Usman Buang Duran & PKTI

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R. Barnes

Fransiskus/Usman Buang Duran; Catholic, Muslim, communist

In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 159 (2003), no: 1, Leiden, 1-29

This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl



R.H. BARNES

Fransiskus/Usman Buang Duran

Catholic, Muslim, Communist

Oile September day in 2000, I was walking past a field hut in Witihama,

Adonara, Indonesia,l when I was called over to talk to some inen who were

dr~ nkin g alm wine. Among them was a man in his seventies know11 as Ama

Lawe. They asked me to join them, and while we were talking, the conversa-

tion came around to a man named Buang Duran. In this context, Ama Lawe

said that he could tell that I was a communist. 'All Westerners are comunu-

nists and intent on defeating capitalism'. This totally unexpected comment

startled me, because in the Indonesia I had known from 1969, no one had

ever before spoken to me favourably about communism, a topic which had

been prohibited from public discussion since the violent aftermath of the

events of 30 September 1965, when six generals were murdered in Jakarta by

military rebels believed to be associated with the Partai Koinunis Indonesia

(PKI, Communist Party of Indonesia). This incident eventually led to the

overtl~row f Soekarno as President of the Republic of Indonesia and the

establishment of the military dictatorship under Soeharto, and the massacre

of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists in 1965, 1966 and 1967

Until 1998, following the fall of the Soeharto regime, the government kept

its eye on the population through security agencies and spies, and anyone

making political statements unwelcome to the Soeharto government was

liable to arrest. Since 1998,I had become accustoined to the much more open

discussion of politics by Indonesians following the abolition of these agen-

cies. However, this comment was still unexpected. Ama Lawe then told me

that he used to be a member of the Persatuan Kaum Tani Indonesia (PKTI,

' In the Regency of East Floses, Provlnce of Ntrsa Tenggara TIS-I~LII,a5tern Indones~a

l< F1 BAIIUE5 1s Professor of Socsal As?tl~ropologyat the Un~verssty f Oxfold, where he also

obta~ned ~ s Phll degree A spec~ahst n east e~nndonessa, he ss the author of Kecfnirg,A ititcitr

o f tile t ol le ct ~o e iroligiit o nil cnsie?il Iiidoiles~niiyc~oj~lc~,xfold Clarendon, 1974, and Scn iiici~tcis

o j Iirdoirc>sln,Frsilcr 5 nrril rclcnziri i of Lnrirn/c,in, Oxford Clarendon, 1996 Professor Barnes may be

leached a t the Instrtute of Socsal and Cultural Anthropology, U~isversrty f Oxford, 51 Banburq

Rd , Oxford OX2 6PE, England



Town/village

Mountain s

10r- -

<^ SUMB

F L O R E S ^ -o -v.

1 *"

The Lamaholot

LEWOTOBI

PANTAR

' TIMOR /

M a ^l . East Flores and the Solor Islands



Fransiskus/Usman Buang Duran: Catholic, Muslim, Communist 3

Union of Indonesian Peasants).2

In the period 1949 to 1951, he said, there

was a great struggle in Adonara, in which he and his group were armed onlywith bamboo spears, but prevailed. They hoisted themerah putih (the red and

white flag of Indonesia) two days before Soekarno did. The real President

of Indonesia had been Buang Duran, not Soekarno, and the great rule was

sama rata sama rasa ('the same level, the same taste' - the phrase by which

Indonesian communists, and others, expressed their aspiration for social and

economic equality).

Following this conversation, I began to learn more about both Buang

Duran and the PKTI uprising. To date I have found only three published ref-

erences to Buang Duran and only two to the PKTI.

3

From this fact ^concludethat it was only a local phenomenon, but certainly one situated in the context

of national and world politics. The rest of my information is all oral, from

people who knew Buang Duran and took part in the PKTI uprising or the

struggle against it and from those who had only heard about it. My informa-

tion is incomplete and open to questions about reliability.

Buang Duran's career was clearly marked by the contemporary events in

the Dutch East Indies and Indonesia in his time, and it is necessary to begin

with biographical information about him. He was a member of a descent

group which was associated with the leadership of Witihama, a complexof villages in eastern Adonara (at one time five villages, later ten, and now

thirteen). In fact, his grandfather, also named Buang Duran, had been head

of Witihama, with the title Kelake, but died in battle in a war at the village

of Muda. After his death his younger brother Kei Tokan became head of

Witihama, and the function later passed down to Kei Tokan's son Boro Tura,

known as Kelake Kei. Kelake Kei and the younger Buang Duran were con-

temporaries, and it is said that the latter Buang Duran thought that he should

have been head of Witihama because he belonged to the elder line, and that

a lot of people in Witihama agreed with him.According to several reports Buang Duran was large and impressive.

His father, Lesu Tokan but known as Mamaq Lesu, who was imprisoned

for murder in the 1920s and 1930s and later, in 1957, was murdered in what

is presumed to have been a revenge killing, was not an impressive man,

2 Reksodihardjo (1971, 11:102) has the name, erroneously so far as I know, as PersaudaraanKaum Tani Indonesia (Indonesian Peasants' Brotherhood).3 Standard sources on the PKI (such as McVey 1965) make nomention of the PKTI. Inaddi-tion to the three publications mentioned above, M.J.H.M. Wertenbroek, who was government

physician in Larantuka at the time and as such had to care for many of the wounde d, very kindlyprovided me with copies of the relevant pages from his diaries, to which I will refer from time to

time. Portions of his diaries have recently been published, though not the sections pertaining to

the PKTI (Wertenbroek 1998). For a discuss ion of similar social revolutionary movements in the

1940s, especially in eastern Sum atra, see Reid (1974:59-76). A very recent additional reference is

in Farram (2002:32) and the archival source referred to there.



4 R-H. Barnes

but Buang Duran had talent and was eventually able to attract a large fol-

lowing because of his claims to status and leadership. He was descendedfrom a founding ancestor who is said to have been a Muslim, through

whom this line claims kinship with the line of the Muslim rajas of Adonara.

Today many members of this descent group are Muslims, but many also

are Roman Catholics. Prior to the mass conversions following the events in

1965 and 1966, and certainly in the 1930s, few in the family h ad converted to

either religion. However, Buang Duran became a Catholic and assumed the

nam e Fransiskus. He seems to have formed a close friendship with the local

Catholic missionary Heinrich van der Hulst. In time he became the head

teacher in the local Catholic elementary school and was entrusted with thekeys to the Catholic church.

In the late 1930s or early 1940s a pensioned member of the Koninklijk

Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger (KNIL, Royal Netherlands Indies Army),

returned to the village w ith his Javanese wife and a daughter Juliana. Although

Buang Du ran already had a wife named Ina Date at the time, whom he had

ma rried in 1935, he had an affair with Juliana and got her preg nan t. Van der

Hulst was incensed by this, excommunicated him and sacked him as head

teacher. It has been said that Buang Duran never intended to marry Juliana,

and may never have done so officially, but that he certainly was married toher according to local custom ary law. Shortly thereafter the Japanese invad -

ed Indonesia and interned all Dutch males, including Van der Hulst, who

was sent to Pare Pare, Sulawesi. Buang Duran eventually became a Muslim

and changed his name to Usman. He also nailed the church in Witihama

shut, pu t up a sign that it could not be open ed, and refused to turn the keys

over to his successor, Alo isus Lesu Tokan. Alm ost all of the Du tch missionar-

ies were interned, but the Bishop of the Lesser Sundas, stationed in Flores,

although a Dutch citizen (which is wh y he was not interned wh en the D utch

roun ded up the German priests), was not because he was born a German a ndhad the sympathies of the Japanese commander of Flores, Tasuku Sato, and

the Bishops of Hiroshima, Msgr Ogihara, and Nagasaki, Msgr Yamaguchi,

who w ere sent to Flores.4 Buang Du ran's closing of the church may have had

som ething to do with the anti-Catholic attitud es of the first Japanese a utho ri-

ties on Flores, bu t the hostile policy to Rom an C atholicism c hanged with the

arrival of the new comm ander and the two Japanese bishops. Bishop Leven

use d the good offices of the Muslim Raja of Adonara , Bapa Nuhur, to retrieve

the church keys. He sent the first Indonesian to be ordained a priest in the

Flores area, Pater Manek, to Witihama to see that the keys were given toGuru Lesu Tokan (Leven n.d.:69; Sato 1962:50-68; Webb 1986b:88-94).

