University of Texas Press Information & Culture

The Djogdja Documenten: The Dutch-Indonesian Relationship Following Independence
through an Archival Lens

Author(s): Michael Karabinos
Source: Information & Culture, Vol. 50, No. 3 (2015), pp. 372-391
Published by: University of Texas Press
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The Djogdja Documenten: The Dutch-Indonesian
Relationship Following Independence
through an Archival Lens
Michael Karabinos
This article is an overview of a story highlighting a collection of displaced

archives caused by the decolonization process. In the midst of Indone-
sian revolution against Dutch colonial rule, the intelligence agency of
the Dutch army seized official documents from Indonesian government
offices that would become known as the Djogdja Documenten. Despite
coming from various sources originally, these documents were trans-
formed into a single collection through the act of Dutch seizure. By re-
viewing the documents in question, searching for references to them in
literature, and doing research in the archive of the National Archives of
the Netherlands, I follow the postindependence relationship between
the two countries starting just after the transfer of sovereignty, through
President Sukarno's anticolonial "Guided Democracy" period, and end-
ing with President Suharto's New Order and the increase in diplomacy
between the two countries.
Following the Japanese defeat in the Second World War, the Neth-
erlands attempted to reestablish control in the Dutch East Indies.
Before the Dutch were able to retake control, however, nationalist leaders
Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta issued a proclamation of independence
for the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1945. For the next four
years both the Dutch and the republican governments existed in the
archipelago, engaging in diplomatic talks as well as intermittent military
conflicts. During the invasion of the republican capital, Yogyakarta, in
December 1948, the Dutch military arrested high-ranking members of
Michael Karabinos is a PhD candidate at Leiden University ( the Netherlands ) in the

Institute for History. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Maryland ,
Baltimore County , in 2005 and a master of science degree in library science from the
Catholic University of America in 2009. Pńor to beginning his PhD he was the map li-
brarian at the National Geographic Society in Washington , DC, where he managed the
physical and digital map collections.
Information ùf Culture, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2015

©2015 by the University of Texas Press
DOI: 10.7560/IC50304
373
the republican government. At the same time, the Netherlands East India
Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS) also seized documents from various
republican government buildings.1 These records would become known
as the Djogdja Documenten.2 The fluctuating relationship between
Indonesia and the Netherlands can be followed by studying these docu-
ments, with changes in governments seeing changes in archival cooper-
ation.3 This article follows the Djogdja Documenten from their creation
as a single archive by the Dutch seizure through their eventual return,
which took place between the 1970s and 1990s. It highlights various mo-
ments in the cooperation between Indonesia and the Netherlands as it
concerns the Djogdja Documenten and archives in general.
During the early years of independence, Indonesia was preoccupied
with building a new state and uniting a diverse nation, making the re-
turn of seized documents of minimal importance. Only after pro-West
President Suharto came to power in 1967 through a violent overhaul of
the Indonesian political landscape did Indonesia undergo a réévalua-
tion of the relationship with its former colonizer. During the early part
of this period, archival repatriation was able to make its way onto the
cooperation agenda.
The return of the Djogdja Documenten to Indonesia has its roots in a
tumultuous time for the country. Suharto's rise to power led to the per-
secution of Communists and other leftists in Indonesia, with estimates
ranging from five hundred thousand to one million people being killed
for their political beliefs. This period is marked with a renewed relation-
ship with the West and the Netherlands, but it came at a human cost for
those on the other side of the political spectrum. The archival changes
to be discussed below should accompany knowledge of what else was
included in the rise of Suharto.4
Background on the Djogdja Documenten
There is no doubt that the Djogdja Documenten come from different

original sources within the Indonesian government. These include vari-
ous Indonesian ministries, as well as the papers of leaders of the repub-
lican government. The various locations are listed in documents in The
Hague and Jakarta. Numerous government buildings in Yogyakarta were
taken over and their contents searched for useful records.5 Dutch docu-
ments between officials after the capture make note of this fact. It is
quite possible, in fact very likely, that one part of the documents would
have been created completely separate from and without the knowledge
of another part being created.
374 I&C/ The Djogdja Documenten
From this it is reasonable to say that NEFIS was the creator of the Djog-
dja Documenten as a collection. What makes the documents that are re-
ferred to as the Djogdja Documenten a single being was their seizure by
the Dutch military and nothing else. Without the action of the Dutch they
are not one entity or one archive. On their own, taken outside the context
of their capture and removal from Yogyakarta, two documents within the
Djogdja Documenten from different creators are no more linked than
two documents that were not seized from the same creators. The Djogdja
Documenten were therefore - as a unit - a Dutch creation.
The Dutch military and colonial administrations were very interested

in the intelligence value of the Djogdja Documenten to those administra-
tions' recolonization efforts for the documents' ability to possibly influ-
ence international opinion. By late 1948, events in Indonesia had seen
growing support from other countries for Indonesian independence over
Dutch colonization. In September of that year, the Republic of Indone-
sia government swiftly silenced a Communist coup attempt and executed
the major leaders in a move that made the United States and the United
Kingdom see the republic as a moderate government that was tough on
Communism and better than many alternatives should the Dutch defeat
it.6 The Netherlands strove to prove to its allies that the republican gov-
ernment, despite its action against the Communist Party of Indonesia,
was not to be trusted and should not gain sovereignty over the islands.
Based on reports written after translating the documents seized by the
Dutch, it can be determined that the Dutch government was hoping to
prove three major claims: that the Republic of Indonesia was funding the
revolution through illegal opium smuggling, that the republic still had
links to Communism, and that the republic was supporting and planning
paramilitary and guerrilla attacks on Dutch troops and civilians.7
Within previously written histories of the invasion of Yogyakarta,
there is little mention of the seizure of documents, though when
it is mentioned it gives a clearer picture of the documents' contents.
Yong Mun Cheong, in The Indonesian Revolution and the Singapore
Connection, refers to captured documents three times and how they con-
nected Singapore and Indonesia. All three mentions, however, happen
in passing. Describing the opium trade and IndofFs (the Indonesian
Office) role, he states, "Indoffs complicity became more entangled
when Yogyakarta fell into Dutch hands in December 1948 and the Dutch
captured documents allegedly implicating Indoff in smuggling eight
tons of opium into Singapore."8 George Kahin, the American author
of Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia and a graduate student living
in Indonesia, doing research, and writing at the time of the revolution,
375
befriended the leaders of the republic. In his memoirs describing

