Suharto

General Soeharto (commonly spelled Suharto in the English-speaking world) (born June 8, 1921) was an Indonesian leader and military strongman. He was the second President of Indonesia, from 1967 to 1998.

Rise to power

On the morning of October 1 1965, a group of Sukarno's closest guards kidnapped and murdered six of the right-wing anti-Communist generals. Sukarno's guards claimed that they were trying to stop a CIA-backed military coup which was planned to remove Sukarno from power on "Army Day", October 5. One survivor in the right-wing camp was Suharto, at the time a Major General. The chaos provided the opening for Suharto to rise within the Army, and paved the road for his assumption of power in 1967

Related Topics:
October 1 - 1965 - Sukarno - CIA - October 5 - 1967

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Liquidation of Communists

At the time of the assassinations of the generals, Major Gen. Suharto and his Kostrad were closest to the capital Jakarta. Thus Suharto became the field general in charge of prosecution of the alleged coup forces. At the urging of the Defense Minister and the military's Chief-of-Staff Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution, Maj. Gen. Suharto was promoted to Army Chief-of-Staff on October 14, 1965. ("Jakarta Leftist Out As Army Chief." New York Times. Oct 15, 1965)

Related Topics:
Abdul Haris Nasution - October 14 - 1965 - New York Times

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The installation of Suharto as Army Chief-of-Staff established the right-wing faction's dominance of the Indonesian Army's command. They lay blame for the assassinations on the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), Sukarno-loyalists, and the Chinese (both Indonesian Chinese as well as expatriates from the People's Republic of China). This conspiracy was dubbed the "30th of September Movement" (more commonly referred to in its Bahasa Indonesia abbreviation, "G30S" or "Gestapu").

Related Topics:
Indonesian Chinese - People's Republic of China - Bahasa Indonesia

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On October 18, a declaration was read over the army-controlled radio stations, banning the Communist Party of Indonesia. The ban included the party itself, and its youth and women's wings, peasant associations, intellectual and student groups, and the SOBSI union. At the time, it was not clear whether this ban applied only to Jakarta (by then controlled by the Army), or the whole Republic of Indonesia. The ban was soon used as a pretext for the Indonesian Army to carry out mass arrests and summary executions of suspected leftists and Sukarno loyalists. The Army, acting on orders by Suharto and supervised by Nasution, also began a campaign of agitation and incitement to violence among Indonesian civilians aimed not only at Communists but the ethnic-Chinese community and toward President Sukarno himself. The regime was quickly destabilised, with the Army the only force left to maintain order.("Army in Jakarta Imposes a Ban on Communists." New York Times. 1965)

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As Communists were liquidated from government in the months afterward, the trioka of Pres. Sukarno, Nasution, and Suharto jockeyed for power. Contemporary reports state that Sukarno was politically weak and desperate to keep power in the hands of his presidency by starting a factional struggle between Gen. Nasution and Suharto, while the two were absorbed in personal ambitions.

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General Nasution was believed to have launched his own bid for power on December 16, 1966, when he won appointment to the Supreme Operations Command, and gained a grip over the traditionally civilian-held portion of the military hierarchy. It was believed that Nasution would have preferred forming a military junta.

Related Topics:
December 16 - 1966 - Junta

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("Jakarta Cabinet Faces Challenge." New York Times. 1965. pg. 7)

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However, on Feb 1, 1966, Pres. Sukarno promoted Suharto to the rank of Lieutenant General. The same month, Gen. Nasution had been forced out of his position of Defense Minister. By March, Suharto would begin the process of taking power for himself. ("Sukarno Removes His Defense Chief." New York Times. 1966)

Related Topics:
Feb 1 - 1966

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Establishment of the "New Order"

On March 11, 1966 the ailing Sukarno wrote a letter (the Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret or "Supersemar") that formally granted Suharto emergency powers over the nation.{{mn|supersemar|1}} Through this, Suharto established what he called the New Order (Orde Baru). He permanently banned the Communist Party of Indonesia and its alleged front groups, purging the parliament and cabinet of Sukarno-loyalists, eliminating labor unions and instituting press censorship.

Related Topics:
March 11 - 1966 - Supersemar - New Order - Parliament - Labor union - Censorship

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Internationally, Suharto put Indonesia on a course toward improved relations with Western nations, while ending its friendly relations with the People's Republic of China. He dispatched his foreign minister, Adam Malik to mend strained relations with the United States, United Nations, and Malaysia and end the Confrontation.

Related Topics:
People's Republic of China - Adam Malik - United States - United Nations - Malaysia - Confrontation

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On March 12 1967 Suharto was named President by Indonesia's Provisional Parliament. On March 21 he was formally elected for the first of his five-year terms as President. He directly appointed 20% of the House of Representatives. The Golkar Party became the favored party and the only acceptable one for government officials. Indonesia also became one of the founding members of ASEAN.