4 This bishop, H enricus Leven, according to Piskaty (1963:56) was not interned, at least ini-tially, because he was over sixty years of age. See Piskaty (1963:53-65) also for a general accountof the effects of World War II on the mission.




Buang Duran went to Semarang, Java, where he worked for Sebono, a

Japanese agency which bartered Japanese goods with the population. Therehe came into contact with PKI cadre, who seem to have influenced his politi-

cal views. He and his two wives officially converted to Islam there (the sec-

ond wife reconverted to Roman Catholicism after his death). He returned to

Witihama in 1945, where together with around fifty other people he formed

the Kumpulan Indonesia Merdeka (KIM, Free Indonesia Association). This

group refused to pay taxes. Because of its activities, the Dutch, who had

returned to power in eastern Indonesia, arrested him in June 1946 and sen-

tenced him to six months' prison (see also Reksodihardjo 1971, 1:35). After

his release in December 1946, he started the Persatuan Kaum Tani Indonesiain Witihama, with a membership of 700, a leadership of 13 and himself as the

principal leader. It had a Marxist ideology5

and its goals were political, eco-

nomic, social and cultural freedom. On 16 November 1947, the Dutch cap-

tured him and several other leaders and sentenced him to four years' prison.

While he was in prison, the PKTI continued to grow. He was still in prison on

27 December 1949, the day the sovereignty of the United States of Indonesia

was officially recognized. On that day he requested permission to speak to

the Raja of Adonara, Bapa Kaja. His request was granted, and he told Bapa

Kaja that with the granting of sovereignty, the aims of the PKTI had beenachieved and that the organization stood behind the Republik Indonesia

Serikat (RIS, United States of Indonesia). He requested, and was granted,

permission to correspond with the leadership of the PKTI. The government

finally freed him on 17 August 1950 - Indonesian independence day.

The PKTI was exceptional in being a Marxist party directed specifically

at peasants. The Indonesian Communist Party, on the other hand, was slow

to get involved with them.

During the [Indonesian] revolution PKI largely ignored the peasantry. Then, inAugust 1948, the Politbureau admitted past errors and declared that 'without the

active support of the peasants, the national revolution will certainly be defeated'.

One of the main tasks of the Fifth National Congress scheduled for October 1948

was to formulate an agrarian program that could unite the poor, small, and medi-

um peasants with the workers, that is, with the Party. The congress was not held

nor the program formulated because in September the Madiun rebellion broke

out and in December the Dutch launched their second attack on the Republic.

For almost five years after Madiun the PKI leaders devoted their resources to

reconstructing and expanding support in towns and in the trade-unions. Some

work was devoted in analyzing rural conditions, but it was not translated into

practical action. This phase came to an end in July 1953 when Aidit [head of the

party] published an article which turned the major focus of Party activity onto the

rural areas. (Hindley 1964:161.)

5So I was told by a retired head of the local parliament who was in the public service at the

time and who comes from Witihama.



6 R.H. Barnes

By then, however, the PKTI was finished.The M adiu n affair wa s a pre m ature

attempt by communists in September 1948 to take over the government inMadiun, eastern Java, and on Soekarno's orders was put down by the revo-

lut ionary arm y (Brackman 1963:80-101; Ricklefs 1981:216-7). This event led

to executions of the PKI leadership, large-scale arrests and purging of PKI

members from the armed forces (Hindley 1964:20). The PKI was thus seri-

ously w eaken ed as a national force d uring the years of the PKTI uprising.6

The only substantial written source on Buang Duran and the PKTI is a

journalistic account by Abdul Hakim, who accompanied a group led by the

Minister for Education and Culture in the first Ali Sastroamidjojo cabinet,

Muhammad Yamin, which paid a lightning visit to the Lesser Sunda s between24 January and 2 February 1954. Much of the information that follows comes

from that book . The section which pertain s to the PKTI is taken from a report

written by J.B. Tuhumela Maspeitella, the local head of government (Kepala

Pemerintah Setempat) in Larantuka, Flores, dated 1 February 19527 Abdul

Hakim, who knew none of the principals, has simply put the official report

based on the trial records into readable prose. This book is well known in

Witihama, and a copy wa s supplied to me by a friend who comes from there.

Of course the original report is not sympathetic to Buang Duran. My friend

Syafrudin Sabon, whose father (Wahid Beda Kei) and brother (Lebu) werekilled in the massacres of 1966, remarked that the book by Abdul Hakim is

subjective and that we should strive to be objective. In any case, he said, we

should not judge the past by the standards of our own times. This last com-

ment of course is correct, but it should not be thought that there were no

relevant standards in the past.

In the six months following his release, Buang Duran boosted the mem-

bership of the PKTI to 1,265. The territorial commander in Ende, Flores,

Lieutenant Kustoro, believed in him and made him assistant to the territo-

rial staff of Ende. As such, he was charged with writing a report on govern-ment and society and elements that were regarded as still being colonialist

in orientation. At that time there were two groups which were opposed

to the PKTI on Adonara. These were the Perkumpulan Santo Josup (Saint

Joseph Group) led by Buang Duran's rival Guru Lesu Tokan,8

a cooperative

6 For more information concerning PKI relationships with and control over other peasantorganizations, see H indley (1964:165-70).7 I have been unable to obtain a copy of the original report.8 There may a ppear to be some irony in the fact that Buang D uran 's father and h is rival borethe same nam e. In fact, nam es are frequently reused, and there may at any time be several peo-ple bearing the same n am e. Both Lesu Tokans belonged to the clan Lama Tokan, but to separatebranches of that clan. Buang D uran and his father belonged to the section which no w calls itselfGoran Tokan. The teacher Aloisus Lesu Tokan belonged to the Bunga Lolon section. WhereasBuang Duran and his father came from Witihama, Aloisus L£su Tokan came from the village ofSukutokan, which is part of the village complex Hinga.



Fransiskus/Usm an Buang Duran : Catholic, Mu slim, Com munist 7

work unit that manufactured roof tiles, bricks and salt at Waiwuring, and

the Perkumpulan Bapa Tani (Father Peasant Group) led by Buang Duran'sclose relative and rival Kelake Kei, head of Witihama and Buang Duran's

father's father's brother's son. There was another head of a village complex

who opposed Buang Duran, namely K opong Belolong of Lamabung a, w hich

is situated to the no rth of Witihama. Kopong Belolong m arried Kelake Kei's

sister and thus was Buang Duran's father's father's brother's daughter's

husband. Between these two forces a cold war developed. The PKTI called

the Santo Josup and Bapa Tani groups reactionary. In his report to Lieutenant

Kustoro, Buang Duran named Lesu Tokan and Kelake Kei as elements who

still had colonialist orientations. For their part the Santo Josup and BapaTani groups were aggressively opposed to the PKTI and accused it of being

com mu nist. On 2 January 1951, Buang D uran received news from someo ne

named Dula, from Honi Hama (now a constituent village of Witihama), that

the people of Honi Ha ma w ho w ere not mem bers of the PKTI, .together with

members of the Santo Josup and Bapa Tani, were going to surround Buang

Du ran's house and kidnap him. This news triggered the hot war, because the

next day Buang Duran left Witihama to go to Lamaloga, now a constituent

village of Witihama near Lamabunga, and built defensive entrenchments

there. He formed a guerrilla band of a hundred and twenty PKTI membersfrom Lamaloga and Lewopulo, a nearby village. Two days later he learned

that his opponents had in fact come to his house in Witihama, but had done

nothing because it w as so well defended by the PKTI.

He gathered the PKTI leadership and their families at Lamaloga. They

planned to kidnap Kelake Kei, Aloisus Lesu Tokan, Kopong Belolong, and

officials of Witihama and Lam abung a w ho w ere regarded as being reactionary

and then to kill Kelake Kei, Aloisus Lesu Tokan and Kopong Belolong. Then

the members of the PKTI would go to Waiwerang (the seat of government

on Adonara) and the village of Adonara (where the acting Raja lived) andkidnap all the government officials there. All stores in Witihama, Waiwerang

and Sagu would be plundered. If any police were sent to Adonara, the PKTI

mem bers were to disarm them. After this program was ad opted, all memb ers

of the PKTI were told to carry some sort of weapon (field knives, spears,

bow s and arrows) w hen out of the house. On 8 January 1951 the Government

Assistant (asisten bestur) and K apitan of Adonara, Muh am m ad Eke, together

with some armed police held a meeting with Buang Duran as head of the

PKTI, Lesu Tokan as head of the Santo Josup grou p, and Kelake Kei as head

of the Bapa Tani group in order to try to make peace. Also present was WahidBeda Kei (also called Wahid Beda Kia), stepb rother of Kelake Kei and father

of Syafrudin Sabon, as head of the Persatuan Serikat Islam Indonesia (PSII,

Association of the Indonesian Islamic Union). Wahid Beda Kei was later

accused of being a communist and killed in 1966.



