With the collapse of colonial regimes and Allied militaries in the face of Japanese attacks in late 1941 and early 1942, substantial numbers of Allied troops and civilians from Indonesia were allowed to enter Australia. Many in this first wave were Eurasians and Indonesians serving in the KNIL (Koninklijik Nederlands Indisch Leger), the colonial army of the Netherlands. Early in the war, Indonesian merchant seamen also walked off their ships in protest of huge wage and benefit differences with Dutch and Australian seamen. With Japanese advances in the New Guinea area, Dutch authorities sought to remove the political internees in Boven Digul to Australia. Australian authorities eventually accepted Dutch representations of the internees as “dangerous individuals” and permitted their entrance in June 1943, placing them in the Cowra camp with Axis prisoners of war.
During the war, Dutch and Australian authorities shuffled the Indonesians around between various cities and rural towns; some were sent to military labor units, while others were recruited for the Dutch propaganda machine, although most former internees remained in camps. Australian officials repeatedly gave in to Dutch requests, displaying a striking flexibility with respect to their own laws. The admission of Boven Digul internees as uneducated, psychotic criminals who could endanger Australia if left in New Guinea was not only ironic, but also legally questionable, as the Digulists were not criminals, and many were dedicated antifascists, or women and children who had voluntarily accompanied the men to New Guinea. Netherlands East Indies (NEI) commissioner Charles van der Plas, however, was not averse to changing the story when he wanted individuals released for NEI employment in Melbourne. To their credit, several senior Australian officials felt discomfort with the lack of a legal basis for detention and sought a negotiated settlement (but did not unilaterally apply Australian law). The proposed resolutions, such as sending the internees back to New Guinea, though, were not particularly pro-Indonesian.
In August 1945, the story was just beginning, and as Jan Lingard notes with only moderate exaggeration, a war for Indonesian independence was about to be waged on Australian soil. Boycotts of Dutch warships and supply ships believed to be carrying arms for the Dutch military kept these ships in Australia for months because of lack of crews and inability to load cargo and coal. In addition to dockworkers and the Waterside Workers Federation, several Australian organizations and a number of dedicated individuals sought to assist Indonesians, pressuring the Australian government not to give the Dutch a blank check and to ensure basic protections for Indonesians. In 1945, the Dutch were allowed to court-martial striking Indonesians in Casino without independent legal representation, which produced protests of this “abuse of hospitality.”
Along with the manipulations of Van der Plas and other Dutch officials, such events produced a feeling that the Dutch were twisting the truth for their own convenience, and contributed to a willingness to hear Indonesian voices. From mid-1945, direct contact with CENKIM (Central Committee for Indonesian Independence) meant that senior Australian officials heard both sides, and allowed them to see Dutch insincerity. As the repatriation of Indonesians began, activists and some officials sought to ensure that the Dutch did not control the repatriation, and that Indonesians could freely enter republican territory. This was a long struggle, as the Dutch utilized every means to block the return of these “rebels” or dangerous individuals, and even persuaded Lord Mountbatten to intervene.
As Lingard notes, the more than 5,000 Indonesian wartime visitors were the first real invasion of white Australia. Focusing on Indonesians in Australia and their relationships with the Australian government, other institutions, and various Australians, the author finds Australian society's attitudes as reflected in the press of great significance. Her study clearly shows that Australian support for Indonesian independence has been greatly exaggerated by both countries, with it now finding a prominent place in official government statements, and in popular Australian understandings. The majority of Australians never supported the republic, although support for the Dutch was sometimes very low as well. Reflecting the prejudices of the wartime and early postwar periods, Indonesian-related organizations were often labeled as communist, their concerns dismissed outright, and leaders investigated by police. Government policy shifted only gradually from a pro-Dutch position to neutral, and eventually to a more pro-Indonesian position, but opposition politicians were vehemently anti-Indonesian and pro-Dutch, making radical policy change by the Labor government impossible.
To bring individuals into a narrative that otherwise would be dominated by histories of larger organizations and government policy, the author includes brief “stories” of individual Australians or Indonesians as indented asides. These are frequently successful, but occasionally disturb the narrative flow. Of even greater interest are her frank and detailed discussions of events such as the repatriation voyage of the Esperance Bay; more than simply facts, the narrative is replete with information about the politics surrounding the voyage.
There are a few shortcomings that could have been easily remedied. For example, the index was compiled based on English terms, rather than on actual usage. Thus, CENKIM, always referred to by its acronym, is indexed as the Indonesian Independence Committee, Brisbane Branch. Similarly, Indonesian-language terms are generally translated into English (or left as acronyms), and thus “original” Indonesian names are not always clear. Taking the same example, the approximate meaning of CENKIM is clear to Indonesian specialists, but without spelling it out, specialist readers may feel a lack of depth on the Indonesian side. Perhaps attention to self-consciously Islamic internees from Boven Digul and their experiences in Australia and during repatriation would also have helped balance the attention to more left-leaning nationalists and the Australian side.
Nonetheless, while the book is aimed at Australian audiences and primarily focuses on Australian society, it is a carefully researched and readable introduction to the experiences of thousands of Indonesians who spent years in Australia, a first step in exploring the end of the political internment of thousands of Indonesians in Boven Digul from the 1920s to the 1940s, a substantial contribution to understanding the far from simple repatriation movements, and a good exploration of one aspect of Indonesia's international relations during its formative years.
