A

Short History of Indonesia

Merdeka!

WC 2661

Recent times have clouded the view Australians have of

Indonesia. Most of our impressions of our largest
neighbour have been formed by media coverage of
tragedies such as the Indonesian invasion of Portuguese
Timor, the Balibo murders and the Bali and Djakarta
suicide bombings. If our memories go back even further
than those events we also remember Sukarnos Crush
Malaysia campaign and the other war to enforce her claim
to what had once been Dutch West New Guinea. All this
tends to present Indonesia to us as an enemy, a view
which, especially among fundamentalist extremists, is
regrettably beginning to be reciprocated by ordinary folks in Indonesia. But
not so long ago, if those ordinary folks knew anything about us Australians,
apart from what we were like as tourists, it was that Australia played a
significant role in Indonesias struggle for freedom from colonial rule, for
what they call Merdeka.

It is a little hard to say exactly when
Indonesia was born. Indonesians date
Merdeka from 17 August 1945 when
Sukarno broadcast the hastily prepared
Proklamasi Kemerdekaan Indonesia

PROCLAMATION1
We the people of Indonesia hereby declare the
independence of Indonesia. Matters which concern
the transfer of power and other things will be
executed by careful means and in the shortest possible
time.
Djakarta, 17 August 1945
In the name of the people of Indonesia
SoekarnoHatta

1 PROKLAMASI: Kami, bangsa Indonesia, dengan ini menjatakan kemerdekaan Indonesia.

Hal-hal jang mengenai pemindahan kekoeasaan d.l.l., diselenggarakan dengan tjara saksama dan dalam
tempo jang sesingkat-singkatnja. Djakarta, hari 17 boelan 8 tahoen 05. Atas nama bangsa Indonesia <<tanda
tangan Soekarno/Hatta>> Soekarno - Hatta

Apparently inspired by the American Declaration of Independence and urged

on by a group of young activists, the Indonesian declaration was proclaimed
several days earlier than had been originally planned. It was the unexpected
and sudden capitulation by the Japanese after the atom bomb fell on Nagasaki
which prompted the drafting of the Proclamation on the night of 16 August
while nearby Ibu Fatmawati Sukarno sewed together the four strips of cloth
to make the original Sang Merah Putih.

Sang Merah Putih, the bi-colour national flag of Indonesia2

Traditionally, this original four-part flag, the
Bendera Pusaka, was flown every Hari
Kemerdekaan the 17th August at the
celebrations at the Presidential Palace in
Djakarta. However, signs of wear and tear led to
a replica being made and flown in its place for Independence Day 1969 and
others ever since. All other flags normally flown are made of two pieces of
cloth.

Raising the Merah Putih on 17 August 1945.

The replica Sang Merah Putih also called the Bendera
Pusaka being flown for the first time 17th August
1969.

There are several explanations in popular
circulation as to why Sang Merah Putih is red and white, but the most
probable is that it was inspired by the colours associated with the greatest of
the medieval Javanese empires, Madjapahit, a kind of Golden Age in the minds
of Javanese if not necessarily in those of people living elsewhere in the
archipelago.


2

Flag buffs will note this is the same proportions but reverse of the Polish national flag which has the red on the
lower half; there are also similarities with the flags of Singapore and Monaco.

The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence was made so hastily because

with the announcement of the Japanese surrender, the British had landed
troops mostly Indians at Surabaja with the intention of holding what
had been the Dutch East Indies until the Dutch could re-claim their former
colonies. Pemuda groups in Surabaja seized arms and ammunition from the
Japanese and fought to prevent the British landing. The British savagely
bombed Surabaja and bloody fighting broke out: Sukarno once wrote

The city itself was in pandemonium. There was bloody hand-to-hand
fighting on every street corner. Bodies were strewn everywhere.
Decapitated, dismembered trunks lay piled one on top of the
other...Indonesians were shooting and stabbing and murdering wildly.
Sukarno3
This battle for Surabaja , the heaviest in the
whole Independence struggle, became a
national symbol of the peoples resistance to
colonial rule. Although fighting in the city lasted
only three days, it continued in the surrounding
countryside for several weeks, the ill-equipped
pemuda falling back through Central Java to
Jogjakarta which, from 1946 to 1949 was to be
the capital of the self-proclaimed Republic.

Bung Tomo, a pemuda leader who became
a symbol of the rebellion.

Also with help from British forces, the Dutch landed
their Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA)
forces in Djakarta and other key positions along the
coast. It is said the Republicans lost over 8,000 men
up to January 1946, but unable to hold the cities and
big towns, they were forced to retreat to the
countryside where they were supported by the
villagers.

Supriadi, who lead the PETA rebellion against the Japanese on February
14, 1945, a national hero who disappeared.

