Where to Go
Gunung Leuser National Park
Bukit Lawang
Tangkahan
Lake Toba
Berastagi
Mt. Sibayak volcano
Mt. Sinabung volcano
Sipisopiso Waterfall
Tongging
Ketembe
Lake Kawar
Medan

What to Do
Jungle Trekking
Elephant Trekking
White-Water Rafting
River-Tubing
Volcano Climbing
Bohorok Orangutan Centre
Maimoon Palace

What to Know
About "Hello Mister Travel"
Introduction to Sumatra
Topography
History
Getting to Sumatra
Getting Around Sumatra
Terms & Conditions

Accommodation
Bukit Lawang
Tangkahan
Berastagi
Tongging
Tuk Tuk
Ketembe

The Tours
Bukit Lawang Short Stay
The Jungle Trail
The Toba Trail
The North Sumatran Trail

History of Sumata and Indonesia

Pre-colonial Sumatra

There are perplexingly few physical remnants of the Srivijaya (Glorious Victory) empire considering that by the ninth century it had a stranglehold over all of Sumatra, West Java, East Borneo and the Malay Peninsula as far north as Southern Thailand. Its wealth was legend throughout the world and their gold reserves such that the Maharajas of the time would fling a gold bar into the sea everyday as a tribute to that which gave them their riches; possibly without the knowledge that the sea-bed would be vigorously dredged immediately upon their deaths.

Srivijaya controlled the two most important trading routes in South East Asia: The Sunda and Melaka Straits between Sumatra and Java. With their strategic capital city at Palembang, the empire was able to extract taxes from maritime trade in exchange for protection against piracy. Palembang’s excellent harbour at the mouth of the Musi River was also an ideal place for ships to shore up for repairs and no doubt a good place for weary seafarers to get some rest and relaxation.

In 1025 an Indian fleet set sail and destroyed much the Srivijaya empire’s grip upon the East Sumatran coastline, the motivation for which, was revenge against the exorbitant taxes being extracted upon them; South India’s Chloa Kingdom being heavily hit by Srivijaya’s exploitation of merchants. Thus signalled the death knell for the four hundred year dominance of the Srivijaya Empire; by the fourteenth century there was very little sign that it had ever existed. There are a few theories concerning the lack of evidence from this once great empire, one of them being that many of the stuctures of the time would have been made from wood and bamboo, while records would have been written on paper made from palm leaves, all of which would have perished in the unforgiving heat and humidity of South East Asia. Another theory is that the jungle, swamps and mud have simply swallowed everything up, an idea which backs up another theory that there simply hasn’t been much of an effort to find anything.

Roughly concurrent to, and slightly outlasting the Srivijaya empire was the Melayu Kingdom.  Based in Jambi on the East Coast of Sumatra from the seventh century, the ruling dynasty decided to move to the Minang highlands of West Sumatra in response to worsening relations with the powerful Javanese empires of the fourteenth century.

The fourteenth century was also the time that many Muslim trading ports were springing up along the coast of the Melaka Strait and heading down towards Java, spreading the word of Islam. Meanwhile, the colonial powers of Europe were beginning to make forays into the area...

Colonial Sumatra

Maybe the face of South East Asia would be very different today if Europeans hadn’t been craving some variety in their diet a few hundred years ago. With only a diet of pickled vegetables and salted fish to see them through the winter months, there was a craving for a little variety in their food. And so with the thought of breaking the Venetian and Arab monopolies on the spice trade, the Portuguese and Spanish began to venture further East in search of other sources. Their voyages for flavourings and the massive profits to be made from these expensive commodities, and also to spread the word of Christianity, brought the Portuguese to the port of Melaka on the West coast of what is now known as Malaysia where the sailor Alfonso de Albequerque claimed it in June of 1511.

Initial explorations took the Portuguese south and east, thus ignoring the rather large island of Sumatra but a day away across the Melaka Strait and leaving it to the Dutch who built a fort on the west coast at Padang in 1663. Hot on their heels were the British who also built a fort, this one in Bengkulu, some four hundred kilometres south of Padang. There were frequent skirmishes between the rival colonial powers as well as attacks by the French, not to mention native uprisings, and so it could not be said that Sumatra was particularly at peace during this time. The ensuing hundred years attracted many settlers hoping to make their fortunes from Sumatra’s plentiful natural resources such as tin, coffee and Gambier (a plant used for tanning and dyeing, and also for Chinese medicine. The Sumatrans themselves use it for chewing with betel). In 1824, the Brits and the Dutch agreed to swap Melaka (the Dutch having ousted the Portuguese) for Bengkulu, thus leaving the Dutch as the sole colonial power in Sumatra.