living in Yogyakarta during the invasion, he mentions that "on the 22nd
[of December] the staff of the Indonesian delegation was taken to
Yogyakarta by truck, all of its archives being seized by the Dutch."9 In
his description of how to study the Indonesian revolution in European
archives for those who cannot travel to Jakarta, Oey Hong Lee notes
that "in the Dutch Royal Archives [sic] there is an impressive number of
Indonesian secret papers which have been captured by the Dutch dur-
ing their occupation of Yogyakarta in December 1948. "10
The actual seizure of what became the Djogdja Documenten oc-
curred on December 19, 1948, the day the Dutch initiated their second
military action against Indonesia. Among the cities taken by the Dutch
was the republican capital of Yogyakarta. Leading up to the invasion, the
Dutch and Indonesian governments had been involved in negotiations
to broker a peace agreement. While negotiating with the American del-
egate prior to the Second Police Action, the Dutch felt their concerns
were not rightly being heard. Their accusations regarding opium, in-
surgency, and Communism were being ignored, while, in their words,
"each Republican complaint concerning Dutch acts is elaborated and
supported."11 The Dutch therefore sought documentary evidence, in
the form of the Djogdja Documenten, to back up their claims.
In a February 1949 report, "The Consequences of a Restoration of
Republican Authority in Djokjakarta and Vicinity," the Dutch represen-
tatives in Indonesia make numerous claims of republican misgivings
learned from the Djogdja Documenten. The specifics of the claims were
violating the Renville Truce Agreement by implementing subversive
activities in Dutch-controlled territory, international opium trading to
finance their government, feigning cooperation in peace negotiations,
and contact with the Malaysian Communist Party. It was therefore seen
by the Dutch that this act of archival looting - certainly not unique in
this situation - was justified by what they found among the documents.
That Vice President Hatta himself, according to the papers found, was
heavily involved in the plans for drug smuggling and violence only ap-
peared to intensify the Dutch reaction.12
However, if the Dutch government had hoped that the contents of
the Djogdja Documenten would help turn international support back
in their favor, they would find this not to be the case. Britain doubted
the validity of the Communist claim, despite its problems with a Com-
munist uprising in Malaya, its closest colony both geographically and
culturally.13 The other claims similarly did not turn the world against
the Indonesian cause. In fact, so great was the pressure to come to an
agreement that Dutch officials, without fanfare, refrained from publish-

ing the report they had written on the opium trade so as to not com-
pletely damage their ability to work diplomatically with Hatta and those
aligned with him.14 Withdrawing forces meant returning to the Nether-
lands with the Djogdja Documenten in tow. One year after the invasion
of Yogyakarta the Dutch were officially leaving their most economically
important colony. The relationship between the two countries would de-
teriorate further during the course of President Sukarno's reign, which
ended in 1967. The Djogdja Documenten would not begin to be re-
turned to Indonesia until after the regime change that brought Suharto
to power and, among other things, initiated cooperation between insti-
tutions of the two countries, such as the national archives.
Initial Attempts at Cooperation
In 1954, less than five years after the Netherlands recognized Indo-
nesian independence, the first attempt at archival cooperation took
place, though it was eventually aborted. This ill-fated attempt began
before Sukarno initiated the Guided Democracy period, which would
see him remove the 1950 constitution and revert to the 1945 constitu-
tion and its strong executive office.15 In the early years of independence,
the economic relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia con-
tinued, and Dutch companies were still heavily invested in Indonesia.
Before Guided Democracy, which also included strong anticolonial -
and therefore anti-Dutch - discourse, cooperation was still taking place
between the governments of the two countries.
The first archival project was a Dutch-initiated microfilming project.
It was not an exchange of records or films but only the filming of ar-
chives from the early years of Dutch presence in the Indies to be sent
to the Netherlands. It concerned the dagregister (day registry) of Batavia
Castle, the home of the Dutch East India Company during the seven-
teenth century. It was hoped that this large-scale project - twenty-three
thousand pages onto film - would be approved and finished as soon
as possible due to the "uncertain" political situation in Indonesia. The
project would come to an abrupt stop in 1957 when an Indonesian ar-
chivist "bluntly" put an end to the project and declared the Dutch team
no longer welcome in his institution. The Dutch feared that this instruc-
tion must have come from above and was an indication of the future of
Dutch-Indonesian relations.16
The deteriorating relationship surrounded the West Irian dispute be-
tween the two countries, which would eventually lead to the breakout
377
of armed conflict. At independence, the western half of New Guinea

