Alexander Evert Kawilarang
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Alex Kawilarang (23 February 1920 - 6 June 2000) is an Indonesian national hero, a freedom fighter and founder of the military unit 'Kesko TT' in 1952. This was the earliest name of the now infamous Indonesian special forces unit called Kopassus. However in 1959 he was also a General in the separatist Permesta movement where he encountered Kopassus as his opponent.
Colonel Kawilarang was born in Meester Cornelis (now Jatinegara) in the Dutch East Indies, and died in Jakarta, Indonesia. His father Major A.H.H. Kawilarang was a professional soldier in the Dutch colonial army (KNIL). Both his parents are from the Minahasa. His first Indo (Dutch-Indonesian) wife is Nelly van Amden with whom he had one son.
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[edit] 1920-1945
Alex Kawilarang enjoyed comprehensive European schooling and before World War II he was a KNIL officer like his father, responsible for training cadets. After fighting the Japanese during the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, he slowly developed an appreciation for the rhetoric of the charismatic Indonesian nationalist Sukarno and became strongly convinced that the time for an independent Indonesian state had arrived.
[edit] 1945-1958
Like other Dutch trained military men such as General Nasution and General Suharto he became one of the leading founders of the Indonesian national army (TNI) after World War II. During the early years of the Indonesian independence struggle he opposed his former KNIL colleagues in combat. He was liaison officer to the British armed forces, military governor of Aceh and commander of various military units which he led into battle numerous times to protect the unitarian state of the young Republic of Indonesia.
He played a key role in the ferocious battles against the well trained Mollucan ex-KNIL soldiers fighting for the separatist RMS movement in the Moluccas. Although better trained and renowned for their fighting skills the resistance of the Mollucan soldiers was eventually put down. This battle prompted Kawilarang to establish Indonesias own special forces. On April 15, 1952 he founded the Kesatuan Komando Tentara Territorium III/Siliwangi (Kesko TT). Now known as Kopassus.
From 1956 to 1958 Kawilarang was granted the prestigious position of military attaché to the USA. He then developed the conviction that a federal Indonesian state with greater levels of independence from the central government in Jakarta was necessary. He resigned his position and became a leader of the so called Permesta movement, where he took up arms against the TNI. After the bombing of Manado this separatist movement was eventually also put down.
[edit] 1959-2000
Kawilarang who somehow still enjoyed an amiable relationship with President Sukarno and a general respect as a war hero of the independence struggle was pardoned and rehabilitated in 1961. He resigned as TNI colonel and became part of the influential Indonesian ex-military society called purnawirawan. Putting his fighting years behind him he made amends with all his former opponents and even visited The Netherlands several times for reunions with KNIL pensioners before he died in 2000.
[edit] Additional
His son Alexander Edwin Kawilarang born in 1954, is head of the purnawirawan organization FKPPI and as such part of the so called Keluarga Besar Purnawirawan (KBK), which translates to English as the 'Greater Family of Ex-military'.
[edit] References
[edit] Bibliography
- Kawilarang, A.E., ‘Officier in dienst van de Republiek Indonesië.’ (English: 'Officer in service of the Republic of Indonesia' translated into Dutch after the original Indonesian edition, P.H. & H.J. Geurink, Jakarta.), 3th. Edition, Warung Bambu, Breda, 1994.
[edit] External links
- (Indonesian)Biography
- (Indonesian)Article
- German article on the Purnawirawan phenomenon