Lamaloga «

Lewopulo •

Lamablawa •

Hinga • Werangere * Honi/lam a

Map 2. Adonara




The two sides ignored the Government Assistant's efforts. Instead, Buang

Duran expressed his regrets to his followers that he had not had an oppor-

tunity to seize the weapons of the police who had been there. However,

they made plans to do so in future. One PKTI branch leader asked, 'What

happens if the police shoot?' Buang Duran answered, 'No, the police are

not going to shoot. At the most they will just shoot in the air.' In order to

capture the arms of the police in Waiwerang, thirty PKTI members armed

with field knives were then ordered to go there under the leadership of Lebu

Djawa, a distant relative of Buang Duran and former member of the Dutch

East Indies army, who claimed he could do this. On learning that the police

were at Sagu, they went there. However Lebu Djawa and his group were

obliged to return to Lamaloga and report to Buang Duran that they had

been unsuccessful because of the strength of the resistance offered by the

police, who because of the heat of the situation had been prepared. Enquiries

by Buang Duran showed that Kelake Kei and his Bapa Tani in Witihama

and Kopong Belolong in Lamabunga had made preparations and had been

strengthened by the police. Because, in Buang Duran's view, the government

had supported reactionary elements, the struggle would now have to focus

on the representatives of power. A demonstration of strength was planned,

with the slogans 'Down with the government' and 'The people are united

and struggle for our, the people's, freedom'. However, this demonstration

did not take place, because the Bapa Tani and Santo Josup groups said they

would attack it if it did. Two days later, on 12 January 1951, as the situation

became more critical, the Government Assistant and Kapitan of Adonara

summoned Buang Duran and proposed that he send all members of the PKTI

at Lamaloga back to their villages. Buang Duran promised to do so as soon

as one more ceremony exclusively for PKTI members was over. At the same

time, Kelake Kei and the head of Hinga, Borok Kerama, showed themselves

to be opposed to receiving the returning PKTI members who had gathered at

Lamaloga. The Government Assistant tried to coax them into desisting, but

they paid no attention. Returning from the meeting with the Government

Assistant, Buang Duran formed an army at Lamaloga named the Tentara

Liar Adonara (Wild Army of Adonara). Three hundred and fifty PKTI mem-

bers gathered at Lamaloga in order to erect a large building to serve as a

barracks for this Tentara Liar Adonara, and while it was being built, guards

armed with field knives, spears and bows and arrows were set up in eight

places. Buang Duran made himself general of the Tentara Liar Adonara. Bapa

Duli became his assistant, and Pakrudin Sengaji a battalion leader. On 14

January 1951 Buang Duran officially established the Tentara Liar Adonara at

Lamaloga - this being the one more ceremony he had referred to. In this cer-

emony he clarified the responsibilities of each head of troops, head of a pla-

toon, and member with regard to the forceful actions soon to be taken against



10 R-H. Barnes

local officials and elements regarded as reactionary. According to charges by

certain civil servants, Buang Duran also explained that he intended to raisethe com mu nist flag and tear up the Indonesian flag together w ith the picture

of Soekarno. Battalion commander Pakrudin Sengaji and his troops were

ordered to make defensive excavations at a mountain named Koraba, a stra-tegic location w ith com manding views. Lebu Djawa, who also became a head

of troops - which w ere ordered to mak e defensive excavations at Wulou wu n

because they would be able to watch people entering and leaving Witihama

and surroundings from there - was also ordered to burn down the two vil-

lages Balawelin and Lewokamie, as well as Kelake Kei's granaries and the

store belonging to Santo Josup.There were accusations that Lebu Djawa was ordered to kill Kelake Kei,

Aloisus Lesu Tokan and Kopong Belolong and burn houses in Lamabunga.

Officials in Waiwerang should be captured, but must not be killed. Insteadthey were to be brought to the headquarters of the Tentara Liar Adonara at

Lembah Uka, a location chosen because it was well hidden. (I was told that

one of the people Buang D uran tried to kill was Van der H ulst, wh o w as pro-

tected however by my source's grandfather.) Umar Bao (a Bajau Laut from

the village of Meko) was also made head of troops and given seven bombs

(that is, dynamite used for bombing fish). The troop leaders left on the nightof 15 December. In a letter Buang Duran ordered PKTI leaders on Lembata

to do likewise.

According to Wertenbroek, Buang Du ran told his followers that the end of

time w as coming and that a great ship wou ld come, bringing food and we ap-

ons for the chosen in order to help them gain power and establish a Utopia.

Thus they did not need to prepare fields on which to plant maize, like theothers, as everything would come with the ship. Many believed him. They

made no fields and laughed at those who did, since it was not necessary.

They sold their tools, which were also not necessary. However, the harvestwas poor that year, and hunger threatened even those who planted fields.

Especially those waiting for the ship faced hunger and were in their turnridiculed. The others gave them nothing to eat. 'We worked', they said, 'but

you had your ship!' Some of the PKTI members responded by plundering

and burning down granaries.9

On 16 January 1951 the Government A ssistant

9Webb (1986b:156) describes a similar cargo cult on Solor involving members of the PKI in

1965, as follows: 'Again on the island of Solor, off the coast of East Flores, in early 1965, there

were a few local "communists" who spread their own brand of communism. Those Catholicswho would not contribute to the new mosque were severely beaten, the reason given being thatunder communism everyone must help each other. The communists were of course Catholics,and at the same time they loud ly proclaimed that when the PKI took over, there would b e foodfor all. It was maintained that a "great ship" [...] would also arrive with goods and food foreveryone.'




and Kapitan of Adonara again met Buang Duran at Lamaloga and ordered

him and Pakrudin Sengaji and three others - Ibrahim Siku (of the village ofLamablawa), Abubakar Olabala (of the village of Weranggere) and Hasan

Heku Mean (of the village of Pledo) - to the police station in Larantuka,

Flores. They were called to Larantuka in order to be arrested and handed

over to the judge at Waiwerang to be tried. Buang Duran and his friends

were taken to Larantuka because there was no place considered safe to con-

tain them in Waiwerang. But the jail there was already full, so that with the

agreement and on the responsibility of the head of police they were placed

in the police barracks. On 1 May 1951 army troops, the Red Bulls (Banteng

Merah), from Java arrived and took over the police barracks.

10

The policemoved elsewhere, but since there was nowhere to move the prisoners, they

were left where they were and placed in the hands of the army.

Before they left for Larantuka, Buang Duran had ordered the PKTI leaders

below him to be vigilant and, if attacked, to act on their own initiative. While

he was under arrest, he received visitors and maintained contact with mem-

bers of the PKTI. He passed on the word that, as long as he was in jail, the

leadership was transferred to Samsudin Muring (of the village of Lamaloga).

His instructions to them were: 1. to advance the PKTI and eliminate those

who tried to interfere with it; 2. to keep functionaries in the government ofthe rajadoms of Larantuka and Adonara who still had colonialist orienta-

tions under close watch and take action against them; 3. in case of conflict,

all members of the PKTI were to gather at Lamaloga, Nereng (in Lembata,

at the western end of the peninsula opposite Witihama) and Pulau Ipet (a

small island near the Bajau Laut village of Meko on the northeast coast of

Adonara); 4. in the event of conflict with the police and army, not just to

defend the PKTI, but to take their weapons; 5. in order to avoid hunger, to

use those weapons to steal food from the stores in the rajadoms of Larantuka

and Adonara; 6. all PKTI members were to wear a uniform consisting of ablue shirt and trousers and a red scarf; and 7. once they had seized the arms

of the police and army, that is, when all of Larantuka and Adonara was in

10Professor Anthony Reid has kindly provided the following clarification of the Banteng

Merah from an anonymous and secret docum ent, IC 059401, dated perhaps 1946, in the Neder-lands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie, Amsterdam. According to this document, the

Banteng M erah, like the Banteng Hitam (Black Bulls), Kipas Hitam (Black Fans) and N aga Hitam(Black Dragons), was a derivative of the Japanese-sponsored 'black dragon society' inspired

by Shimizu, Kaneko and Yoshizumi. 'This society was meant to sustain a guerrilla war in Javaafter the expected Allied reconquest. Soon after th e indepen dence proclamation Banteng M erahbegan to be reported as the most left-wing of the groups forming out of the Japanese parent,with careful selection of its leadership. Some considered it a front for the PKI. It [was] often in

rivalry w ith the Soekarnoist Banteng Hitam, thoug h in some places the two [...] merged to formPelopor Banteng. The symbol of the Banteng Merah [was] a red bull's head with a white neck.In West Java it [was] the stronger of the two groups.'