Control, over Sumatra however, was by no means certain and the Dutch fought continuous wars with the inhabitants as they sought to expand their hold upon the as yet unexplored island. One particularly bitter chapter during this era was the so-called Padri War on the northern tip of the island known as Aceh. The Padris were fundamentalist Muslims named after the port of Aceh where they would embark on their Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). These fiercely Islamic people fought a running battle to convert the Minangkabau of the area to the true faith. The Minangkabau held deeply traditional religious beliefs, indigenous to the island, and were consequently viciously persecuted for their heresies. By 1815, most of the Minang royal family had been killed by the Padri and the remaining threw their lot in with the Dutch, thereby beginning the Padri War which lasted until 1838 shortly after the Padri leader Imam Bonjol was captured. By 1910, Sumatra could be said to be under Dutch rule.

Road to Independence

‘New Imperialism’ is the name given to the period of the late 19th Century when the colonial powers of Europe began to divvy up amongst themselves vast swathes of the globe which were, as yet, undeveloped for profit; Africa, most of South East Asia and the South Pacific fell into this category. The previous few hundred years of Dutch rule in Indonesia could be seen as rather unsophisticated in its implementation of exploitation compared to what followed.

One of the consequences of this renewed push for exploitative profit was the rise in a sense of national unity for the people living under colonial rule in the Dutch East Indies; it has to be remembered that this had previously been just a large collection of islands, disparate in culture and language. Protest became organised not just as a resistance to Dutch rule but also with the first stirrings of nationalism. A number of socio-political organisations began to form in the early part of the twentieth century, all of which had nationalistic aims but were divided in their implementation of them; groups grew up mainly around Islamic, communist and elitist ideals.

Aware of these stirrings, the Dutch decided to form a People’s Council at the end of the First World War, made up of Dutch, Indonesian and ‘foreign’ members and was meant to give the population more control over their own affairs. However, despite opportunities for debate and criticism, the council had no real teeth and could not influence governmental affairs.

In 1926 in Java, and 1927 in Sumatra, the communist party (PKI) attempted to revolt but the uprisings, which weren’t backed by the Comintern and were rather unorganised, were dealt with swiftly by the Dutch. With the decline of the only other major party, the Islamic Association (Sarekat Islam) due to in-fighting, the defeat of the communists left a political vacuum that was filled by ‘a general study club’ that had been founded in Bandung with a newly qualified engineer called Sukarno as its secretary. The club’s aim was to work towards an independent Indonesia regardless of political ideologies; one which “... transcended and encompassed the many societies of the Indies.”  The group attracted many radical nationalists and by the late ‘20s it had reorganised and renamed itself the Indonesian National Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia; PNI) with the idea of noncooperation with the Dutch government as its basis, and Sukarno as its chairman.

Unsurprisingly, the Dutch were less than enthused with these developments and Sukarno was arrested and imprisoned twice; once in 1929 for a couple of years and again in 1933 when he was exiled to Flores and then Bengkulu. Meanwhile the PNI morphed a couple of times before emerging as the New PNI under the leadership of Mohammed Hatta and Sutan Sijahrir who were also caught and exiled. Another party called Gerindo was formed in 1937 but they agreed to put aside nationalistic aims and cooperate with the Dutch against Nazism.

When the invading Japanese army arrived in March 1942, they were greeted, if not with open arms, at least as liberators; but the honeymoon period was decidedly brief. Despite giving Indonesians, including Hatta and Sukarno, many administrative positions in the military government in an effort to make their rule more popular, the Japanese proved to be harsh and cruel rulers. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were sent to fight for the Japanese all over South East Asia and many never returned. In 1943 after much pressure from nationalists, the Japanese agreed to allow an organisation, called the Putera (an Indonesian acronym meaning Centre of the People’s Power) and headed by Sukarno, which would represent Indonesian views. However, it was later castrated and named a ‘people’s loyalty organisation’. 
In August 1945, on the day before the Japanese surrendered to the Allied Forces, Sukarno and Hatta were sent for and met with the commander of the Japanese commander of South East Asia in Saigon, Vietnam who promised them a transfer of power. On 17th August 1945, after returning to Jakarta, Sukarno declared independence.

The Sukarno Years

The declaration of independence preceded four years of heavy struggle for Indonesia to impose its own rule upon the islands. The Dutch were not prepared to go without a fight and were supported by British troops. However, the heady days of colonialism were on the wane and by 1949, control of Indonesia could be said to be in its own hands. The Hague Agreement of 2nd November 1949 ceded Dutch control of all Indonesian territories excluding the western half of the island of New Guinea. By December 1949 Indonesia was flying its own flag.

The bitterly fought fight for independence was the easy part; how then, to rule a country spanning an eighth of the globe, made up of over thirteen thousand islands, countless languages, territorial waters more than four times the area of Mexico and many varied and contradictory ideas about how to govern it?