stayed a Dutch colony and was sought after by Sukarno to become part
of Indonesia. As the relationship deteriorated, so too did the microfilm-
ing project of the dagregister, which today is still incomplete.17
Though it may seem unusual that there would be enough cooperation
to even begin the project only five years after the end of military engage-
ments between the two countries that ruptured their political connec-
tion, it fits with the state of the relationship in the early 1950s. In 1948
the Stichting voor Culturele Samenwerking (STICUSA, or Foundation
for Cultural Cooperation), a Dutch government-financed organization
supporting cultural cooperation between the Netherlands and its colo-
nies, was founded. Until 1955 its work included, and often focused on,
Indonesia. After political disputes its mission shrank to only support co-
operation between the Netherlands and Suriname and the Netherlands
Antilles.18 In the early 1950s Dutch businesses continued to operate in
Indonesia before the West Irian dispute increased in intensity in 1957. 19
When the Netherlands recognized Indonesian independence in
1949 part of the terms of the agreement was the continuation of Dutch
control over the western portion of New Guinea. The Dutch were inter-
ested in keeping part of their former colony and made control over the
Netherlands New Guinea part of the negotiations.20 The Netherlands
New Guinea administration worked to prepare the colony for indepen-
dence - a rival to the Republic of Indonesia in the region with stronger
ties to the Netherlands. After centralizing his power and installing
Guided Democracy, Sukarno made integrating Netherlands New
Guinea into Indonesia his new anticolonial cause.21 This led to military
engagements and the end of any semblance of a cooperative relation-
ship for the Netherlands and Indonesia. The Netherlands would hand
over control in 1962 to the United Nations, which eventually gave con-
trol to Indonesia.
The relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands was still in

a shambles from the fallout over the West Irian dispute when, in 1964,
the director of the Eerste Afdeling (First Section of the Dutch General
State Archive - documents created before 1795), Marie Antoinette
Petronella Meilink-Roelofsz, visited the Arsip Nasional Republik Indo-
nesia (National Archives of Indonesia, or ANRI) as part of a trip visiting
Asian archives. She wrote of the Indonesian leg of her journey that by
viewing "the manner in which Djakarta makes free with one of the most
valuable holdings of archives in Asia then it is clear that Indonesia is
failing miserably in its duty."22 In contrast, her review of the National
Archives of Malaysia called them "expertly managed" despite their "not
so very important material."23 Twice in her report she referred to the

"strong British influence" in the Malaysian archives, which may be an
allusion to the archival distance that existed between the Netherlands
and Indonesia.24 Meilink-Roelofsz was only given limited access to the
archives and was treated with distrust upon her arrival, which also might
have colored her impression of ANRI.25
The West Irian dispute between the Netherlands and Indonesia
would eventually destroy Dutch businesses in Indonesia as Sukarno con-
fiscated Dutch property and nationalized Dutch-owned businesses in
late 1957. 26 The aborted cultural cooperation was a side effect of this
destruction of the relationship. The regrowth of cooperation is directly
tied to the rise to power of Suharto and his accession to president of In-
donesia in 1968. 27 The vast political changes in Indonesia that stemmed
from Suharto's reimagining of Indonesia's relationship with the West
and the Netherlands would eventually affect change at ANRI as well.
Suharto not only changed internal politics of Indonesia but also
oversaw a major overhaul of Indonesian foreign policy. This overhaul
included not only the signing of a cultural agreement with the Neth-
erlands in 1968 but also the return of previously nationalized foreign-
owned businesses. These changes went hand in hand with Suharto's
internal changes, as a renewed relationship with the Netherlands would
make the Dutch more susceptible to any number of new programs, in-
cluding archival transfers.
The ANRI under Guided Democracy
The next episode took place less than twenty years after Indonesia
declared its independence. The Guided Democracy period was marked
by a tumultuous relationship with the West, especially the Netherlands. I
will use a particular "archive story" from this period to show how Guided
Democracy and Sukarno's resentment of the colonial Dutch past mani-
fested themselves in the ANRI.
Before examining the ANRI under Sukarno, it is first necessary to

give background on the situation immediately preceding indepen-
dence. In 1892 the Dutch East Indies government created the Lands-
archief (National Archives) in Batavia (Jakarta). In the year following
Japanese occupation, the staff of the Landsarchief - both Dutch and
Indonesian - continued working as usual. In 1943, however, word was
sent from Tokyo to put the Dutch members of the staff into internment
camps, where two would eventually die. The Indonesian staff, previously
trained in their duties by the Dutch, stayed working throughout the war
379
and after the Indonesian proclamation of independence in 1945. After

his release from a Japanese internment camp, the director of the ar-
chive, F.J. R. Verhoeven, considered himself still to be the official lands-
archivaris (national archivist) of the Netherlands East Indies, as he had
been before the war, despite not having access to the building.
A series of letters from 1963 indicates the general feeling of Sukarno-
era Indonesia toward the Netherlands. The resentment toward the
Dutch manifests itself in the ANRI in both its treatment of the Dutch
and its sense of self. By 1963 Verhoeven had become keeper of public
records in recently independent Malaya as part of a UNESCO project.28
His official title was "UNESCO expert on archives and documentation,
attached to the National Archives of Malaysia," though he was made
de facto director of the National Archives because there was "no one
available but the UNESCO expert."29 Part of his project involved writin
an article on the lost Dutch Malacca archives from the seventeenth to
nineteenth centuries that he believed had been lost sometime during

the Second World War. The Dutch took control of Malacca from the
Portuguese in 1641 and were there for almost two hundred years, wit
a short British interregnum during the Batavian Republic period. Docu
ments detailing Dutch Malacca were available outside of Malaysia in Sin
gapore, The Hague, and also the Landsarchief in Batavia. Verhoeve
wrote to the director of the ANRI, R. Mohamed Ali, to discover more
about the unknown Dutch records from Malacca located in Jakarta.
Their conversation started off simple enough, with Verhoeven ask
ing Ali about archives in ANRI from Malacca. An inventory by archivis
van der Chijs from the end of the nineteenth century mentioned some
but Verhoeven was under the belief that there were more based on
recent findings. Ali informed him that there were indeed more tha
mentioned by van der Chijs, but no catalog or inventory on them w
available. Verhoeven offered assistance: "Perhaps some day one of ou
staff should come to Djakarta and do some research . . . making a catal
and having them copied for the National Archives in Kuala Lumpur."
It is in response to this letter where the direction of the correspon
dence begins to change and where the mindset of ANRI is exposed. A
first rejected the notion of someone from Malaya doing work in the ANR
based on Dutch-caused time restraints. His statement - "I have to inform
you that we are still checking piles of archives neglected by the Dutch
Government" - placed the blame for the backlog of work to be done
by the staff essentially on the Dutch and perhaps even on Verhoeven
himself. Ali then asked Verhoeven if "you still remember the regulation
for having copies of documents and facilities for research under Dutch
regime before 1942-1949. Those regulations were very 'rigid' for for-
eigners and 'inlanders.'" This word, strongly disliked by Indonesians, is
described by Benedict Anderson as "like the English 'natives' and the
French ' indigenes' [It] always carried an unintentionally paradoxical se-
mantic load."30 Ali also told Verhoeven that any visit would have to be
approved by the Ministry of Information - a process that he believed all
national archives should adhere to.31
Verhoeven's reply mentioned four main points: that the documents

