The Putera Reports

Putera (Pusat Tenaga Rakjat-Concentration of the People's Power), March 1943-February 1944, was an important and in some ways typical organization of Japanese-occupied Java. It was the first more or less durable association of what might be called the semi-public, semi-political type, and the best as well as best-known example of Japanese attempts to harness Indonesian political figures from the old Pergerakan to serve their needs. Though sometimes depicted as such, Putera was neither a surrogate political party nor a simple propaganda arm of the military administration. It was, instead, a complex association with uncertain goals, varied interests and involvements, and an uneven record of success and failure, in which Japanese and Indonesians sometimes clashed and sometimes agreed on the goals to be pursued. A scarcity of concrete and detailed information concerning Putera has made its historical role difficult to assess in any but a very general manner.

The enclosed two documents, made public here for the first time, do much to improve our understanding of Putera. They supply both details of the organization's structure, staff and activities, and discussions of general problems facing it throughout its development. The Putera reports also have much to say about the setting in which their primary subject functioned and therefore provide a valuable description of wartime Java. That they were authored principally by the well-known scholar and political leader Mohammad Hatta and reflect both his views and those of his subordinates, makes them of additional interest. For these reasons, it is no exaggeration to say that these lengthy reports are some of the most important of the very few surviving documents written by Indonesians during the Japanese occupation of their country.

The documents treated in this publication were originally located by Dr. George S. Kanahele in the course of research in Indonesia during the years 1964-1965. I am indebted to Dr. Kanahele for suggesting that the Putera reports be translated, a task which he could not undertake himself because of other pressing commitments. I am also grateful to him for much advice and encouragement on the project, introduction to Dr. Hatta and contact with the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, which expressed interest in publishing the materials. Dr. Kanahele has continued to keep a live interest in the project despite an extraordinarily demanding schedule and additional duties as Indonesia's Honorary Consul in Honolulu. - William H. Frederick, February 1971