3 Colonial era

Beginning in 1602, the Dutch slowly established themselves as rulers of what is now Indonesia, exploiting the fractionality of the small kingdoms that had replaced Majapahit. The only exception was Portuguese Timor, which remained under Portuguese rule until 1975 when it was invaded and occupied, becoming East Timor. Netherlands controlled Indonesia for over 300 years, excluding short period of British rule in part of the islands after Anglo-Dutch Java War . During their rule the Dutch developed the Dutch East Indies into one of the world's richest colonial possessions.

During the first decade of the 20th century, an Indonesian independence movement began and expanded rapidly, particularly between the two World Wars. Its leaders came from a small group of young professionals and students, some of whom had been educated in the Netherlands. Many, including Indonesia's first president, Sukarno (1945-67), were imprisoned for political activities.

4 World War II

In May 1940 the Netherlands surrendered to Germany (see World War II). The Dutch Indies declared a state of siege and in July re-directed exports for Japan to the US and Britain. Negotiations with the Japanese aimed at securing supplies of aviation fuel collapsed in June 1941, and the Japanese started their conquest of South-east Asia in December of that year. That same month, fractions from Sumarta sought Japanese assistance for a revolt against the Dutch wartime government. The last Dutch forces were defeated by Japan in March 1942.

In July 1942, Sukarno accepted Japan's offer to rally the public and form a government also answerable to Japanese military needs. Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, and Kyai were decorated by the Emperor of Japan in 1943.

In March 1945 Japan organized a Indonesian committee (BPUPKI) on independence. At its first meeting in May, Supomo spoke of national integration and against personal individualism; while Muhammad Yamin suggested that the new nation should claim Sarawak, Sabah, Malaya, Portuguese Timor, and all the pre-war territories of the Dutch East Indies.

On August 9 1945 Sukarno, Hatta, and Radjiman Wediodiningrat were flown to meet Marshal Terauchi in Vietnam. They were told the Japanese forces were collapsing but that Japan intended to announce Indonesian independence on August 24.

5 Post War

Informed that Japan no longer has the power to such make decisions on August 16, Sukarno reads out a brief unilateral "Proklamasi" (Declaration of Independence) August 17. Word of the proclaimation is spread by shortwave and flyers while the Indonesian war-time military (PETA), youths, and others rally to defend his residence.

On August 29 the group appoint Sukarno as President, and Mohammad Hatta as Vice-President; using a constitution drafted in the days before. The BPUPKI is renamed to KNIP (Central Indonesian National Committee) and meant to act as a temporary governing body until elections can be held. The group declare the new government installed on August 31 and the Republic to consist of 8 provinces: Sumatra, Borneo, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Sulawesi, Maluku, and Sunda Kecil.

Dutch efforts to reestablish complete control met strong resistance. On December 27, 1949, after 4 years of warfare and negotiations, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to a federal Indonesian Government. In 1950, Indonesia became the 60th member of the United Nations.

6 Independence

Shortly after hostilities with the Dutch ended in 1949, Indonesia adopted a new constitution providing for a parliamentary system of government in which the executive was chosen by and made responsible to parliament. Parliament was divided among many political parties before and after the country's first nationwide election in 1955, and stable governmental coalitions were difficult to achieve.

The role of Islam in Indonesia became a divisive issue. Sukarno defended a secular state based on Pancasila while some Muslim groups preferred either an Islamic state or a constitution that included preambular provision requiring adherents of Islam to be subject to Islamic law.

7 Irian Jaya

At the time of independence, the Dutch retained control over the western half of New Guinea, and permitted steps toward self-government and declaration of independence December 1st 1961.

Negotiations with the Dutch on the incorporation of the territory into Indonesia failed, an Indonesian paratroop invasion 18th December preceded armed clashes between Indonesian and Dutch troops in 1961 and 1962. In 1962 the United States pressured Holland into secret talks with Indonesia which in August 1962 produced the New York Agreement , and Indonesia assumed administrative responsibility for Irian Jaya on May 1, 1963. Having rejected United Nations supervision, the Indonesian government conducted an "Act of Free Choice" in Irian Jaya in 1969 in which 1,025 Irianese representatives of local councils were selected and after training in the Indonesian language and warned to vote in favor of Indonesian integration agreed by consensus to remain a part of Indonesia. A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution confirmed the transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia. Opposition to Indonesian administration of Irian Jaya (later known as Papua) gave rise to small-scale guerrilla activity in the years following Jakarta's assumption of control. In the more open atmosphere since 1998, there have been more explicit expressions within Irian Jaya of a desire for independence from Indonesia.