12 R.H. Barnes

their power, to offer resistance to the general government, which the PKTI no

longer agreed with. Once Samsudin Muring received these instructions, hewa s to pass them on to the assistant leader, Um ar Bao, w ho sh ould p ass them

on to the PKTI members. Buang Duran was given considerable freedom of

movement during this period. He often left prison and visited several vil-

lages in Larantuka and one night met members of the PKTI from Adonara

and Lembata. There was a prisoner wh o w as a mem ber of the PKTI, name d

Ahmad Boro Ama (Mat Boro), who not only was permitted to go in and out

of prison, but also was allowed to visit villages on Adonara and Lembata

accompanied by a member of the army.

On several such visits Umar Bao and Ahmad Boro Ama passed on BuangD uran 's instructions to the PKTI leadership. Because they w ere accompanied

by a soldier, the po pula tion got the impression that the PKTI wa s a branch of

the army, and thus its membership grew. At the beginning of October 1951

the soldier went again to Lamaloga and Lembata together with Ahmad Boro

Am a and Um ar Bao. On their return trip they were obstructed by oppon ents

of the PKTI in Balauring, Lem bata. Ah mad Boro Am a then p arted with U mar

Bao. The soldier and Ahm ad Boro Am a returne d to Larantuka and U mar Bao

went to Lamaloga. It should be said that, when they parted with the soldier,

Umar Bao was able to persuade him to give him his pistol, a Lee Enfield,which in Lamaloga he gave to Samsudin Muring. A meeting in Lamaloga

decided to stage a revolt according to Buang Duran's instructions, and the

members were instructed from then on to go armed with field knives, spears

and bows and arrows.

The revolt took place on 27 October 1951. The Go vernm ent A ssistant at

Waiwerang at 7.30 in the morning received the news from the head of the

District of Lewotolo on Lem bata that m em bers of the PKTI had killed seven

people they regarded as anti-PKTI. This news was forwarded to Larantuka

with a request for assistance. At 9.30 the G overnm ent A ssistant received m orenews, this time by telephone from Hinga, that four people regarded as reac-

tionaries had been killed by the PKTI. He w ent to Hinga in a jeep together with

the Kapitan of Ad onara and six policemen. There the corpses were spread on

the ground, but the PKTI had disappeared. They were said to have gathered

at Lamaloga. To calm the situation, the Government Assistant's group tried

to contact the rebels at Lamaloga by waving their hands as an invitation to

a meeting, but the rebels refused this. To avoid bloodshed, the Government

Assistant and his group returned to Waiwerang. Reaching Lewopulo, they

heard the shouts of people fighting. Spears were flying back and forth to theaccompaniment of the sounds of explosives thrown by PKTI members. The

PKTI was said to have cap tured 28 people. When the Government Assistant's

group reached Waiwerang, reinforcements had already arrived on the mis-




sion ship Arnoldus from Larantuka. The Arnoldus returned to Larantuka to

bring further reinforcements.11

In reaction, the anti-PKTI population attacked the PKTI at Lamaloga at 3

p.m. the following day, with the result that three people were killed.12

Police

and soldiers who came to separate and pacify them were met with a shower

of arrows and spears from the PKTI. At that time the Lee Enfield pistol which

the PKTI had got from Umar Bao was used to shoot and kill the village head

of Hinga, Boro Kerama. Seeing this, the police and soldiers opened fire, kill-

ing four of the rebels and causing the Lamaloga PKTI to surrender. The PKTI

members were taken to Waiwerang and the houses of members in Lamaloga

were burned by anti-PKTI people from Lamaloga. During the night between2 and 3 November, according to Wertenbroek, the first prisoners were taken

by boat to Larantuka, and the next morning he had twenty-five wounded

prisoners in his clinic. There were no bullet wounds, but only spear and

arrow wounds, as well as wounds from homemade hand grenades - milk

cans filled with nails, broken glass and powder, which were used illegally for

fishing. Some of the prisoners had been injured by their own bombs, causing

terrible wounds.

Also on 27 October 1951, a PKTI member killed a person whom he had

tried to force to join the PKTI, but who had refused, in the village of Lamanele

in southeast Adonara. This incident angered the village inhabitants, so that

several days later they killed 96 PKTI members, including women and chil-

dren.13

At Meko, PKTI members made preparations, but there were no kill-

ings. On Lembata, Umar Bao, who assumed leadership there, destroyed the

telephone line at Waipukan, south of the Lewotolo volcano, and threw a fish

bomb into the house of the Kapitan of the district of Lewotolo, wounding

11In his diary, Wertenbroek also m entions the u se of the Arnoldus to carry troops and supplies

at this time. Hecommented that no one in Larantuka quite knew what was going on and thatthere was increasing nervousness. It was thought that a communist revolution had broken out

under the PKTI, but n o one seemed to know wha t the letters PKTI stood for. Some believed theymeant Partai Komunis Timur Indonesia (Communist Party of East Indonesia), and others PartaiKomunis Tentara Indonesia (Militia of the Indonesian Communist Party, or perhaps better,Indonesian Militia of the Communist Party). Others again held that the PKTI had nothing to do

with communism, but that Partai Kaum Tani Indonesia (Indonesian Pe asants' Party) was mean t.All of the three guesses were wrong, of course, although the last came close to being right (seenote 21). Because they were afraid and felt threatened by something they did not understand,most held it to be a communist uprising.12

I have been told, however, that Lewopulo was attacked at 5 p.m. on 19 October, and

Lamaloga at 6 a.m. on20 October.13Wertenbroek says that the village of Lamanele was completely wiped out by opponents of

the PKTI. Van der Hulst told him that he had buried ninety, but for some of them had had to

bring the pieces together - they w ere literally cut to pieces. There is a discrepancy between thesetwo accounts. I assume that part of the population of Lamanele was killed by other inhabitantsof the village, and perhaps by that of neighbouring villages aswell. As W ertenbroek says, evenfirst-hand reports w ere contradictory.



14 R.H. Barnes

him. Next the PKTI supporters gathered at Nereng to defend themselves. In

response to the w ou nd ing of the Kapitan of Lewotolo, all anti-PKTI m em bersof the village gathered the next day to attack the PKTI sup porte rs, but in that

fight six of the attackers were killed. Later, five policemen from Waipukan

moved to Nereng, but PKTI members threw fish bombs at them. Seeing that

the strength of the PKTI resistance was about 500 to 1,000, the police o rdered

the villagers trying to attack them to retreat and them selves ma de an orderly

retreat w hile firing into the air. On 29 October the same patro l, reinforced by

five policemen from Balauring, returned to Nereng and sent a letter to the

PKTI group requesting them to stop fighting. In response they attacked the

police. This time, too, the police retreated to Waipukan while firing into theair. The next day anoth er pa trol, consisting of thirty policemen and soldiers,

wa s sent to Nereng. Their shots killed 10 rebels and w ou nd ed 15. There is no

information as to wh ether there were any casualties among the patrol, which,

however, was forced to retreat first to Waiwerang a nd then to La rantuka.

The local officials then decided to defeat the rebels by means of a trick.

Th us the head of police in La rantuka, Sulem, left for Lem bata on 6November

1951, taking with him the PKTI leaders Buang Duran, Pakrudin Sengaji and

Lebu Djawa. Buang Duran w as told to write a letter ordering the PKTI mem -

bers in Nereng to surrender. Then Pakrudin Sengaji, Lebu Djawa and theregional police chief Sulem as envoys took the letter to the PKTI in Nereng.

