Rengat massacre

Rengat massacre
Part of Operation Kraai
The Indragiri River (Batang Kuantan) at Rengat
200km 124miles
Location	Rengat, Riau, Dutch East Indies
Date	5 January 1949 (1949-01-05)
Attack type	massacre
Deaths	80-400 (Dutch claims)[1] 1500-2600 (Indonesian claims)[2]
Victims	militants, officials, civilians
Perpetrators	Korps Speciale Troepen (KNIL)

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The Rengat massacre (Dutch: Bloedbad van Rengat, Indonesian: Pembantaian Rengat) was committed by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on 5 January 1949 in Rengat, Riau during Operation Kraai. Following the capture of the town, paratroopers of the Korps Speciale Troepen under lieutenant Rudy de Mey subjected confirmed and suspected TNI militants, civil servants, and ordinary townspeople to looting, rape, and summary execution.^[3][4] Bodies were disposed of in the Indragiri River.^[2]

Upon landing, the unit's third engagement in three weeks, the commander had supplied the paratroopers with benzedrine tablets (a stimulant synonymous with the drug speed), which was also provided to soldiers during World War II and the Vietnam War, "to eliminate fatigue".^[5] It became one of the deadliest Dutch military operations in Sumatra.^[6]

In the wake of the atrocity, an investigation was opened under the auspices of Tony Lovink, the High Commissioner of the Crown in the Dutch East Indies. He had succeeded Louis Beel in May 1949 and defended the actions of the army in the general terms that General Simon Spoor had always used: praising its "iron discipline", referring to atrocities as "excesses", not generalising, strict instructions. In July 1949, he had carried out another inspection in South Sulawesi, where, in his opinion, "perfect order and tranquility" prevailed because terror had been successfully repaid with terror there. On the other hand, he described the actions of the paratroops in Rengat as a "slaughter", which, like the Peniwen affair, was "coldly and matter-of-factly repulsive in terms of cruelty and makes us shudder to think that what had happened here might be considered normative for the actions of our troops."^[7]