in which
he has served since 1974. Prior to that, he was the Head of the Social Political Bureau of the Governor’s Office
and was Soeharjo’s press officer during the latter’s service as Pangdam. He is one of a few officers of Brawijaya
origin who still retains power in East Kalimantan. His reappointment as Bupati occurred in June 1980.
197	In 1971, two police officers represented the armed forces in the MPR. They were the Provincial Police Chief
(Kadapol), Brigadier General Drs. Sumardhi, and Lieutenant Colonel Drs. Jourdanus Nitidibrata. The latter is a
Bantenese officer who had resided in East Kalimantan since 1962. However, more recently the nature of his career
advancement required him to move outside of East Kalimantan. At the time of his appointment, he was the provincial
Secretary of Golkar. See Buku MPR 1971, pp. 1112 and 1071. In the 1977 election neither the Kadapol Brigadier
General Drs. R. Hardiman nor other police officers were appointed as members of MPR.89
brought his old acquaintance from Banjarmasin, Colonel RM Parwono, in to head Golkar
after Colonel Soepamo left. The extent of Sjahranie’s success is reflected by the composition
of the membership of the DPR and MPR in the 1977 election, where he was able to put
his wife in as a member of the DPR.198
Despite this success, time was running out for Wahab Sjahranie, and especially for
the Banjarese of East Kalimantan. The increasing presence of the Javanese, the emergence
of local leaders from various Dayak groups, and the increasing association of the Banjarese
with the Islamic party all worked against him. But the most decisive factor, it seems,
was the increasing economic stakes of various power groups in Jakarta in the timber and
other economic resources of East Kalimantan.
After the financial failure of the KRTP company in Bulungan-Berau in the early 1970s,
three companies dominated the leadership of the timber exploitation business in East
Kalimantan. The first was an Army-yayasan related company, ITCI (International Timber
Corporation Indonesia), which works jointly with the American company Weyerhauser
and has about 1 million hectares of concessions in the Balikpapan and Kutai areas. The
ITCI was also under contract to exploit forest concessions with the Army-related company,
PT Tri Usaha Bhakti, and hence, had indirect institutional ties with the Kodam.199
Another company is related to Bob Hasan, a peranakan Chinese businessman with
army ties in Jakarta, who heads the Georgia Pacific Indonesia Company (PT GPI) and
holds an area of more than 600,000 hectares in the Upper Mahakam. Hasan also owns
plywood plants and other forest-related businesses numbering, he acknowledges, “between
20 and 30 companies.” By 1988, he had become chairman of four out of the five federations
of forest-related associations. In June of that year he was also elected chairman of the
umbrella organization for all the forest-related associations, the Indonesian Forest Council
(Majelis Perkayuan Indonesia).200
The third company is led by another peranakan Chinese, Jos Sutomo, who heads the
Sumber Mas Group with plywood plants in Gresik, East Java, and in Samarinda. Like
Bob Hasan, Jos Sutomo has converted to Islam and has made a pilgrimage to Mecca with
his own private plane. In 1980, Jos Sutomo had bought up the huge timber concession
previously owned by the KRTP in the Bulungan area, adding to his previously obtained
concession holding in Kutai. However, in the early 1980s he did not have ties with any
of Jakarta’s powerful political groups. He was prosecuted in 1983 and was sentenced
to two years in prison for tax evasion and tax fraud. Along with his convicted brother,
Ava Sutomo, Jos Sutomo made an appeal to the High Court and obtained a reduced sentence.
He then made another appeal to the Supreme Court, which ordered his release in 1988.
In 1988 Jos Sutomo also re-entered the timber business arena as a significant player.
This has largely been due to the ties he has been able to forge with Jakarta’s powerful
198	For a brief biography of Mrs. Adjang Ratminie Sjahranie see Biographical Appendix and Bukti MPR 1977,
p. 650.
199	The PT ITCI (International Timber Corporation Indonesia) has about 500,000 hectares of concession lands
in the Kutai and Balikpapan areas. According to reports, the company did not start any replanting process as required
by its concession agreement. See Laurens Samsoeri, “PT ITCI dan PT GPI Belum melakukan peremajaan hutan,”
in Sinar Harapan, June 28, 1979.
200	For information on Mohammad (Bob) Hasan, see Biographical Appendix and Tempo, September 28, 1985,
pp. 64-68. For information on the total number of Bob Hasan’s companies, see Tempo, September 28, 1985, pp.
64-68.90
military groups. By 1988, he had sold 25 percent of his shares to the Army-yayasan
company, PT Tri Usaha Bhakti. Moreover, the general manager of the Sumber Mas Group
in 1988 was retired Colonel Soekotjo SM, the former chairman of the East Kalimantan
provincial DPRD. At the same time, Jos Sutomo is also quite popular within the Islamic
Banjarese community, in large part because of his donations for Islamic dakwah activi-
ties.201 Thus he has forged ties with Jakarta’s power groups while maintaining his popularity
among the local groups in East Kalimantan.
From the above discussions, it can be seen that none of the three largest timber companies
has any genuinely strong ties to the indigenous people of East Kalimantan in terms of
capital, ownership, or directorship. The former Sultan, Parikesit, sold his land in the Bengalon
area to PT Porodisa, which is headed by the chairman of the Bouraq group, J. A. Sumendap,
a prominent businessman of Talaud (North Sulawesi) origin. PT Porodisa holds about
300,000 hectares of concessionary land. When Sultan Parikesit complained to President
Suharto about his fate as a former ruler without a forest concession to live from, he was
indemnified by the government. Most of the timber companies are owned by members
of Jakarta’s powerful political groups who have no connections to the East Kalimantan
populace. The only exception to this ownership pattern is the company led by the son
of a Kutai aristocrat, PT Kutai Timber Indonesia. The company is directed by Aji Rustam
Effendie* a son of AR Djokoprawiro, who also owns the largest hotel in Balikpapan, the
Hotel Bina Kutai.
With all these regulatory changes, the Banjarese traders and officials were the hardest
hit, because they could not compete with the peranakan Chinese businessmen who had
ties with Jakarta’s power groups as well as foreign connections. A few Kutai aristocrats
like Aji Rustam Effendie were able to continue to benefit financially from the timber
concessions. These aristocrats, however, are unable to use their concession holdings for
political purposes due to the size of their companies and their dependence on foreign capi-
tal. Practical financial considerations had made it impossible for the aristocrats to compete
with major timber businessmen such as Bob Hasan and Jos Sutomo.
The mechanization of timber exploitation has also brought businessmen with strong
influence in national politics into East Kalimantan’s political power equation. Moreover,
it has brought various power groups, such as the army as a whole, the Kodam, and other
groups close to Jakarta’s power brokers, into the vortex of East Kalimantan’s provincial
politics. In such a climate, the Banjarese of East Kalimantan soon lost some of the power
which they had maintained over the previous twenty years. Not only was Wahab Sjahranie
unable to defend Banjarese interests against the demands of the central government and
the Javanese, but he had to leave the governorship in 1978, after having served as Governor
for eleven years.
The main candidate for the governorship in 1978 was none other than the then Pangdam,
Brigadier General Ery Supardjan, a Diponegoro officer who was a close associate of many
high officers from that division, including General Surono, then Vice Commander in Chief
201 According to prominent Samarinda Islamic leader Drs. Hamri Has, Sutomo contributed 300 million rupiah
annually to various Islamic groups in East Kalimantan, including the Majelis Ulama. (Interviews with AR Sayid
Gasjim Baraqbah and Drs. Hamri Has, June 20 and 24, 1979, respectively. Both Sayid Gasjim and Drs. Hamri
Has are religious advisors to Jos Sutomo. Sayid Gasjim has even accompanied Jos Sutomo to Mecca. While in
prison in Samarinda, Jos Sutomo built a tennis court in the prison complex.91
of the Armed Forces.202 The efforts by the Samarinda Banjarese to enlist fellow Banjarese
elsewhere as gubernatorial candidates proved to be a failure. Two officers were put forth
as candidates by the Samarinda Banjarese, namely, the then Bupati of Kotabaru, South
Kalimantan, Colonel Gusti Sjamsir Alam, and the director of the Army’s Intelligence School
in Bogor, Colonel Abdulmadjid. The Brawijaya group, on the other hand, supported the
candidacy of Colonel Soeparno, then the mayor of Surabaya.203 These candidates, however,
were unable to compete with Ery Supardjan who was appointed by President Suharto to
replace Wahab Sjahranie.