This ruse was successful, and the around 1,500 PKTI members obeyed and

surrendered. They were taken to Waipukan and from there in groups to

Waiwerang to be examined. Those thought to be responsible were arrested

and those believed to be just followers w ere protected, because it w as feared

that non-PKTI villagers wo uld take revenge on them . On 13 No vem ber 1951

arou nd 2,000 people of Meko ga thered at Pulau Ipet, but they finally surren-

dered and w ere taken to Waiwerang.14

On 28 November 1951 several PKTI leaders imprisoned in the barracksin Larantuka were busy preparing from 6 a.m. on. Umar Bao gave various

instructions to his PKTI cellmates. One of these wa s that, wh en they should

hear a certain pre-arranged signal, they should quickly and neatly knock

in the front and back doors of the room and seize the officers' weapons. In

addition, if they captured the officers, they should attack the troops in the

barracks. Later they should attack the defences of the rest of the army, and

following that the clerks of the mission, the Raja of Larantuka and his clerks,

14During the period of the Lamaloga and Nereng insurrection, two whaling boats from

Lamalera, Lembata, travelling to M aumere, Flores, for the ordin ation of Alex Beding w ere heldup by soldiers at Larantuka on suspicion of involvem ent. Fortunately, the Raja of Larantuka andFather Bruno Pehl, then stationed in Lamalera, arrived by ship in time to vouch for them . Whilethese vessels were in Larantuka, the soldiers captured a Bajau Laut boat carrying weapons thatwere tied up and hidden in a sail.




and the police barracks. They should collect food from the stores. As leaders

of this mission five men were chosen, who swore an oath in front of UmarBao and the other prisoners. After this conference, these five approached the

front door but retreated, because they were forced back by the police. The

next morning they held another similar meeting. At this meeting Umar Bao

said, 'What we are going to do is no game. Therefore, whoever is still uncer-

tain, admit it and that person will be permitted not to take part.' Because

everyone stated he would take part, Umar Bao said, 'Our preparations must

be ready by 7 a.m.'. He then said that he himself would open the front door,

which he claimed could easily be done. He would do this while the soldiers

were busy with the roll call, and soon after that he would give the signal towork together. The forcing open of the back door would be the responsibil-

ity of someone named Sukur. Those prisoners who did not possess weapons

should use anything they could lay hands on, such as sticks or stones.

They carried out their plan and before long the front and back doors were

forced. In the main street of Larantuka people could be seen running in all

directions. Two policemen and a soldier lay on the ground covered with

blood, and the doctor (Wertenbroek) who tried to give them first aid found

that they were already dead. Larantuka soon fell into chaos. Offices were

closed and many people fled. However, the rebels ultimately did not succeed,and two days later the leaders of the breakout - Umar Bao, Samsudin Muring

(the elder brother of one of my sources), Nurdin Kopong (actually Ibrahim

Kopong Medan of the village of Balawelin) and Amarullah (of the village of

Lewotolok, in Lembata) - were shot dead.

Buang Duran was charged with sedition with the aim of overthrowing the

government of Indonesia and in March 1954 was sentenced by the national

court in Ende, Flores, to eighteen years' imprisonment in Madura. In addition

he was sentenced to removal of the right to vote or to be elected for a period

of five years after leaving prison. The prosecutor had requested a sentenceof twenty years. The trial was fairly quick, because the accused admitted all

the charges against him. According to these charges, the revolt was to have

begun in Adonara, Larantuka, Manggarai, and Ende and spread throughout

the whole of Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sundas) and beyond.

Buang Duran claimed that the PKTI revolt had taken place because there

had been no freedom on Flores. There was no difference between colonial

Flores and independent Flores, he said. Asked by the judge if he had no

regrets about his actions, he answered, 'No, what I regret is that my ideals

have not been achieved'. The judge then asked, 'What do you think now that

it is obvious that you will not achieve your aims?' Buang Duran answered

defiantly, 'If I live long enough, I will continue this struggle'. The court also

passed sentence on twenty people who had taken part in the prison revolt

that had led to the deaths of two policemen. They all pleaded guilty and were



16 R.H. Barnes

given sentences of between five and nine years' imprisonment. In addition

the national court of Ende, at its session in Larantuka, considered the case ofthree people from Oka, Larantuka, who had cut the telephone wires so that

the national forces could not ask for help or give reports during the revolt.

Three of the accused, Hasan Kenori, Ahmad Raja Kabesa and Abdullah

Hasan, were sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment. Abdullah

Hasan was also sentenced to five years in prison because he had illegally

stored grenades and bombs with the intent of using them in the revolt. In

addition, these three were sentenced to eight years in prison for aggravated

assault resulting in the death of a woman in the village of Tuak Wurun,

Lembata, because she had opposed the PKTI (Hakim 1961:57-75).One former PKTI member described to me the conditions he had lived

in whe n in prison for tw o years for his role in the revolt. He h ad been in his

twenties at the time. The Banteng Merah had rounded him and his comrades

up. There wa s no way to avoid arrest and flee into the hills, because they w ere

surrounded by a hostile population. While they were being marched out of

Witihama, people shouted abuse and insults at them. Some ridiculed them by

telling them to buy a car, a ship, or an airplane . Passing throu gh W aiwerang,

they were forced to run a gauntlet - literally run , for they w ere being beaten

by bystanders. When they arrived at the place of detention, the legs of theirtrousers were ripp ed to shreds. Mat Boro (Ahmad Boro Am a, also know n as

Ah m ad Boro Tura), Buang Duran 's father's father's b rothe r's son's son, was

beaten almost to death in Waiwerang. He and others were beaten with rifle

butts until they collapsed, then revived, and then were beaten again. Finally

those still alive were taken to the hospital an d later broug ht back.

The prisoners were taken by boat to Larantuka. They were put in

two boats, a government motorboat and a perahu towed along behind it.

Eventually they were divided into two groups. One group, which evidently

received far better treatment, was sent to Ende. The others were imprisonedin Larantuka. They w ere taken five at a time an d told to strip to their und er-

wear. They had to do so quickly, otherwise they w ere beaten w ith a s tingray's

tail, which was extremely painful. Then they were put into a room, the door

of which was blocked with a large Dutch anchor. The only other way in or

out wa s thoug h a small window. They w ere left in filthy conditions wearing

only their underwear for several months.

After that period Buang Duran, who was detained in a dormitory with

his third wife, Tupat, but was allowed considerable freedom of movement,

came and gave them some clothing. They were extremely happy to see him.He told them not to give or trade what they had received to or with anyoneelse, as that was antisocial. They must wear what they were given: sama rata

sama rasa. At one point when the prisoners were let out to bathe they beat

up a policeman. They managed to get hold of two weapons. Buang Duran




told them not to worry, nothing was going to happen to them. That night

the army or the police shot seven people. Of these, six died, while Mat Borosurvived. The soldiers told them, 'Brothers, do not be frightened, we are

just shooting in the air'. The next morning, four more were shot - Kopong

Medan from Balawelin, Sabo Huna and Marula Peqan of Lewotolok, and

Umar Mengeta from Meko. Of the 500 to 600 people imprisoned, more than

70 are said to have died.

Wertenbroek describes this incident from his perspective as well. He says

that there were thousands of prisoners, some in Waiwerang and some in

Larantuka. In Larantuka the prisoners were taken to bathe in the sea under

police supervision. Most of them were Bajau Laut from Meko. The sheernumbers of prisoners posed a problem, because there was barely sufficient

accommodation, let alone food, in a country where everyone had too little.

One day the prisoners broke out while returning from the shore guarded by

four policemen. Wertenbroek says that he heard a great commotion from the

nearby jail while he was working in the hospital. Then he heard some shots.

A nervous policeman called him to help the wounded. He found four police-

men severely injured by stones. He was later told that, while the prisoners

were bathing, the police had cursed them and called them animals. One of

the policemen had succeeded in escaping and firing a warning shot. The pris-oners then quickly returned to the prison and sat behind closed doors with

four weapons. The four policemen were taken by stretcher to Wertenbroek's

operating room. Two had light concussions and head wounds and were soon

taken care of. Another had ugly head wounds and gradually lost conscious-

ness, and a few days later died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Wertenbroek spent

hours operating on the fourth, but this patient also died after the operation.

