Tegal

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For the United States semiconductor company, see Tegal Corporation.

Tegal is a city and regency (administrative district) located on the north coast of Central Java, Indonesia. While the city of Tegal is the largest in the residency, Slawi, about twelve kilometers south, is its capital.

Together with the nearby city of Pekalongan, approximately fifty kilometers east, Tegal was the site of the origins of the Dutch East Indies colonial sugar industry, and the regency remained a major sugar production center until the mid-twentieth century.^[1] The city served as a port for exporting sugar produced on the nearby plantations.

[edit] History

In the 1920s, the city was a center of Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) activism, and the radical leaders of the Tegal PKI branch were among the instigators of the 1926 rebellion that lead to the temporary destruction of that party.^[2]

On October 8, 1945, an anti "Swapraja"/anti feudalism movement called Three Regions Movement/"Gerakan Tiga Daerah" was established in Tegal, Pekalongan, and Brebes. The goal of this movement was to replace the blue blood regents (related to the kings from Jogyakarta and Surakarta) with ordinary people. According to the leaders of this movement, the old regents had cooperated with Japanese during the world war II and sent people to the Japanese slave labor camps.

The main leader of this movement was Sarjiyo who became the new regent of Pekalongan. Other leaders of this movement were Kutil, K. Mijaya and Ir. Sakirman. Ir Sakirman was the local leader of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

The old regents were arrested, stripped naked, and dragged into the prisons. Other government officials and police officers were kidnapped and massacred at Talang bridge. This movement also started a racial riot against ethnic Chinese in Brebes.

The government of Republic of Indonesia (RI) in Jogyakarta disagree with this movement and declared it as an illegal movement.

On November 4, 1945, the movement attacked Indonesian army HQ and the regent office in Pekalongan. The rebels were defeated by Indonesian army in a fierce battle on December 21, 1945. Most leaders of this movement were arrested and thrown into the prisons. This rebelion is called Three Regions Affair.

During the unrest following the resignation of President Suharto in 1998, Tegal was the site of extensive protests, and occasional violence, against local government officials, especially in June 1998.

[edit] References

^ Knight, G.R. (1993) Colonial Production in Provincial Java. The Sugar Industry in Pekalongan-Tegal, 1800-1942. Amsterdam: VU University Press.
^ McVey, Ruth. (1965) The rise of Indonesian communism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp 329-340.

Coordinates: 6°52′S 109°8′E