The appointment of Ery Supardjan marked the beginning of the decline of the Samarinda-
Banjarese in East Kalimantan’s political power structure. The new Governor appointed
former bureaucratic cadres of the PNI as his main assistants while at the same time introducing
Javanese bureaucrats into the provincial bureaucracy. He also reduced the power of the
Banjarese by replacing many Bupati of Banjarese origins with Kutais, albeit of lower
aristocratic backgrounds.204
On becoming Governor, Ery Supardjan had to face competition from the Kodam under
the leadership of the then Pangdam, Brigadier General Rachwono. However, there were
limits to the kinds of demands the Kodam could make, conditioned by the presence of
many companies with Jakarta ties, the increasing Javanese population, and the emergence
of indigenous groups, particularly the Dayak communities. Moreover, like Wahab Sjah-
ranie before him, Ery Supardjan could take advantage of Rachwono’s short tenure as
Pangdam. Supardjan also strengthened his position within the Kodam group by appointing
mayors and Bupati of Kodam origin. So, for example, when Mayor Asnawie Arbain of
202	For a brief biography of Brigadier Soepardjan, see Biographical Appendix and Sinar Harapan, June 19, 1978
and Buku MPR 1977, p. 724.
203	Colonel Soeparno may have lost the mayorship of Surabaya because of the difficulty he was having with the
Governor. His successor was a Brawijaya officer of Malang origin, Lieutenant Colonel Muhadji Widjaya. Thus,
the Brawijaya really did not have a strong candidate for the governorship of East Kalimantan in 1978. However,
they tried to catch up in 1980 by proposing their officer, Brigadier General Mistar Tjokrokusumo, as a candidate
for the governorship of South Kalimantan. Mistar had also been a former Pangdam there.
204	At the height of his power, in 1973, Governor Wahab Sjahranie was aided by the following Bupati of Banjarese
origins:
Kutai	Drs. Achmad Dahlan
Bulungan	Major (Police) Asnawie Arbain
Berau	Masdar John BA
Pasir	Saleh Nafsi SH
Samarinda	Mohammad Kadrie Uning
Balikpapan	Major (Police) Zaenal Arifin
In contrast, Ery Soepardjan’s appointments reduced the representation of the Banjarese leadership within the office
of Bupati:
Bupati of Kutai
Bupati of Berau
Bupati of Bulungan
Bupati of Pasir
Mayor of Samarinda
Mayor of Balikpapan
Sekwilda Province
Name
Ethnicity
Drs. Awang Faisal
Masdar John BA (to be replaced soon)
Colonel Soetadji
Drs. Awang Badaranie
Drs. Anang Hasjim
Asnawie Arbain
Mohammad Ardans SH
Kutainese
Chinese/Banjarese
Javanese
Kutainese
Banjarese
Banjarese
Banjarese92
Balikpapan finished his term, Ery Supardjan chose the Kodim commander of Samarinda,
Lieutenant Colonel Sjarifuddin Jus of Malay-Medan origin, as the new mayor. This mayoral
appointment also reflected the emergence of the new generation of AMN-Akekad graduates
as Bupati, mayors, Vice Governors, and Governors not only in East Kalimantan, but all
over Indonesia.205
East Kalimantan’s political map in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was considerably
different from that of the early 1950s. The PNI’s Samarinda-based Banjarese had fallen
from power. Now they could not even get a single seat in the DPR. Their leader, Sjahrumsjah
Idris, was only elected a member of the DPRD in the 1977 election. Within the Banjarese
community, two new groups have emerged and taken over the political leadership of the
community. The first group is the rising PPP (United Development Party). Since the
1971 election the six East Kalimantan DPR members have included two members of the
PPP. This Islamic party has been led mostly by sarjana of Islamic background such as
Djaffar Siddik, a member of the DPR in Jakarta. The new religious self-consciousness
among the Banjarese Islamic communities in Samarinda and Balikpapan has partly been
caused by the threat that the Banjarese Islamic communities have increasingly come to
feel from the growing presence of abangan Javanese in the region and from Christian
missionary activities. Some Banjarese officials such as Mayor Asnawie Arbain of Balikpapan
and Bupati Achmad Dahlan of Kutai have even founded pesantren schools in an effort
to protect the religious identity and integrity of the Banjarese Islamic communities.
The second group of Banjarese consists of the young generation of Banjarese that
by the late 1970s were cooperating closely with the central government through their work
in the bureaucracy and Golkar. The leader of this bureaucratic group has been Mohammad
Ardans who became Sekwilda in 1979 and then Vice Governor in 1985. In June 1988,
Mohammad Ardans was appointed as the new Governor of East Kalimantan, replacing
the sick Governor, retired Colonel Suwandi.206 The appointment of Ardans as Governor
was made possible through the support provided by the newly created all-Kalimantan
Pangdam Tanjungpura, who happens to be a Banjarese officer of South Kalimantan origin,
Major General Zein Maulani.207 Many of the younger generation Banjarese have by now
205	The first Governor to emerge from the AMN-ATEKAD group of graduates was C. J. Rantung in North Sulawesi.
By July 1988, other AMN graduates also became Governors, namely Pardjoko in West Kalimantan; Raja Inal
Siregar in North Sumatra; Pudjanto Pranjoto in Lampung. Many young officers have also become Vice Governors,
most of them with the rank of Colonel: I Dewa Oka in Bali; Zainal Palaguna in South Sulawesi; Teuku Djohan
in Aceh; Suryatna in West Java; Victor Phaing in Central Kalimantan; Brigadier General Basofi Sudirman in Greater
Jakarta. The mayor of Bandung, Colonel Ateng Wahyudi, as well as many other mayors and Bupati are also AMN
graduates.
206	Colonel Suwandi had two terms as Bupati of Lumajang, East Java, before he was appointed in 1983 to replace
Ery Supardjan, who died shortly after leaving the office of Governor. Although he came from the Brawijaya division,
Suwandi did not have experience with the Kodam in Balikpapan nor his own power base elsewhere in East Kalimantan.
Hence, he did not change much of the legacy of Ery Supardjan. In 1986, he had a stroke and became incapacitated,
prompting the central government to appoint Ardans as Acting Governor in 1987.
207	The newly created Kodam for the whole of Kalimantan, has its headquarters in Balikpapan. Thus, Balikpapan
is replacing Banjarmasin as the capital of Kalimantan, reflecting the importance of East Kalimantan to the central
government. Major General Zein Maulani is now the highest ranking Banjarese officer, only outranked by the
generation of the retired Major General Hassan Basri. Most of that generation, however, has retired, including
Brigadier General Firmansjah (now in the timber business) and Brigadier General M. Jusi. At the end of Governor
Subardjo’s term in South Kalimantan, it was difficult to find a Banjarese officer to succeed him. He was replaced
by the then Commander of Lambung Mangkurat Kodam Brigadier General Mistar Tjokrokusomo, who died while
in office in 1986. Mistar was replaced by Vice Governor Mohammad Said, a Banjarese official himself. Zein Maulani,93
climbed up Golkar’s political ladder at the kabupaten and provincial levels. At the top
of the Golkar provincial hierarchy, the old Samarinda pejuang, Djunaid Sanusi, has been
in a position of power since 1971. Hence, he became the key link between the various
Banjarese groups within Golkar in their competition with other groups.
