Poncke Princen
Encyclopedia
Johan Cornelis Princen better known as Poncke Princen, was a Dutch
anti-Nazi fighter and colonial soldier. In 1948, he deserted, joined the pro-independence guerrillas in the then Dutch Indies, lived out the rest of his life in Indonesia
, became a prominent human rights
activist and political dissident under various dictatorial regimes in his adopted country and consequently spent considerable time in detention.
For some people, especially among his former Dutch comrades-in-arms, he was a despicable traitor. Others - especially in Indonesia and East Timor
, but also in his original homeland and in many other countries - admired him as a hero.
Despite his upbringing, the young Princen conceived an interest in the Catholic
religion under the influence of the parents of his mother, Theresia Princen-Van der Lee. In 1939 he entered the Holy Ghost Seminary
at Weert
- where he was followed by his younger brother Kees Princen, with whom he was to maintain correspondence throughout all the vicissitudes of his life. It was while he was at the seminary that Nazi Germany
invaded and occupied the Netherlands
in 1940.
Princen did not become a priest. In 1942, being only 17 years old, he was accepted as an economic councillor at Teppemaand Vargroup Groothandel voor Chemische Producten, a chemical company based at The Hague
. However, he did not keep this position for long, either, being determined to take up arms against the occupiers of his country.
, while trying to get to Spain - from where he intended to travel to Britain and enlist in an Allied army fighting the Nazis. He was convicted by the occupation authorities of "attempting to aid the enemy" and in early 1944 was sent to the notorious Vught
Camp.
On D-day
, he was transferred to the Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis (Wehrmacht Military Prison) at Utrecht
. While there he entertained fellow-prisoners by reading aloud chapters from a favourite book, Pastoor Poncke ("Pastor Poncke") by Jan Eekhout
. Thereby, he acquired the nickname "Poncke" which he was to keep for the rest of his life.
Later, he was transferred to the prison camp at Amersfoort
and from there to Beckum, Germany
. Altogether, before being finally liberated by the arrival of Allied forces, he had passed through no less than seven Nazi prisons and camps.
Directly upon being freed from Nazi imprisonment, Princen joined the Stoottroepen Regiment Brabant (Brabant Stormtroop
Regiment), based at the southern Dutch province of Brabant
.
In 1945, he also worked for the newly-founded Bureau voor Nationale Veiligheid (Bureau of National Security :nl:Bureau Nationale Veiligheid), precursor of the present Dutch Security Service - at the time mainly involved in hunting down collaborators and war criminals, but also in "keeping an eye" on natives of the Dutch Indies resident in the Netherlands
, restive with the rebellion against Dutch rule spreading at their long-colonized homeland.
and take part in what Dutch official histories still sometimes call "Police Actions" (politionele acties
) but which would soon become better known as the Indonesian National Revolution
.
Having no wish to take part in that war, Princen fled to France - but upon hearing that his mother was ill, came back and was arrested by the Marechaussee and taken to detention at Schoonhoven
. On December 28, 1946, he was put on board the troop ship Sloterdijk - the last he would see of the land of his birth, except for a brief visit many decades later.
The same ship also bore eastwards the young communist Piet van Staveren, also a reluctant conscript who would eventually desert and join the Indonesian rebels. There is, however, no evidence of direct collusion between the two, who would make their respective acts of ultimate rebellion at different times and places.
Prison Camp, the rest being suspended, and was then returned to active service.
He was increasingly displeased with the haughty and contemptuous attitude of fellow soldiers to the local population, and was present at some bloody incidents which greatly increased his disaffection. As he many years later explained, "An adolescence under Nazi rule and two years in German imprisonment has directed my life and made me fight against cruelty. I thought the Indonesians were right. I thought they should be the ones to decide their own future. (...) I was disgusted with the Dutch killing people I admired”.
In January 1948, the United Nations
brokered a fragile cease-fire, but almost immediately both sides violated the truce in multiple incidents and the Dutch forces made preparations for a new operation against the rebel forces.
It was at this time, while being on leave at Sukabumi
, that Princen took on September 25, 1948, the irrevocable step which shaped the rest of his life. He crossed the Line of Demarcation into rebel-held territory, and via Semarang
reached Yogyakarta, the provisional capital of the self-proclaimed Indonesian Republic - where the suspicious Indonesian nationalists promptly threw him into their own prison.
and other most nationalist leaders (see Politionele acties
and Operatie Kraai
).
It was during the assault upon their provisional capital that the nationalist rebels released Princen from their prison and gave him the chance to enlist in the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, Indonesian Republican Forces).
At the moment he joined them, the pro-independence forces' fortunes seemed at their nadir, with their political leadership captured and most of the territory of Indonesia under a re-established Dutch military rule. Undaunted, they conducted an intensive guerrilla campaign and gained considerable international sympathy and support.
Princen was fully committed to his new cause, seeing front-line service under Kemal Idris
and taking part in the fighting retreat of the Siliwangi Division
under then-Colonel A. H. Nasution
, from Central Java
to "guerrilla cantons" established in West Java
- an action which came to be known as the Long March Siliwangi (for the famed Long March
of Mao Zedong
's Chinese Communist Party). He was appointed staff officer in the Second Brigade of Grup Purwakarta, active in the envorions of the city of Purwakarta
.
On one occasion in the beginning of August 1949, Dutch troops shot Princen's wife Odah, with Princen himself narrowly avoiding being killed. When asked in a press interview many years later "Did you actually shoot at Dutch soldiers? Did you kill some of them?" he answered forthrightly "Yes, I did".
Princen quickly became famous (or notorious, as the case may be). In a struggle decided as much in the international public opinion and diplomatic forums as in the field, the presence of an articulate ex-Dutch soldier with an impeccable anti-Nazi past in the rebel ranks had an obvious political and propaganda significance.
Princen's act aroused bitter hostility against him in his homeland, which was still much in evidence half a century later. Some even accused him of having allowed himself to be used as a bait to draw Dutch soldiers into ambush. A Dutch court martial sentenced him to death in absentia, and when the Dutch finally decided to evacuate Indonesia, they made a strong demand for his extradition.
The by then freed Sukarno, founding father and first president of Indonesia, would not hear of it. Instead, on October 5, 1949, he awarded Princen the Guerrilla Star (Bintang Gerilya - see (see http://id.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bintang_Gerilya),
highest decoration of the new nation whose citizen the former Dutch soldier perforce became.
Princen's career as a rebel and dissident was, however, far from over. Due to his rebellious nature and unique passion for standing up for the discriminated and downtrodden, he was to be imprisoned again and again, both by the same Sukarno and by Sukarno's rival and successor Suharto, to a total of eight and a half years behind bars.
The decoration he got from Sukarno - a small five-pointed bronze star on which were etched the words "Pahlawan Gerilja" (Guerrilla Hero), and which Princen conspicuously displayed until the end of his days - was to give him at least some protection from the most harsh forms of repression to which successive Indonesian regimes resorted against many other dissidents and political opponents.
His desire to "immerse himself in Indonesia" was also manifested in a conversion to Islam
, the predominant religion in Indonesian society. Asked why he had changed his religion, he later explained to a visitor: "I wanted to feel a part of what everyone else was doing". In later life, his name was on some formal occasions preceded by the Muslim
honorific Hajji
, usually bestowed upon those who had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca
.
Between 1950 and 1953 Princen was an official at the Indonesian Immigration Office. In his free time, he toured Java by motor-bike, earning for himself a case of skin cancer that disfigured him in later life until friends got the money together for skin grafts.
