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$Unique_ID{bob00207}
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$Title{Indonesia
Chapter 1D.   The Decision to Grant Independence}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald M. Seekins}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{dutch
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indonesia
republic
pki
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}
$Date{1982}
$Log{}
Title:       Indonesia
Book:        Indonesia, A Country Study
Author:      Donald M. Seekins
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1982

Chapter 1D.   The Decision to Grant Independence

     The increasingly desperate position of the Japanese, signaled by the fall
of the government of Tojo Hideki in July 1944, led to an unexpected decision
by his successor, Prime Minister Koiso Kuniaki, to grant independence to the
archipelago. This was announced on September 7, 1944, and was a vindication of
the position of Sukarno and other cooperating nationalists who had been
increasingly criticized as lackeys of the Japanese. The announcement was
especially gratifying because the territory to be given independence included
not simply Java but the entire archipelago, on which Sukarno had repeatedly
insisted. The Investigating Committee for the Preparatory Work for Indonesian
Independence, founded in March 1945, included delegates from the Outer Islands
and took up the question of what kind of government the new nation would have.
A republican constitution was proposed in July, providing for a centralized
presidential system: there would be an elective Indonesian People's Congress
which would select the president and vice president of the republic; during
the president's five-year term, he could have broad powers and would be
responsible only to the Congress, which would meet as infrequently as once
every five years. Emphasis on mutual aid, collectivism, and consensus building
reveal Sukarno's predominant influence. Hatta lobbied unsuccessfully for a
Western-style parliamentary system and the inclusion of provisions recognizing
individual rights.

     It was agreed that the territory of the new republic would include not
only the former Dutch East Indies but also Portuguese Timor and British
possessions on Borneo and the Malay Peninsula. Thus the basis for a postwar
Great Indonesia policy, pursued by both Sukarno and his successor, Soeharto,
was established. The committee also addressed the delicate question of
religion. Muslim delegates protested the establishment of a secular state as
Sukarno had wanted. A compromise, known as the Jakarta Charter, was worked out
in which the state would be based upon belief in God, and Muslims were
required to follow Islamic law.

     On June 1, 1945, Sukarno had given an address outlining the five
principles (pancasila) of the Indonesian nation. Much as the concept of
Marhaenism had been used by him to create a common denominator for the people
in the 1930s, so pancasila would provide a common foundation for the country
after achieving independence. The five principles were belief in one God,
humanitarianism, national unity, democracy, and social justice. Broad and
imprecise as the five principles were, they would continue to serve as the
ideological basis of the Indonesian state long after their first advocate had
passed from the scene.

     On August 15 Japan surrendered, and the leadership, pressured by radical
youth groups, had to move quickly. On August 17 independence was formally
declared, with Japanese compliance, and the new republic began its highly
uncertain career.

The National Revolution, 1945-50

     The period of National Revolution witnessed the survival struggle of the
new republic and stubborn Dutch efforts to suppress it through policies of
military intervention and of divide and rule. The struggle was complicated by
the emergence of conflicting forces within the republican camp. In late 1945
these included Sukarno and Hatta, the older nationalist leaders who had
cooperated with the Japanese; antifascist leaders, of whom the most important
was Sutan Sjahrir; and radical youth groups who came to support the
revolutionary Tan Malaka. This period also saw the rise of the most important
political actor in postindependence Indonesia: the armed forces.

     One of the terms of the August 15 surrender was that Japanese troops
would maintain order in the occupied territories until Allied forces arrived
to take over. The Allies, hampered by lack of knowledge of internal conditions
and the last-minute transfer of authority for the archipelago from United
States forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur to Lord Louis
Mountbatten's South East Asia Command, had no consistent policy concerning
Indonesia's future, apart from the vague hope that the Dutch and republican
forces could be induced to negotiate peacefully.

     To Indonesians, however, the intention of the Allies was clear: the
restoration of Dutch colonial rule. Thus in the weeks between the formal
declaration of independence and the first Allied landings on Java on September
29, republican leaders engaged in a frantic consolidation of their position.
Sukarno was named provisional president of the republic and Hatta vice
president, an association of two very different men that had survived the
occupation era and would continue until 1956.