Other groups that have utilized Golkar and the bureaucracy in their competition for
power have been the Dayak groups and the Kutai group. Two members of the MPR in
1977 were Dayak, Dra. Lun Hadaitullah and W. Ngir Wusak. Lun Hadaitullah comes from
the Bahau group. In 1982 she won a DPR seat as a member of the DPR from Golkar,
which she retained in the 1987 election. W. Ngir Wusak is from the Kenyah-Kayan group
in the Bulungan area, and his appointment was aimed at checking the growth of the PDI
within the Kenyah group under the leadership of Lentjang.208
The Kutai group consists mainly of lower aristocrats and people of Buginese descent,
represented by the former Bupati of Kutai, Awang Faisal, and the Bupati of Kutai, Rustam
Hafidz. The upper echelon of the Kutai aristocracy seems to have faded away from politics
and government, although one of them, Police Brigadier General Aji Lukman Hakim has
a high position at the Police Headquarters in Jakarta. Personal influence over the political
process, however, is still exercised by people like A.R. Padmo, the father-in-law of Governor
Ardans.
Despite the resurgence of many indigenous groups (e.g., the Banjarese, the Kenyah,
the Bahau, the Kutai), East Kalimantan has been transformed into a significant national
frontier region in which many ethnic groups, and power groups as well, are competing
for the economic and political power that the oil, timber, and other resource exploitation
activities can provide. The discovery of a 6 billion cubic meter coal deposit and of natural
gas deposits in the Bontang area north of Samarinda has added to the strategic importance
of East Kalimantan.209 Not surprisingly, the chairman of the DPRD and Golkar in 1988
came from an oil-related background, having worked both at Pertamina (Indonesian Oil
Company) and Total Indonesia, a French company. Moreover, these discoveries have fueled
a further increase in the number of non-Banjarese migrants coming to East Kalimantan.
This new wave of migrants is for the most part composed of Javanese migrants who can
play important roles in provincial politics, given the right leadership and organization,
as exemplified best by the Kodam leadership years of Soeharjo.
The rise of Muis Hassan, Wahab Sjahranie, and Ardans has demonstrated the power
that the indigenous groups can wield within the particular context of East Kalimantan’s
provincial politics, especially with regard to its interaction with national politics. It is also
in this provincial context that one can see the limits of “Javanization” in the Outer Islands
as exemplified by the political constraints faced by Suharjo, Ery Supardjan, and Suwandi.
Similarly, East Kalimantan’s political history shows the limited and secondary role that
who graduated first in his class of 1961 AMN graduates, has continued his military career. He was the Assistant
for Operations to the Army Chief of Staff before becoming Pangdam Tanjungpura, replacing Major General Faisal
Tanjung.
208	For a short biography of Dra. Emilia Lun Hadaitullah see Biographical Appendix and Buku MPR 1977, p.
672.
209	It has been stated that East Kalimantan is strategically important because of, among other factors, the length
of the border (about 1,000 kilometers), the depth of the Makassar Straits which could be navigated by foreign
submarines, and the importance of its oil lines. (Interview with Colonel Gunadi, Kodam Mulawaiman Chief of
Staff, June 28, 1979.)94
groups such as the Kenyah, Bahau, Kutai, and Berau now must occupy in provincial poli-
tics, despite the occasional short-lived episodes of political ascendance they experienced
in the past. Their rise in recent years has been facilitated by the efforts of political groups
such as Golkar and PDI.
It is also evident that in a time of an increasingly powerful Indonesian military, political
groups must have backing and support within the officer corps. Thus, for example, we
find that the rise of Dayak groups has been encouraged by the Kodam and Ardans’
gubernatorial candidacy was supported by his fellow Banjarese Pangdam of Tanjungpura
and by the leadership of Golkar. Given the fact that most officers are of Javanese origin,
it is likely that provincial politics in East Kalimantan will continue to be played out primarily
between the Banjarese bureaucrats, the Javanese officers, and the Jakarta-connected businessmen
who are mostly of Chinese descent.Biographical Appendix
Aji Raden Afloes
Aji Raden Afloes was bom in Tenggarong in 1906 to a Kutai aristocratic family. He
graduated from OSVIA Makassar in 1925 and was stationed as Penjawat (camat) in various
places in Kutai. After the Revolutionary war, he was chosen as the Secretary of the Dewan
Kalimantan Timur (East Borneo Council), in view of his performance representing East
Borneo at the Malino Conference. He was not only instrumental in bringing East Borneo
into the unitary state in April 1950, but was also appointed its first Resident. Subsequently,
he was asked by the Governor of Kalimantan, Dr. Murdjani, to work as the Resident at
the Governor’s office in Banjarmasin. When Milono became East Kalimantan’s Governor
in 1956, he was appointed as the Resident of West Kalimantan. When West Kalimantan
was changed into a province, he became its first Acting Governor. Because of his membership
in the Masjumi party since the 1950s, he was forced to resign from the pamong praja
in 1960 when the Masjumi party was banned. After 1960 he lived a quiet life as a busi-
nessman in Jakarta.
(Interviews with Aji Bambang Abdurrachman, Balikpapan, June 23,1979 and Aji Raden
Djokoprawiro, Malang, July 7, 1979.)
Aji Raden Mohammad Ajub
Aji Raden Mohammad Ajub was bom in Gunung Tabur in 1917 where he got his
“Inlandsche School” degree in 1930. Prior to 1945, he was working as a pamong praja
in Tanjung Redeb. Between 1946 and 1950, he worked at the office of the Dewan Kalimantan
Timur in Samarinda. In 1952, he was elected as Head of the Autonomous Region of Gunung
Tabur and in 1960 he was appointed Bupati of Berau. He worked in this position until
1964. Subsequently he moved to Samarinda where he was an active member of the DPRD
from the NU. In 1971 he was elected a member of the MPR from East Kalimantan, and
in 1977 he was appointed leader of the PPP faction in the provincial branch of the DPRD.
(Interview with A.R.M. Ajub, Samarinda, June 17,1979 and Baku MPR 1971, p. 764.)
Achmad Arief gelar Datoek Madjoe Orang
Achmad Arief gelar Datoek Madjoe Orang was bom in August 1901 in Kamang, West
Sumatra. He was the son of Tuanku Laras Tilatang. He attended HIS in Bukittinggi and
OSVIA Magelang. His first job was as kandidat ambtenar in Batusangkar in 1921. He
rose in the pangreh praja to become a Demang in 1940. After independence, he stayed
9596
in Bukittinggi as a Republican and refused the Dutch offer to become its Walinagari in
Kotagedang. In 1950 he was placed in the Department of Interior in Jakarta and in 1951
was appointed Resident of East Kalimantan to replace Ruslan Muljohardjo, who in turn
was appointed Governor of Central Sumatra. Datoek Madjoe Orang was the Resident of
East Kalimantan until 1955. He was a candidate from PSI for the Konstituante in the 1955
election.
(This information was provided by Dr. Audrey Kahin from her field notes on West
Sumatra. See also Daftar Tjalon-tjalon Konstituante 1955 [Jakarta: Kementerian Penerangan
R.I., 1955], p. 188, and Oemar Dachlan, “Perkembangan Pemerintahan Kalimantan Timur”
[Samarinda: typed manuscript in author’s possession, 1967], p. 6.)
Abdurrachman Adz
Abdurrachman Aziz alias RM Noto Sunardi originally came from Balikpapan. In the
early months of independence he led a pejuang group in Long Ikis, in the area of Pasir.
He married the daughter of Long Ikis’s Wedana. His father-in-law was killed by the Dutch.
Aziz was sent to Cipinang prison in Jakarta to serve a life sentence, and he died there
in 1949.