8 East Timor

From 1596 to 1975, East Timor was a Portuguese colony on the island of Timor known as Portuguese Timor and separated from Australia's north coast by the Timor Sea. As a result of political events in Portugal, Portuguese authorities abruptly withdrew from East Timor in 1975. In local elections in 1975, Fretilin, a party partly led by Marxists, and UDT, a Party aligned with the local elite, emerged as the largest parties, having previously formed an alliance to campaign for independence from Portugal.

On December 7, 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor. Probably Indonesia hoped, that in the unclear sitation, it could annex the tiny country of (then) 680.000 people; and indeed, it could do so de facto: it got material and diplomatic support, as well as the necessary armaments from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Reasons include oil and gas reserves, a strategic location as well as various trade and cheap labor related interests. In the early years of the occupation, the Indonesian military killed 200.000 people — through murder, forced starvation, and other means. The years of occupation were riddled with massacres, programs of forced sterilization, hunger, and attempts at cultural annihilation. Tens of thousands suffered tremendous hardships to survive and resist the occupation.

On August 30 1999, the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence in a UN-conducted popular consultation. About 99 percent of the eligible population participated; more than three quarteres chose independence despite months of systematic terror and intimidation by the Indonesian military and its militia. After the result was announced, the Indonesian military and its militia retaliated by destroying the country: murdering some 2,000 East Timorese, displacing two-thirds of the population, raping hundreds of women and girls, and destroying much of the country's infrastructure.

In October 1999, the Indonesian parliament (MPR) revoked the 1976 decree that annexed East Timor, and the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) assumed responsibility for administering East Timor until became an independent nation in May 2002.

9 Sukarno

Unsuccessful rebellions on Sumatra, Sulawesi, West Java, and other islands beginning in 1958, plus a failure by the constituent assembly to develop a new constitution, weakened the parliamentary system. Consequently, in 1959, when President Sukarno unilaterally revived the provisional 1945 constitution, which gave broad presidential powers, he met little resistance.

From 1959 to 1965, President Sukarno imposed an authoritarian regime under the label of "Guided Democracy." He also moved Indonesia's foreign policy toward nonalignment, a foreign policy stance supported by other prominent leaders of former colonies who rejected formal alliances with either the Western or Soviet blocs. Under Sukarno's auspices, these leaders gathered in Bandung, West Java, 1955, to lay the groundwork for what became known as the Non-Aligned Movement. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, President Sukarno moved closer to Asian communist states and toward the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in domestic affairs. Though the PKI represented the largest communist party outside the Soviet Union and China, its mass support base never demonstrated an ideological adherence typical of communist parties in other countries.

Sukarno opposed the formation of the Malaysian Federation — he complained that it was a "neo-colonial plot" to advance British commercial interests. This led to battles between Indonesian troops and Malaysian and British soldiers.

By 1965, the PKI controlled many of the mass civic and cultural organizations that Sukarno had established to mobilize support for his regime and, with Sukarno's acquiescence, embarked on a campaign to establish a "Fifth Column" by arming its supporters. Army leaders resisted this campaign. In September 1965 six senior generals within the military and several other officers were murdered in a coup attempt blamed on palace guards loyal to the PKI. Major General Suharto, the commander of the Army Strategic Reserve, crushed the coup and turned against the PKI. Suharto proceeded to exploit this situation to seize control of the country. The army killed tens of thousands of alleged communists in rural areas. The number of those murdered by 1966 was at least 500,000. The violence was especially brutal in Java and Bali.