Panic broke out in Larantuka. There were rumours circulating that the

prisoners would break out and burn down the whole town. Reportedly pam-

phlets had been circulated calling on people to disarm the police, use their

weapons to occupy the military barracks, take officials prisoner, and plunder

the Chinese. People began to flee, including the Raja of Larantuka, who took

his whole family to safety on the other side of Mount Mandiri. The army took

over the guard of the jail. The inspector of police and the policemen brought

in as reinforcements from elsewhere then left Larantuka, giving rise to more

panic. One evening as Wertenbroek was returning from treating a Chinese

patient, a member of the local council walked up behind him, told him to not

to look round, and said that there would be a breakout later that night, the

news of which he had from a reliable source. The prisoners intended to mur-

der the Raja, while Wertenbroek was also on their list. Around 1 a.m. gun-

shots were heard. Wertenbroek then went to inspect his hospital. Soon after

that a dead soldier with a stab wound in the chest was brought in. The army

commander told him that the PKTI leaders, who were kept not in the jail but



18 R-H. Barnes

in a shed in the barracks, had broken out. Several of the escapees had been

killed, others wounded, and others were still at large. A general search onland and at sea was underway. The dead soldier had been killed by another

soldier, who had mistaken him for an escapee. Wertenbroek asked if he could

help the wounded, but the commander answered that there were none. He

then realized that the wo un ded h ad been killed. The next morning four of the

escapees were captured. These were the leaders who had given the instruc-

tion to break out. They were shot on the beach and their bodies left there

for the rest of the day as a warning. Wertenbroek implies that Buang Duran

wa s am ong them , but of course he was n ot killed then. The jail was streng th-

ened with barbed wire and heavy chains on the doors against a breakout.Gradually the other escapees were brought back, many of them wo unde d.

15

15Reksodihardjo's summary (1971, 11:102-4) of these events is as follows: 'There were still

no signs of disturbances [after Buang Duran's release from prison in 1950] until they [the PKTI]began to act in a manner which, for that area, was considered strange and provoked the angerof the people. That is, they no longer paid attention to religion. Those who were formerlyCatholics, like Buang Duran, abandoned their religious ties. The Islamic element among themalso no longer performed their religious duties, but on the contrary violated them, and turned

their mosque into a goat-pen. But their efforts to wear mo dern clothing and k eeping thing s cleanwere unchanged. Buang Duran then turned to dictatorial methods and employed a system ofthreats to increase membership. The people outside the PKTI formed associations such as "ThePeasants' Union" (for the Muslims) and "St. Joseph" (for the Catholics), which Buang Duranand his PKTI regarded as enemies (com petition, sabo tage, etc.). Then at the end of 1950 the PKTIdecided to take illegal action against the persons of the leaders of "The P easants' Un ion" an d "St.Joseph". The local adm inistration and the Police were informed of this, so that arrests were mad ebefore any thing h app ene d. This caused the PKTI to feel more dissatisfied, especially tow ards thePolice. Some mem bers of the PKTI planned to take arms from the police, and then use them toforce their oppo nents to do their will. This plan also w as defeated by the action of the Police andthe regional governm ent. A feud seemed to have arisen between the PKTI and the Police. At theend of 1951 open oppo sition to the Police broke ou t. Many inhab itants of the villages of Lau pau[Lewopau], Lamahala, Labala, Loga, Nereng, Waiwuring and vicinity were forced to becomefollowers of the PKTI, because of threats of force. A fight also broke out between PKTI captivesand the Police in Larantuka, where two mem bers of the Police were killed. At the army barracksof Larantuka there were also PKTI detainees, who rebelled and succeeded in killing a soldier.Many of the people in the villages mentioned above were killed as a result of the cruelty of thePKTI. Later they [Bajau Lau t] set up their head qua rters on Ip et island, n orth of Ado nara, w hichwas a good location to intercept boats which regularly passed by on their way from Makasarand other places toward Kupan g or Savu, etc. A few boats from Savu were looted by the rebelsthere, and som e of their crews were killed.

Finally, [...] the rebellion was p ut dow n, and the guilty parties were tried by the State C ourt

in Ende [...].There were plans to move the former PKTI who were no t sentenced to prison to Mautenda inLio, central Flores. However, these plans came to nothing, and they were relocated to the v icinityof Lamahala, Terong, and the village of Adonara, where many Bajau Laut still live.

Later, at the time of the general elections in 1955, the Adonara area was visited by a PKI activ-ist from M akasar, and afterwards the report was heard that a large proportion of the former PKTImem bers joined the PKI.'




When troops of the Siliwangi division replaced the Banteng Merah, their

condition improved considerably. The Siliwangi soldiers saw how filthy theywere and ordered them to clean everything up. Before then they had been

given the water used to do the washing to drink. For food they had only had

whole maize. They had rice only on Sundays. The only meat they had was

salted fish.

Buang Duran stayed in his fortress at Lamaloga with his third wife, Tupat.

She was a member of his own descent group from the village of Watoone, so

that they violated the rule of exogamy. She was already quite old when he

married her, and she never had children. I have heard it speculated that he

married her in order that she might help him with the organization. Tupatwas treated like a princess by the PKTI women. When she was at Lewopulo,

she was surrounded by young women. When Buang Duran was in jail in

Larantuka, she used to walk through Larantuka with a young woman on

either side holding her hand. In a conversation with a man who had been

with the PKTI in Lamaloga from the beginning, he told me that he recalled one

speech in which Buang Duran told them that 'your mother is Tupat, Buang

Duran is your father. From now on your mother and father do not exist.' He

remembers his father applauding this. He said that you had to go along with

this - if not, the people in Lamaloga would have killed you. He and the others

had been so happy, he said, and he repeated the communist slogans, includ-

ing sama rata sama rasa, which seemed to mean so much to him.

A woman whose family I know well told me that the PKTI also wanted

to kill her father. They surrounded his house when he was there by himself,

but eventually went away. She said that she had then been a teacher at the

local elementary school, where all the teachers were young, single women.

They had all been frightened by rumours that the PKTI was planning to cap-

ture them all and rape them. After the collapse of the Lamaloga force, one of

these schoolteachers wrote a song mocking them, which had some currency

in Witihama. I have managed to retrieve one stanza of it.

Lima bulan yang lalu Loga kejadian

Suku merontak le

Tapi meleset karna kebodohan

Buang e mau kemana e?

Five months ago [in] Loga the incident of

Rebellion of the clans, le,

But it fell short because of stupidity,

Buang, eh, where do you want to go now, eh?

I was also introduced to a man who had been induced by the PKTI to kill his

own father before he went off to join the rebels in Lamaloga.



20 R.H. Barnes

In a martial arts contest at a festival in the village of Sandosi in September

1964 a participant from Pledo beat up his opponent. The people of Sandosiretaliated and did the same to him. Early in the morning of 16 September

1964 some people from Pledo waylaid a man named Niha from Regong at

Woka while he was on his way to market in Waiwuring on the east coast

and killed him, even though he had not participated in the contest and had

no connection with those who did. Four people then hid out for a year. The

culprits seem to have had ties with communists in Java. The suspects were

soug ht by the police, wh o que stioned one of them. He refused to confess an d

was beaten until he admitted that he had been among the killers. Hearing

that there was a confession, the others involved, who had not yet beencaught, disappeared. They entered their houses only at night and only if

there was no danger. Du ring the day and d uring nights w hen there was dan -

ger, they remained hidden in the forest. At night they would approach the

village, and relatives would bring them food. Everyone in the village under-

stood th at they were guilty. They were frequently enco untered in the fields or

on the road. Villagers wo uld address them as normal, but no one w as brave

eno ugh to report their wh ereabo uts, because they were afraid that their field

huts wo uld be burn t or their goats would be stolen in revenge.

Because of this lack of cooperation, efforts to capture them failed. Onenight the police set up an ambush with the help of the village head. They

guessed where the fugitives would be that night, and where their family

would bring them food. Around the intended time the police, accompanied

by the village head, approached the place of the rendezvous. Near a curve

in the path, they he ard voices, which su dde nly fell silent. From the d irection

of the voices came the rays of a flashlight. The police fired in the direction

of the light, which was followed by the sounds of trampling feet. The police

returned to where they were staying in Witihama and spent the night there,

coming back to investigate in the morning. They found traces of blood,which they followed. Initially the trail led in the direction of the mountain,

but eventually it turned back towards the village. They followed the trail to

a house and knocked on the door. A woman came out and they asked her

where her husband was. She replied that he was not there, but the police

noticed that the mosquito net in a bed in one of the rooms was closed. They

asked to be show n w ho w as in the bed. When the mosquito net was opened,

a man was revealed. They ordered him to get up, but he replied that he was

sick. Inspection revealed that he had bullet wounds in his thigh and hand.