Sayid Fachrul Baraqbah
Say id Fachrul Baraqbah was bom in Tenggarong in 1925. He had just graduated from
HIS Tenggarong when the Japanese occupied Indonesia. He fought as a guerrilla leader
in Samarinda in late 1945 and then escaped to East Java. Fachrul took a perahu to East
Java at a time when the Dutch dominated East Kalimantan militarily. He soon joined the
lasykar of Pesindo in East Java and was sent to Pesindo headquarters in Yogjakarta in
1947. He became a cadre of the FDR in 1948 but survived the “Madiun Affair.” He
returned to Samarinda in the early 1950s to organize the provincial branch of the PKI
and ran as the PKI candidate for parliament in East Kalimantan in the 1955 election. He
was arrested in 1965 following the G-30-S Affair.
(Interview with Sayid Gasjim Baraqbah, Fachrul’s elder brother, June 23,1979, Samarinda.)
Aji Raden Sayid Mochsen Baraqbah
Aji Raden Sayid Mochsen Baraqbah was bom in Tenggarong in 1919. He was a Kutai
aristocrat of Arabic descent. His father, Aji Raden Idrus Sukmawira was a close adviser
to the Sultan. He graduated from HIS Tenggarong, then went to OSVIA Makassar and
graduated in 1934. He worked as Penjawat in the Kutai sultanate until the 1950s. After
he left the office of Penjawat (i.e., after he left the employ of the Kutai sultanate), he
was a leader of the PNI with Muis Hassan and others. When the PNI dominated the provincial
bureaucracy in the early 1960s, Sayid Mochsen was a powerful figure in Samarinda and
a close adviser to the Governor. He retired in 1966 with the rank of Bupati, following
the anti-PNI purge after the fall of Governor Muis Hassan. In the 1970s he was active
in East Kalimantan’s timber business.
(Interview with his younger brother, Aji Raden Sayid Gasjim Baraqbah, June 24,1979.)97
Aji Raden Djokoprawiro
Aji Raden Djokoprawiro was bom into a Kutai aristocratic family in Tenggarong in
1915. He attended HIS Tenggarong and OS VIA Makassar from which he was graduated
in 1939. He later went on to AMS-B in Malang, which many aristocrats considered too
out of the way at that time. He returned to Kutai after the Revolutionary war and was
appointed a member of the Dewan Kalimantan Timur. As a member of the Dewan he
became known as a Republican supporter. He became a member of the delegation to the
Round Table Conference in The Hague in December 1949, along with Afloes, Aji Pangeran
Sosronegoro, and Inche Abdul Muis. He was appointed a member of RUSI’s Senate as
a representative of East Borneo. Soon afterwards he ended up with the leadership of the
PIR-Hazairin. As the Parliamentary leader of the PIR-Hazairin, he not only exerted considerable
influence on national politics, but was also instrumental in getting Hazairin’s approval
for the appointment of his fellow-PIR Kutai aristocrat, A. P. Pranoto as the first Governor.
PIR’s failure to secure any Parliamentary seat for East Kalimantan, however, removed
him from politics. With his removal from national politics, the Kutai aristocracy lost their
only representative at the national level. In the 1970s he became quite a successful businessman
in the timber industry. His son, Aji Raden Rustam Effendie, is Director of Kutai Timber
Indonesia Company in Jakarta. AR Djokoprawiro retired to live a quiet life in Malang.
(Interviews with Aji Raden Djokoprawiro, July 5 and 7, 1979.)
Rasjid Sutan Radja Etnas
Rasjid Sutan Radja Emas was bom in Bukittinggi, Minangkabau, in August 1922.
He graduated from MULO in 1939 and was awarded a certificate in radio communica-
tions in 1940. His radio communications certificate enabled him to obtain a job in Tarakan
in 1941 as Radio Inspector. After 1946 he became active in politics as the chairman of
INI in Tarakan. He was the chairman of the Bulungan DPRD between 1948 and 1950.
After 1950, he became a member of the DPRS from the PNI in Jakarta. From then on
he resided in Jakarta. In 1971 he was elected a member of the MPR from the PNI. Up
to 1971 he was a member of Parliament for the PNI. He was also once the head of the
PNI’s labor organization, KBM (Kesatuan Buruh Marhaenis).
CBuku MPR 1977, p. 983.)
Dra. Emilia Lun Hadaitullah
Dra. Emilia Lun Hadaitullah was bom in Tering, Kutai in 1935. She graduated from
IKEP Bandung. She taught at the Army’s SMP (Secondary School) from 1963 to 1965.
During that time she was also a member of the DPRD from Golkar. She then became
a lecturer at Mulawarman University and was appointed Dean of the Social Science Faculty
in 1978. She was also appointed a member of the MPR from Golkar in 1978. She was
elected as a member of the DPR in 1982.
(See Buku MPR 1977, p. 672.)98
Lieutenant Colonel R. Hartojo
Lieutenant Colonel R. Hartojo came from the Banyumas area in Central Java. He
had fought the guerrillas in the Purwokerto region and was appointed Commander of Gerakan
Banteng, a task force against the DI/TII, in the early 1950s. He then was sent to Egypt
as Commander of Garuda I before being recalled to become the Commander of RI 22
in Balikpapan. In 1960 he was replaced as Pangdam Mulawarman by his Chief of Staff,
Colonel Soeharjo. He was appointed Deputy Commander of Training and Education of
the Army in Bandung. He retired as Major General in the late 1960s.
(See generally SejarahKodamMuluwarman,p. 24. Interview with Abdulmatalib, former
PSI leader of East Kalimantan, who was a close associate of Hartojo at that time, conducted
in Samarinda, June 22, 1979.)
Mohammad (Bob) Hasan
Mohammad (Bob) Hasan has strong ties to many of the Diponegoro officers and is
said to have been adopted as a son by the late General Gatot Subroto. His concession
was among those that were inspected by President Suharto from a helicopter during a
visit to East Kalimantan in 1980. Bob Hasan is the chairman of the Indonesian Athletic
Association. Since 1987, he has sponsored “the Bali Ten Kilometers Race” with a promised
prize of up to US$ 500,000. He is also a member of the Board of the Indonesian Golf
Association, while his wife, Mrs. Pertiwi Hasan, is the chairperson of the Indonesian
Gymnastics Association. According to Hasyim Ning, Bob Hasan was among those that
tried—unsuccessfully—to persuade Chaerul Saleh to support General Suharto in the critical
months prior to the transfer of power from President Sukarno to General Suharto on March
11, 1966. For information on the total number of Bob Hasan’s companies, see Tempo,
September 28, 1985, pp. 64-68.
Abdul Muis Hassan
Abdul Muis Hassan was bom in Samarinda into a family of second generation Banja-
rese migrants in June 1924. He attended MULO in Banjarmasin and returned to East
Kalimantan at the end of the Japanese occupation. He became chairman of the Samar-
inda INI and incorporated it into the PNI in 1950, which he chaired for East Kalimantan
from 1950 to 1959. Prior to his appointment as Governor of East Kalimantan in 1962,
he was the head of the Social Welfare Service. He was a member of the DPRGR in Jakarta
from 1960. He resigned from politics and did quite well in private business.
(Interview with Abdul Muis Hassan, July 12, 1979, Jakarta; and Dr. O. G. Roeder,
Who’s Who in Indonesia [Jakarta: Gunung Agung, 1970], pp. 502-3.)
Yulius Aloysius Husin
Yulius Aloysius Husin was bom in Barongtongkok, near Long Iram, in 1937. Heattended
a seminary in Banjarmasin, and then graduated from a seminary in the Netherlands. He
went to the Theology School in Yoyga and graduated in 1964. Upon graduation, he became
a priest in Samarinda. His duties as a priest extended to the army’s Kodim. In 1967 he99
was appointed a member of the DPRD as a representative of Golkar. He was elected in
1971 and reelected in 1977 to that position. In addition, he was elected a member of the
MPR in 1971 as a Golkar representative.