In 1956 he became a Member of the Indonesian Parliament on behalf of IPKI (Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Indonesia - "League of Upholders of Indonesian Independence"), and was considered a representative of the foreign minority in Indonesia.
As a parliamentarian he repeatedly posed uncomfortable questions to the Sukarno Government, on such issues as the unequal division of national resources and income between the central island of Java
and the outlying islands. He was apparently one of the "obstructing parliamentarians" whom Sukarno found annoying and whose activity was among the factors which finally led the President to replace the Western-type parliamentary system with "guided democracy" in 1959.
Even before then, Princen's outspoken criticism caused him to be arrested and imprisoned in 1957-1958. And he spent Sukarno's final years, characterized by increasingly violent power struggles in Indonesia, again serving a prison term 1962-1966.
Such hopes were all too soon dashed, when the Suharto regime proved both extremely brutal and highly corrupt: "My opinion of Mr. Suharto changed at the moment he started gathering as much money as he could for himself."
In the late 1960s Princen was a correspondent for Netherlands Radio and several Dutch newspapers. This was directly connected with his work as a human rights activist, in which he was to spend most of his time and energy for the reminder of his life and through which he was to gain fame (and in government and army circles, notoriety).
In 1966 Princen founded and headed Lembaga Pembela Hak-Hak Azasi Manusia (Indonesian Institute for the Defence of Human Rights). It was the first specifically HR
organization to be created in the country, and which was to handle many high-profile human rights cases during the years of the Suharto dictatorship and provide a reliable alternate source of news to Western journalists in Jakarta.
This was actually the very time when the new regime was engaged in the systematic mass killing of hundreds of thousands of supposed communist supporters - though the full extent of the horror was unknown at the time, either in Indonesia itself or abroad. (Princen would be among those who would eventually reveal it).
Among the earlier campaigns which Princen conducted was on behalf of the left-wing writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer
, imprisoned and tortured by the Suharto regime. At the end of 1969 he published, jointly with the journalist Jopie Lasut, an extensive report on the mass murder of Communist sympathizers at Purwodadi in Middle Java - for which Princen and Lasut were promptly arrested and interrogated.
This was followed in the early 1970s by Princen's prominent role in creating a larger organization, the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (LBHI), where he rubbed shoulders with many other human rights figures including Adnan Buyung Nasution, Frans Winarta and members of the younger generation of activists.
The eulogy published after his death by the Indonesian oppositional news and commentary website Laksamana.Net noted that
Still, the same obituary also notes that, however widely respected Princen was, "toward the end of his career, much of his work was taken over by younger Indonesians, some of whom felt it inappropriate that the human rights struggle should be led by a man who was still, in their eyes, a foreigner".
In January 1974, the visit of the Japan
ese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei sparked rioting by students and urban poor in Jakarta. Ostensibly fuelled by resentment of Japanese exploitation of Indonesia's economy, and to start with possibly encouraged tacitly by some Army commanders, this so-called "Malari Affair" soon "got out of hand" and came to express hitherto repressed popular resentment about the growing gap between rich and poor in Indonesian society and the bureaucratic capitalists connected with the regime.
Involved as an outspoken human rights activist, Princen was among those who found themselves behind bars in the aftermath, and spent the next two years (1974–1976) in jail . Many other dissidents, such as Marsillam Simandjuntak, who would emerge as the 'Mr. Clean' of post-Suharto Indonesian politics, had the same fate.
In early 1990 Princen had a major role in founding the Merdeka
Labor Union (Serikat Buruh Merdeka - "Merdeka" literally means "Independence") - together with Dita Indah Sari
, a noted Indonesian labor activist and Amnesty International
Prisoner of Conscience. He conducted extensive correspondence with the International Labor Organization (ILO) regarding the conditions of Indonesian workers. Max White, Princen's friend and co-worker, stated that "Ponke believed that 'Labor rights are human rights', he saw no distinction".
In 1992 he won the prestigious Yap Thiam Hien Human Rights Award - named for the Chinese Indonesian
lawyer Yap Thiam Hien
, a fellow human rights activist.
In the early 1990s he was also a founding member of the Petition of Fifty
, a movement for democratic reform which included conservative military figures who had fallen out with Suharto and which for the first time in decades raised a real challenge to his rule. Along with other members of the group including Ali Sadikin
and Hoegeng, Princen again found himself persona non-grata with the regime, although he joked to his visitors that by that time he was "too old to put in jail again".
In 1996 he was involved in protests against Suharto’s crackdown on the Indonesian Democratic Party
(PRD). Visiting delegations of international human rights organizations at the time found him "a source of accurate information about those who were attacked at the PRD headquarters".
Much of his time in the following years was spent in writing open letters to President Suharto, on such issues as demanding the abolition of extrajudicial bodies, asking for answers about "disappearances" in East Timor (and in the capital Jakarta itself), and affirming that political change needed to take place before the Indonesian economy could recover. His once-isolated legal aid organization had become part of a large and growing network of NGO's working for political and social change.
He became widely known as "the man in the wheelchair at political rallies, who is rarely absent from a courtroom during political trials, and at mention of whose name students around the country were smiling with admiration.
A testimony of Princen's activities in that period - a man already more than seventy years old and with a rapidly deteriorating health - was provided by Ed McWilliams, a former officer of the US Foreign Service presently residing at Falls Church, Virginia
:
Ironically, the same Piaf song had been taken up, for diametrically opposite reasons, by members of the French Foreign Legion
fighting to preserve colonial rule in Algeria
.
to testify before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
about the use of torture by Indonesian forces in East Timor
and Aceh
- a one of the peak moments of his involvement in the brutal struggle going on in both places.
Princen stood out from other Indonesian reformers and dissidents in his early stand in support of East Timorese self-determination, a cause which was for long taboo even in the most progressive circles in Indonesia, where nationalism reigned supreme. His sympathy for the rebellious Timorese was due to much the same reasons which led him in youth to oppose German occupation of the Netherlands and later to renounce his Dutch homeland and throw in his lot with the Indonesian rebels.
Jose Amorim Diaz, a later senior member of the East Timor Foreign Service gave the following reminiscence:
"(...) Like thousands of Timorese students and activists, I lived and studied in Indonesia for some years since 1980s. In the course of those darkest years of our history, we came to know this great but humble human being, full of humour and compassion, who later became a very good friend of the East Timorese People. He was HJC Princen but known popularly among friends as Poncke.
"When the rest of Indonesia was silent and indifferent before the tragedy of East Timor, Princen opened his 'doors and windows' to the persecuted Timorese students, at the risk of his own life. Working only with his right hand, he typed endless letters of appeal to the civilian and military authorities to protect those alleged political prisoners in East Timor and Indonesia.
"In spite of his fragile health, a couple of times, he flew and spoke out at the UN Commission of Human Rights in Geneva on behalf of those defenceless people.
"His activities, however, drew suspicion and anger from the authorities. His phone was constantly taped. Anonymous calls arrived at his office with insult, intimidation and threat. He was summoned for questioning in the police headquarters. But Princen remained with firmness and determination in his struggle for the voiceless people.
"As the political situation worsened day by day in East Timor, hundreds of young people, students and activists fled East Timor and arrived in Java. Many of them sought political asylum in foreign embassies in Jakarta. Those who stayed behind sought refuge among Indonesian friends. Several took refuge in the house of Princen for months. 'He took care of us, gave us food and shelter', one of the students recalled.
