ABOUT 500 youths dressed in blue shirts and pants marched out from their bamboo barracks at Desa Cibarusah in Bekasi, West Java, for a ceremony marking the start of training as members of a volunteer army called Hizbullah.

That morning in February 1945, Japanese military officials were inaugurating Hizbullah (Army of God) in Japanese-occupied Indonesia. Present were leaders of Majelis Syuro Muslimin Indonesia (Masyumi), including deputy chairman