From Jail to Jail. Tan Malaka
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retreated to the jungles and remote areas, from which they intended to stage assaults on Dutch positions. Sabaruddin’s headquarters were, evidently, maintained at Blimbing in the Kediri district, although parts of the battalion were frequently on the move in the area on operations.56
Though reports of guerrilla actions led by Tan Malaka continued to appear at least up to the end of 1949, during February such reports were counterbalanced by rumors that he had been killed. While some have it that he was the victim of Dutch bullets, and even that he was killed by remnants of the PKI seeking revenge for his position on Madiun, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that he was killed by republican troops.57
The precise date and place of his death and the exact identity of his killers vary in these reports, but their general thrust is fairly consistent. In the period after the Dutch advance into East Java, Tan Malaka and his followers antagonized authorities within the East Java Brawijaya Division of the army by their continued attacks on the policies pursued by all previous republican governments and by their attempts to gain support for these ideas within the ranks of the armed forces. Accordingly, an attack was mounted by official or semi-official troops on the headquarters of Sabaruddin’s Battalion 38.58 In the melee or at some later date, Tan Malaka and Sabaruddin managed to escape, but Tan Malaka was recaptured and executed.
Reports of this nature began to reach Djamaluddin Tamim in March 1949. Three members of the Barisan Banteng who had gone with Djamaluddin and Tan Malaka to Kediri in November 1948 met Djamaluddin in East Java at the end of March 1949 and reported on the attack on Sabaruddin’s headquarters and their subsequent escape.59 Further investigations in the area brought word from both Sjamsu Harya Udaya and from Sabaruddin himself that Tan Malaka had not been seen since the attack.60 In May 1949 the Partai Murba’s leadership council discussed the question and decided to send Sudijono Djojoprajitno to travel through the area and find out what he could concerning the attack and Tan Malaka’s fate.61
At the same time that the Partai Murba was starting to investigate the possibility of Tan Malaka’s death, reports started appearing in the press to the effect that he had been killed. On 14 May the Malang Post is reported to have said that he was killed some ten days previously in the area of Nganjuk (East Java).62 On 7 June the head of republican intelligence, Lieutenant General Z. Loebis, reporting on the overall situation in Java and Sumatra, included a summary of reports on Tan Malaka’s death. His report identifies Surachmad, commander of the Kediri Sub-Territorium Militer (STM), as the executioner.63
Also on 7 June 1949, the Indonesia Merdeka (Independent Indonesia) radio transmitter in North Sumatra is reported as having relayed news from the New Delhi Information Office of the Republic that General Sungkono (commander of the Brawijaya Division) had verified newspaper reports that Tan Malaka had been shot on his orders in the Blitar area of East Java on 16 April.64 Roeslan Abdulgani, secretary-general of the Information Ministry, on 24 June repeated the report that Tan Malaka had been shot on Sungkono’s orders.65
Through June and July other reports emerged substantiating this version of events, although the exact date and place vary, and Brigade Commander Jonosewojo and the Kediri Military Police Mobile Brigade are also said to have been the executioners.
According to Djamaluddin Tamim, an interview with General Sungkono was published on 9 September 1949 in the Yogyakarta newspaper Kedaulatan Rakyat.66 Sungkono is quoted as saying, “Yes, the leader Tan Malaka was shot, but I wasn’t the one who ordered his execution.” Djamaluddin tried to pursue the matter with Sungkono but, after being briefed by Sukarno, the general refused comment. Djamaluddin states that the journalist Samawi was asked by the regional governor to retract the article, but he stood by his story.