(See Baku MPR 1971, p. 961.)
Husein Jusuf
Husein Jusuf was born in Balikpapan in 1925. He had just finished his elementary
school at the time of independence. Soon thereafter he joined KIM and in 1949 was active
as the Secretary of the INI Central Board. After 1950, he joined the Murba party and
became its main candidate in the 1955 election. He became the chairman of the Angkatan
45 in the late 1950s and in 1959 was appointed a member of Depemas by President Sukarno.
He became a member of Parliament in 1967 for Murba. In the 1971 election, however,
he failed to win a parliamentary seat. After 1972, he was no longer active in East Kalimantan’s
politics because of the dominant political roles of PDI and Parkindo elements. He then
lived in Balikpapan and led the Angkatan 45 and the Veterans’ Organization with his
fellow pejuang.
(Interviews with Husein Jusuf, June 7, 8 and 29, 1979, Balikpapan.)
Aji Roden Kariowiti
Aji Raden Kariowiti was bom in Tenggarong in 1916 of a Kutai aristocratic background.
He graduated from OSVIA Makassar in 1938 and worked in the Kutai bureaucracy. During
the Revolution, he was the Wedana of Balikpapan and was sympathetic to the pejuang.
He joined the Masjumi in the 1950s and was forced to take an early retirement in the
1960s. After his retirement, he was active in religious matters in Samarinda.
Aji Pangeran Kertanegara
Aji Pangeran Kertanegara was bom in Tenggarong in 1905. He was a half-brother
of Sultan Parikesit and a member of his Kutai Cabinet. He graduated from HIS Tenggarong
and had studied in the Netherlands prior to the war without obtaining any degree. He
was considered the most pro-Dutch of the four Cabinet members and had developed a
rivalry with his pro-Republican half-brother, Pangeran Pranoto. He was appointed by Van
Mook as Secretary of State Affairs of the Self-Governing Lands (Menteri Negara Urusan
Swapraja) in the so-called “Interim Federal Government” of Indonesia in March 1948.
After 1950, he fell entirely out of politics and government. Subsequently, he lived in
Tenggarong and was in charge of the Kutai Museum.
(Interview with Kertanegara, June 20, 1979.)
Lentjang BA
Lentjang BA was born into a Kenyah family in 1937 in Long Pujungan, Bulungan.
He studied at the Teachers’ High School in Bandung with the support of a church fellowship.100
Between 1958 and 1966 he taught in the public secondary school in Tarakan. In 1967,
he was appointed a member of BPH (Badan Pemerintahan Harian-Daily Consultative Body)
of Bulungan. As a member of BPH he represented the Indonesian Christian Party (Parkindo),
which he chaired. In 1971, he was elected a member of Parliament from Parkindo, and
in 1977 he was reelected as a member of the PDI. He was chosen as Secretary of the
PDI faction in Parliament in 1978. He lost the election in 1982, but returned as a DPR
member from the PDI in the 1987 election. He is now the Treasurer of the PDI faction
in the DPR.
(See Buku MPR 1977, pp. 692-93.)
Siebold Mewengkang
Siebold Mewengkang was born in Tompasso, Minahasa, in December 1904. In 1926,
after finishing secondary school (MULO) in Manado, he went to Balikpapan to work at
the BPM. He worked in a BPM accounting section until he was arrested by the Dutch
in 1946. He resumed his work at BPM in 1950 and established an independent labor or-
ganization there, SKBM (Sarekat Kaum Buruh Minyak-Oil Workers Union). The SKBM
was dissolved by Soeharjo in 1960. He was put in jail by Soeharjo in 1961 for about
a year and was then placed under city arrest until he was released by Sumitro. He retired
from the oil company in 1966 after having successfully obtained better fringe benefits
for the workers.
(Interview with Siebold Mewengkang, June 28, 1979 Balikpapan.)
Dr. Mas Moerdjani
Dr. Mas Moerdjani was bom in Tulungagung in 1904. He attended NIAS (Medical
College) in Surabaya and graduated in 1930. While working as a doctor in Surabaya, he
was also active in Dr. Sutomo’s PBI. Because of his involvement in PBI activities, the
Dutch removed him to Magelang and, later on, to Negara in Bali. In 1939, he moved
to Bandung and set up his own medical practice. Following independence, he was first
appointed Bupati of Indramayu, and later on was appointed Resident of Cirebon and Bogor.
In June 1946, he became the Governor of West Java, and in January 1947 he became
the Governor of East Java in Malang. In December 1949, he was given the task of persuading
Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX of the need for the unification of Kalimantan into the Republic
of Indonesia. He was appointed Governor of Kalimantan in Banjarmasin in February 1950.
Moerdjani ’ s appointment created an uproar among the Banjarese Republicans who demanded
the return of their fellow Banjarese, Ir. Pangeran Mohammad Noor. In early 1954 he fell
sick and was hospitalized in Surabaya where he died in March 1956.
(Interview with Mrs. Soeminie Moerdjanie, Jakarta, August 16, 1979.)
Aji Radeti Sayid Mohammad
Aji Raden Sayid Mohammad was bom into a Kutai aristocratic family of Arabic descent
in Tenggarong in 1918. After graduating from OSVIA Makassar in 1940, he joined the
Kutai bureaucracy. He worked there until the 1950s. He was appointed as the first mayor101
of Balikpapan in 1959 only to be replaced by Soeharjo’s appointee, Lieutenant Colonel
Bambang Sutikno. Although he had been active in the PNI in the 1960s, he was able
to survive the post-1966 purge and became the deputy of Governor Wahab Sjahranie in
1970. In 1975 he retired and in 1977 he was appointed a member of the MPR from East
Kalimantan, representing Golkar.
(See Buku Daftar Riwayat Hidup Anggota MPR 1977 [Jakarta: Lembaga Pemilihan
Umun, 1978], p. 670.)
Inche Abdul Muis
Inc he Abdul Muis was bom into a Melayu family in Samarinda in August 1920. He
attended HIS, MULO, and AMS-B in Java before he was sent to study in Japan in 1943
under Japanese sponsorship. He came back to Samarinda in 1947 and became the deputy
chairman of the local INI. In 1949 while a member of the Dewan Kalimantan Timur,
he also led the Samarinda-based Front Nasional. In 1950 when INI was incorporated into
the PNI, I. A. Muis was appointed a member of the DPRS from the PNI. He simulta-
neously served as a member of the DPRS and as a member of the PNI’s Central Board
from 1950 to 1956. In 1959 he was elected Regional Head of East Kalimantan. Less than
a year later, however, he was forced to resign from this office on the grounds of fiscal
mismanagement. After 1960, he became the Director of PT Pelayaran Mahakam in Jakarta.
In 1970 he was elected fourth chairman of the PNI’s Central Board and in 1972 he became
a member of the MPR from PNI. He died in Jakarta in 1978.
(Buku MPR 1977, p. 991.)
Aminuddin Nata
Aminuddin Nata was bom in Balikpapan in 1910. He graduated from HBS-A in Jakarta
and enrolled for one year at RHS (Law School) before he went back to Balikpapan in
1945 to work in private business. While in Balikpapan, he refused a BPM offer that he
work as its leading official. After independence, he led the Central Board of INI and was
jailed for refusing to cooperate with the Dutch. The poor fate of the pejuang, and the
political dominance of the Samarinda nationalists deeply troubled him. After the 1950s
he retreated from political life.
(Interview with Siebold Mewengkang, June 28, 1979, Balikpapan.)
Pangeran Mohammad Noor
Mohammad Noor was bom into the family of the former Banjarmasin Sultan Mar-
tapura, in South Kalimantan, in June 1901. He graduated from THS (Technical College),
Bandung, in 1927. He was among the first university graduates of prewar Kalimantan.