Republican sentiments were not as strong in many of
the outer islands and even in Bali, where the lite
refused to support the independence struggle.
Consequently the Dutch were able to re-occupy the outer islands relatively
easily where they proceeded to establish autonomous states, the largest of

3

Sukarno (1965). Sukarno: An Autobiography. Bobbs-Merrill. pp. 228.

which was known as the State of East Indonesia with its capital in Makassar in
what was still known then as the Celebes, now Sulawesi.
Not all the carnage was military: in the latter months of 1945, atrocities
against pro-Dutch Eurasians and Europeans who had been interned by the
Japanese were committed by mobs of Indonesians caught up in the frenzy of
the time.

In November 1946 an agreement known as the Linggarjati Agreement
forming a Netherlands-Indonesian Union with the Dutch Queen as its head
was drafted. This recognised Republican rule over Sumatra, Java and Bali and
created a federal association in 1949 in which the Republic was only one of
the United States of Indonesia. However, negotiations broke down and
blaming the Indonesians, on 20 July 1947 the Dutch launched what they
called Police Actions, although the Actions were carried out by the Royal
Netherlands Army. International reaction was negative and the Indonesians
gained the support of not only Australia (as we will see shortly) but also of
Russia and the United States of America.

The Dutch launched a further offensive in December 1948 during which it
captured the Republican capital at Jogjakarta and with it, Sukarno, Hatta and
all but 6 of the Republican ministers who were then exiled to the island of
Bangka, off the coast of Sumatra. Republican forces refused to surrender and
continued a guerrilla campaign under the command of General Sudirman, the
Chief of Staff of the Republican forces. An emergency government was
established in Western Sumatra and on 1 March 1949, Republican troops
under the command of General (later President) Suharto re-took Jogja only to
be driven out again when Dutch reinforcements arrived a few hours later.

Col. Suharto reports to Sultan HB IX, 1949.

It is important for us, now so far
removed in time, to remember that
all this was happening when
Holland was attempting to recover
from the devastation of WWII and
was dependent on foreign aid,
especially that allocated to it under
the Marshall Plan. Holland was
therefore especially sensitive to
American threats to cut off all aid to the Netherlands and indeed, it did
cancel its aid for the Netherlands projects in Indonesia. At this point, the
Dutch had spent almost half of the monies so far allocated to it under the
Marshall Plan on its campaigns in Indonesia and Americans were objecting to
financing what was increasingly called a senile and ineffectual imperialism...

As it happened, Australia played an important role in the independence of

Indonesia. Although the Menzies Government initially sat on its hands in
1945 and withheld de facto recognition of the Republic, on 9 July 1947 it
recognised the Indonesian sovereignty over Java, Sumatra and Madura (the
small island off Surabaja). When the Netherlands launched the Police Actions
on 20 July 1947, the Australian
Waterside Workers took matters
into their hands and from then
until Indonesian independence
was finally recognised in
December 1949, banned all Dutch
vessels and those taking
munitions and equipment to the
Netherlands East Indies.

Indonesian Vice-president Hatta and Dutch Queen Juliana of the Netherlands at the signing ceremony in The
Hague at which the Dutch recognized Indonesian sovereignty

On 30 July 1947, Australia referred the conflict to the United Nations Security
Council with the Netherlands named as the violators of the peace. The
Security Council
ordered a cease-
fire and attempted
to broker a truce.
Australia was
nominated by
Indonesia to serve
on the committee
which eventually
produced what was
called the Renville
Truce Agreement in January 1948 during which time of course, the Dutch
launched their attack on Jogja and captured and then exiled Republican
leaders. Perhaps bowing to the increasing international pressures, a Dutch-
Indonesian Round Table Conference held in The Hague from 23 August to 2
November 1949 finally led to the recognition of Indonesian sovereignty on 27
December 1949 although, as you can see, this was not recognition of the
Indonesia Republic we know today but a United States of Indonesia:
1. The Kingdom of the Netherlands unconditionally and irrevocably
transfers complete sovereignty over Indonesia to the Republic of the
United States of Indonesia, and thus recognizes the Republic of the
United States of Indonesia as an independent and sovereign Nation.


2. The Republic of the United States of Indonesia accepts this sovereignty
based on the provisions of its Constitution; the Kingdom of the
Netherlands has been notified of this proposed constitution.
Charter of transfer of sovereignty

But it was not until 17 August 1950, on the fifth anniversary of his Proklamasi
Kemerderkaan that President Sukarno was finally able to declare a unified
Republic of Indonesia. Some regions what are often called Outer Islands in
Indonesia, meaning not Java, Sumatra or Bali where the majority of the people
live had not wished to join the Republic. One of the reasons the Dutch had
given for their reluctance to grant independence was that they recognised not
all regions wanted to be under the control of Djakarta.