     Because there was no opportunity for nationwide elections, the emergency
Central Indonesia National Committee (KNIP), with 135 members, was set up;
eight provincial republican governments were established on Java and the Outer
Islands. Those on Java retained the personnel and apparatus of the Java
Service Association. On August 27 Sukarno established a single national party,
giving it the old name of the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI).

     One of the most significant steps in this early period was the creation
of the armed forces. Local battle units (Laskar) were created in different
parts of the archipelago from military units established by the Japanese. Arms
were obtained from Japanese storehouses. A national defense force was
officially created on October 5 in order to coordinate the different Laskar
units. This became the nucleus of the republican armed forces.

     The first encounters between Allied troops, mostly British with some
Dutch units, and republican forces were tense and hostile. Major violence
erupted in Surabaya on October 28, 1945, when British troops were attacked by
a much larger force of Laskar soldiers and activist youth armed with Japanese
weapons. At first, republican leaders in Jakarta urged moderation; a tough
British counterattack on the city following the death of the British commander
Brigadier A.W.S. Mallaby, however, unified the Indonesian public behind the
resistance. The Battle of Surabaya of November 10-24, costing thousands of
lives, was the bloodiest single engagement of the National Revolution and
obliged the Allies to come to terms with the republic's existence.

     Sukarno found his predominant position undermined from two sides: the
allies distrusted him as a collaborator, making it impossible for him to
represent the republic in negotiations, and leftists excoriated him as a
lackey of the Allies for not advocating total resistance. In October 1945 he
was obliged to step down in favor of the socialist Sutan Sjahrir. Sukarno
remained president, but with few powers, and Sutan Sjahrir became prime
minister, foreign minister, and minister of the interior. During the next
year, he was involved in intense negotiations with the Dutch. The result was
the Linggajati Agreement of November 1946, which provided for Dutch
recognition of republican rule of Java and Sumatra and the creation of a
Netherlands-Indonesian Union under the Dutch crown, consisting of the
Netherlands, the republic, and the states of the eastern archipelago-the
latter two forming the United States of Indonesia. This agreement was
ratified by the KNIP, but only after it was packed with over 300 new members.
Neither the Dutch nor the Indonesians, however, were happy with it.

     The Dutch busied themselves with the creation of new states both on Java
and in the Outer Islands in order to counterbalance the republic. In December
1946 they established the state of East Indonesia on Bali. Fifteen federal
states were set up outside the republic between 1947 and 1948, including
Pasundan in western Java, East Java, South Sumatra, and West Kalimantan. The
Dutch intended to create an Indonesian federal system and reduce, or
eliminate, the influence of the republic. In March 1948 Hubertus J.
van Mook, Dutch lieutenant governor, announced that he would be president
of a federal Indonesia, which would be established by the end of the year.

     The Dutch initiated a "police action" against republican territory in
July 1947. Their troops drove republican forces out of Sumatra and eastern
and western Java, confining them to the region of central Java around
Yogyakarta. This cut them off from Java's ports and sources of food and other
supplies. United Nations (UN) pressure on the Dutch stopped them from pressing
on and capturing Yogyakarta, and a Good Offices Committee, consisting of
representatives from Belgium, Australia, and the United States, was set up to
supervise a cease-fire. The Renville Agreement, signed in January 1948,
represented the low point of republican fortunes. In view of the republic's
weakened position, there was no alternative but to recognize the "van Mook
line," which connected the points of the most extensive Dutch inroads into
its territory, and to withdraw republican troops from eastern and western
Java in accordance with its provisions. The military opposed the agreement,
however, and many units continued fighting the Dutch. Dutch belligerence,
moreover, had begun to alienate international public opinion, including that
of the United States. Thus the police action was in fact a moral victory for
the republic.