in question "have always been open to anyone who wanted to do re-
search in them"; that he did not recall the regulations being so rigid;
that international archival standards warranted national archives being
open to foreigners without special permission under the archival "bill of
rights"; and, most importantly, that under the last archives regulation,
the Archiefordonnatie 1941 (Archive ordinance of 1941), all archives
in the Landsarchief older than forty years should be open to the public.
Verhoeven lamented the fact that the Japanese invaded so soon after the
passage of the ordinance, but he stated his hope that the Indonesian
government would have endorsed the ordinance by now.
At this point Verhoeven was no longer an official representative of
the Netherlands; his new capacity had him working for Malaya and the
United Nations. With Ali, however, Verhoeven could not shake off his
past. Perhaps if a native Malayan or even a non-Dutch European had
overseen the project or written him the letter, his response would have
been completely different. It certainly would not have included the part
about the rigid rules regarding inlanders. Ali 's responses were in keeping
with the public persona set forth by Sukarno under the Guided Democ-
racy period and are not uncommon in newly independent states. Roy
Jones and Brian Shaw describe how "many historic icons of the built
environment were inevitably viewed as imprints of an exogenous au-
thority, a factor that heavily discounted their preservation value."32 The
letters between Verhoeven and Ali demonstrate how "historic icons" can
be not only the physical space of the archive but the concept in general,
and their preservation value is not about preserving the structure of the
building but rather discounting the preservation of the links between
the Dutch and ANRI.
Ali responded to Verhoeven's lack of recollection and Landsarchief

history in a way that represented the standard postindependence break
with the past. He stated that the Archiefordonnantie 1941 was never
implemented by Indonesia and that because of numerous presidential
decrees and government regulations, "the Arsip Nasional is by no means
the same as the formerly [sic] Landsarchief."33 Despite this distancing
381
attempt on the part of Ali, it must be noted that in 1963 the ANRI was
still headquartered in the same building that housed the Landsarchief
prior to independence.34 Verhoeven replied by asking for the documen-
tation related to the regulation of the ANRI, as well as a list of maps
of Malacca held in Jakarta; he was trying to get the conversation back
to its original purpose. However, the correspondence ended there, and
Verhoeven 's finished published paper makes it appear that nothing
more came from their conversation. The paper on the Malacca archives
contains only one mention of his communication with Ali: a reference
to "twenty big volumes" of uncataloged documents not mentioned in
van der Chijs's initial inventory, which means that Verhoeven's initial
request to be sent any sort of list or anything specific was never met,
and nothing beyond what survived in Verhoeven 's personal papers came
from their letters.35
What this episode shows is that in the Guided Democracy period, de-
spite holding the records from the Landsarchief (including the enor-
mous Dutch East India Company archive), the Indonesian state still
wanted to so distance itself from the infrastructure created by the Dutch
that it would deny that ANRI was a descendant of the Landsarchief.
That the conversation took place with one of the last directors of the
Landsarchief is of course no accident. Ali 's wording and tone went from
vague ("there are really more documents . . . covering miscellaneous
subjects") to placing blame ("we are still checking piles of archives ne-
glected by the Dutch Government," calling Verhoeven 's policies "rigid")
within one letter before turning to a denial of a connection between the
two men. Ali, as director of ANRI, and Verhoeven, the former director
of the Landsarchief, had a shared knowledge of the records to which
they were referring.
Given the relationship between the two countries at this point, there
was no chance of the Djogdja Documenten, or any other records that
could have been transferred, becoming part of the conversation. The
cooperation did not yet exist for this to occur. Though Verhoeven was
acting on behalf of the Malaysian government rather than the Dutch
government, these letters show the influence of the Guided Democracy
era government on ANRI as an institution.
Sukarno, and therefore the government of Indonesia under his
watch, was a proponent of what Anthony Reid refers to as "anti-imperial
nationalism," a type of nationalism that uses "the boundaries and uni-
ties created by the imperial power as the sacred space of the new na-
tional identity, within which all 'indigenous' people should bury their
differences."36 Anti-imperial nationalism continued after independence
as the "official" form of state nationalism used by the government. The

fight against the Dutch was therefore key to feeling Indonesian, which
manifested itself in the work of the ANRI during Sukarno's Guided De-
mocracy period of 1957-66, when he consolidated his central powers.37
It is also very important to put this episode in the context of the Indo-
nesian policy of Konfrontasi, which occurred in two parts: first between
Indonesia and the Netherlands over the control of West New Guinea,
and then between Indonesia and Malaya and Britain over the formation
of Malaysia. Verhoeven's past as a member of the Dutch colonial admin-
istration should also not be overlooked. This correspondence came only
one year after armed conflict between the Netherlands and Indonesia
over West New Guinea. This period was marked by the movement of
Indonesia's foreign policy away from the United States and more toward
the Soviet Union after the straining of the US-Indonesian relationship
in the late 1950s and early 1960s, which culminated in a CIA-backed
coup attempt.38
After the success of Konfrontasi against the Netherlands in securing
West New Guinea, Sukarno continued with this policy when what he saw
as a British neocolony was being established on his borders. Though
the Indonesian official response ranged from indifferent to support-
ive of the idea of Malaysia from 1961 through 1962, the months from
the summer to autumn of 1963 were some of the most tense of the
Konfrontasi period, as Malaysia was created from the unification of