"After the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre in the Timorese capital Dili
, Princen gave sanctuary in his home to five young Timorese who had fled their homeland. A stand-off with the Indonesian military followed, but he successfully negotiated with the Jakarta military commander, General Hendro-priono (then perceived as a liberal harbinger of reform) for their safe passage to Jakarta airport, from whence they travelled to freedom in Portugal".
Princen had some contact with the Timorese leader Xanana Gusmão
(later president of independent East Timor) even when Gusmão was still leading the guerilla struggle in East Timor's mountains. After Gusmão's capture by the Indonesian forces in 1992 and his transfer to a Jakarta Prison, the two embarked on a regular correspondence and developed a friendship, though being able to have a (highly emotional) face-to-face meeting only after Reformasi
movement gained force in 1998. Thereafter, they continued to meet regularly, discussing the evolution of the democratic struggle in Indonesia.
The Timorese leader's Australian wife, Kirsty Sword, also knew Princen from her work with the Timorese underground after 1990. After his death, she recalled Princen telling her: "In 1949 Sukarno refused to hand me over to the Dutch, but now Suharto would be happy to do it and get rid of me." She remarked, however: "Despite being a vocal critic, Princen had enormous respect in Indonesia, and was considered almost untouchable."
By one account, he did briefly and unobtrusively visit Holland in the 1970s, while in Europe on a human rights mission. By other accounts, he met with family members just across the German
border, and on a later date a TV crew took footage of him standing over the border itself, one foot daringly extended on to Dutch soil.
Throughout the years Princen maintained correspondence with his younger brother Kees, as well as with his mother who had in the 1940s tried to intercede for him with the Dutch military authorities - a correspondence eventually deposited, together with many of his other papers, at the Amsterdam-based International Institute of Social History
(IISH).
As mentioned, he was a valued reporter for various Dutch communications media. Moreover, some Dutch ministers are reported to have tacitly asked him for information on the East Timor situation, on which he had detailed information simply not available elsewhere.
Interest and controversy over "The Poncke Princen Affair" were re-ignited in the Netherlands by the 1989 publication of Princen's autobiographical book Poncke Princen: Een kwestie van kiezen ("Poncke Princen, a Matter of Choice"), which had been narrated to Joyce van Fenema.
And, Princen did find strong defenders among Dutch left-wing activists, who charged that his continuing rejection was an indication of the country's refusing to come to terms with its dark colonial heritage.
It was the associations of Dutch veterans who had fought in the Indies who remained to the last the most intransigent in their hatred of "Princen The Traitor", undiminished by the passage of half a century. They voiced a vociferous protest whenever the possibility of his visiting the Netherlands was mooted.
Like the American Vietnam War
veterans in a later generation, the Dutch veterans had a good reason to feel neglected, their sacrifice ignored and forgotten by the country for which they had fought - and they felt any rehabilitation of Princen to be the ultimate insult. Princen himself, it should be noted, expressed understanding for the motives of the veterans' anger; however, he did say explicitly that he considered the granting of a visa to himself as an admission by the Netherlands of having been in the wrong in 1945-49.
In fact, not quite all veterans were mobilized against him. In 1993 the journalist and former colonial soldier Ger Vaders cordially toured together with Princen the battlefields where they had fought on opposing sides, and made a documentary. However, Vaders' attempt to secure for Princen a visa to visit the Netherlands failed, the government claiming that war veterans had threatened to kill him if he tried to enter Holland.
In 1994, then Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo
finally overruled the officials at the Jakarta Embassy and personally authorised giving a visa issued to Princen "on humanitarian grounds" - on condition (which was kept) that he maintain "a low profile" during his visit to the Netherlands and devote it mainly to meeting family members which he had not seen for many decades.
As it turned out, this visit took place at nearly the last moment when Princen's fast-failing health could still stand the long trip. A planned second visit in 1998, which again aroused protests by war veterans, was prevented by his stroke that year.
Only after Princen's death in 2002 did a Dutch cabinet minister, Jan Pronk
, officially pay a cautious tribute to him. "Poncke Princen was no hero, martyr or saint, but first and foremost a human rights activist," the minster told Radio Netherlands
In February 2009 the documentary ´The White Guerrilla´ made by the Dutch research-journalist Bart Nijpels appeared on the Dutch television (profiel-kro.nl), reconstructing his life (´historical biography´) giving an impartial opinion about his political choices which has been received positively in general by the Dutch public.
Princen's main quote in life has always been: The Consequence of a Consequence is a Consequence.
However, later in the same year Princen suffered the first in a series of near-fatal strokes and remained bedridden, tended by his daughter Wilanda Princen, for his remaining years. Yet "his luminous spirit shone through his crippled wreck of a body, and he continued his work as before", as Australian journalist Jill Jolliffe
who knew him well put it.
On 22 February 2002, Princen suffered his final stroke and died at the age of 76, in his home on Jl. Arjuna III No. 24 in Pisangan Baru, Utan Kayu Selatan in East Jakarta
. He is survived by his wife, Sri Mulyati, and four children - two sons and two daughters (some of them residing in the Netherlands).
Before his death, Princen had specifically requested that he be buried alongside ordinary people in the public cemetery at Pondok Kelapa in East Jakarta, and renounced the place in the Heroes' Cemetery at Kalibata
to which he was entitled by the Guerrilla Star which Sukarno gave him.
Many friends from the years of his struggle against the excesses of successive Indonesian governments attended his funeral - "from the movements of 1945 [Indonesian Independence struggle] , 1966 [Fall of Sukarno] and 1974 [Malari Affair]". There were noted activists and human rights lawyers such as Luhut Pangaribuan, Muchtar Pakpahan, Hariman Siregar, Jopy Lasut and Gurmilang Kartasasmita.
His American friend Max White remarked: "When I learned who was at the memorial service, and at the mosque and cemetery, I was struck by how wide a swath of Indonesia mourned him: from former 'tapols' [political prisoners] to members of the government and military".
"We will miss him deeply ... a person of such fine quality, rich life experience and persistence in defending his belief in human rights," said Munir, Princen's young colleague at the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims and Violence (Kontras).
He was also mourned in the East Timorese capital Dili, where Xanana Gusmão - soon to be inaugurated president - said that he was deeply saddened by Princen's death: "He was my friend, and he encouraged us in our struggle. East Timor owes a lot to him."
The aforementioned Jose Amorim Diaz added: "He was a great friend, a friend who gave us courage and inspiration. A friend who taught us moderation, tolerance and dialogue. Above all, a friend who shared our pain and grief.(...) With immense sadness we bow our heads to this noble man who has devoted his entire life for the cause of Human Rights, Democracy and Peace."
Among many other Indonesian collections, Poncke Princen's archives were deposited in the institute in 1998, the year when a stroke left him bed-ridden for his remaining years. They include:
Also included are manuscripts and academic papers, such as :
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
anti-Nazi fighter and colonial soldier. In 1948, he deserted, joined the pro-independence guerrillas in the then Dutch Indies, lived out the rest of his life in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, became a prominent human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
activist and political dissident under various dictatorial regimes in his adopted country and consequently spent considerable time in detention.
For some people, especially among his former Dutch comrades-in-arms, he was a despicable traitor. Others - especially in Indonesia and East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
, but also in his original homeland and in many other countries - admired him as a hero.