Related Topics:
March 12 - 1967 - March 21 - Golkar - Indonesia - ASEAN

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To maintain order, Suharto greatly expanded the funding and powers of the Indonesian state apparatus. He established two intelligence agencies—the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (KOPKAMTIB) and the State Intelligence Coordination Agency (BAKIN)—to deal with threats to the regime. Suharto also established the Bureau of Logistics (BULOG) to distribute rice and other staple commodities granted by USAID. These new government bodies were put under the military regional command structure, that under Suharto was given a "dual function" role as both a defense force and as civilian administrators.

Related Topics:
Rice - USAID

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Consequences

Due to a number of factors (chiefly Suharto-era censorship), the numbers of casualties from the 1965–67 civil war are heavily disputed. Estimates of the death toll of the conflict range from over 100,000 to 1.5 million.

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It is known that with Suharto's rise, those Indonesian dissidents who survived were branded tapol (short for tahanan politik or "political detainee"). During Suharto's reign, tapol were given harsh prison sentences and their property seized by the government, and upon release carefully monitored and banned from public life. The status of tapol equally tainted the reputations of their spouses, children, and relatives.

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These included prominent figures from the Sukarno years, including Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia's best known literary author. He was accused of belonging to a communist-led intellectual group LEKRA and sentenced to a penal colony on Buru. When restrictions on tapol's communication were eased Pramoedya published a book of memoirs, The Mute's Soliloquy, with detailed accusations of forced labour, starvation, and other abuses within the colony. ("Tapol Troubles" 1999)

Related Topics:
Pramoedya Ananta Toer - Buru

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Both supporters and critics of Suharto acknowledge that the period of the civil war was marked by human rights abuses. Supporters of Suharto claim that these were justified due to the imminent threat of a PKI-led coup, as was attempted in 1948. Critics of Suharto note that the PKI in 1965 had an inclination that was similar to Eurocommunism and had come to prefer parliamentary electoral politics to armed insurrection; in fact, the PKI placed third in a 1955 presidential election, behind Sukarno's own Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) and the Islamist party Masyumi. These critics allege that Suharto purposefully exaggerated PKI involvement in the assassinations of the generals, in order to justify the liquidation of this bloc.

Related Topics:
PKI - 1948 - 1965 - Eurocommunism - 1955

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The change in regime from Sukarno to Suharto, though brutal, brought a shift in policy that allowed for USAID and other relief agencies to operate within the country. Suharto would open Indonesia's economy by divesting state owned companies, and Western nations in particular were encouraged to invest and take control of many of the mining and construction interests in Indonesia. The result was the alleviation of famine conditions due to shortfalls in rice supply and Sukarno's reluctance to take Western aid, and stabilisation of the economy.

Related Topics:
USAID - Famine

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Western support

Despite a longtime veil of Cold War secrecy that still remains over this time period, there is archival and anecdotal evidence of Western (primarily American, British, and Australian) assistance in Gen. Suharto's seizure of power. These countries had each taken an interest in regime-change from Sukarno, viewed as belligerent due to his embrace of the People's Republic of China and because of the Confrontation in Malaysia, to a more Western-friendly leader.

Related Topics:
Cold War - Regime-change - People's Republic of China

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Beginning in 1990, American diplomats divulged to the Washington Post and other media outlets that they had compiled lists of Indonesian "communist operatives" had turned over as many as 5,000 names to military and intelligence loyal to Suharto. (Kadane 1990)

Related Topics:
1990 - Washington Post

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In 2001, the National Security Archive at George Washington University obtained several internal documents of the U.S. Department of State, bolstering the ambassadors' claims of American collaboration with Suharto. However, the National Security Archives claim that communications between Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency have been heavily redacted.

Related Topics:
2001 - National Security Archive - George Washington University - U.S. Department of State

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The role of the United Kingdom's Foreign Office and MI6 intelligence service has also come to light, in a series of exposés in The Independent newspaper beginning in 1997. The revelations included an anonymous Foreign Office source stating that the decision to unseat Pres. Sukarno was made by Prime Minister Harold MacMillan then executed under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. In particular, it was alleged that the Foreign Office's Information Research Department coordinated psychological warfare efforts along with the British military to spread propaganda that cast the PKI, Indonesian Chinese, and Sukarno in a bad light. These efforts were coordinated from a British embassy in Singapore, where the BBC, Associated Press, and New York Times filed their reports.

Related Topics:
United Kingdom - Foreign Office - MI6 - The Independent - Harold MacMillan - Harold Wilson - Psychological warfare - Propaganda - PKI - Indonesian Chinese - Sukarno - Singapore - BBC - Associated Press - New York Times

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The role of MI6 in Suharto's rise, while strongly implicated by the use of the Information Research Department, is denied by the UK government and papers relating to it have yet to be declassified by the Cabinet Office. (Lashmar and Oliver 2000)

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