Malaya, Singapore, and the British North Borneo territories of Sarawa
and Sabah.39 Indonesian diplomats were expelled by the British govern
ment for offering military training to North Borneo citizens, which i
turn led Indonesia to expel British diplomats for "improper interfer
ence in the internal politics of Indonesia."40 This action was concurren
with the correspondence between Verhoeven and Ali. Malaysia was no
only just across the Strait of Malacca from Sumatra but also had a land
border with Indonesia on Borneo.
Benedict Anderson details the way postcolonial societies tend to go

beyond just having the same boundaries; they also have state structures
similar to that of the colonial state.41 Under Sukarno, Indonesia made
an attempt to distance itself from this structure - unlike the New Order's
embrace of it. The strongest way to create that distance was through lan-
guage and symbolic gestures. By declaring ANRI distinct from the Lands-
archief, Sukarno's Indonesia was making a claim to being independent
and "new" compared to the Dutch East Indies state.
To Indonesia the Djogdja Documenten could be used to repre-
sent a major piece of the early period of the republic, the struggle for
383
independence, and the making of the modern Indonesian state. Under

Suharto's New Order regime the opportunity had come for these re-
cords to be returned, a process that began in the mid-1970s and contin-
ued for over a decade as more seized and missing records were found in
various ministries in The Hague.42
The Work of Soemartini
Archival cooperation was the result of greater cooperation in all

fields between the Netherlands and Indonesia, but it also was the work
of specific people on both sides. While the decision of what was seized
and kept in 1948 was done not by archivists but by military officials, the
cooperation after 1968 to return the Djogdja Documenten was the work
of two archivists. In Indonesia the initiator of much of the cooperation
was Raden Adjeng Soemartini, director of the ANRI.43 Her Dutch equiv-
alent, Ton Ribberink, would be just as important later in the process in
being a mediator between Dutch ministries in securing further returns
of original documents.
With cooperation between the two countries (and their archives) at
a high point after a 1968 cultural agreement, talk began to circulate of
the exchange of archives seized by the Dutch military. In a letter from
the Dutch minister of foreign affairs to the ambassador in Jakarta, which
includes background on the cooperation between the Algemeen Rijksar-
chief (ARA) and the ANRI, there is mention of the Djogdja Documenten
in regard to sending microfilm to Indonesia. Discussion of the archives
was now circulating through government offices. By the end of 1974 the
minister of foreign affairs had acknowledged the political sensitivity of
the transfer of these archives and had asked for special care to be given
to the file transfer project, including that any potentially sensitive rec-
ords be approved by him first before they were sent to the ANRI.44
At the end of 1974 Soemartini wrote to the Dutch Embassy in Ja-
karta asking for financial assistance in sending an Indonesian historian
to The Hague specifically to inventory the Djogdja Documenten. After
this request the turnaround was remarkably quick. The Dutch Embassy
in Jakarta wrote to The Hague that for the sake of "our good relations
we should make a positive offer quickly."45 In January 1975 the Cultural
Affairs and Information Ministry declared that "the Netherlands gov-
ernment is prepared to hand over documents of Indonesian Repub-
lic origin which came into Dutch possession in the period 1945-1959
[s¿c], after an inventory has been made by the Government Archives
Department."46
Less than one year later, in November 1975, Ambassador Jalink was in
Jakarta presiding over the return of part of the collection. In his speech
he mentioned "why this transfer does not cover [the complete collec-
tion]. The answer is that after 1948 the Jogya files were split up and
got mixed up with Dutch dossiers. To recollect and reorder them is a
rather time-consuming operation." The dossiers in question most likely
refer to other NEFIS records that got mixed up with the Djogdja Docu-
menten. Jalink concluded his remarks by stating, "There is more to
come."47 This last line proved important for over ten years as Indonesia
waited for the return of the complete archive. Jalink appeared to know
that more of the Djogdja Documenten existed than what were being
returned in 1975, but he was not yet aware of the difficulty that would be
experienced in completing the return. Politically, his promise put him
in the position of needing to fulfill it due to the fact that he was now on
record stating there was more to come, and the Indonesian side did not
soon forget that. It is this quote that Soemartini used almost ten years
later to reignite the conversation regarding the return of the Djogdja
Documenten.
The cultural agreement also led to the formation of an Indonesian stud-

ies program in 1975, which in turn created the Netherlands-Indonesian
Steering Committee on Museums, Monuments, and Archives. At the
1983 meeting of the committee, with Soemartini as part of the Indo-
nesian delegation, the Djogdja Documenten and Jalink's assurance of
more archives made a return to the discussion. The official report of th
meeting describes the discussion:
Ms. Soemartini also stated that the Indonesia side would like to
be informed when the rest of the so-called "Yogya archives" will be

handed over. The Netherlands will make investigations about this
subject mentioned in the speech of the Ambassador of the Neth-
erlands, Mr. P. W. Jalink, on the occasion of the transfer of parts of
these archives on November 7, 1975. The Head of the Netherlands
Delegations [Mr. R. Hotke, director general of culture, Ministry
of Welfare, Public Health and Culture (WVC) ] stated that if the
rest of these 'Yogya archives" is still in the Netherlands, it will be
handed over.48
Hotke wrote to Ton Ribberink, director of the ARA, that at the meet-
ing his colleague, Ms. Soemartini, made reference to the speech by
Jalink, which was new to him. He thought the Djogdja Documenten
case was closed, and he was waiting for Ribberink's comments on the
385
situation. Ribberink replied that he did not know why the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs would not have returned all of the Djogdja Documenten
in 1975 and that its failure to do so was "contrary to the international
rules for archives." He believed the records were still in the NEFIS ar-
chives at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he referred Hotke to the

relevant person to contact. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs evidently
resented the accusation and wrote to the ARA that its current attitude
regarding the Djogdja Documenten was undesirable. Even though the