In 1931 he was appointed a member of the Volksraad from Kalimantan. He remained
in that position until 1939. He then worked as an engineer until 1945. After independence,
he was appointed Republican Governor for Kalimantan. He was Governor until 1950.
He joined the Masjumi in 1950 and became its member in Parliament. He broke ranks
with the Masjumi in 1957 when he refused to resign as Minister following the formation102
of the Kabinet Kerja. Between 1968 and 1973 he was a member of the DPA, and afterward,
a member of the MPR. In 1978 he was elected a member of the DPR for South Kalimantan,
where he served until his death in 1979.
(Interview with Pangeran Mohammad Noor, November 25, 1977, Jakarta and Buku
MPR 1977, p. 64.)
Aji Raden Padmo
Aji Raden Padmo was bom in Tenggarong in November 1912. He attended HIS Tengga-
rong and OSVIA Makassar from which he graduated in 1931. Prior to the war he worked
in various positions within the Kutai sultanate, the last one as a Penjawat in Melak. Between
1945 and 1956, he was Wedana of Samarinda. Later he worked as the Bupati at the Gov-
ernor’s office. In 1957, he was appointed secretary to the Governor by Pranoto. He was
elected Bupati of Kutai in 1960. He was arrested in 1964 by Pangdam Soeharjo and kept
in prison for six months. It was only through the intervention of the then Minister of Interior,
Major General Dr. Sumamo, that Soeharjo released AR Padmo in early 1965. In 1966,
he was reappointed Resident of Samarinda. He was later chosen as the new Provincial
Secretary by Governor Wahab Sjahranie. In 1972, he was also appointed a member of
the MPR from East Kalimantan and chairman of Korpri before he retired in 1973. He
then lived in Samarinda working as director of the provincial government-owned Hotels
Lamin Indah.
(Interview with Aji Raden Padmo, June 25, 1979 Samarinda, and Buku MPR 1971,
p. 763.)
Mung Parhadimuljo
Mung Parhadimuljo was bom in Yogyakarta in 1923. In the 1950s he was the Com-
mander of Regiment 18 of the Brawijaya Division. Parhadimuljo has spent most of his
career in the RPKAD. In 1962 he became the Commander of the Mandala Task Force
and in late 1962 he became the Commander of RPKAD. He was appointed as Pangdam
Mulawarman on November 5, 1965, remaining in that position until April 1970. He then
became Commander of the Army’s Training for Infantry (Pussenif Pusat Kesenjataan
Infantri). Later, he became the General Commander of the AKABRI (Indonesia Armed
Forces Academy). In 1974 he was appointed Inspector General of the MABAD, and in
1977, when he reached retirement age, he was appointed as Inspector General of the
Department of Agriculture.
Aji Raden Pranoto
Aji Raden Pranoto was bom in Tenggarong in 1905. He graduated from OSVIA in
Makassar and in 1945 was in charge of the police as a member of Kutai’s Cabinet. He
was considered a sympathetic advocate of the Republican cause. Early in the 1950s he
joined PIR-Hazairin and with the help of AR Djokoprawirio, a fellow Kutai, he was able
to work his way up to the rank of Resident in 1956. He was appointed the first Governor
of East Kalimantan in 1959. By becoming a member of the NU, Pranoto was able to
maintain his governorship, despite the dissolution of the PIR. However, he gave up the103
governorship in 1962 and soon afterwards was jailed by Soeharjo for his alleged embez-
zlement of government funds. He was first jailed in Balikpapan but was transferred to
RTM Jakarta (Military Prison) in 1964. He died in prison, in 1966, apparently due to
poor prison conditions, as a poor man, leaving a widow without a house.
(Interview with Abdul Muis Hassan, Jakarta, July 12, 1979.)
Mohammad Sabrie
Mohammad Sabrie was bom in Samarinda into a Banjarese family in 1917. In 1940
he graduated from an elementary school in Tenggarong and became a teacher prior to
the Japanese occupation. In 1943, he became the Commander of the BPRI guerrilla unit
in Samarinda. After 1950, he became camat of Samarinda Seberang. He remained in that
position until his appointment as a member of the DPRDGR in 1967. Later, he became
the Deputy Chairman of the DPRDGR of East Kalimantan, and then its chairman. He
was a member of the MPR from Golkar from 1971 until his death in 1974. Prior to 1968,
he was prominent in the Murba party.
(See Buku MPR 1971, p. 960.)
Abdul Ads Samad
Abdul Azis Samad was bom in Banjarmasin in 1922. He came to Samarinda before
the war, after graduating from MULO Bandung. He was involved in INI Samarinda and
Front Nasional political activities, and was appointed a member of the Dewan Kutai while
in Samarinda. After 1950 he became active in the PNI and became the chairman of Kutai’s
DPRD. In 1957 he was elected chairman of the East Kalimantan DPRD. He served in
that capacity until 1966. Afterwards he became the secretary of the Forestry Service. He
retired in 1976. After the decline of the PNI in East Kalimantan, he was involved in politics.
Like many PNI leaders he then became active in private business. (Interviews with Azis
Samad, Samarinda, June 20 and 25, 1979.)
Abdul Wahab Sjahranie
Abdul Wahab Sjahranie was bom into a Banjarese aristocratic family in Rantau, South
Kalimantan. He graduated from HIS in 1937 and went to the Bestuur Opleiding (school
for pamong praja) in 1941. Before independence, he worked as an employee in the Japanese
occupation office. In 1947 he was appointed as Wedana of Kandangan. From 1947 to
1950 he worked with the famous unit of Divisi IV of ALRI under Hassan Basri. Between
1950 and 1960 he held various jobs in the army as Commander of a battalion in Kandangan,
Chief of Staff of Regiment 21 Banjarmasin, and Acting Pangdam of Lambung Mangkurat,
South Kalimantan. In 1961 he was appointed lecturer at SESKOAD, a year after his
graduation from India’s Defense Staff College. He rose to become the Head of the Infantry
Department at SESKOAD. Prior to his appointment as Governor of East Kalimantan in
1967, he was Deputy to the Sixth Assistant of the Army Chief of Staff who dealt with
Functional Affairs. He was the Governor of East Kalimantan from 1967 to 1978. From104
1978 until his death in May 1980 he was the secretary to the Minister of State for Environment
and Development Supervision. He was buried in Banjarmasin.
(See, Buku MPR 1971, pp. 758-59.)
Mrs. Adjang Ratminie Sjahranie
Mrs. Adjang Ratminie Sjahranie was bom in the then South Kalimantan town of Kuala
Kapuas in 1928. She worked as a teacher during the Japanese occupation. After independence,
she was active in the Army wives’ organization (Persit). In 1975, she became the deputy
chairman of Golkar’s Bappilu (Badan Pengendali Pemilihan Umum—The Body to Guide
the Election), an important group within Golkar. She was elected a member of Parliament
representing Golkar for East Kalimantan in the general election of 1977.
CBuku MPR 1977, p. 650.)
R. Soeharjo
R. Soeharjo was bom in Blitar in 1923. He was educated at MULO before fighting
in the guerrilla war in East Java. He fought in the Kendiri-Malang-Surabaya complex dur-
ing the Revolution under the leadership of the revolutionary-nationalist leader of the
Brawijaya division, Colonel Bambang Supeno, with whom he maintained a close relationship.
In the early Revolutionary period, he fought in the Surabaya area, cementing his hos-
tility to the British troops. In the early 1950s, he worked at staff positions at MABAD
and in the Brawijaya division. As a commander in the early 1950s, he was also instrumental
in organizing the former pejuang in Java into a left-leaning organization, the Perbepsi
(Persatuan Bekas Pejuang Seluruh Indonesia). Moreover, prior to his appointment to Balikpapan,
Soeharjo had served as military aide to the visiting leader of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh. His short service to Ho Chi Minh further strengthened his
revolutionary resolve. In 1960 he was appointed Chief of Staff of Kodam Mulawarman.