     Within republican territory, however, conditions were by no means stable.
The left wing (a revitalized PKI under Musso, leader of the 1926 revolt, and
Trotskyite forces under Tan Malaka) bridled at the Renville Agreement.
Fighting between pro-PKI army units and the Siliwangi Division, an elite
military corps established in 1946 by Sutan Sjahrir, broke out in Surakarta
in September 1948. The PKI forces retreated east to Madium, and on September
19 Musso called on the people to overthrow the government, which at this time
was headed by Hatta as prime minister. By the end of October, the Siliwangi
Division had crushed the rebellion, and Musso was killed (see the Development
of the Armed Forces, ch. 5). Thus the PKI suffered the second serious reverse
in its history but was reactivated in the 1950s. Tan Malaka had organized the
Party of the Masses (Murba) in October. Although he was antagonistic to the
PKI and advocated resistance to the Dutch, he was judged a threat by certain
republican army officers and was executed in February 1949. There was also
conflict between Islamic armed groups and republican military units.

     Hard on the heels of the Madium insurrection came a second Dutch "police
action." Yogyakarta was captured on December 19, and Sukarno, Hatta, and other
republican leaders were arrested and exiled either to northern Sumatra or to
Bangka. By this time, however, the republican cause had won international
sympathy, and there was little patience for further Dutch belligerence. In
January 1949 the UN Security Council demanded the reinstatement of the
republican government, and the United States Congress discussed cutting off
all Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands if this were not done. The Dutch were
also obliged to ensure a full transfer of sovereignty in the archipelago
to Indonesian authorities by July 1, 1950. The Round Table Conference was
initiated in The Hague on August 23 to discuss the means by which this could
be accomplished.

     The conference ended on November 2, 1949, Hatta serving as the principal
negotiator for the republic. It was agreed that the Netherlands would
recognize the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (RIS) as an
independent state, and all Dutch military forces would be withdrawn. Two
particularly difficult points slowed down the negotiation process. One was
the status of western New Guinea which, to the displeasure of the Indonesians,
would remain under Dutch rule pending future negotiations. The other was the
size of the debt supposedly owed the Netherlands by the republic. The figure
of 4.3 billion guilders was finally agreed upon, although much of this had
been expenses for attempting to suppress the revolution. Sovereignty was
formally transferred on December 27, 1949.

     The federal arrangement of the republic created at the Round Table
Conference was, in the words of political scientist George Kahin, "a weirdly
unbalanced and distorted organism." There were 16 states: the Republic of
Indonesia, with territory in west and central Java and in Sumatra and a total
population of 31 million, and the 15 states created by the Dutch, one of
which, Riau, had a population of only 100,000. Under the RIS constitution
drafted and approved in October 1949, however, each state had equal
representation in the upper house of the federal legislature, and in the
lower house the Dutch-created states were guaranteed 100 of the 150 seats,
more than they were entitled to on the basis of population. In this way the
Dutch apparently hoped to circumscribe the republic's influence and ensure the
maintenance of a friendly Indonesian regime that would guarantee the security
of their economic interests. Yet a constitutional provision giving the cabinet
the power to enact emergency laws with the approval of the lower house of the
legislature opened the way to the dissolution of the federal system. By May
1950 all the federal states had been absorbed into a unitary Republic of
Indonesia, and Jakarta was designated the capital.

     The consolidation process was sparked in January 1950 with the abortive
coup in west Java of "Turk" Westerling, a "counterinsurgency expert" who had
gained a reputation for mass murder in Sumatra and Sulawesi during the
National Revolution period; this led to the extension of Jakarta's control
over the state of Pasundan in February. The other states relinquished their
federal status under strong pressure from Jakarta in the following month;
East Indonesia (composed of Sulawesi, the Malukus, Bali, and the Lesser
Sunda Islands) and South Sumatra were the last to do so, in May. In April
the Republic of the South Malukus (RMS) was proclaimed at Ambon, which with
its large Christian population, was one of the few regions in the archipelago
where there was significant pro-Dutch sentiment. The separatist movement was
suppressed by November, but the following year some 12,000 Ambonese soldiers
and their families were brought to the Netherlands, where an RMS government
in exile was established.