Indonesians were doubtful, the ministry maintained its claim that all rec-
ords had been returned in the mid-1970s.49
After years of few results, Ribberink tried again in 1987 to locate

the collection. Just as in 1983, the parties involved were Ribberink, the
WVC, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Affairs reiterated its
belief that between 1975 and 1976 all of the Djogdja Documenten had
been returned. Failing to believe the ministry, Ribberink wrote to differ-
ent members of the WVC looking for a green light to microfilm the last
of the missing pieces and send them to Jakarta, as he still believed them
to be in the collection of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.50
Contributing to the problem is the definition of what constitutes the
Djogdja Documenten. In 1975 "very strict criteria" were put in place to
describe what would be returned to ANRI as the Djogdja Documenten.51
The Indonesian side had consistently noted that they did not believe
the transfer of seized archives to be completed. This was noted by
Ribberink in a July 1987 letter to the WVC: "In Indonesia there is a
greater interpretation of the Djokja [sic] documents. . . . [T]hese docu-
ments are found not only in the Foreign Affairs held NEFIS archives
but also under my administration in the archives of the General Secre-
tary and Attorney General of Batavia." At that time the complete NEFIS
archive, which is now held at the Nationaal Archief, had yet to be
transferred from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs determined to be the Djogdja Documenten were re-
moved from the NEFIS archive and transferred to ANRI in 1975 and
1976. Ribberink explained that Indonesian archivists believed more
seized archives existed within the ARA (his administration) in the
archives of the algemene secretarie (general secretary) and the procureur-
general (attorney general). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs disagreed
with this expanded view of the Djogdja Documenten and believed every-
thing that needed to be returned was returned in the 1970s.52
As the archives were initially seized by Dutch troops and then trans-
lated by NEFIS, there was reason to believe that the entire collection
would be in the NEFIS archive. This does not appear to have been the
case, however. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' insistence that every-

thing - or at least everything it had and knew of - had been returned
in 1976 gives credence to this fact. The 1974 International Association
of Historians of Asia Congress, which took place in Yogyakarta and in-
cluded a meeting between Dutch and Indonesian historians, included
some of the earliest discussions of the Djogdja Documenten. A report
written by an attending Dutch historian highlighted the confusion as
to the location of the Djogdja Documenten when it described them as
being located in the archives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs rather
than Foreign Affairs.53 In the postreturn period, other seized documents
from Yogyakarta were later found in the archives of the procureur-generaal
and the algemene secretarie. This explains Ribberink's work throughout the
1980s, searching for last remnants of the collection in multiple locations.
When the ARA made an inventory of the algemene secretaries 1942-50
collection it declared certain records, such as "captured archives of the
republic," as "not belonging" to the archive and included them in a ship-
ment to the ANRI, including papers of Sukarno, A. K. Pringgodigdo, the
Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Indonesia, and the republican
national secretary. A letter from archivist Evert van Laar to Magetsari in
1991 stated that these records would be returned to Indonesia and that
some of them had already been transferred between 1986 and 1991. 54
That the records were already being returned to Indonesia less than
thirty years after their seizure is quite remarkable and shows the rapid
change in the relationship following the rise of Suharto. As a counter-
example, though some were returned in 2003, the United States Na-
tional Archives still contains thousands of German records from the
First World War, including some three thousand maps.55 This is worth
noting, as the Dutch reaction could have been to say that the Djogdja
Documenten were intelligence records seized during wartime and that
they had become the property of the government of the Netherlands.
Instead, the Dutch government agreed with the idea that the records
legally belonged to Indonesia.
The work of archivists in the Netherlands like Ton Ribberink in se-
curing the return of the Djogdja Documenten shows more adherence to
professional archivist ethics rather than state intelligence interests.
Conclusion
When the Djogdja Documenten began to be returned to Indonesia,

Indonesian researchers were relieved that they no longer had "to make
such long trips anymore [to the Netherlands] to be able to write about
387
the history of Indonesia's independence."56 The sweeping overhaul of

the Indonesian government systems during the regime change from
Sukarno to Suharto included a change in general disposition toward
the West and the Netherlands. After a cultural agreement was signed
in 1968, the two countries had a sense of cultural cooperation not seen
since Indonesian independence.57 Included in this cooperation were
new exchange programs between ANRI and the National Archives of
the Netherlands. Not only did both sides create microfilms of important
documents to send to the other, but the Netherlands also agreed to re-
turn all original documents created by the Republic of Indonesia held
by different branches of the Dutch government.58
Much has been written on the link between the accumulation of in-
formation and the control of a population, including the European col-