In 1972 I attempted to follow up these stories of Tan Malaka’s death. Paramita Abdurrachman recalled a discussion she had in 1949 with an intelligence officer from the Siliwangi (West Java) Division, who said that Tan Malaka was shot by Brigade 16 (led by Surachmad) of the Brawijaya Division on orders from above.67 Sungkono, now retired, denied knowing anything at all about Tan Malaka’s death.68 It is impossible to imagine that the commander of the Brawijaya Division would not have at least received a report on the incident, even if he were not personally involved, and so his blanket denial is no real counter to the other evidence, both contemporary and in retrospect. In 1972 Mohammad Hatta gave the following account: “The Dutch attacked . . . and . . . Tan Malaka was fighting on his own principles, not joining in, not opposing the Dutch but rather creating confusion. This was the explanation from Sungkono, the commander for East Java. Because of this, he said, he ordered Tan Malaka to be shot.”69
The most detailed account of the events surrounding Tan Malaka’s death did not emerge until 1959, when Sukatma, who had been part of Tan Malaka’s bodyguard in Blimbing, came to Djamaluddin’s house in Jakarta and narrated his recollection. This account substantiated the bare details uncovered in the Partai Murba investigation of 1949 and has been accepted by the party as accurate.70 Sukatma was in the group captured at Blimbing, but he managed to escape. Following the events, he changed his name and rejoined the army. I was able to find him in Jakarta in 1972 and to tape an interview with him, which corresponds to the story related by Djamaluddin following the meeting with Sukatma in 1959.71
I conclude this biographical sketch with Sukatma’s story. Some of its details conflict with other accounts, but this is the most detailed, and is purportedly from an eyewitness to the events. I have no hard evidence that the Sukatma I spoke to in 1972 is the same individual who came to see Djamaluddin Tamim in 1959, nor that he was the survivor of the 1949 killings. But his story tallies with that reported by Djamaluddin of the 1959 meeting, and also with other accounts of the attack. Further, he was recognized by people who had been present at the Sabaruddin headquarters in the days preceding the attack. I have no reason to suspect that the story is a fabrication.
Sukatma did not see Tan Malaka killed. But there are no confirmed reports of his appearance after he was taken away from Sukatma and the other guards. One can only agree with Sabaruddin’s brother: “If they killed the guards, how much more likely are they to have killed the one being guarded.”72
Sukatma was a Sundanese from Banten, West Java, who had fought in the Lasykar Rakyat Jawa Barat. In 1946 he moved to East Java and joined the Terpedo Berjiwa militia under the leadership of Captain Hanafi, based in Kepanjen.73 Sukatma reports that after the confusion surrounding the Dutch attack, he fled to Kediri and there met up with Captain Dimin, who had been his section commander in the Terpedo Berjiwa. Dimin pressed Sukatma into joining his force again and, after a week or so in and around Kediri, took him to Blimbing.74 He was asked to take the assignment of bodyguard to the Oud Heer (Old Man) Tan Malaka.
The first night in Blimbing, Sukatma accompanied Tan Malaka to a wayang kulit (shadow play) performance in a neighboring village, and they returned to Blimbing at about 4:00 A.M. The following day nothing of particular interest took place, and Sukatma familiarized himself with the headquarters and the people there. About twenty people were on duty at the headquarters, and at night they were billeted in the houses of the village, two or four per house. Sukatma remained in a house with Tan Malaka.
He was awakened about 4:30 A.M. to find himself surrounded by bayonet-bearing soldiers wearing the emblem of the Macan Kerah (fighting tiger).75 They had apparently overcome the guards and appropriated weapons from the headquarters. Sukatma was ordered to squat on the floor, and it was then that he saw they had seized Tan Malaka from the back room and were guarding him closely. Some twenty people were rounded up and disarmed and then marched out of Blimbing at about 6:30 A.M.
Unaccountably, the Macan Kerah troops abandoned them at a certain crossroads about two kilometers from Blimbing. Shortly afterwards Sabaruddin arrived on the scene, dishevelled and disarmed; he too had been routed by the Macan Kerah while on operations. They decided to flee up towards the mountains, fearing to return to the headquarters. At about 10:30 A.M. they were resting and cooking corn when they heard shots and people shouting. In the confusion and in mists that were hanging heavy about them, the group split up. Sukatma made it his duty to stay close by Tan Malaka, and they ended up with three others of the