Sukarno

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Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.

Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967.
He was forced out of power and replaced by one of his generals, Suharto, and remained under house arrest until his death.

Name

The spelling "Sukarno" is frequently used in English as it is based on the newer official spelling in Indonesia since 1947 but the older spelling Soekarno, based on Dutch orthography, is still frequently used, mainly because he signed his name in the old spelling. Official Indonesian presidential decrees from the period 1947–1968, however, printed his name using the 1947 spelling. The Soekarno–Hatta International Airport which serves near Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia for example, still uses the older spelling.

Indonesians also remember him as Bung Karno or Pak Karno.[1] Like many Javanese people, he had only one name; in religious contexts, he was occasionally referred to as 'Achmed Sukarno'.[2]

Background

The son of a Javanese primary school teacher, an aristocrat named Raden Soekemi Sosrodihardjo and his Balinese wife named Ida Ayu Nyoman Rai from Buleleng regency, Sukarno was born as Kusno Sosrodihardjo in Blitar, East Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Following Javanese custom, he was renamed after surviving a childhood illness. He was admitted into a Dutch-run school as a child. When his father sent him to Surabaya in 1916 to attend a secondary school, he met Tjokroaminoto, a future nationalist. In 1921 he began to study at the Technische Hogeschool (Technical Institute) in Bandung. He studied civil engineering and focused on architecture.

Atypically, even among the colony's small educated elite, Sukarno was fluent in several languages. In addition to the Javanese language of his childhood, he was a master of Sundanese, Balinese and of Indonesian, and especially strong in Dutch. He was also quite comfortable in German, English, French, Arabic, and Japanese, all of which were taught at his HBS. He was helped by his photographic memory and precocious mind.^[3]

In his studies, Sukarno was "intensely modern," both in architecture and in politics. Sukarno interpreted these ideas in his dress, in his urban planning for the capital (eventually Jakarta), and in his socialist politics, though he did not extend his taste for modern art to pop music; he had Koes Plus imprisoned for their allegedly decadent lyrics despite his reputation for womanising. For Sukarno, modernity was blind to race, neat and Western in style, and anti-imperialist.^[4]

Independence struggle

Sukarno became a leader of a pro-independence party, Partai Nasional Indonesia, when it was founded in 1927. He opposed imperialism and capitalism because he thought both systems worsened the life of Indonesian people.

He also hoped that Japan would commence a war against the western powers and that Java could then gain its independence with Japan's aid. He was arrested in 1929 by Dutch colonial authorities and sentenced to two years in prison. By the time he was released, he had become a popular hero. He was arrested several times during the 1930s and was in exile when Japan occupied the archipelago in 1942.

World War II and the Japanese occupation

In early 1929, during the Indonesian National Revival, Sukarno and fellow Indonesian nationalist leader Mohammad Hatta (later Vice President), first foresaw a Pacific War and the opportunity that a Japanese advance on Indonesia might present for the Indonesian independence cause.^[5] In February 1942 Imperial Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies quickly defeating Dutch forces who marched, bussed and trucked Sukarno three hundred kilometres to Padang, Sumatra. They intended keeping him prisoner, but abruptly abandoned him to save themselves.^[6]

The Japanese had their own files on Sukarno and approached him with respect wanting to use him to organise and pacify the Indonesians. Sukarno on the other hand wanted to use the Japanese to free Indonesia: "The Lord be praised, God showed me the way; in that valley of the Ngarai I said: Yes, Independent Indonesia can only be achieved with Dai Nippon...For the first time in all my life, I saw myself in the mirror of Asia."^[7]

Subsequently, indigenous forces across both Sumatra and Java aided the Japanese against the Dutch but would not cooperate in the supply of the aviation fuel which was essential for the Japanese war effort. Desperate for local support in supplying the volatile cargo, Japan now brought Sukarno back to Jakarta. He helped the Japanese in obtaining its aviation fuel and forced labor conscripts, called kerja paksa in Indonesian and Romusha in Japanese. Sukarno was lastingly ashamed of his role with the romusha.^[8] He also was involved with Peta and Heiho (Javanese volunteer army troops) via speeches broadcast on the Japanese radio and loud speaker networks across Java. By mid-1945 these units numbered around two million, and were preparing to defeat any Allied forces sent to re-take Java.