He was the person who had held the flashlight on the previous night. Theinjured man disclosed the names of the people who had brought food to the

fugitives. These people were all arrested and taken to W aiwerang, where they

were tortured. However, the hunted men remained at large. No one would

risk taking them food any longer, so that they had to live by stealing food.




They constructed a cave in a hillside at a spring near Lamaloga. They

covered it with a roof of bamboo covered with earth, which they then plantedwith grass, so that it eventually blended into the hillside. Living rough as

they were, their clothes became torn and dirty, and their beards and hair

grew long and unkempt. People of Loga who went near the spring frequently

saw them and knew where they were staying, but they were not anxious to

inform the authorities. Under these conditions the fugitives managed to hold

out until October 1965.

Following the events in Jakarta of 30 September 1965, the army and police

on Adonara began rounding up members of the PKI. Once this end was

achieved, they organized the population for a manhunt for the fugitives, now

deemed to be communists. The locals finally reported where they were hid-

ing. The police and army went to the relevant area with all the males of Hinga

and Witihama early one morning, when it was believed they would still be

sleeping, although the exact location was not known for certain. According to

the available information it was just several tens of meters above the spring.

They surrounded it and searched the area carefully and quietly. Then some-

one tripped and almost fell and heard a voice in the earth shouting, 'Who is

that!' The man who had tripped shouted, 'Here they are!' Then the soldiers

ordered everyone to lie down. However, since it was still dark, there was

little they could do, and the fugitives crept out and escaped. The hunt con-

tinued through the day. The fugitives fled in the direction of Waiwuring and

then turned towards the mountain Boleng. Their intention was to hide in the

woods and ravines of the mountain and then try to cross to another island

at night, but because they were pursued by thousands of people, they were

finally caught. Two were killed by villagers. The others were protected by

relatives who had joined the hunt.

Those who were still alive were handed over to the army. The two whohad been killed were beheaded. The other remaining prisoners were forced

to carry the heads to the army post then established in Hinga. There, the ears

of those still alive were cut off, and they were forced to eat them. Under inter-

rogation they claimed that, since the killing a year ago, they had formed a

movement like the old PKTI, because they kept up contact with Buang Duran

by mail. According to a letter from Buang Duran, he intended to come back

and restart the PKTI in association with and with the help of the PKI. They

were clearly hoping that a communist revolution was about to take place,

which would have changed their situation for the better. While they were hid-ing, they raided granaries for food. They kept a list in which they wrote down

the names of the owners and the amounts of their 'donations'. This list even-

tually fell into the hands of the army, who severely beat the people on it.16

16 Much of the information about the killing of Niha and the subsequent activities of the fugi-tives comes from an unpublished manuscript by Pater Stevanus Kopong Keda Lamahoda, now

deceased (Lam ahoda n.d.). The rest is derived from conversations.



22 R.H. Barnes

When Buang Duran got out of prison, he did not seem very spirited. On

his arrival in Waiwerang, he was met by Mat Boro, who may have been senta letter. He stayed in Waiwerang for two months. He was then tortured and

taken to Larantuka, from where he was soon brough t back one night an d killedat Wai Kenaweq, on the road to Lite. Mat Boro was killed at the same time

in the same place. This incident wa s the very be ginning of the m ass killings.The boat bringing Buang Duran from Larantuka had stopped at Lohayong,

Solor, to let off six Solorese prisoners to be executed there .17

The rest had beenbrought to Waiwerang. The government ordered that the killings should take

place from 15 March until 1 May 196618

and then should stop. Over seven

hundred people were killed in Flores Timur. Thirty-three from Witihamawere slaughtered and fifty from the Muslim village of Lamahala, on thesouth coast of Adonara, which was a PKI stronghold.

19These were the high-

est numbers from any one place. The victims w ere taken in the midd le of the

nigh t to prepared graves. Their thum bs were tied together beh ind their backsand a large rope was looped a roun d their arm s to keep them together. Thirty

were killed in Labala, Lembata, among them Abdul Hadi Tuen Lamablawa,head of PKTI on Lembata. For the most part, however, PKI members were

targeted, and former PKTI members, except for the ringleade rs, wen t largely

17 According to Webb (1986a:106-7, 1986b:156), 'fifteen [...] Solor [Lohayong] C om munistswere taken to Larantuka w here they were beaten by the soldiers and then given back to the localSolor community for punishment. These Communists, or more strictly, so-called Communistswere taken to a spot near the sea not far from the old Portuguese fort, and there beheaded withparangs, the sharp bush-knives carried by almost all the islanders.'18

According to Robinson, on Bali the massacre d id not begin until Decem ber 1965 and insome regions continued until December 1966. The killings there were organized by the armyfrom 1 January 1966 on (Robinson 1995:290, 297, 300). Perhaps the discrepancy in dates betweenBali and Flores reflects a delay in the army turning its attention to eastern Indonesia. For furtherconsiderations of the events in Java and Bali see Cribb (1990).19 As with all estimates of the killings in the period 1965-67, these numbers cannot be con-firmed. Vatter mentions Lamahala as being a centre of the anti-Dutch movement and germcell of Bolshevistic propaganda already in 1928 - thus not very long after the found ing of theIndonesian Com munist Party on. 23 May 1920 (Van Niel 1970:154; Hind ley 1964:18). In fact, thegovernment forbade people from Adonara to travel to other islands for fear of their spread-ing this propaganda (Vatter 1932:158, 170). According to Hagenaar (1934:122-3), people fromLamahala in 1928 organized a Red Union (Sarikat Merah) under the leadership of Kian Kelakeof Lamahala. There appears to have been a connection to Makassar. In the district of Boleng,where Lamahala influence was and is strong, this union won 800 members. Their aim was toarm themselves at a place near W aiwerang and drive out the army. The Dutch first arrested fourleaders, all from Makassar, at Larantuka and then the others. After that the movem ent was easilysuppre ssed. Van Niel (1970:233) estimates that there w ere arou nd 3,000 Indonesian comm unistsin 1926. There were disorganized comm unist up risings in Java in 1926 and Sumatra in 1927 (VanNiel 1970:231-2; Schrieke 1955:87). For a discussion of the backgro und of the Sarikat M erah seeDietrich (1989:234-6). Reksodihardjo (1971, 1:35) says that before World War II several peoplefrom Adonara, Lembata and Alor were sent to the Boven Digul prison camp in New Guinea oncharges of membership of the communist party.



Fransiskus/Usman Buang Duran: Catholic, Muslim, Communist' 23

unscathed. As happened elsewhere in Indonesia, however, people who

bore a grudge against a particular person who was in fact innocent of com-munist connections sometimes sent letters saying that this person did have

such connections in order to get him or her into trouble. The suspects were

divided into categories A, B, and C. Those in A and B were killed, and those

in C went free.20

The executions were organized by a lieutenant belonging

to the Komando Operasi Pemulihan Keamanan (Komop, Command for

the Restoration of Security), later changed to Komando Operasi Pemulihan

Keamanan dan Ketertiban Daerah (Kopkamtibda, Local Command for the

Restoration of Security and Order).21

According to a Roman Catholic friend

of mine, the army was extremely brutal to suspected communists. At Hinga,in addition to cutting people's ears off and forcing them to eat them, they dug

up a half rotten skull and forced people to eat pieces of it. They forced people

to stand still until some of them fainted. This was especially hard on old peo-

ple. Anyone who did not cooperate was accused of being a communist. My

friend protested against this treatment on humanitarian grounds and was

himself accused of being a communist.

Buang Duran's third wife Tupat was also executed. She was taken to

the village of Lewo Keleng and killed with two others. The reason she was

taken to Lewo Keleng appears to have been to inspire fear. Her throat wascut by a clerk in the district head's office. Civilian government employees

were often forced to perform executions. This clerk was afraid of the conse-

quences and barely cut her throat, and another man had to finish the job. The

person who told me of this incident happened by chance to be spending the

night in Lewo Keleng just after it took place, and where he was told about

it. Although he did not witness the killing, he saw some of her hair that had

been cut off and was hanging on a tree. Tupat appears not to have been afraid

to die. She marched to her death proudly throwing her shoulders back and

forth in triumph. She was going to join Buang Duran in the afterlife. After her

death, her body was sliced up and her breasts cut off.

