Having focused on the so-called revolusi fisik (physical revolution) as it played out in Central Java, and especially in the two north coast ports of Surabaya and Semarang, we should not ignore that the resource-rich Outer Islands were never far from Allied or nationalist concerns, each with their separate agendas. East Coast Sumatra looms large in this analysis as the site of some of the bloodiest confrontations between militia and traditional leaders. Neither Medan nor Palembang in South Sumatra stood apart from the “social revolution” backed by radical nationalists, some of them self-styled communists, and specific ethnic groups numbered high among the counts of victims. With Acting Governor-General van Mook in the driving seat in Eastern Indonesia, the Dutch organized the Malino Conference of 16–25 July 1946 in Sulawesi, whereby loyalist representatives from Borneo and eastern Indonesia backed the Dutch proposal for a federal United States of Indonesia, which would have links to the Netherlands. This arrangement preceded the Linggadjati Agreement of 15 November 1946, under which the Dutch recognized de facto Republican control over Sumatra, Java and Madura in a formula in which the Dutch queen would be the symbolic head of a Dutch-Indonesian union of sovereign states.1 Space precludes a more detailed survey, but overall, we would have to conclude that Java was the major arena and focus of political and military struggles weighing on the legitimation of the declaration of independence, even if the archipelago came to be Balkanized as the Dutch naval advance proceeded.