Early life
Princen and his three siblings were the children of free-thinking parents with anarchist tendencies. His great-grandfather had been a deserter from military service, who had long been chased by the law and whose life was described in a book by Anton Coolen.Despite his upbringing, the young Princen conceived an interest in the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
religion under the influence of the parents of his mother, Theresia Princen-Van der Lee. In 1939 he entered the Holy Ghost Seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
at Weert
Weert
Weert is a municipality and city in the southeastern Netherlands. As of 2010, Weert had a population of 48,405. It lies on the Eindhoven–Maastricht railway line, and is also astride the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal.- Population centres :* Altweerterheide...
- where he was followed by his younger brother Kees Princen, with whom he was to maintain correspondence throughout all the vicissitudes of his life. It was while he was at the seminary that Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
invaded and occupied the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in 1940.
Princen did not become a priest. In 1942, being only 17 years old, he was accepted as an economic councillor at Teppemaand Vargroup Groothandel voor Chemische Producten, a chemical company based at The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
. However, he did not keep this position for long, either, being determined to take up arms against the occupiers of his country.
Nazi Imprisonment and Liberation
In 1943, Princen was arrested by the German occupation authorities in MaastrichtMaastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...
, while trying to get to Spain - from where he intended to travel to Britain and enlist in an Allied army fighting the Nazis. He was convicted by the occupation authorities of "attempting to aid the enemy" and in early 1944 was sent to the notorious Vught
Vught
Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...
Camp.
On D-day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
, he was transferred to the Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis (Wehrmacht Military Prison) at Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
. While there he entertained fellow-prisoners by reading aloud chapters from a favourite book, Pastoor Poncke ("Pastor Poncke") by Jan Eekhout
Jan Eekhout
Jan Henrik Eekhout was a Dutch writer, poet and translator, particularly known as the author of the novel Pastoor Poncke . During the Second World War Eekhout was a staunch Nazi...
. Thereby, he acquired the nickname "Poncke" which he was to keep for the rest of his life.
Later, he was transferred to the prison camp at Amersfoort
Amersfoort
Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...
and from there to Beckum, Germany
Beckum, Germany
Beckum is a town in the district of Warendorf, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 20 km north-east of Hamm and 35 km south-east of Münster...
. Altogether, before being finally liberated by the arrival of Allied forces, he had passed through no less than seven Nazi prisons and camps.
Directly upon being freed from Nazi imprisonment, Princen joined the Stoottroepen Regiment Brabant (Brabant Stormtroop
Shock troops
Shock troops or assault troops are formations created to lead an attack. "Shock troop" is a loose translation of the German word Stoßtrupp...
Regiment), based at the southern Dutch province of Brabant
North Brabant
North Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...
.
In 1945, he also worked for the newly-founded Bureau voor Nationale Veiligheid (Bureau of National Security :nl:Bureau Nationale Veiligheid), precursor of the present Dutch Security Service - at the time mainly involved in hunting down collaborators and war criminals, but also in "keeping an eye" on natives of the Dutch Indies resident in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, restive with the rebellion against Dutch rule spreading at their long-colonized homeland.
To reluctant volonial service
In March 1946, Princen, like other young Dutchmen at the time, got a call-up order. He was to join the ranks of the Royal Netherlands ArmyRoyal Netherlands Army
The Royal Netherlands Army is the land forces element of the military of the Netherlands.-Short history:The Royal Netherlands Army was raised on 9 January 1814, but its origins date back to 1572, when the so-called Staatse Leger was raised...
and take part in what Dutch official histories still sometimes call "Police Actions" (politionele acties
Politionele acties
"Politionele Acties" refers to two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution...
) but which would soon become better known as the Indonesian National Revolution
Indonesian National Revolution
The Indonesian National Revolution or Indonesian War of Independence was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between Indonesia and the Dutch Empire, and an internal social revolution...
.
Having no wish to take part in that war, Princen fled to France - but upon hearing that his mother was ill, came back and was arrested by the Marechaussee and taken to detention at Schoonhoven
Schoonhoven
Schoonhoven is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality has a population of 12,195 , and covers an area of 6.96 km²...
. On December 28, 1946, he was put on board the troop ship Sloterdijk - the last he would see of the land of his birth, except for a brief visit many decades later.
The same ship also bore eastwards the young communist Piet van Staveren, also a reluctant conscript who would eventually desert and join the Indonesian rebels. There is, however, no evidence of direct collusion between the two, who would make their respective acts of ultimate rebellion at different times and places.
A crucial decision
On arrival in the Indies, proceedings were initiated against Princen on charges of desertion. On October 22, 1947, he was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for desertion, but actually spent only four months at the TjisaroeaTjisaroea
Tjisaroea is a location on Java where during the 1945-1949 Indonesian National Revolution the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army maintained a prison camp for soldiers convicted of breaches of military discipline....
Prison Camp, the rest being suspended, and was then returned to active service.
He was increasingly displeased with the haughty and contemptuous attitude of fellow soldiers to the local population, and was present at some bloody incidents which greatly increased his disaffection. As he many years later explained, "An adolescence under Nazi rule and two years in German imprisonment has directed my life and made me fight against cruelty. I thought the Indonesians were right. I thought they should be the ones to decide their own future. (...) I was disgusted with the Dutch killing people I admired”.
In January 1948, the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
brokered a fragile cease-fire, but almost immediately both sides violated the truce in multiple incidents and the Dutch forces made preparations for a new operation against the rebel forces.
It was at this time, while being on leave at Sukabumi
Sukabumi
Sukabumi is a city surrounded by the regency of the same name in the highlands of West Java, Indonesia, about south of the national capital, Jakarta....
, that Princen took on September 25, 1948, the irrevocable step which shaped the rest of his life. He crossed the Line of Demarcation into rebel-held territory, and via Semarang
Semarang
- Economy :The western part of the city is home to many industrial parks and factories. The port of Semarang is located on the north coast and it is the main shipping port for the province of Central Java. Many small manufacturers are located in Semarang, producing goods such as textiles,...
reached Yogyakarta, the provisional capital of the self-proclaimed Indonesian Republic - where the suspicious Indonesian nationalists promptly threw him into their own prison.
An Indonesian guerrilla
In December 1948, the Dutch army launched Operation Kraai (Dutch for "Crow"), swiftly captured Yogyakarta, and imprisoned SukarnoSukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo was the first President of Indonesia.Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967...
and other most nationalist leaders (see Politionele acties
Politionele acties
"Politionele Acties" refers to two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution...
and Operatie Kraai
Operatie Kraai
Operatie Kraai was the code name for a Dutch military offensive against the newly formed Republic of Indonesia in December 1948 - January 1949...
).
It was during the assault upon their provisional capital that the nationalist rebels released Princen from their prison and gave him the chance to enlist in the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI, Indonesian Republican Forces).
At the moment he joined them, the pro-independence forces' fortunes seemed at their nadir, with their political leadership captured and most of the territory of Indonesia under a re-established Dutch military rule. Undaunted, they conducted an intensive guerrilla campaign and gained considerable international sympathy and support.
Princen was fully committed to his new cause, seeing front-line service under Kemal Idris
Kemal Idris
Ahmad Kemal Idris , was a prominent Indonesian Army general during the 1950s and 1960s. He was an Indonesian guerrilla leader during the Indonesian National Revolution, who in 1949 was involved in continued resistance to the Dutch forces after they occupied Yogyakarta.Poncke Princen, the Dutch...
and taking part in the fighting retreat of the Siliwangi Division
Siliwangi Division
The Siliwangi Division or KODAM VI/Siliwangi is the name of a formation of the Indonesian Army. The Division was formed during the Indonesian National Revolution by what was then known as the People's Security Army...
under then-Colonel A. H. Nasution
Abdul Haris Nasution
In this Indonesian name, the name "Nasution" is a family name, and the person should be referred to by the family name "Nasution".Abdul Haris Nasution was an Indonesian general who was twice appointed Army Chief of Staff and who escaped an assassination attempt during the...