He took over as Pangdam a few months later. He won the “Lumumba Award” for best
direction at the Afro-Asian Film Festival held in Jakarta in late April of 1964. His film,
“Tangan-Tangan Yang Kotor” [The Dirty Hands] won the Bandung Award, the highest
award of the festival. In late 1964 he also became the head of the provincial leadership
of the Panca Tunggal (Five Regional Bodies). He was replaced as Pangdam in March
1965 and sent to the Army Staff College in Moscow. Soeharjo returned to Indonesia
in January 1977. He was detained by Kopkamtib for three years and was released in
1980. He now lives a quiet life in Jakarta. His release has mainly been attributed to the
efforts of his Eurasian wife, who contacted both General Nasution and General L. B. Murdani.
(See generally Sejarah Kodam Mulawarman, p. 24. Interview with General Nasution,
Jakarta, July 14, 1979 [for the influence of Ho Chi Minh on Soeharjo]. Interview with
R. Soeharjo, Jakarta, December 17, 1984.]
Brigadier General Ery Soepardjan
Brigadier General Ery Soepardjan was born in Kutowinangun, Kebumen, Central Java
in 1926. He was studying at the Technical School when the Japanese occupied Indonesia105
in 1942. He became Sjodancho of PET A and then the company commander of the Diponegoro
Division. He retained that position until 1955. He rose to become battalion commander
in 1959, and then became the Chief of Staff of Korem Yogyakarta prior to G-30-S. He
had just been appointed the Inspector of Kodam III in West Sumatra when the coup occurred.
After the coup he was appointed Commander of Korem Wirabumi, Riau. In 1968 he was
appointed Commander of Korem 72 Yogya, and then became the Chief of Staff of Kodam
Diponegoro in 1972. In 1971 he was a member of the MPR representing Yogya. In 1975
he was appointed as Pangdam Mulawarman, and in June 1978 he was appointed Governor
of East Kalimantan.
(See Sinar Harapan, June 19, 1978 and Buku MPR 1977, p. 724.)
Colonel Soeparno
Colonel Soeparno was bom in Kutoardjo, Central Java in 1922. He graduated from
the Teacher School (HIK) in 1941 and was a teacher in Malang during the Japanese
occupation. In 1945 he joined the Cadet School in Malang and then became an officer
in the Army. He was mostly involved in educational institutions. In 1968 he was appointed
Chief of Staff of Kodam Mulawarman. During this time he was also the chairman of Golkar
for East Kalimantan. He was a member of the MPR for East Kalimantan from 1971 until
his transfer to Surabaya to become the new mayor of that city. He was not reelected as
mayor in 1978, possibly because of opposition from the Governor of East Java, Sunandar
Prijosudarmo. Though his name was raised as a possible candidate for Governor of East
Kalimantan, that appointment never materialized.
(See Buku MPR 1977, pp. 760-61.)
Siel Stekanggen
Siel Stekanggen was bom in 1930 in the same town where Mrs. Adjang Sjahranie
was bom, Kuala Kapuas, Kalimantan. He attended an agricultural school, and then the
preparatory school, Kursus Dinas (KDC). He was a member of the Army between 1950
and 1953, and later became an employee at the Governor’s office in Samarinda. In 1965,
he was appointed camat Loah Janan for Kutai. He became the deputy chairman of the
DPRD of East Kalimantan, representing IPKI, in 1967. He then joined Golkar in 1970
and became its MPR member in 1971.
(See, Buku MPR 1971, p. 962.)
W. Ngir Wusak
W. Ngir Wusak was bom in Kerayan, Bulungan, in 1933. He went to secondary school
in 1953 and worked in Sarawak, Malaysia, from 1953 to 1957. He was also active as
a Bible School teacher in Kerayan until 1969. In 1971 he joined Golkar and was appointed
a member of the MPR in 1977.Glossary of Abbreviations
AKABRI
ALRI
AMN
AMS
APT
Baperki
Bappeda
BB
BFO
BPM
BPRI
Depemas
Akademi Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (Indonesian
Armed Forces Academy); a joint academy of the three armed
forces services and the police, founded in 1966.
Angkatan Laut Republik Indonesia (Indonesian Navy).
Akademi Militer Nasional (National Military Academy), founded
in 1957 in Magelang and changed to become the Army part of
AKABRI, in 1966.
Algemene Middelbare School (General High School).
Aji Pangeran Tumenggung, a noble title reserved for brothers of
Sultans of Kutai who were appointed as the Sultans’ advisers.
Badan Permusjawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia (the Body
for Cooperation of Indonesian Citizenship); an organization of
mostly Indonesians of Chinese descent.
Badan Perencana Pembangunan Daerah (the Planning Agency for
Regional Development).
Binnenlands Bestuur; Interior Administration in the Dutch colo-
nial period.
Bijeenkomst voor Federaal Overleg (Federal Consultative Com-
mittee); association of Dutch-supported states in Revolutionary
period.
Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij ([Dutch] Batavia Oil Com-
pany).
Badan Pemberontak Republik Indonesia (the Rebel Militia for
Indonesian Republic).
Dewan Perancang Nasional (National Planning Council); a plan-
ning agency under a noted historian, Professor Yamin, in the late
1950s.
107108
Dirjen	Direktur Jenderal (Director General); the equivalent of Assistant Secretary.
DI/TII	Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia (Land of Islam/Indonesian Islamic Army); the unified symbol of various rebellions in West Java, Aceh, Sulawesi, and Central Java in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Ditjen	Direktorat Jenderal (Directorate General); sub-departmental level.
DPA	Supreme Advisory Council; the body to advise the President according to the 1945 Constitution.
DPD	Dewan Pemerintah Daerah (Regional Executive Council); the powerful regional body in the 1950s.
DPRD	Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah (Regional People’s Represen- tative Council).
DPRDGR	Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Gotong Royong (Mutual Coop- eration DPR), established in 1960.
dr.	Dokter (medical doctor).
drs.	doktorandus (university graduates).
Dwikora	Dwi Komando Rakyat (People’s Two Commands); President Sukarno’s anti-Malaysia commands in the early 1960s.
Foni	Fonds National Indonesia (Indonesian National Funds); a Repub- lican movement in East Kalimantan in the late 1940s.
Gapi	Gaboengan Politik Indonesia (Indonesian Political Association); a federation of nationalist movements in the prewar period.
G-30-S	Gerakan 30 September (the 30 September Movement); a move- ment that attempted a coup on October 1,1965, under Lieutenant Colonel Untung.
GMNI	Gerakan Mahasiswa Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Student Movement); a student organization of the Indonesian National Party; since 1975 it has become an independent student movement.
Golkar	Golongan Karya (Functional Group); the political organization under the sponsorship of the Army; established in 1968 but origi- nating from the old Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups, founded in 1964.109
H.
Haji; a honorary title for Moslems who have made the pilgrimage
to Mecca.
Hankam
HAMD
HBS
HIS
HMI
HPH
IHH
IHHT
IHPH
IKIP
Inhutani
INI
Ipeda
Ir.
ITCI
Kadin
Departemen Pertahanan dan Keamanan (Department of Defense
and Security).
Himpunan Anggota Masyarakat Dompu (the Association of Dompu’s
Society); a voluntary association of the people of Dompu and
Sumbawa, in Jakarta.
Hoogere Burger School (Citizens’ High School); an elite high
school in the colonial period.
Hollands Inlandsche School (Dutch Native School); an elementary
school for Indonesian children conducted primarily in Dutch.
Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (Islamic Student Association); the
largest Islamic student movement since the 1950s.
Hak Pengusahaan Hutan (Forest Concession Rights); Forestry
Rights License.