onization of much of the world. Just as important is the role of archives
in decolonization. If archives are powerful in one direction, they must
be equally powerful in the opposite direction. As Dutch archivist Eric
Ketelaar framed it, "Archives have a two-fold power: being evidence of
oppression and containing evidence required to gain freedom."59 The
Djogdja Documenten fit within this framework, as their very existence
is "evidence of oppression" and the invasion of Yogyakarta by Dutch
troops. Viewed another way, they represent Indonesian independence
both because they were created by a government fighting colonialism
and because they eventually were sent to ANRI.
Notes
A very early version of this article was presented at the conference "History as
Controversy: Writing and Teaching Contentious Topics in Asian Histories," held
at the National University of Singapore in 2011. I would like to thank the Leids
Universiteits Fonds and the Leiden Institute for History for the travel grants pro-
vided to attend the conference and engage in research in Jakarta at the ANRI
following the conference. Many thanks are also due to the two reviewers of the
early form of this article for their helpful comments.
1 . NEFIS's English name was the result of its creation by the Dutch East Indies
government-in-exile in Australia during the Japanese occupation of the Indies
during the Second World War and its cooperation with the Allied forces.
2. The word "Djogdja" comes from the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, where
the records were found. This city is often shortened to Yogya or Jogja. The un-
usual spelling "Djogdja" appears in the inventory at the National Archives of
Indonesia. I use the spelling 'Yogyakarta" to refer to the city and "Djogdja" only
in conjunction with the Dutch word documenten. The spelling 'Yogya" appears in
original quotes.
3. The recent case of the so-called migrated archives (records from
nearly forty former British colonies that were sent to London on the eve of
independence and hidden in a Foreign Office warehouse for almost fifty years,
where their existence was unknown to the public) has some similarities to the
case of the Djogdja Documenten. Understanding the story of the Djogdja Docu-
menten could prove useful as the story of the migrated archives progresses.
However, there are far more differences than similarities, as I explain further in
my dissertation, which uses both the migrated archives and the Djogdja Docu-
menten to test the perceived universality of the records continuum model. The
focus of this article will only be the Djogdja Documenten. Further information
on the migrated archives can be found in the following articles, among others:
Huw Bennet, "Soldiers in the Court Room: The British Army's Part in the Kenya
Emergency under the Legal Spotlight," Journal oflmpeńal and Commonwealth His-
tory 39, no. 5 (2011): 717-30; Stephen Howe, "Flakking the Mau Mau Catchers,"
Journal of Imperìal and Commonwealth History 39, no. 5 (December 2011): 695-97;
Mandy Banton, "Destroy? 'Migrate'? Conceal? British Strategies for the Disposal
of Sensitive Records of Colonial Administrations at Independence," Journal of
Imperìal and Commonwealth History 40, no. 2 (June 2012): 321-35.
4. This article cannot be a complete history of the transitional period from
Sukarno to Suharto. Histories describing the effects of the New Order socially
and politically can be found in many sources. Nor is the discussion of the re-
newed cooperation with the Netherlands and therefore cooperation between
the two national archives meant to showcase a period where up to one million
people were killed by state forces as a completely positive case and that what
happened outside of the archive was somehow "worth it" due to the changes in
the Arsip Nasional.
5. Procureur-Generaal bij het Hooggerechtshof van Nederlands-Indië,
1945-50, nummer toegang 2.10.17, inventarisnummer 798, Nationaal Archief,
Den Haag (hereafter cited as NA). A NEFIS official wrote to the procureur gen-
eraaly "Ik heb de eer UhoogEdelGestrenge bijgaand foto's aan te bieden, welke
in het tijdvak van 19 December 1948 tot heden werden aange troffen in diverse
gebouwen h.t.s." (I have the honor to show you photos that in the period from
December 19, 1948, to the present were found in various buildings).
6. Audrey Kahin and George Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret
Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1995), 31.
7. Nummer toegang 2.21.036.01, inventaris nummer 39, Collectie 216 S. H.
Spoor, 1946-49, NA.
8. Yong Mun Cheong, The Indonesian Revolution and the Singapore Connection
(Leiden: KITLV Press, 2003), 135.
9. George McT. Kahin, Southeast Asia: A Testament (London: Routledge,
2003), 94.
10. Oey Hong Lee, War and Diplomacy in Indonesia 1945-1950 (Townsville,
Australia: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1981), 3. Lee used the
term "Royal Archives" to refer to what was then known as the Algemeen Rijksar-
chief rather than the correct translation of General State Archive.
11. Netherlands delegation to Minister Sassen, October 8, 1948, in Lee, War
and Diplomacy, 193.
12. Nummer toegang 2.21.036.01, inventarisnummer 39, Collectie 216 S. H.
Spoor, 1946-^9, NA.
389
13. Cabinet Office Conclusions, December 22, 1948, CAB 195/6, National
Archives UK.
14. Robert Cribb, "Opium and the Indonesian Revolution," Modem Asian
Studies 22, no. 4 (1988): 720.
15. Benedict Anderson, "The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture," in Language
and Power: Exploring Political Cultures in Indonesia, t by Benedict Anderson (Jakarta:
Equinox Publishing, 2006) , 49.
16. Nummer toegang 2.05.118, inventarisnummer 13156, Buitenlandse Za-
ken / Code-Archief 55-64, NA.
17. The incomplete dagregister films are located in the NA; see nummer toe-
gang 1.11.06.01, 1683-1807, Microfiches Dagregisters Batavia.
18. Stich ting Culturele Samenwerking (STICUSA), nummer toegang
2.19.114, NA.
19. John Saltford, United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua ,
1962-1969 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 6.
20. Jan Pouwer, "The Colonisation, Decolonisation and Recolonisation of
West New Guinea," Journal of Pacific History 34, no. 2 (1999): 166-67.
21. Benedict Anderson, "Old State, New Society," in Anderson, Language and
Power , 105-6.
22. Manuscript for an article by Marie Antoinette Petronella Meilink-
Roelofsz, "Een archiefreis door Oost-Azie" (An archival journey through East
Asia), nummer toegang 2.21.281.04, inventarisnummer 30, Collectie 441 F. R. J.
Verhoeven, 1921-87, NA.
23. Ibid. The UNESCO-appointed overseer of the Malaysian National Ar-
chive at this time was the former landsarchivaris of the Dutch East Indies, F. J. R.
Verhoeven.
24. Ibid.
25. Frank Lequin, "In Memoriam M. A. P. Meilink-Roelofsz," Bijdragen tot de
Taal -, Land- en Volkenkunde 146 , no. 1 (1990): 127-46.
26. Saltford, United Nations , 6.
27. From 1965 he had held the role under the title of acting president.
28. Verhoeven 's project would last from 1962 until 1966. Originally intended to
work in the National Archives of Malaya, his project soon turned to the archives of
all of Malaysia when Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore joined in 1963. After Singa-
pore left Malaysia and became independent in 1965, the Singaporean government
requested his services to do a similar project for it. He completed his Malaysia re-
port in 1966 and wrote a similar report on his findings for Singapore in 1967.
29. Nummer toegang 2.14.03, inventarisnummer 1320, Algemeen Rijksar-
chief, Tweede Afdeling, NA.
30. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006), 122.
31. Nummer toegang 2.21.281.04, inventarisnummer 30, Collectie 441 F. R. J.
Verhoeven, 1921-87, NA.
32. Roy Jones and Brian J. Shaw, "Palimpsests of Progress: Erasing the Past
and Rewriting the Future in Developing Societies - Case Studies of Singapore
and Jakarta," International Journal of Heritage Studies 12, no. 2 (2006): 123.
33. Ali listed the following regulations: Peraturan Presiden No. 19/1961
Tentang Pokok2 Kearsipan Nasional and the Keputusan Menteri Pertama No.
406/M.P./1961 Tentang Arsip Nasional.
34. This building, which is still managed by the ANRI and today is a museum,
is the former residence of Dutch governor-general de Klerk.
35. Verhoeven, nummer toegang 2.21.281.04, inventarisnummer 30, NA.
Along with the correspondence with Ali, Verhoeven 's archive contains a copy of
the finished article.
36. Anthony Reid, Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and Political Identity in South-
east Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9.
37. Ibid., 147.
38. J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Konfrontasi Revisited: Indonesia's Foreign Policy under
Soekamo (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1996).
39. Matthew Jones, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia , 1961-1965:
Britain , the United States and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2002).
40. "Indonesia Subversive Activities in North Borneo," FCO 141/12602, Na-
tional Archives UK.
41. Anderson, "Old State, New Society," 94-122.
43. As is common for some Javanese names, she is most often referred to
simply as Soemartini.
45. The two countries now have a good enough relationship that such an
offer is not received with surprise and is quickly agreed to. Nummer toegang
2.05.188, inventarisnummer, 590, Ambassade Indonesie 1962-74, NA. My
translation.
46. Ibid. 1959 is most likely a typo for 1949.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Director, Cultural Services, to Secretary General of the Ministry of For-
eign Affairs, April 2, 1987, nummer toegang 2.14.04, inventarisnummer 201, Al-
gemeen Rijksarchief, Tweede Afdeling, NA. The letter states that there may be
more seized archives that must be returned due to the "strict criteria" in place
in 1975.
52. Foreign Affairs to Ministry WVC, April 23, 1987, nummer toegang
2.14.04, inventarisnummer 201, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Tweede Afdeling, NA.
53. Nummer toegang 2.05.313, inventarisnummer 9647, Ministerie van
Buitenlandse Zaken: Code-archief 1965-74, NA.
55. Timothy Mulligan, Selected German Documents from the Records of the Ameri-
can Expeditionary Forces ( World War I) (Washington, DC: National Archives and
Records Administration, 2005).
56. Nederlandse Ambassade in Indonesie (standplaats Jakarta), nummer toe-
gang 2.05.188, inventarisnummer 590, NA.
391
57. Mei Li Vos, International Cooperation between Politics and Practice: How Dutch
Indonesian Cooperation Changed Remarkably Little after a Diplomatic Rupture (Amster-
dam: Het Spinhuis, 2000) .
58. For more background on the cooperation between the ANRI and the
ARA in the early New Order period, see Michael Karabinos, "Returning to the
Metropole: The Indonesian National Archives and Its Changing Role at the
Start of the New Order," Archives and Manuscripts 39 (201 1 ) .
59. Eric Ketelaar, "Archival Temples, Archival Prisons," Archival Science 2
(2002): 231.