, from Central Java
Central Java
Central Java is a province of Indonesia. The administrative capital is Semarang. It is one of six provinces on the island of Java.This province is the province of high Human Development in Indonesia and its Points Development Index countries is equivalent to Lebanon. The province of Central Java...
to "guerrilla cantons" established in West Java
West Java
West Java , with a population of over 43 million, is the most populous and most densely populated province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, it is slightly smaller in area than densely populated Taiwan, but with nearly double the population...
- an action which came to be known as the Long March Siliwangi (for the famed Long March
Long March
The Long March was a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south...
of Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
's Chinese Communist Party). He was appointed staff officer in the Second Brigade of Grup Purwakarta, active in the envorions of the city of Purwakarta
Purwakarta
Purwakarta is a City in the West Java province of Indonesia the capital of Purwakarta Regency.Purwakarta existence is inseparable from the history of the struggle against the forces VOC. Around the beginning of the 17th century Sultan Mataram sent an army led by the Regent of Surabaya and West...
.
On one occasion in the beginning of August 1949, Dutch troops shot Princen's wife Odah, with Princen himself narrowly avoiding being killed. When asked in a press interview many years later "Did you actually shoot at Dutch soldiers? Did you kill some of them?" he answered forthrightly "Yes, I did".
Princen quickly became famous (or notorious, as the case may be). In a struggle decided as much in the international public opinion and diplomatic forums as in the field, the presence of an articulate ex-Dutch soldier with an impeccable anti-Nazi past in the rebel ranks had an obvious political and propaganda significance.
Princen's act aroused bitter hostility against him in his homeland, which was still much in evidence half a century later. Some even accused him of having allowed himself to be used as a bait to draw Dutch soldiers into ambush. A Dutch court martial sentenced him to death in absentia, and when the Dutch finally decided to evacuate Indonesia, they made a strong demand for his extradition.
The by then freed Sukarno, founding father and first president of Indonesia, would not hear of it. Instead, on October 5, 1949, he awarded Princen the Guerrilla Star (Bintang Gerilya - see (see http://id.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bintang_Gerilya),
highest decoration of the new nation whose citizen the former Dutch soldier perforce became.
Princen's career as a rebel and dissident was, however, far from over. Due to his rebellious nature and unique passion for standing up for the discriminated and downtrodden, he was to be imprisoned again and again, both by the same Sukarno and by Sukarno's rival and successor Suharto, to a total of eight and a half years behind bars.
The decoration he got from Sukarno - a small five-pointed bronze star on which were etched the words "Pahlawan Gerilja" (Guerrilla Hero), and which Princen conspicuously displayed until the end of his days - was to give him at least some protection from the most harsh forms of repression to which successive Indonesian regimes resorted against many other dissidents and political opponents.
Dissident parliamentarian, political prisoner
Soon after the war Princen got married again - to the Dutch Janneke Marckmann (until 1971) and later to Sri Mulyati, who was to remain his companion until his death. All together he had four children: Ratnawati, Iwan Hamid, Nicolaas and Wilanda.His desire to "immerse himself in Indonesia" was also manifested in a conversion to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, the predominant religion in Indonesian society. Asked why he had changed his religion, he later explained to a visitor: "I wanted to feel a part of what everyone else was doing". In later life, his name was on some formal occasions preceded by the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
honorific Hajji
Hajji
Hajji or El-Hajj, is an honorific title given to a Muslim person who has successfully completed the Hajj to Mecca, and is often used to refer to an elder, since it can take time to accumulate the wealth to fund the travel. The title is placed before a person's name...
, usually bestowed upon those who had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
.
Between 1950 and 1953 Princen was an official at the Indonesian Immigration Office. In his free time, he toured Java by motor-bike, earning for himself a case of skin cancer that disfigured him in later life until friends got the money together for skin grafts.
In 1956 he became a Member of the Indonesian Parliament on behalf of IPKI (Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Indonesia - "League of Upholders of Indonesian Independence"), and was considered a representative of the foreign minority in Indonesia.
As a parliamentarian he repeatedly posed uncomfortable questions to the Sukarno Government, on such issues as the unequal division of national resources and income between the central island of Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
and the outlying islands. He was apparently one of the "obstructing parliamentarians" whom Sukarno found annoying and whose activity was among the factors which finally led the President to replace the Western-type parliamentary system with "guided democracy" in 1959.
Even before then, Princen's outspoken criticism caused him to be arrested and imprisoned in 1957-1958. And he spent Sukarno's final years, characterized by increasingly violent power struggles in Indonesia, again serving a prison term 1962-1966.
Prominent human rights activist
Having come to strongly oppose Sukarno, Princen - like quite a few other dissidents - initially placed some hopes in Suharto, who overthrew him in the 1965-66 coup d'état and whose coming to power had the incidental effect of getting Princen released from prison after four years.Such hopes were all too soon dashed, when the Suharto regime proved both extremely brutal and highly corrupt: "My opinion of Mr. Suharto changed at the moment he started gathering as much money as he could for himself."
In the late 1960s Princen was a correspondent for Netherlands Radio and several Dutch newspapers. This was directly connected with his work as a human rights activist, in which he was to spend most of his time and energy for the reminder of his life and through which he was to gain fame (and in government and army circles, notoriety).
In 1966 Princen founded and headed Lembaga Pembela Hak-Hak Azasi Manusia (Indonesian Institute for the Defence of Human Rights). It was the first specifically HR
Human resources
Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
organization to be created in the country, and which was to handle many high-profile human rights cases during the years of the Suharto dictatorship and provide a reliable alternate source of news to Western journalists in Jakarta.
This was actually the very time when the new regime was engaged in the systematic mass killing of hundreds of thousands of supposed communist supporters - though the full extent of the horror was unknown at the time, either in Indonesia itself or abroad. (Princen would be among those who would eventually reveal it).
Among the earlier campaigns which Princen conducted was on behalf of the left-wing writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Pramoedya Ananta Toer was an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemic and histories of his homeland and its people...
, imprisoned and tortured by the Suharto regime. At the end of 1969 he published, jointly with the journalist Jopie Lasut, an extensive report on the mass murder of Communist sympathizers at Purwodadi in Middle Java - for which Princen and Lasut were promptly arrested and interrogated.
This was followed in the early 1970s by Princen's prominent role in creating a larger organization, the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute (LBHI), where he rubbed shoulders with many other human rights figures including Adnan Buyung Nasution, Frans Winarta and members of the younger generation of activists.
The eulogy published after his death by the Indonesian oppositional news and commentary website Laksamana.Net noted that
Princen's work as a lawyer never earned him much in the way of material wealth. Unlike other prominent human rights lawyers whose careers benefited from their high profile on the human rights front, Princen remained a figure whose only interest was in defending the rights of the small. Visitors to his succession of poky offices in the early '90s remember calling on him to find themselves welcomed by Princen resting in his underwear, and his close friends recall that it was seldom that they were able to leave before parting with a contribution to help pay his driver or his phone bill.
Still, the same obituary also notes that, however widely respected Princen was, "toward the end of his career, much of his work was taken over by younger Indonesians, some of whom felt it inappropriate that the human rights struggle should be led by a man who was still, in their eyes, a foreigner".