The main views on the proposed constitution could be loosely divided into three groups:

The Pancasila-ists, or traditionalists, rejected individualism as being the cause of capitalism and therefore, colonialism. They maintained that a country was like a family, whereby the leaders were like the parents who looked after the best interests of the children or population. This was how the ancient Javanese Kingdoms had ruled; the 'mystical sublimation of subject, ruler and realm'. Pancasila-ism has continued tobe a strong theme throughout contemporary Indonesian history.

The Islamists' main goal was to ensure that, with the majority of the population claiming to be Muslim, that the country should become an Islamic state. Islam sees the unity of government, religion, and, indeed family life, as inseparable.

The Constitutionalists were concerned with setting up the 'procedures for the effective participation of the people in government, limitation of the government power, and accountability of the government to the people'. They fought hard for protecting the people against the 'problem of power' and were consequently open to the charge of 'individualism' from the Pancasila-ists.

In the original 1945 Constitution, Sukarno called for a nation built upon Pancasila, or five principles. They were: belief in one supreme God; justice and civility among peoples; the unity of Indonesia; democracy through deliberation and consensus among representatives and social justice for all. It was a rather non-specific doctrine, one which it was hoped would appease all parties; mainly the demands of the Islamists, as an Islamic state, it was believed at the time, would create revolutions among the other religious groups, especially those on the outermost islands. It has proved to be a durable binding agent over the years, but has also been incredibly malleable and somewhat open to interpretation to the powers that be. A further constitution was drawn up in 1950 which borrowed heavily from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The first and only clean and fair elections in Indonesia for the next fifty years took place in 1955 with ninety percent of the population turning out to vote. The results were far from conclusive and spread throughout the political spectrum rather evenly. It was this consequent lack of a definitive consensus on a new constitution which Sukarno seized upon in 1959 when he brought Indonesia's brief flirt with democracy to an end. Backed by the military, he reintroduced the 1949 Constitution and the principle of 'Guided Democracy'

'Guided Democracy' was, in reality, a hearkening back to feudalism and could be summed up by Sukarno himself: “the key ingredient is leadership. The Guider ... incorporates a spoonful of so-and-so's opinions with a dash of such-and-such, always taking care to incorporate a soupçon of the opposition. Then he cooks it and serves his final summation with 'OK, now my dear brothers, it is like this and I hope you agree...' It's still democratic because everybody has given his comment.”

Sukarno's belief in a strong role for the state in the economy upset investors and foreign business, as did his protection of the Communist Party which was the largest outside of China. Debt and inflation rose dramatically, affecting exports and the economy, which had taken a back-seat to Sukarno's political grandstanding, ground to a shuddering halt. Coupled with the growing tensions between the Communist Party, the Muslims and the military, it's a testament to Sukarno's political skills that he lasted as long as he did. But last he could not...

The Coup

What exactly happened and who was responsible for the mysterious coup on 30th September 1965 will probably never be fully explained. The facts are that on the evening of that day, six generals and a lieutenant were kidnapped by officers calling themselves, rather unimaginatively, the Thirtieth of September Movement. Before morning, their corpses had been thrown into a well on an airforce base outside of Jakarta. The pro-Sukarno TSM, claimed that the attack had been carried out in order to stamp out an imminent coup by a Council of Generals with links to the CIA; no evidence has ever been produced that this was the case and Sukarno denied any knowledge of either group.

At 2100 on 1st October, Major General Soeharto of Kostrad, the strategic reserve command, issued a radio broadcast in which he condemned the coup as counter-revolutionary. He announced that the army was now in charge and that he would be in command. Without too much in the way of an inquiry, the army declared that the Communist Party had plotted and carried out the coup. This seems rather unlikely, however it was a theory that was seized upon with relish and what followed was one of the bloodiest chapters in history.

During the rest of 1965 and all of 1966 when it stopped almost as quickly as it began, a tide of death swept Indonesia and an estimated half a million people were massacred. Real and imagined communists were killed by the thousands by the army and local vigilantes armed by the army. Bodies were often decapitated and disposed of crudely; officials complained that the rivers were choked full of blood and bodies. The CIA later described the episode:

“In terms of number killed, the anti-PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950's. In this regard, the Indonesian coup is certainly one of the most significant events of the 20th century, far more significant than many other events that have received much greater publicity.”

Conversely, Time magazine said that it was “The West's best news for years in Asia”, considered, as it was, a victory against Communism.

By refusing to blame the Communist Party for the coup, Sukarno couldn't hope to cling to power against the tide for much longer and by the beginning of 1966 his grip on the nation was finally severed after two decades of rule.