Buang Duran used to communicate his policies through letters, which

were copied over and over and distributed. However, during the events of

1965 and 1966 most people destroyed any evidence they had of contact with

Buang Duran and the PKTI, so that all or most of these letters were burned.

20According to Webb (1986a:96-7, 1986b:149), 'These political prisoners were divided into

three categories: A, B and C. The most serious offenders, usually known Communist Partyofficials, were in the A group. Those in group B were the known Communist cadre leaders and

activists; they were imprisoned on Buru. Those in C were the small fry [...].'21

This sinister figure bore the odd name Lieutenant Minggu. 'Minggu' translates from

Indonesian as 'week', or in the phrase hari Minggu as 'Sunday'. I have no way of ascertaining if

this name is an erroneous reference to the Lieutenant Colonel Minggu whom Robinson (1995:

230 note 59, 231-2, 249) mentions as being active in a different context in Bali.



24 R.H. Barnes

A man who read the letters when they circulated remembers one in which

Buang Duran wrote about a weeping sculpture in East Germany and saidthat Christ was coming back. East Germany in this letter is to be understood

as eastern Adonara and Christ as Buang Duran. Despite his conversion to

Islam, Buang Duran maintained a characteristically ambiguous attitude,

speaking in his letters of 'you Muslims' and 'we Catholics'.

The only example of his writings that I have seen is a letter written in 1931

to his father, Mamaq Lesu (Lesu Tokan), who at the time was in prison on

Sumba for murder.

ToHonourable FatherLesoe Tokan at

Wai K aboebak/Soemba

With this letter I inform my father that I am now happy and in good health, bothphysical and spiritual. In this situation I hope that, with the blessing of God

Almighty, father is also in that state.In the following space I wish to ask father why you didnot come in the mo nth ofAugust 1930, because according to the wording of your letter [you] were going

to be released [from prison] on31August 1930. On [...] September 1930 [Wahid]Beda Kia, with Halang (a man from Sagoe who brought father's letter), went to

the ship with a berok [small boat] belongin g to a Badjo Sidoek [Bajau Laut] inorderto meet father, but the great misfortune was that you were not there. Because of

that, Beda very sorrowfully returned to the village. Yes, father, if released but

still waiting with Sengaji, send word. It is extremely difficult to come here to

Larantuka [from A donara]. If you want to come, let us know exactly. Yes, father,

Beda requests, if father is going to come, to bring a touchstone for rings, becauseBeda very much wants one. Father knows himself how hard life is for me and my

mother. I go to school here in Larantoeka. Because of that, mymother lives alone

in a house. Remember us and come a little more quickly.[This paragraph in Lamaholot.] Father, you do not come. Because of that, motherreceives work, so that there is something for her to eat and drink. Beda has also

given me m oney, so that I may buy a lipa [tubular m an's cloth], trousers and shirt,so that I could come to this school.I have now been in the special Normaal school class 1 for six months. Therefore,in a further 11/2 years I will become a teacher.Do not be angry with the person who reads this because the sentences are in a

kind of letters which astonish because I wrote them inhaste.Goodbye from Beda, me andBarek.

Larantoeka 11-1-1931, SundayBduran

Beda Kia, or Wahid Beda, is the father of the man who let me copy this letter

(Syafrudin Sabon). Barek is Buang Duran ' s mother . The latter is imp ly in g



Fransiskus/Usman Buang Dumn: Catholic, Muslim, Communist 25

that, for example, his mother is working on other people's fields so that she

will have food when the owner feeds his helpers.

Conclusion

Today Lamaloga is a peaceful village about a twenty m inu tes' stroll througha shady coconut grove from Lamablawa, where I was staying. No trace ofthe Lamaloga w ar and the PKTI remains, except in the lives and me mo ries ofthose who suffered on either side of the conflict.

The question may be asked: what did Buang Duran achieve, apart from aconsiderable disruption of social and economic life and the deaths of manypeople? He lived through a period of tremendous social transformation.Having befriended and been befriended by a Dutch missionary, he was

excommunicated at just the point that the Japanese invaded and destroyedthe Dutch East Indies state. W hen the D utch re turne d after the collapse of theJapanese regime, he joined the strugg le for indepe nden ce, like so many otherIndonesians, and was rewarded with two terms of imprisonment. Uponhis release from prison, after the Dutch gave up their attempt to return, he

formed a Marxist-oriented group and joined what he regarded as the strug-gle against feudalism. In 1949, especially after the victory of the People'sLiberation Army in China, many p eople on both the right and left around theworld believed that comm unism w as advancing towards w orldw ide success.At the time of Soekarno's Nasakom ideology, combining nationalism, reli-

gion (agama) and communism, Buang Duran's ideas were very much withinthe mains tream of Indonesian po litical thou gh t until October 1965. However,the right was not defenceless, and he was eventually defeated by those veryforces that he was attacking.

In the period of the Lamaloga war, members of the PKTI wore uniformsconsisting of blue trousers an d sh irts and red scarves, of a kind familiar fromrevolutionary posters of the Chinese communist party. Some of these still

survive and have been shown me. They consist of good-quality, machine-made materials, which must have come to Buang Duran from the People'sRepublic of C hina.

Apart from Tupat, at least five of Buang Duran's relatives were killed in1966. Nevertheless, except for the fugitives from Pledo and the ringleaders

of the PKTI, the sole target of the mass killings of 1966 were PKI members,and former members of the PKTI largely escaped further punishment. Some

allege that the PKTI had the smell of the PKI and that Buang D uran intend edturn ing the PKTI into the PKI. Othe rs, however, includ ing former mem bers,deny these allegations and claim that the PKTI had a different program from



26 RH. Barnes

the PKI. Nevertheless, the similarity in initials betwe en the two organizations

is significant.21

One man , whose father w as supp osed ly a PKTI wa r leader at Lamaloga inthe early 1950s, told me that the prog ram of the PKTI was aim ed at improv-ing the fortunes of the people (the farmers), which was to be achieved bymaking everyone a member of the government. Iron smiths (such as thoseat Lamahala), farmers, clerks, and so on, would all work for the gov ernm entand would all be paid the same wages for this work. All the wealth wouldbe for the nation. If the President ate bread, the peasa nts w ould eat bread. Itwas the same as Soekarno 's program . Their aspirations to eliminate the army

would have been for the benefit of the nation. If people had supported thePKTI, they would all be wealthy now. In the past, certain important people(such as Kelake Kei and the others Buang Duran had targeted) did not lookfavourably on people other than themselves wearing long trousers or wo menwearing fine dress. The PKTI wished to change that. In fact, it is true thatbefore the 1950s the head of Witihama used to sit on a chair at public meet-ings, while everyone else sat lower down, and there were sumptuary restric-tions, so that only the head of Witihama and his close kinsm en were allowedto wear long trousers or fancy dress. The PKTI wished to abolish these dif-

ferences and eliminate the feudalists. A friend of mine who certainly was notimplicated in the PKTI commented that withou t the PKTI, they w ould still besubject to these restrictions. In my experience, however, there was sufficientpressure from the Indonesian government in the 1960s and 1970s to haveachieved the same ends.

Some believe that Buang D ura n's fate had already been decided before hewas released from prison to return to Waiwerang. He was a representativefigure of his times, whose luck ran out. He may have achieved little of last-ing significance, but there is no doubt that there are still people in Witihama

who admire him and who believe in his communist ideals. He was clearlya mercurial figure, who had the ability to influence a wide variety of peopleover time. He also alienated many former friends and provoked what in thelong run became fatal hostility to wa rds himself and his associates. Perhaps itis as well to end by saying that there seems to be no desire in eastern Ad ona raat the moment to revive the PKTI or its program.

22This difference of view may be compared with Reksodihardjo's claim that the PKTI lead-

ers acknowledged at their trial that the initials PKTI actually stood for Partai Komunis TjabangIndonesia (Indonesian Branch of the Communist Party) - an unlikely imputation on more thanone co unt (Reksodihardjo 1971,1:35; Farram 2002:32).





28 R-H. Barnes

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Fransiskus/Usm an Buang D uran: Catholic , Muslim, Com munist 29

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Documents

Usman Buang Duran & PKTI