Prisoner again, labour advocate, political reformer
As under Sukarno, Princen was under Suharto jailed several times - mainly on charges of organizing illegal political protests.In January 1974, the visit of the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei sparked rioting by students and urban poor in Jakarta. Ostensibly fuelled by resentment of Japanese exploitation of Indonesia's economy, and to start with possibly encouraged tacitly by some Army commanders, this so-called "Malari Affair" soon "got out of hand" and came to express hitherto repressed popular resentment about the growing gap between rich and poor in Indonesian society and the bureaucratic capitalists connected with the regime.
Involved as an outspoken human rights activist, Princen was among those who found themselves behind bars in the aftermath, and spent the next two years (1974–1976) in jail . Many other dissidents, such as Marsillam Simandjuntak, who would emerge as the 'Mr. Clean' of post-Suharto Indonesian politics, had the same fate.
In early 1990 Princen had a major role in founding the Merdeka
Merdeka
Merdeka is a word in the Indonesian and Malay language meaning Independent or freedom. It is derived from the Sanskrit Maharddhika meaning "rich, prosperous and powerful". In the Malay archipelago, this term had acquired the meaning of a freed slave...
Labor Union (Serikat Buruh Merdeka - "Merdeka" literally means "Independence") - together with Dita Indah Sari
Dita Indah Sari
Dita Indah Sari is an Indonesian trade union and socialist activist. As a human rights campaigner during the Suharto regime, she was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in 1996 on the charge of sedition. After her release in 1999 she was elected Chairperson by the Congress of the National Front for...
, a noted Indonesian labor activist and Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Prisoner of Conscience. He conducted extensive correspondence with the International Labor Organization (ILO) regarding the conditions of Indonesian workers. Max White, Princen's friend and co-worker, stated that "Ponke believed that 'Labor rights are human rights', he saw no distinction".
In 1992 he won the prestigious Yap Thiam Hien Human Rights Award - named for the Chinese Indonesian
Chinese Indonesian
Chinese Indonesians, also called the Indonesian Chinese, are an overseas Chinese group whose ancestors emigrated from China to Indonesia, formerly a colony of the Netherlands known as the Dutch East Indies...
lawyer Yap Thiam Hien
Yap Thiam Hien
Yap Thiam Hien was an Indonesian human rights lawyer.His father was Yap Sin Eng and his mother was Hwan Tjing Nio. He was one of the most notable people from Chinese heritage in Indonesia...
, a fellow human rights activist.
In the early 1990s he was also a founding member of the Petition of Fifty
Petition of Fifty
The Petition of Fifty was a document protesting then President Suharto's use of state philosophy Pancasila against political opponents. Issued on 5 May 1980 as an "Expression of Concern", it was signed by fifty prominent Indonesians including former Army Chief of Staff Nasution, former Jakarta...
, a movement for democratic reform which included conservative military figures who had fallen out with Suharto and which for the first time in decades raised a real challenge to his rule. Along with other members of the group including Ali Sadikin
Ali Sadikin
Ali Sadikin was an Indonesian politician. He was often called Bang Ali. He served as the governor of Jakarta, the country's capital, from 1966 to 1977. Appointed by a weak Sukarno, he likely had the full approval of Suharto. A former marine, he saw the city as a battlefield...
and Hoegeng, Princen again found himself persona non-grata with the regime, although he joked to his visitors that by that time he was "too old to put in jail again".
In 1996 he was involved in protests against Suharto’s crackdown on the Indonesian Democratic Party
Indonesian Democratic Party
The Indonesian Democratic Party was one of the two state-approved parties during the New Order era of the late 20th-century in Indonesia.-Origins:...
(PRD). Visiting delegations of international human rights organizations at the time found him "a source of accurate information about those who were attacked at the PRD headquarters".
Much of his time in the following years was spent in writing open letters to President Suharto, on such issues as demanding the abolition of extrajudicial bodies, asking for answers about "disappearances" in East Timor (and in the capital Jakarta itself), and affirming that political change needed to take place before the Indonesian economy could recover. His once-isolated legal aid organization had become part of a large and growing network of NGO's working for political and social change.
He became widely known as "the man in the wheelchair at political rallies, who is rarely absent from a courtroom during political trials, and at mention of whose name students around the country were smiling with admiration.
A testimony of Princen's activities in that period - a man already more than seventy years old and with a rapidly deteriorating health - was provided by Ed McWilliams, a former officer of the US Foreign Service presently residing at Falls Church, Virginia
Falls Church, Virginia
The City of Falls Church is an independent city in Virginia, United States, in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The city population was 12,332 in 2010, up from 10,377 in 2000. Taking its name from The Falls Church, an 18th-century Anglican parish, Falls Church gained township status within...
:
While working in the U.S. Embassy from 1996 to 1999, I met frequently with J. C. Princen -- often "summoned" to his office to be pressed to follow up on some outrage by the Indonesian (or U.S.) government, or sometimes simply to chat about events.
Among many inspiring memories of Princen one stands out: there was a trial session for one of the Soeharto regime's young "enemies" at the Central District Court in Jakarta. Shortly after it had begun, the normally wheelchair-bound Princen appeared to join friends of the defendant. As the trial session was taking place on the third floor, and there was no elevator, many of us were mystified as to how he had made it to the courtroom.
As the session ended, it became apparent. With the assistance of friends he had climbed the multiple flights of stairs. I was honoured to be asked among others to help him as he made the slow, painful descent back to the ground floor. His willingness to sacrifice for others, his wisdom and his love for the people of Indonesia, especially the poor, made him a tower of strength for Indonesians in their darkest days.
I recall also a conversation in which I joked that it was strange that he had been jailed by both president Sukarno and president Suharto, and that he had managed also to irritate president Habibie. I said it seemed he was consistently against all Indonesian governments.
With his playful smile he responded, "No, you have it wrong; it is that I am always on the side of the people." I recall finally what he called his "anthem", Edith PiafÉdith PiafÉdith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...
's haunting Non, je ne regrette rienNon, je ne regrette rien"Non, je ne regrette rien" , meaning "No, I'm not sorry for anything", is a French song composed by Charles Dumont, with lyrics by Michel Vaucaire. It was written in 1956, and is best known through its 1960 recording by Édith Piaf....
. Truly, he had nothing to regret throughout a long and noble life".
Ironically, the same Piaf song had been taken up, for diametrically opposite reasons, by members of the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
fighting to preserve colonial rule in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
.
Princen and East Timor
In 1994 Princen flew to GenevaGeneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
to testify before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006...
about the use of torture by Indonesian forces in East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
and Aceh
Aceh
Aceh is a special region of Indonesia, located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. Its full name is Daerah Istimewa Aceh , Nanggroë Aceh Darussalam and Aceh . Past spellings of its name include Acheh, Atjeh and Achin...
- a one of the peak moments of his involvement in the brutal struggle going on in both places.
Princen stood out from other Indonesian reformers and dissidents in his early stand in support of East Timorese self-determination, a cause which was for long taboo even in the most progressive circles in Indonesia, where nationalism reigned supreme. His sympathy for the rebellious Timorese was due to much the same reasons which led him in youth to oppose German occupation of the Netherlands and later to renounce his Dutch homeland and throw in his lot with the Indonesian rebels.
Jose Amorim Diaz, a later senior member of the East Timor Foreign Service gave the following reminiscence:
"(...) Like thousands of Timorese students and activists, I lived and studied in Indonesia for some years since 1980s. In the course of those darkest years of our history, we came to know this great but humble human being, full of humour and compassion, who later became a very good friend of the East Timorese People. He was HJC Princen but known popularly among friends as Poncke.
