Siliwangi Division KODAM III / Siliwangi is a Military district formation of the Indonesian Army . The Division was formed during the Indonesian National Revolution by what was then known as the People ' s Security Army ( TKR ) . It was stationed in West Java where much of its membership was recruited , and bore the name of a 15th Century kingdom located in this area and of that kingdom ' s King Siliwangi . it became a Territorial Division ( Tentara & Territorium ) on 24 July 1950 , and a military regional command , or KODAM , in 1959 . Since May 1946 the division was commanded by then - colonel Abdul Haris Nasution and his adjutant was Umar Wirahadikusumah , and slightly later Amirmachmud was the Division Commander ' s Chief of Staff . Kemal Idris was also among the division ' s officers . All of these would play a significant role in Indonesia ' s military and political life during the coming decades . Under the terms of the cease - fire agreement of January 1948 known as the Renville Agreement , the Siliwangi Division was obliged to evacuate West Java and hand it over to the Dutch , and to move over to Central Java . During this lull in fighting the colonial troops , the Division was involved in the bloody crackdown on the Communists at Madiun , in the course of which thousands were killed . In December 1948 the Dutch army launched the surprise attack known as " Operation Kraai " , swiftly capturing the Indonesian provisional capital at Yogyakarta and most Indonesian territory . The Siliwangi Division at that time conducted a fighting retreat back to its original position in West Java , where its men had their social milieu and were familiar with the terrain , and which was therefore the best suited for this unit to conduct guerrilla warfare in . Despite the division ' s recent anti - Communist record , this action came to be known as the Long March Siliwangi , for the famed Long March of Mao Zedong ' s Chinese Communist Party . On arrival in West Java the division fought both the Dutch and the rebellious DI / TII . In 1953 Nasution wrote a book called the " Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare " , based on his own experience of fighting and organizing guerrilla warfare , which would become one of the most studied books on guerrilla warfare along with Mao ' s works on the same subject matter . Poncke Princen , a former Dutch colonial soldier who went over to the Indonesian rebels , took part in that " Long March " and was appointed a staff officer in the Division . On January 23 , 1950 , a rebel group called Angkatan Perang Ratu Adil ( APRA ) led by Captain Raymond Westerling attempted to seize Bandung during the APRA Coup d ' état . Lt . Col . Lembong and 93 other Indonesian soldiers and officers were killed . On January 24 , 1950 , the rebels tried to attack Jakarta , but the rebellion was quashed in a fierce battle in Pacet , near Jakarta . Sultan Hamid II was arrested , but Capt . Westerling managed to escape to Singapore ( then still a British colony ) . In late 1951 the Division was described as being ' a loose umbrella for five infantry brigades ( each of which had up to four infantry battalions ) strung across the western third of Java . ' The post of commander of " Tentara & Territorium III , " the territorial military command encompassing west Java , was in effect synonymous with control of the division . Battalion 530 of the Siliwangi Division was involved in the 30 September Movement events in 1965 . Following the later overthrow of Sukarno and the installation of the Indonesian " New Order " under Suharto , the Siliwangi Division ' s then commander , HR Dharsono , belonged to a faction dubbed by scholars as " New Order Radicals " . Together with Kemal Idris and with Sarwo Edhie Wibowo of KODAM II / Bukit Barisan ( Sumatra ) , this group wanted political parties to be dismantled and replaced with non - ideological groups which emphasized development and modernization . " Factionalism within the army leadership , once a severe problem , no longer disrupted operations in the early 1990s . Traditional divisional identification continued to have some significance , however , especially in regard to that developed in the former Siliwangi , Diponegoro , and Brawijaya divisions , which covered western , central , and eastern Java , respectively , during the war of independence and the years immediately thereafter . The detachment of the Jakarta area from the control of the Siliwangi division and the restructuring of the army from a divisional basis to the territorial Kodam system diffused the powers of the divisions and eliminated warlordism . "