Marthen Indey

Marthen Indey was born in Doromena, Jayapura Regency, Netherlands New Guinea on March 16 1912. His name at birth was Soroway Indey, before he was baptized Marthen (sometimes spelled Marthin or Martin).[2] His father was an Ondoafi or traditional village leader.[2] During his early life, he was greatly influenced by Johannes Bremer, an Ambonese missionary who had been sent by the Dutch to spread Christianity in New Guinea; Marthen and some of his siblings even spent part of their childhood living in Ambon with Bremer's family.[3]

Indey improved his command of the Malay language while a primary student in Ambon; at the time the language was not commonly spoken in many eastern parts of the Indies as compared to in Java and Sumatra.[4] He graduated from the district school there in 1926, and subsequently enrolled in the native naval school in Makassar, the Kweekschool voor Indische Schepelingen (KTS), which he eventually graduated from in 1932.[4] It was after his first actual service aboard a ship, the Zeven Provincien, that he abandoned the idea of a naval career and decided to become a police officer instead.[4] Therefore, in June 1934 he enrolled in the police academy in Sukabumi, West Java; he completed his training there in 1935.[4] In late 1935, he was sent to be a member of an Ambonese police detachment in his birthplace, New Guinea.[5] During his time there he involved himself various Dutch campaigns to break the resistance of local Papuan tribes.[5] It was during this phase of his life that he met and married his wife, Agustina Heumasse, whose family came from Seram Island; their marriage took place in Manokwari.[6]

During 1940 and 1941, Indey worked in the clandestine colonial police to track the movements of Japanese agents in Manokwari, who were believed to be scouting the region for an eventual invasion, disguised as fishermen and plantation workers.[7]

It was in 1941, when he encountered a cadre of Indonesian independence activists being interned in Boven-Digoel, that he became converted to their cause.[1] As a trusted member of the colonial police, he was more free than most non-Europeans to interact with these political prisoners, and he apparently spent much of his time trading stories with them.[8] Among the prisoners he befriended there were Sukardjo, Sugoro Atmoprasodjo (a former teacher from Taman Siswa), and Hamid Siregar.[8] Indey supposedly buried weapons and resources confiscated from Japanese agents during this time, which years later would be dug up and used in the independence struggle.[7]

Despite his political transformation, as a government employee he followed Dutch official figures into exile in Australia during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies.[1] In July 1943 he and a group of 32 civil employees sailed from Tanahmerah Bay, Digul to Brisbane.[9] During his stay there, he and others in his cohort were trained in Paratrooper tactics, and were drafted into the Allied forces staging attacks in the South Pacific and Philippines.[9] In April 1944, as the Japanese were losing the war, members of the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration, who intended to re-establish Dutch control over the colony, landed in New Guinea. Among those NICA staff were Sugoro, a former Boven-Digoel prisoner who was now employed by the Dutch as an advisor on education and religion, as well as a number of Papuans, including Marthen Indey, Frans Kaisiepo, Silas Papare, and others.[10] That group within the NICA forces remained sympathetic to the Indonesian independence movement and plotted to strike against the Dutch in New Guinea on December 25, 1945.[11] Unfortunately, the Dutch heard about the plot and imprisoned its leaders, including Sugoro, Indey, Silas Papare, and Luksa Rumkorem.[11]

In October 1946, Indey joined the Komite Indonesia Merdeka (Indonesian: Free Indonesia Committee), an anti-Dutch clandestine organization in Jayapura which aimed to support the 1945 Proclamation of Indonesian Independence.[12] Indey became chairman, a fact which made him a target for arrest by the Dutch.[13] The foundation of the KIM was quickly followed by the establishing of the much larger and more active Partai Kemerdekaan Indonesia Irian (Indonesian: Irian Indonesian Liberation Party) in November 1946, which was headed by Silas Papare.[12]

In January 1947 Indey traveled to Ambon Island to join the clandestine struggle against the Dutch there. By March of that year he was captured by the Dutch and sentenced to 4.5 years' imprisonment.[12] Despite his imprisonment, he was also awarded the Bronze Cross for his wartime service in 1949.[14]

After Indonesian independence, the matter of Papua/New Guinea continued to be a point of dispute between Indonesia and the Netherlands. In the late 1950s early 1960s Indey was living in Jayapura, which was then called Hollandia and which was the capital of Netherlands New Guinea in the postwar era. He was generally considered the leader of the pro-Indonesian Papuans there.[15][16] In 1962 he was involved in a high-profile infiltration of Indonesian commandos from RPKAD who had landed in New Guinea during Operation Trikora.[13] The international press at the time speculated that Indey was hiding them from authorities and giving them material support.[17] He was also sent by Indonesia to New York City in 1962 to participate in the negotiations which resulted in the New York Agreement and the eventual joining of Irian Jaya to Indonesia.[13] However, even in 1963 he and Lucas Jouwe were printing proclamations in Hollandia/Jayapura calling for immediate unification with Indonesia and an end to the UN presence there.[18]

From 1963 to 1968, Indey was elected to the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly representing Irian Jaya.[1]

He died on July 17, 1986 in Jayapura.[1] His tomb in Sabron Yaru village, West Sentani district, Jayapura Regency, is marked as a historic site.[19]

On September 14, 1993 Marthen Indey was declared National Hero of Indonesia.[20] An army hospital in Jayapura, which had previously been called Dr. Aroyoko Hospital, was renamed Marthen Indey Hospital in 1998.[21] The city of Jayapura also built a monument to him on the waterfront in the centre of the city.[22]