"When the rest of Indonesia was silent and indifferent before the tragedy of East Timor, Princen opened his 'doors and windows' to the persecuted Timorese students, at the risk of his own life. Working only with his right hand, he typed endless letters of appeal to the civilian and military authorities to protect those alleged political prisoners in East Timor and Indonesia.
"In spite of his fragile health, a couple of times, he flew and spoke out at the UN Commission of Human Rights in Geneva on behalf of those defenceless people.
"His activities, however, drew suspicion and anger from the authorities. His phone was constantly taped. Anonymous calls arrived at his office with insult, intimidation and threat. He was summoned for questioning in the police headquarters. But Princen remained with firmness and determination in his struggle for the voiceless people.
"As the political situation worsened day by day in East Timor, hundreds of young people, students and activists fled East Timor and arrived in Java. Many of them sought political asylum in foreign embassies in Jakarta. Those who stayed behind sought refuge among Indonesian friends. Several took refuge in the house of Princen for months. 'He took care of us, gave us food and shelter', one of the students recalled.
"After the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre in the Timorese capital Dili
Dili
Dili, spelled Díli in Portuguese, is the capital, largest city, chief port and commercial centre of East Timor.-Geography and Administration:Dili lies on the northern coast of Timor island, the easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands....
, Princen gave sanctuary in his home to five young Timorese who had fled their homeland. A stand-off with the Indonesian military followed, but he successfully negotiated with the Jakarta military commander, General Hendro-priono (then perceived as a liberal harbinger of reform) for their safe passage to Jakarta airport, from whence they travelled to freedom in Portugal".
Princen had some contact with the Timorese leader Xanana Gusmão
Xanana Gusmão
Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão GCL is a former militant who was the first President of East Timor, serving from May 2002 to May 2007...
(later president of independent East Timor) even when Gusmão was still leading the guerilla struggle in East Timor's mountains. After Gusmão's capture by the Indonesian forces in 1992 and his transfer to a Jakarta Prison, the two embarked on a regular correspondence and developed a friendship, though being able to have a (highly emotional) face-to-face meeting only after Reformasi
Reformation (Indonesia)
The Post-Suharto era in Indonesia began with the fall of Suharto in 1998. Since then Indonesia has been in a period of transition. This era has been called the period of Reformasi...
movement gained force in 1998. Thereafter, they continued to meet regularly, discussing the evolution of the democratic struggle in Indonesia.
The Timorese leader's Australian wife, Kirsty Sword, also knew Princen from her work with the Timorese underground after 1990. After his death, she recalled Princen telling her: "In 1949 Sukarno refused to hand me over to the Dutch, but now Suharto would be happy to do it and get rid of me." She remarked, however: "Despite being a vocal critic, Princen had enormous respect in Indonesia, and was considered almost untouchable."
Attitudes to Princen in the Netherlands
Though branded a traitor, Princen was never completely cut off from his original homeland. The death sentence passed on him absentia was no longer in force, but he was officially considered to be banned from entering the country, having forfeited not only his Dutch citizenship but even the right to visit.By one account, he did briefly and unobtrusively visit Holland in the 1970s, while in Europe on a human rights mission. By other accounts, he met with family members just across the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
border, and on a later date a TV crew took footage of him standing over the border itself, one foot daringly extended on to Dutch soil.
Throughout the years Princen maintained correspondence with his younger brother Kees, as well as with his mother who had in the 1940s tried to intercede for him with the Dutch military authorities - a correspondence eventually deposited, together with many of his other papers, at the Amsterdam-based International Institute of Social History
International Institute of Social History
The International Institute of Social History is a historical research institute in Amsterdam. It was founded in 1935 by Nicolaas Posthumus. The IISG is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences....
(IISH).
As mentioned, he was a valued reporter for various Dutch communications media. Moreover, some Dutch ministers are reported to have tacitly asked him for information on the East Timor situation, on which he had detailed information simply not available elsewhere.
Interest and controversy over "The Poncke Princen Affair" were re-ignited in the Netherlands by the 1989 publication of Princen's autobiographical book Poncke Princen: Een kwestie van kiezen ("Poncke Princen, a Matter of Choice"), which had been narrated to Joyce van Fenema.
And, Princen did find strong defenders among Dutch left-wing activists, who charged that his continuing rejection was an indication of the country's refusing to come to terms with its dark colonial heritage.
It was the associations of Dutch veterans who had fought in the Indies who remained to the last the most intransigent in their hatred of "Princen The Traitor", undiminished by the passage of half a century. They voiced a vociferous protest whenever the possibility of his visiting the Netherlands was mooted.
Like the American Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
veterans in a later generation, the Dutch veterans had a good reason to feel neglected, their sacrifice ignored and forgotten by the country for which they had fought - and they felt any rehabilitation of Princen to be the ultimate insult. Princen himself, it should be noted, expressed understanding for the motives of the veterans' anger; however, he did say explicitly that he considered the granting of a visa to himself as an admission by the Netherlands of having been in the wrong in 1945-49.
In fact, not quite all veterans were mobilized against him. In 1993 the journalist and former colonial soldier Ger Vaders cordially toured together with Princen the battlefields where they had fought on opposing sides, and made a documentary. However, Vaders' attempt to secure for Princen a visa to visit the Netherlands failed, the government claiming that war veterans had threatened to kill him if he tried to enter Holland.
In 1994, then Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo
Hans van Mierlo
Henricus Antonius Franciscus Maria Oliva "Hans" van Mierlo was a Dutch politician of the Democrats 66 . In 1966 Van Mierlo together with Hans Gruijters founded the Democrats 66...
finally overruled the officials at the Jakarta Embassy and personally authorised giving a visa issued to Princen "on humanitarian grounds" - on condition (which was kept) that he maintain "a low profile" during his visit to the Netherlands and devote it mainly to meeting family members which he had not seen for many decades.
As it turned out, this visit took place at nearly the last moment when Princen's fast-failing health could still stand the long trip. A planned second visit in 1998, which again aroused protests by war veterans, was prevented by his stroke that year.
Only after Princen's death in 2002 did a Dutch cabinet minister, Jan Pronk
Jan Pronk
Johannes "Jan" Pieter Pronk is a Dutch politician and diplomat. Currently, he is a Professor of Theory and Practice of International Development at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague....
, officially pay a cautious tribute to him. "Poncke Princen was no hero, martyr or saint, but first and foremost a human rights activist," the minster told Radio Netherlands
In February 2009 the documentary ´The White Guerrilla´ made by the Dutch research-journalist Bart Nijpels appeared on the Dutch television (profiel-kro.nl), reconstructing his life (´historical biography´) giving an impartial opinion about his political choices which has been received positively in general by the Dutch public.
Princen's main quote in life has always been: The Consequence of a Consequence is a Consequence.
Deteriorating health and final years
In March 1998, the 73-year old Princen - on a wheelchair and undergoing what was described as "mutilating surgery" for his skin cancer - was among some 150 activists who openly violated a ban on political protests in the capital Jakarta, protesting the undemocratic re-election of Suharto and defying the police to arrest them. As it turned out, that was a last effort in the long struggle, and Suharto finally fell from power two months later.However, later in the same year Princen suffered the first in a series of near-fatal strokes and remained bedridden, tended by his daughter Wilanda Princen, for his remaining years. Yet "his luminous spirit shone through his crippled wreck of a body, and he continued his work as before", as Australian journalist Jill Jolliffe
Jill Jolliffe
Jill Jolliffe is an Australian journalist and author who has reported on East Timor since 1975. She witnessed the first incursions of Indonesian regular troops into East Timor in September 1975 and reported on the deaths of the Balibo Five the following month.Jolliffe lived in Portugal from 1978...
who knew him well put it.