Seeing the nationalist Sukarno as a threat to their interests, the West was keen to exploit the situation to its advantage. Suharto's portrayal of events as 'communist carnage' was the official version promoted in the West. Christopher Koch's popular novel The Year of Living Dangerously later helped cement this view. Yet a large body of evidence has since emerged that the killings were encouraged by the US and UK governments. According to a CIA memo, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy had agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities". In 1990 the American journalist Kathy Kadane revealed the extent of the secret American collaboration with the massacres of 1965-66 that allowed Suharto to cease the Presidency. She interviewed many former US officials and CIA members, who spoke of systematically compiled lists of PKI operatives, which the Americans ticked off as the victims were killed or captured. They worked closely with the British who were keen to protect their interests Malaysia. Sir Andrew Gilchrist cabled the Foreign Office in London saying: "…a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change". According to Australian historian Harold Crouch, "the PKI had won widespread support not as a revolutionary party, but as an organization defending the interests of the poor within the existing system". It was this popularity, rather than any armed insurgency that alarmed the American government. Like Vietnam in the North, Indonesia might 'go communist'.

Throughout the 1965-66 period, President Sukarno vainly attempted to restore his political position and shift the country back to its pre-October 1965 position. Although he remained president, in March 1966, Sukarno had to transfer key political and military powers to General Suharto, who by that time had become head of the armed forces. In March 1967, the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) named General Suharto acting president. Sukarno ceased to be a political force and lived under virtual house arrest until his death in 1970.

10 Suharto Era

President Suharto proclaimed a "New Order" in Indonesian politics and dramatically shifted foreign and domestic policies away from the course set in Sukarno's final years. The New Order established economic rehabilitation and development as its primary goals and pursued its policies through an administrative structure dominated by the military but with advice from Western-educated economic experts.

In 1968, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) formally selected Suharto to a full 5-year term as president, and he was re-elected to successive 5-year terms in 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1998. In mid-1997, Indonesia was afflicted by the Asian financial and economic crisis, accompanied by the worst drought in 50 years and falling prices for oil, gas, and other commodity exports. The rupiah plummeted, inflation soared, and capital flight accelerated. Demonstrators, initially led by students, called for Suharto's resignation. Amidst widespread civil unrest?, Suharto resigned on May 21, 1998, 3 months after the MPR had selected him for a seventh term. Suharto's hand-picked Vice President, B. J. Habibie, became Indonesia's third president.

11 Post-Suharto policies

President Habibie quickly assembled a cabinet. One of its main tasks was to reestablish International Monetary Fund and donor community support for an economic stabilization program. He moved quickly to release political prisoners and lift some controls on freedom of speech and association.

Elections for the national, provincial, and sub-provincial parliaments were held on June 7, 1999. For the national parliament, Parti Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDI-P, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle led by Sukarno's daughter Megawati Sukarnoputri) won 34% of the vote; Golkar (Suharto's party; formerly the only legal party of government) 22%; Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (PPP, United Development Party led by Hamzah Haz) 12%, and Partai Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB, National Awakening Party led by Abdurrahman Wahid) 10%. In October 1999, the People's Consultative Assembly, which consists of the 500-member Parliament plus 200 appointed members, elected Abdurrahman Wahid as President, and Megawati Sukarnoputri as Vice President, for 5-year terms. Wahid named his first Cabinet in early November 1999 and a reshuffled, second Cabinet in August 2000.

President Wahid's government has continued to pursue democratization and to encourage renewed economic growth under challenging conditions. In addition to continuing economic malaise, his government has faced regional, interethnic, and interreligious conflict, particularly in Aceh, the Moluccas, and Irian Jaya. In West Timor, the problems of displaced East Timorese and violence by pro-Indonesian East Timorese militias have caused considerable humanitarian and social problems. An increasingly assertive Parliament has frequently challenged President Wahid's policies and prerogatives, contributing to a lively and sometimes rancorous national political debate. During the People's Consultative Assembly's first annual session in August 2000, President Wahid gave an account of his government's performance. On January 29, 2001 thousands of student protesters stormed parliament grounds and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals. Under pressure from the Assembly to improve management and coordination within the government, he issued a presidential decree giving Vice President Megawati control over the day-to-day administration of government. Megawati Sukarnoputri assumed the presidency soon after (See: Politics of Indonesia).

12 References and Further Reading

• Ricklefs, M.C. 2001. A history of modern Indonesia since c.1200. Stanford: Stanford University Press. BooksEnthsiast.com
• Taylor, Jean Gelman. 2003. Indonesia: Peoples and histories. New Haven: Yale University Press. BooksEnthsiast.com

This article incorporates public domain text from the Library of Congress Country Studies.

13 External links

• Sejarah Indonesia—Detailed timeline of events in Indonesian history

Indonesia

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