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The Djogdja Documenten: The Dutch-Indonesian Relationship Following Independence

through an Archival Lens

This article is an overview of a story highlighting a collection of displaced

Michael Karabinos is a PhD candidate at Leiden University ( the Netherlands ) in the

Information ùf Culture, Vol. 50, No. 3, 2015

Background on the Djogdja Documenten

There is no doubt that the Djogdja Documenten come from different

The Dutch military and colonial administrations were very interested

befriended the leaders of the republic. In his memoirs describing

agreement that Dutch officials, without fanfare, refrained from publish-

Initial Attempts at Cooperation

of armed conflict. At independence, the western half of New Guinea

The relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands was still in

so very important material."23 Twice in her report she referred to the

The ANRI under Guided Democracy

Before examining the ANRI under Sukarno, it is first necessary to

and after the Indonesian proclamation of independence in 1945. After

nineteenth centuries that he believed had been lost sometime during

Verhoeven's reply mentioned four main points: that the documents

Ali responded to Verhoeven's lack of recollection and Landsarchief

as the "official" form of state nationalism used by the government. The

Konfrontasi period, as Malaysia was created from the unification of

Benedict Anderson details the way postcolonial societies tend to go

independence, and the making of the modern Indonesian state. Under

The Work of Soemartini

Archival cooperation was the result of greater cooperation in all

The cultural agreement also led to the formation of an Indonesian stud-

be informed when the rest of the so-called "Yogya archives" will be

chives at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he referred Hotke to the

regarding the Djogdja Documenten was undesirable. Even though the

After years of few results, Ribberink tried again in 1987 to locate

case, however. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' insistence that every-

When the Djogdja Documenten began to be returned to Indonesia,

the history of Indonesia's independence."56 The sweeping overhaul of

formation and the control of a population, including the European col-

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