Iuran Hasil Hutan (Royalty Fee from Forest Products).
Iuran Hasil Hutan Tambahan (Additional Royalty from Forest
Products).
Iuran Hak Pengusahaan Hutan (License Fee from the Rights to
Exploit the Forest).
Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan (the Institute for Teachers).
Industri Hutan Negara Indonesia (Indonesian State Forest Indus-
try); a state enterprise for forest exploitation, founded in 1973.
Ikatan Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Association); a
Republican movement in East Kalimantan in the late 1940s.
Iuran Pembangunan Daerah (Regional Development Tax); tax
from landholding.
Insinyur (engineer).
International Timber Corporation Indonesia; a big company in
forest exploitation in East Kalimantan.
Kamar Dagang dan Industri (Indonesian Chamber of Commerce
and Industry).110
KAMI	Kesatuan Aksi Mahasiswa Indonesia (Indonesian Student Action United Group); a student federation in the post-G-30-S period.
KAPPI	Kesatuan Aksi Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia (Indonesian Secondary School Students and Youth United Group); a federation of organi- zations of secondary schools’ students in the post-G-30-S period.
Kasdam	Kepala Staf Komando Daerah Militer (Chief of Staff of the Regional Military Command).
Kaskarda	Kepala Staf Kekaryaan Daerah (Chief of Staff of the Regional Functional Task).
KIM	Komite Indonesia Merdeka (Committee for Indonesian Independ- ence).
Kingmi	Kongres Injil Gereja Masehi Indonesia (Congregation of Indone- sian Protestant Church); a Christian congregation with a strong presence in East Kalimantan’s Dayak population.
KNIL	Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger (Royal Netherlands Indies Army).
Kodam	Komando Daerah Militer (Regional Military Command).
Korem	Komando Resort Militer (Resort Military Command, covering small provinces).
Kodim	Komando Distrik Militer (District Military Command, covering the whole kabupaten).
Kopkamtib	Komando Pemelihara Keamanan dan Ketertiban (the Command to Maintain Order and Security).
Korpri	Korps Pegawai Republik Indonesia (the Association of the Em- ployees of the Indonesian State, founded in 1972 as a federation of all organizations of the state’s employees).
Kostrad	Komando Strategis Angkatan Darat (Army’s Strategic Command).
KPMKT	Keluarga Pelajar Mahasiswa Kalimantan Timur (the Association of East Kalimantan’s Students); a federation of East Kalimantan students in Java.
KKK	Kerukunan Keluarga Kalimantan (Association of Kalimantan People); a voluntary association of people from Kalimantan in Jakarta.
KRTP	Kayan River Timber Products; a larger timber company in East Kalimantan.Ill
Laksus Kopkamtibda	Pelaksana Khusus Komando Pemelihara Keamanan dan Keterti- ban Daerah (Special Holder of the Regional Command to Maintain Order and Security).
Mabad (MB AD)	Markas Besar Angkatan Darat (Central Command of the Army).
Masjumi	Madjelis Sjuro Muslimin Indonesia (Council of Indonesian Mos- lem Association); originally founded as a federation of Islamic or- ganizations during the Japanese occupation and changed into a political party in 1945. It was banned in 1960.
MPR	Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (People’s Consultative Assem- bly); the body that was empowered by the 1945 Constitution to elect the President.
NIAS	Nederlandsche Indische Arts School (School of Medicine of the Netherlands Indies); a prewar medical school in Surabaya.
NIT	Negara Indonesia Timur (East Indonesian State); a Dutch-created state during the Federal period.
NV	Limited Company.
NU	Nahdhatul Ulama (Association of Islamic Scholars); an organiza- tion of Islamic scholars, founded in 1926, which became a party in 1953.
OSVIA	Opleiding School voor Inlandsche Ambtenaren (Training Schools for Native Officials).
Pangab	Panglima Angkatan Bersenjata (Commander of the Armed Forces).
Pangdak	Panglima Daerah Angkatan Kepolisian (Regional Commander of the Police).
Pangdam	Panglima Daerah Militer (Regional Military Commander); com- mander of the army’s regional command.
Parindra	Partai Indonesia Raya (Great Indonesia’s Party); a nationalist party in the prewar period up to the 1950s.
PBI	Partai Bangsa Indonesia (Indonesian National Party) a nationalist party in the prewar period.
PDI	Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (Indonesian Democratic Party); a party that emerged from the enforced merger of all non-Islamic parties in 1972.112
Pepelrada	Pembantu Pelaksana Dwikora Daerah (the Regional Holder of the Dwikora Command); a power of martial law in several regions between 1963 and 1967.
Perbum	Persatuan Buruh Minyak (Association of Oil Workers); an organi- zation of oil workers under the Indonesian Communist Party, in the 1950s and up to 1965.
Perhutani	Perusahaan Hutan Negara Indonesia (Indonesian State Forest Company); with exploitation areas only in Java.
PIR-H	Partai Indonesia Raya-Hazairin (Hazairin faction of Great Indone- sia’ s Party); a nationalist party in the 1950s; with bases in the Outer Islands.
PKI	Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party); banned in 1966.
PNI	Partai Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Party); a national- ist party first founded in 1927. It was merged into the impotent PDI in 1972.
PNN	Perusahaan Niaga Negara (State Trading Corporation).
PPP (P3)	Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (Development United Party); a party that was bom from enforced merger of all Islamic parties by the government in 1972.
PSI	Partai Sosialis Indonesia (Indonesian Socialist Party); a social- democratic leaning party that was banned in 1960.
PSII	Partai Sjarikat Islam Indonesia (the Party of Islamic Union of Indonesia); first originated from Sarekat Islam of the 1920s and was merged into P3 in 1972.
PT	Perseroan Terbatas (Limited Company).
RPKAD	Resimen Para Komando Angkatan Darat (the Regiment of the Army’s Paratroops); a famous “red Beret” striking force of the Army.
RTM	Rumah Tahanan Militer (Military Detention Center); a famous military prison on Budi Utomo street, Jakarta, which mostly housed political prisoners.
RUSI	Republican Union of States of Indonesia.113
Sekwilda	Sekretaris Wilayah Daerah (Provincial Secretary); the next-rank- ing official in the regional government after the Governor and the Bupati.
SH	Sarjana Hukum; a title for those who have graduated from the Faculty of Law.
Skarda	Staf Kekaryaan Daerah (Regional Staff for Functional Affairs); the officers in charge of political affairs in the Kodam.
Skarwil	Staf Kekaryaan Wilayah (Regional Staff for Functional Affairs); the officers in charge of social-political affairs in the Kowilhan.
SKB	Serikat Kaum Buruh (Association of Laborers); an association of oil workers in the early 1950s in East Kalimantan.
SKBM	Serikat Kaum Buruh Minyak (Association of Oil Workers); an independent oil workers union in the 1950s in East Kalimantan and Sumatra.
SKI	Serikat Kerakyatan Indonesia (Indonesian People’s Association); a local party in South Kalimantan in the revolutionary period with additional strength in North Sumatra in the 1950s.
SSKAD-SESKOAD	Sekolah Staff dan Komando Angkatan Darat (Army Staff Col- lege). SSKAD in the 1950s, after the 1960s became SESKOAD.
TNI	Tentara Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Army); the for- mal name of the Indonesian armed forces.
TT	Tentara dan Territorium (Army and Territorial Command); divi- sion of the Army ’ s regional commands before the reorganization in 1958.
UI	Universitas Indonesia (University of Indonesia); in Jakarta.
Unmul	Universitas Mulawarman (Mulawarman University); in Samar- inda.
Untag	Universitas 17 Agustus 1945 (University of 17th of August 1945); a PNI-run university in various cities, with the center in Jakarta.
Wapangab	Wakil Panglima Angkatan Bersenjata (Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces); a new post that was created in 1970 to balance the powerful post of Pangab (and Minister of Defense).