THE DUTCH POLITICAL CONFLICT

WITH THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA, 1945-1949

PART 2. DUTCH CIVIL ADMINISTRATORS (BESTUURSAMBTENAREN) IN THE NETHERLANDS INDIES AND NETHERLANDS NEW GUINEA,

1933-1962

Part 2.5. Papers of J. Zwart (1946-1947)

Java/NEFIS (intelligence service)

National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague

on microfiche

Short biography

Jan Zwart was born in Friesland in 1912. He studied at the famous faculty of Indology at the University of Leiden, where civil servants for the colonial government in the East Indies were trained. In 1939 he was sent out to Java to become a junior controller in Batavia and shortly later controller in Yogyakarta. He spent the Japanese occupation in internment and upon release at the end of hostilities was mobilized and seconded to the Netherlands Forces Intelligence Service (NEFIS), where his assignment was to report on the situation in Central Java, and also to follow developments in the indigenous labor movement and social organizations for the whole island. For his work he could draw on information from the government information agency (Regeringsvoorlichtingsdienst), Indonesian Republican newspapers and military intelligence. In November 1946 he was demobilized and assigned to the civilian administration in West-Borneo.

The papers

His papers contain notes, memos, reports, clippings and other documents concerning a range of intelligence issues on Java, and to a lesser extent West-Borneo, in the period late 1945-1947, including

• the structure of Japanese administration and support for the Republicans
• the political structure and development of the Republican government
• Republican military organizations
• political developments in the Indonesian forces
• Republican youth-, labor- and women’s organizations
• foreign influences on the Republicans
• the Communist party
• Islamic fighting organizations and others.