A Dutch soldier posed proudly beside a large number of dead Acehnese killed in the trenches after achieving victory in Indonesia's Aceh War in 1904. More than 500 Acehnese were massacred, about 130 of them children. The Dutch rulers propagated the colonial state of Indonesia from photos of the brutal massacre.
The Dutch sent troops from the Marsose colony to Achin, Indonesia, killing about 75,000 Acehnese or about 15 percent of the region's population. Aceh was a pepper-growing region on the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra Island. After receiving the transfer of Sumatra from the British, they declared war on Aceh in 1873 in order to colonize it. The Dutch flaunted their political stability and security in the East Indies region through acts of violence. The number of casualties in the Aceh War (1873-1904) was estimated at about 40,000, more than the number of casualties of Raymond Westerling's army in South Sulawesi. About 75,000 Atins were killed by Dutch colonial soldiers in order for the Dutch to take control of Aceh. The expansion of the colony created violent crimes by the state by the Dutch.
Between 1871 and 1910, it was estimated that about 125,000 Achins were killed. The Dutch army killed more people than the population of Semarang in 1910. During the Dutch invasion in Aceh, the same troop massacre broke out in Gayoalas in 1904. Ten units of about 200 men each of the Malthusian army had taken about a dozen officers and about 450 suffering prisoners. Aceh's casualties on June 24, 1904 were about 2,902 Acehnese killed, half of whom were about 1,159 women. On the other hand, on the Dutch side, about 26 people were killed. The Dutch military was brainwashed into violence and atrocities, and violence occurred through carelessness, easy play, or sadism. Unintentional atrocities are the greatest crime of all. Pictures of unparalleled massacres evoked the horrors of war.
Even after the Dutch army conquered the whole of Aceh in 1904, small-scale guerrilla warfare still occurred frequently. Achin, the birthplace of Islam around 700 years ago, systematically carried out massacres with extreme violence to eliminate Muslims inside and outside the country. They swept the houses in the villages along the road, and when the husbands were not at home, the houses were attacked again early the next morning. If her husband did not provide information about what he had done during the night, the Dutch army did not hesitate to take her life. The prisoners were former criminals, bound in chains and forced into slavery during the Achin War.
During the Pacific War, the occupation of Sumatra was invaded by the Japanese Army, and the entire island was occupied in March 1942. The colonial forces of the Dutch East Indies surrendered to the Japanese army in March 1942. On December 27, 1949, the Dutch East Indies ceased to exist and became independent as the Federal Republic of Indonesia.