On 22 February 2002, Princen suffered his final stroke and died at the age of 76, in his home on Jl. Arjuna III No. 24 in Pisangan Baru, Utan Kayu Selatan in East Jakarta
East Jakarta
East Jakarta is a city within Jakarta Special District, Indonesia. It had a population of 2,687,027 at the 2010, making it the most populous of the five cities within Jakarta....
. He is survived by his wife, Sri Mulyati, and four children - two sons and two daughters (some of them residing in the Netherlands).
Before his death, Princen had specifically requested that he be buried alongside ordinary people in the public cemetery at Pondok Kelapa in East Jakarta, and renounced the place in the Heroes' Cemetery at Kalibata
Kalibata
Kalibata is a kelurahan , part of Pancoran which is itself a subdistrict of South Jakarta, Indonesia.-Cemetery:...
to which he was entitled by the Guerrilla Star which Sukarno gave him.
Many friends from the years of his struggle against the excesses of successive Indonesian governments attended his funeral - "from the movements of 1945 [Indonesian Independence struggle] , 1966 [Fall of Sukarno] and 1974 [Malari Affair]". There were noted activists and human rights lawyers such as Luhut Pangaribuan, Muchtar Pakpahan, Hariman Siregar, Jopy Lasut and Gurmilang Kartasasmita.
His American friend Max White remarked: "When I learned who was at the memorial service, and at the mosque and cemetery, I was struck by how wide a swath of Indonesia mourned him: from former 'tapols' [political prisoners] to members of the government and military".
"We will miss him deeply ... a person of such fine quality, rich life experience and persistence in defending his belief in human rights," said Munir, Princen's young colleague at the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims and Violence (Kontras).
He was also mourned in the East Timorese capital Dili, where Xanana Gusmão - soon to be inaugurated president - said that he was deeply saddened by Princen's death: "He was my friend, and he encouraged us in our struggle. East Timor owes a lot to him."
The aforementioned Jose Amorim Diaz added: "He was a great friend, a friend who gave us courage and inspiration. A friend who taught us moderation, tolerance and dialogue. Above all, a friend who shared our pain and grief.(...) With immense sadness we bow our heads to this noble man who has devoted his entire life for the cause of Human Rights, Democracy and Peace."
Princen archives in Amsterdam
Hersri Setiawan - Indonesian poet, left-wing activist and former political prisoner, who knew Princen and who presently resides in the Nethelrands - collected many Indonesian testimonies and documents for the Amsterdam-based International Institute of Social History ((see http://www.iisg.nl/collections/silencedvoices/, http://rome.dartmouth.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0202&L=bahasa&T=0&F=&S=&P=567).Among many other Indonesian collections, Poncke Princen's archives were deposited in the institute in 1998, the year when a stroke left him bed-ridden for his remaining years. They include:
- Correspondence with Kees Princen 1989-1996 and with other family members 1944-1973
- Diary 1947
- Personal documents 1961, 1963, 1990s
- Letters and other documents on his 70th birthday 1995
- Biographical documents, including reports and notes 1987-1992
- Files on his support of the opposition in East Timor 1982-1993
- On the activities of the LPHAM 1987-1990
- On his trade union activities, including correspondence with the ILO 1990-1995
- On politics and political parties in Indonesia 1991-1996
- Files concerning Indonesian political prisoners and ex-tapols 1993
- Documents regarding the death of Poncke Princen 2002
Also included are manuscripts and academic papers, such as :
- `Waarom kreeg J.C. `Poncke' Princen geen visum?, of De last van het koloniaal verleden' (Why did J.C. `Poncke' Princen get no visa?, or the burden of the colonial past) by Kaj Hofman, 1994.
- "De affaire-Poncke Princen" (The Poncke Princen Affair) by Julika Vermolen, 1993.
- "Chronologisch overzicht van het bezoek van Poncke Princen aan Nederland" (Chronological overview of Poncke Princen's visit to the Netherlands) made by Jan de Vletter, December 1994.
- "De verwerking van de politionele acties" (Working out the politionele actiesPolitionele acties"Politionele Acties" refers to two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution...
) by Job Spierings, Martijn Gunther Moor and Thomas Dirkmaat, 1995. - "Poncke Princen, een gemoedelijke radicaal in Indonesie" (Poncke Princen, a good-mooded radical in Indonesia) by Kees Snoek.
- The unpublished manuscript of a novel about Poncke Princen by Hannah Rambe.
External links
- Princen's photo on the cover of his autobiography, "Een kwestie van kiezen"
- Princen in prison as a deserter in 1947
- Photo of Princen speaking in court
- "Human Rights Campaigner Continues Fight That He Began Decades Ago", interview with Thomas Fuller,International Herald Tribune, March 12, 1998
- "Ponke, a human rights hero, is dead" by Max White, 2002 obituary published by the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network
- Six obituaries from February 2002 (Ed McWilliams, former US foreign Service Officer, in The Jakarta Post; Laksamana.Net; The Age (Melbourne); Los Angeles Times; Newsday, US; Berita-Bhinneka (current news about Indonesia)
- Aad Engelfriet (Arcengel) "Who is Poncke Princen?" in "Introduction to the History of the Dutch East Indies"
- "Dutch 'traitor' Became A Pro-Timorese Indonesian ", by Jill Jolliffe, Sydney Morning Herald, March 14, 2002
- "Indonesia's Rights Activist HJC Princen Dies at 76", by Eriko Uchida, 23 February 2002
- "Senior human rights activist Haji Johannes Cornelis Princen (76) passed away" in INFID’s Short News Overview No.80: 22 – 28 February 2002
- Hersri Setiawan's eulogy for 'Poncke' Princen in BAHASA Archives
- Directory of the Poncke Princen Archive, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam
- "A Dissident Life" by Keith Loveard, AsiaweekAsiaweekAsiaweek, the English edition, was a news magazine focusing on Asia, published weekly by Asiaweek Limited, a subsidiary of Time Inc. Based in Hong Kong, it was established in 1975, and ceased publication with its December 7, 2001 issue due to a "downturn in the advertising market," according to...
, June 14, 1991.
See also
- Royal Netherlands East Indies ArmyRoyal Netherlands East Indies ArmyThe Royal Netherlands East Indies Army was the military force maintained by the Netherlands in its colony of the Netherlands East Indies . The KNIL's air arm was the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force...
- History of IndonesiaHistory of IndonesiaThe History of Indonesia was shaped by its geographic position, its natural resources, the series of human migrations, contacts, economy and trade, conquests and politics. Indonesia is an archipelagic country of 17,508 islands stretching along the equator in South East Asia...
- politionele actiesPolitionele acties"Politionele Acties" refers to two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia during its struggle for independence in the Indonesian National Revolution...
- Indonesian National RevolutionIndonesian National RevolutionThe Indonesian National Revolution or Indonesian War of Independence was an armed conflict and diplomatic struggle between Indonesia and the Dutch Empire, and an internal social revolution...
- Human rights in IndonesiaHuman rights in IndonesiaIndonesian government actions have been noted as a concern by advocates for human rights. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized the Indonesian government on multiple subjects....