Author: JACQUET, L.G.M.,
Title: Aflossing van de Wacht. Bestuurlijke en politieke ervaringen in de nadagen van Nederlandsch-Indië. First edn.
Description: Rotterdam, Ad Donker, 1978. orig.cloth, with dustjacket. 320pp. Notes to chapters, list of abbrev. used, bibliogr., register. The author, a prominent colonial civil servant in pre-war Indonesia, first describes his personal/political experiences at his post at Bencoolen, in the period that Sukarno was placed under house-arrest in the same city. He describes the political events and policies of the colonial administration, a disastrous policy of compromising, that finally led to the events during the dutch-indonesian dispute, 1945-1949, incl. the transfer of sovereignty. As an apparently 'obscure' civil servant he was in fact the key-figure of counter-espionnage agains the undercover operations of Japanese agents in colonial Indonesia preceding to the outbreak of the pacific-war. Fortunately for author the outraged japanese did not succeed in identifying him during his imprisonment in japanese camps. An important analysis of weak dutch colonial and post-colonial dipolimacy. Good copy. (dustjacket frayed on extremities, tears skilfully repaired with clear acid-free tape).

Keywords: japanese camps/merdeka/bencoolen/sumatra/administration