On November 10, 1943 Sukarno was decorated by the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo. He also became head of Badan Penyelidik Usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan Indonesia (BPUPKI), the Japanese-organized committee through which Indonesian independence was later gained. On 7 September 1944, with the war going badly for the Japanese, Prime Minister Koiso promised independence for Indonesia, although no date was set.^[9] This announcement was seen, according to the U.S. official history, as immense vindication for Sukarno's apparent collaboration with the Japanese.^[10] The U.S. at the time considered Sukarno one of the "foremost collaborationist leaders." ^[11]

Early independence

Following the Japanese surrender, Sukarno, Mohammad Hatta, and Dr. Radjiman Wediodiningrat were summoned by Marshal Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's Southern Expeditionary Forces in Saigon. Sukarno, viewed by many as a competent leader of the time is forced by the youth groups to initially hesitate in declaring Indonesia's independence - the youth at the time felt that the news of Japanese surrender shall be taken as a golden chance to declare independence before the allies could re-establish a colonial rule in the area, yet Sukarno refused - he was afraid of any bloodbath and war which will be done by the base of suspecting the Indonesians of rebellion against the Japanese by the allied force which would soon take their power back. To force the deadlock to end,he and Mohammad Hatta were kidnapped by Indonesian youth groups to Rengasdengklok, Karawang, not far from Jakarta in order to prepare the Indonesian Independence. Finally Sukarno and Hatta declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1945.

Sukarno's vision for the 1945 Indonesian constitution comprised the Pancasila (five principles). Sukarno's political philosophy was mainly a fuse of elements of Marxism, nationalism and Islam. This is reflected in a proposition of his version of Pancasila he proposed to the BPUPKI (Inspectorate of Indonesian Independence Preparation Efforts), in which he originally espoused them in a speech on June 1, 1945^[12]:

1. Kebangsaan Indonesia (Indonesian Nationality), an emphasis on Nationalism
2. Internasionalisme Internationalism, an emphasis about equality and humanity
3. Musyawarah Mufakat (Deliberative Consensus), an emphasis on Representative democracy which hold no ethnic dominance but equal vote for each member of the council
4. Kesejahteraan Sosial (Social Welfare), Marxist influenced, an emphasis on Populist Socialism
5. KeTuhanan yang Berkebudayaan, Monotheism

In the same speech, he argued that all of the principles of the nation could be summarized in the phrase gotong royong.^[13] The Indonesian parliament, founded on the basis of this original (and subsequently revised) constitution, proved all but ungovernable. This was due to irreconcilable differences between various social, political, religious and ethnic factions.^[14]

Sukarno and Foreign Minister Agus Salim in Dutch custody, 1949.

Sukarno's government initially postponed the formation of a national army, for fear of antagonizing the Allied occupation forces and their doubt over whether they would have been able to form an adequate military apparatus to maintain control of seized territory. The various militia groups at that time were encouraged to join the BKR—Badan Keamanan Rakyat (The People's Security Organization)—itself a subordinate of the "War Victims Assistance Organization". It was only in October 1945 that the BKR was reformed into the TKR—Tentara Keamanan Rakyat (The People's Security Army) in response to the increasing Dutch presence in Indonesia. In the ensuing chaos between various factions and Dutch attempts to re-establish colonial control, Dutch troops captured Sukarno in December 1948, but were forced to release him after the ceasefire. He returned to Jakarta in December 28, 1949. At this time, Indonesia adopted a new federal constitution that made the country a federal state. This was replaced by another provisional constitution in 1950 that restored a unitary form of government. Both constitutions were parliamentary in nature, which—on paper—limited presidential power. However, even with his formally reduced role, he commanded a good deal of moral authority as Father of the Nation.

Sukarno's government was not universally accepted in Indonesia. Indeed, many factions and regions attempted to separate themselves from his government, and there were several internal conflicts even during the period of armed insurgency against the Dutch. One such example is the leftist-backed coup attempt by elements of the military in Madiun and Mt. Lawu Area, East Java in 1947, which was an attempt to change the NKRI (Unitary State of Republic of Indonesia) into RSI (Rep. Soviet Indonesia - Soviet of the Republic of Indonesia) by the leading PKI (Communist Party of Indonesia) party; many of the PKI partisans died and its power became dormant for the next 2–3 years, before in the late 1950s PKI start to dominate Indonesian politics again. Or attempts of coup such as the DI/TII (Darul Islam/Tentara Islam Indonesia - Darul Islam/Islam Army of Indonesia) coup in West Java, in which SM Kartosuwirjo and fellow separatists tried to create a NII (Negara Islam Indonesia - Islamic Country of Indonesia).

There were further attempts of military coups against Sukarno in 1956, including the PRRI–Permesta rebellion in Sulawesi supported by the CIA, during which an American aviator, Allen Lawrence Pope, operating in support of the rebels was shot down and captured.