Parliamentary and Guided Democracy, 1950-65

     A provisional constitution, creating the Republic of Indonesia as a
unitary rather than a federal state, was ratified by the RIS legislature on
August 14, 1950. Although the constitution was to be redrafted and formally
approved by the national legislature after general elections, the elections
were not held until September 1955, and the provisional constitution remained
in force until the 1945 Constitution was reinstated in 1959. Unlike the 1945
document, which reflected the "collectivist" orientation of Sukarno, it
outlined a parliamentary political system: the cabinet was responsible to a
unicameral legislature, the House of Representatives, elected directly by
the people (the RIS Senate, or upper house, having been abolished). The
president, moreover, had reduced powers. Although he could dissolve
parliament, elections had to be held within 30 days, and all his decrees,
including those associated with his being commander in chief of the armed
forces, had to be approved by government ministers. Sukarno became president
under the new system, and Hatta became vice president. Sukarno was hampered
by these institutional restraints, but his prestige as a revolutionary leader
gave him great influence.

     Part of the price paid by Jakarta to the federal states in the process
of creating a unitary state was the retention of Dutch-appointed delegates
from the RIS legislature in the new House of Representatives. These men
were well aware that general elections would most likely turn them out of
office, an important factor in the decision to postpone elections for five
years. Their presence compromised the parliament, making it illegitimate in
the eyes of many Indonesians, who wanted a clean break with the colonial past.

Parties, Regions, and Social Group

     Formally united behind the slogan "Unity in Diversity," Indonesia in the
first years of independence remained deeply divided along social, religious,
and regional lines. This was reflected in the large number of political
parties in the legislature. In March 1951 the largest of these, Masyumi, had
only 49 seats out of a total of 232, while the second largest, the PNI, had
36. Eleven others, from Sutan Sjahrir's Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI)
to Murba, which survived the death of its founder Tan Malaka, had from four
to 17 seats each.

     Islamic groups were united in Masyumi, which had been founded during the
Japanese occupation and functioned as a political party during the
parliamentary period. Its strongest faction in the early 1950s was that of
Mohammed Natsir, a leader of Modernist orientation who advocated "religious
socialism," an amalgamation of pragmatism, parliamentarianism, and basic
religious principles. Its liberal orientation, which was closely allied to
that of Hatta, alienated the more orthodox Muslims, however, and this led to
the splitting off of the old traditionalist association, the NU, in August
1952. This left the PNI the largest party in the House of Representatives.
The PNI embodied Sukarno's concept of Marhaenism and his emphasis on consensus
building; its support was predominantly Javanese, including members of the
priyayi class and the abangan. It advocated the nationalization of large
economic enterprises, a large percentage of which were still foreign owned,
and an equal distribution of land to cultivators. Sutan Sjahrir's PSI combined
a liberal concern with individual rights and parliamentary government with a
"Fabian" socialism in which there would be a mixed public-private economy.

     The PKI had 13 representatives in the House of Representatives in March
1951, three years after Madiun. A new generation of communist leaders,
including Aidit Dipa Nusantara, M.H. Lukman, and Njoto, began in 1952 to
embark on a policy of building up a mass following, which would make the PKI
the largest and best financed party in Indonesia. They controlled the Central
All-Indonesia Workers Organization (SOBSI) of 1.5 million members and
expanded the Indonesian Peasant Front (BTI), which found considerable support,
particularly among the abangan villagers in the poorer areas of Java and on
the plantation estates, which harbored a traditional suspicion of Islamic
groups and their santri supporters. This was the period of "united front"
work, in which cooperative ties were forged with other "anti-imperialist"
parties, principally the PNI. For Sukarno the PKI was less of a threat than
the Islamic parties, particularly Masyumi, because the new communist
leadership voiced support for his pancasila and the goal of genuine national
unity under a secular state.

     Six cabinets were formed in the 1950-57 period, reflecting the unstable
balance of power between the different parties. The general election of
September 29, 1955, the first in Indonesia's history that involved a universal
adult franchise and in which almost 38 million people participated, left the
PNI the largest party with 22.3 percent of the vote and 57 seats, closely
followed by Masyumi with 20.9 percent and also 57 seats. The Muslim Scholars
League (NU) was third, with 18.4 percent of the vote and 45 seats. The PKI,
however, made the most striking gains, obtaining 16.4 percent of the vote and
39 seats, while the Indonesian Socialist Party obtained only 2 percent of
the vote and five seats.

