Sukarno

Sukarno (June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia. He helped the country win its independence from the Netherlands and was President from 1945 to 1967, presiding over mixed success in the country's turbulent transition to independence. Sukarno was forced from power by one of his generals, Suharto, who formally became President in March 1967.

Removal from power

On the night of September 30, 1965, six of Indonesia's top anti-communist generals were killed and thrown down a well, and while the PKI was blamed for instigating a supposed coup attempt, evidence indicates Sukarno's supporters were behind it, fearing the rise of anti-communist factions, both inside the military and the country as a whole. One survivor, Major General A.H. Nasution, escaped the murder plot, but lost his youngest daughter Ade Irma Suryani Nasution and his aide-de-camp. The events and supposed coup plotters of that night are referred to as "G30S," an abbreviation of "Gerakan 30 September," or "the September 30th Movement."

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This brought an immediate retaliation from Suharto and the rest of the military, sparking a crackdown on the Communist Party (The PKI or Partai Komunis Indonesia). The army encouraged anti-communist organizations and individuals to join in killing anyone suspected of being a communist sympathizer. The killings were concentrated in Sumatra, East Java and Bali. By the time they petered out in 1966, an estimated half a million Indonesians had been slaughtered by soldiers, police and pro-Suharto vigilantes. The ethnic Chinese were also targeted, primarily for economic and racial reasons. The embasssy of the PRC was overrun by demonstrators and looted.

Related Topics:
Chinese - PRC

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An official CIA report called the purge "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century."2 American diplomats 25 years later revealed that they had compiled lists of Indonesian "communist operatives" and had turned over as many as 5,000 names to the Indonesian military. Robert Martens, former member of the US political embassy in Jakarta said in 1990: "It really was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, ... but that's not all bad. " Howard Fenderspiel, the Indonesia expert at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research in 1965: "No one cared, as long as they were communists, that were being butchered. No one was getting very worked up about it"3. Today, concrete evidence linking the PKI to the generals' assassinations is limited, leading to speculation that Sukarno organized the events and scapegoated the communists.

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Sukarno's grip on power was weakened by the crisis, and eventually, pro-Western Lieutenant-General Suharto forced Sukarno to hand over executive powers on March 11, 1966 in a Presidential Order called Supersemar (Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret -- The March 11 Order) in which Sukarno yielded all executive powers to Suharto in order to restore peace. In 1991 a government minister admitted that the national archives only possessed a copy of this letter, and in 1992 another government minister called for whomever is in possession of the original document to submit it to the national archives. However, there are several testimonies from eyewitnesses who claim that such a document did exist, and that the copy in the archives is a faithful reproduction of the original.

Related Topics:
Executive power - March 11 - 1966

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There is much speculation about who triggered the crisis that led to Sukarno's removal from power. While the semi-official version claims that the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) ordered the murders of the six generals, others blame Sukarno, and still others believe Suharto orchestrated the assassinations to remove potential rivals for the presidency4.

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There are also suggestions that Sukarno was toppled by the United States because of his Communism and ties to China and the Soviet Union. The PKI was the largest communist party at the time outside the Soviet Bloc and China, and was growing in influence. The administration of US President Lyndon Johnson had been vocal in its criticism of Sukarno's activities, and did not want the PKI to come to power in Indonesia. American support for Suharto can thus be seen as a US policy consistant with the Domino theory and the Gilchrist Document.

Related Topics:
United States - Communism - China - Soviet Union - Lyndon Johnson - Domino theory - Gilchrist Document

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Sukarno was stripped of his presidential title by Indonesia's provisional parliament on March 12, 1967, led by A.H. Nasution and remained under house arrest until his death at age 69 in Jakarta in 1970. He was buried in Blitar, East Java, Indonesia.

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His grave has been in recent decades of significance within the network of places that Javanese visit on ziarah and for some is of equal significance as those of the Wali Songo.

Related Topics:
Ziarah - Wali Songo

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Megawati Sukarnoputri, who served as the fifth president of Indonesia, is his daughter.

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