Revolut kasino1/6/2024 Pak Konjen and Ibu Konjen from the Indonesian Consulate in Sydney were guests of honour at the seminar. While the Dutch further incensed the Australian government by secretly transferring 13 of the ‘ringleaders’ out of the country, by December the remaining 300 prisoners were released. Sympathisers, Casino residents, the press and now the Australian government were outraged.īy October the prison sentences of the first 200 ex-soldiers had ended and they were released, discharged from the Dutch armed forces and sent to Brisbane for repatriation back to Republican-held Indonesia. One defiant ex-soldier named Soerdo was shot dead and two others wounded. While their plight increasingly came to the attention of the public and activists such as Molly Warner were writing to the Prime Minister, they continued to be imprisoned throughout 1946.Īfter two deaths in the camp - one possibly a suicide - on 12 September guards opened fire at a protest by the Indonesians. They sent a letter to the Prime Minister on 29 November explaining they were no longer Dutch subjects and demanded release.īut they were court martialled by the Dutch and received prison sentences. By October there were around 400 prisoners. During the next few months many of the Indonesian soldiers around the country refused to obey the Dutch and were promptly shipped to Camp Victory to be court martialled. Indonesian sympathisers in Australia - mainly from the left-wing maritime trade unions who had black banned Dutch ships returning to Indonesia - began to publicise their plight, some describing Camp Victory as a ‘little Belsen’, akin to a Nazi prison camp. Photograph courtesy Casino Historical Society and Anthony Liem They were hastily imprisoned by the Dutch guards and almost overnight Camp Victory was surrounded by floodlights, watchtowers and a barbed wire fence.Ī watchtower at Camp Victory. By 12 September many of the soldiers declared they were no longer under Dutch jurisdiction. The first word of the Indonesian declaration of independence reached Camp Victory in September 1945, and along with it came orders from the new Republic to ‘defy the Dutch’. Some of these were anti-colonial Indonesian nationalists who had been imprisoned by the Dutch, who thought they would be a danger if left behind in Japanese controlled Indonesia.īut tension was to grow in the normally sleepy township best known at the time for its dairy industry. Between 19 other elements of the 10,000 Indonesians who had arrived in Australia with the fleeing Dutch government began to arrive at the camp. Apparently they were good business in the local shops - many long-term Casino residents recalled them buying bicycles and having a fondness for perfume. They also remember the soldiers showing them how to make and fly kites.Īt the end of the war in August 1945, the army camp in Casino had become known by the Dutch as the Victory Camp. The soldiers also had soldiers’ pay, and after work hours finished they would visit the small township of Casino.
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