     The election, in Ricklef's words, solved no political problems but
"merely helped to draw the battle lines more precisely." The split between
Java and the Outer Islands was particularly apparent. The PNI, PKI, and NU
received more than 85 percent of their support from Javanese voters, while
Masyumi was the strongest party in the Outer Islands. No single group, or
stable coalition of groups, was strong enough to provide national leadership.
The result was chronic instability, which would erode the foundations of the
parliamentary system.

     In the early 1950s the military, too, was seriously divided. At the end
of the war for independence, the government debated plans to "rationalize"
the republic's armed forces, demobilizing many of its 200,000 men in order to
create a smaller and more modernized army. Rationalization was vehemently
opposed, however, by certain factions within the military allied with
politicians in parliament. On October 17, 1952, officers supporting
rationalization and exasperated as civilian interference in the military's
affairs drew up tanks in front of the presidential palace and demanded that
Sukarno dissolve parliament. He refused, and the chief of staff, General Abdul
Haris Nasution, was obliged to resign. By 1955, however, the different
military factions had worked out a commitment to keep civilians out of the
affairs of the armed forces, and Nasution was called back to his command (see
The Development of the Armed Forces, ch. 5).

     In the Outer Islands, however, military officers were busy carving up
political and economic satrapies. In Manado and northern Sumatra, military
officers ran highly profitable smuggling operations, which Jakarta could not
inhibit. Nasution, however, now working in tandem with Sukarno, issued an
order in 1955 that these officers be transferred out of their localities. The
result was a coup attempt initiated during October and November 1956 against
Nasution by Colonel Zulkifli Lubis. Although this failed, and Lubis went
underground, a number of military officers in Sumatra seized control of
civilian governments in defiance of Jakarta. In March 1957 Lieutenant Colonel
H.N.V. Sumual, commander of the East Indonesia military region based in
Ujung Pandang, issued a Universal Struggle Charter (Permesta), calling for
"completion of the Indonesian revolution." Meanwhile the Darul Islam movement
(see Glossary) continued resistance against the central government in western
Java, Aceh, and southern Sulawesi, seeking to establish an Islamic state. The
Republic of Indonesia was falling apart, testimony in the eyes of Sukarno and
Nasution that the system of parliamentary democracy and party politics was
unworkable.

The Transition to Guided Democracy

     Sukarno had long been impatient with party politics and suggested in a
speech on October 28, 1956, that they be discarded; soon after, he announced
a new conception-Guided Democracy. In fact, Guided Democracy with its emphasis
on consensus, collectivism, and national unity, embodied nothing really new.
These were ideas that Sukarno had been articulating throughout his political
career. During the first years of independence, however, his freedom of action
was limited by parliamentary institutions. In an unstable and ultimately
unworkable coalition with the central military command under Nasution and the
PKI, he was able to dismantle it, crush political party opposition, and create
a more centralized and authoritarian political system. On Sukarno's
proclamation of martial law on March 14, 1957, a relatively liberal phase of
Indonesian politics was brought to an end.

     The year witnessed the move of the PKI to the center of the political
stage. In provincial elections held in July 1957 in eastern and central Java,
it gained 34 percent of the vote and, overall, was the second most powerful
party after Masyumi. Tensions with the Dutch over the issue of western New
Guinea led to the repudiation of the debt and the takeover of Dutch firms by
communist union members: the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which controlled
most the archipelago's shipping, was seized on December 3, and Royal Dutch
Shell, two days later. Some 46,000 Dutch citizens were expelled from
Indonesia, and Nasution ordered some army officers to take a role in managing
these enterprises, marking the beginning of the armed forces active role in
the national economy. Control of the oil industry was especially important,
and a military officer, Colonel Ibnu Sutowo, was put in charge of a new
national oil company, Permina.

     Tensions between Jakarta and the Outer Islands increased as Masyumi
leaders were harassed by Sukarno and PKI supporters. Relations worsened after
the resignation of Hatta in December 1956. Popular with the Outer Islands,
Hatta could not be reconciled to Sukarno's growing antiparliamentarianism. On
February 15, 1958, civilian political leaders, including Natsir, proclaimed a
rebel government at Bukittinggi, the Revolutionary Government of the Republic
of Indonesia (PRRI), and two days later the Permesta insurgents in Sulawesi
made common cause with them. Sukarno charged that the rebels received American
aid, souring relations with the United States and causing Sukarno to develop
closer relations with the Soviet Union and China. Decisive action by the
military in both Sumatra and Sulawesi neutralized the revolt by mid-1958,
though it was not completely suppressed until 1961. There were two important
consequences: the forced retirement of many officers from the Outer Islands
from the armed forces, making the officer corps more Javanese; and the firm
implantation of central military authority in the outer archipelago. Because
of the growth of army power, regional rebellion was no longer a viable option.

     In July 1958 Nasution suggested that the best way to secure Guided
Democracy was through a revival of the 1945 Constitution, placing emphasis on
broad presidential authority. On July 5, 1959, Sukarno issued a presidential
decree reinstating it, dissolving the old House of Representatives. In March
1960 a new legislature, the House of People's Representatives-Mutual
Assistance (DPR-GR), was set up. Of its 283 seats, 154 were given to various
sociopolitical or functional groups, including the military. All
representatives were appointed by the government. Masyumi and the PSI were
formally banned because they refused to recognize Guided Democracy.

     The most striking aspect of Guided Democracy, particularly for foreign
observers, was Sukarno's flamboyant leadership style. Lacking a power base,
such as that possessed by the army or the PKI, he relied on his talents for
showmanship and his prestige as a revolutionary leader to maintain his place
at the political apex. He was notorious for his ability to hypnotize the
masses with words and impressive public demonstrations. In seemingly endless
speeches he spun out slogans and catchword concepts, which formed the nebolous
basis of a national ideology. Two of the most important were Manipol-USDEK and
Nasakom. The former emerged in 1960: Manipol was the political manifesto set
forth in Sukarno's August 17, 1959, independence day speech; USDEK was an
Indonesian acronym for a collection of ideas: the 1945 Constitution,
Indonesian Socialism, Guided Democracy, Guided Economy, and Indonesian
Identity. Nasakom was the synthesis of Nationalism, Religion, and Communism.
The latter, like the pancasila of 1945, was described as the basis of national
unity. Sukarno claimed to have resolved the contradiction between God and
communism by pointing out that a commitment to Marxist "historical
materialism" did not necessarily entail a commitment to atheistic
"philosophical materialism."

     Sukarno, in his quest for national unity, had little appreciation for the
technical or administrative aspects of governments. While expensive monuments
and public buildings were built in the capital, the people continued to endure
worsening poverty. An eight-year economic plan was published in late 1960, but
with its eight volumes, 17 parts, and 1,945 clauses (representing August 17,
1945), it seems to have been as much an exercise in numerology as economics.
Hyperinflation plagued the Guided Democracy years, reaching 100 percent per
year in the 1961-64 period, despite attempts to restrict severely the money
supply by devaluing the rupiah (for the value of the rupiah-see Glossary).
Decree Number Ten of November 16, 1959, had important social as well as
economic implications. Foreigners, specifically Chinese, were forbidden to
trade in rural areas, and some 119,000 Chinese were subsequently repatriated
to China. The principal instigator of this policy was the army, which sensed
popular anti-Chinese feeling and apparently wished to sour relations between
Indonesia and China and undermine the support of its rival, the PKI.

     By the 1960s the PKI had become more aggressive, particularly in the
villages, Sukarno called on the party to implement land reform policies
established in 1959 and 1960, and PKI cadres embarked on "unilateral action,"
dispossessing landlords and distributing the land to poor peasants in Java,
North Sumatra, and Bali. This was not accomplished without violence, and
traditional tensions between the abangan, many of whom were PKI supporters,
and the santri were exacerbated. By 1962 the PKI, with 2 million members, was
the largest communist party in any noncommunist country; its BTI had some 5.7
million members, and SOBSI had 3.3 million members. PKI leader Aidit actively
pursued his own "foreign policy," aligning Indonesia with Beijing in the
Sino-Soviet conflict after 1960 and gaining active Chinese support for PKI
domestic policies, particularly "unilateral action." Many foreign observers
felt by the early 1960s that a total communist takeover was only a matter of
time.