The Republic of the United States of Indonesia was to consist in 16 states,
these including the Republic (shown in red on the map) and 15 others which
had been variously created by the Dutch since 1945. Although these were
gradually absorbed into the Republic in the twelve months following the
assignment of sovereignty, some resisted and indeed, still do Atjeh, the
northernmost tip of Sumatra, which had long been an independent Sultanate
and is one of the most devoutly Moslem regions in the whole country, was
still fighting a war of independence from Indonesia until the Boxing Day
tsunami of 2004 brought a cease fire. Other regions which resisted were
Bandung in Sunda, Makassar in Sulawesi, and Ambon where, on 25 April
1950, a Republic of South Maluku was proclaimed. There, the predominantly
Christian population did not want to be dominated by a Moslem government
in Djakarta. This move was immediately put down by Indonesia troops
brought from other islands. In more recent times, government-sponsored
immigration of Javanese Moslems has created a dangerous divide and
growing religious differences have been fanned by fundamentalists to
combustion point where houses and churches have been torched and
thousands murdered.

Of course the Dutch also had to protect the interests of Dutch citizens living in
what had been the Netherlands East Indies, many of whom were born there
as were their ancestors before them Three hundred years of colonial rule
had left deep loyalties, and not only among those of European descent
because many Indonesians also had vested interests in remaining Dutch.
There was also a large community of Chinese descent living throughout the
archipelago. The Chinese had long occupied a position in Indonesian society
which had earned them the resentment of the indigenous people because
many had acted as tax and rent collectors for the various administrations,
landlords and authorities. In Java and Bali this resentment came to an ugly
head during what were known as the Storm King Massacres in 1966 when,

following the Abortive Coup (during which Suharto came to power) an

unknown number (one estimate says 3 million) of Chinese and others were
killed throughout the region, the event taking its name from the practise of
taking the victims to the fields at night where they were slaughtered by the
light of Storm King lanterns

For patriotic reasons, Indonesians consider their nation born on 17 August
1945 even though that was neither the beginning nor the end of the struggle
for Independence or Kemerdekaan But if they are to have a day to celebrate,
then the Proklamasi is probably a better point at which to start the clock
ticking than the fledgling conferences and petty revolts which preceeded Hari
Kemerdekaan or the bloody war and messy diplomatic meetings which
followed.

I know of no better summing up of the Merdeka episode in modern
Indonesian history than the one in Wikipedia4:

Although there is no accurate account of how many Indonesians died,
they died in far greater numbers than their enemies, and many died at the
hands of other Indonesians. Estimates of Indonesian deaths in fighting
range from 45,000 to 100,000 and civilian casualties exceeded 25,000 and
may have been as high as 100,000[50]5. A total of 1,200 British soldiers
were killed or went missing in Java and Sumatra in 1945 and 1946, most
of them Indian soldiers.[51] More than 5000 Dutch soldiers lost their lives
in Indonesia between 1945 and 1949. Many more Japanese died; in
Bandung alone, 1,057 died, only half of whom died in actual combat, the
rest killed in rampages by Indonesians. Tens of thousands of Chinese and
Eurasians were killed or left homeless, despite the fact that many Chinese
supported the Revolution. 7 million people were displaced on Java and
Sumatra.[50]

The Revolution had direct effects on economic conditions; shortages were
common, particularly food, clothing and fuel. There were in effect two

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_National_Revolution
5 I have left the annotation as in the original it was as follows:

50: Friend, Bill personal comment 22/04/04; Friend, Theodore (1988). Blue Eyed Enemy. Princeton University
Press. pp. 228 & 237. ISBN 978-0691055244.; Nyoman S. Pendit, Bali Berjuang (2nd edn Jakarta:Gunung Agung,
1979 [original edn 1954]); Reid (1973), page 58,n.25, page 119,n.7, page 120,n.17, page 148,n.25 and n.37;
Pramoedya Anwar Toer, Koesalah Soebagyo Toer and Ediati Kamil Kronik Revolusi Indonesia [Jakarta:
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, vol. I (1945); vol. II (1946) 1999; vol. III (1947); vol. IV (1948) 2003]; Ann
Stoler, Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra's Plantation Belt, 1870-1979 (New Haven:Yale University Press,
1985), p103.; all cited in Vickers (2005), page 100
51: Kirby, Woodburn S (1969). War Against Japan, Volume 5: The Surrender of Japan. HMSO. pp. 258.
52: Vickers (2005), page 101
53: Reid (1974), pages 170 - 171

economies - the Dutch and the Republican - both of which had to

simultaneously rebuild after World War II and survive the disruptions of
the Revolution. The Republic had to set up all necessities of life, ranging
from 'postage stamps, army badges, and train tickets' whilst subject to
Dutch trade blockades. Confusion and ruinous inflationary surges
resulted from competing currencies; Japanese, new Dutch money, and
Republican currencies were all used, often concurrently.[52]

.. Most significantly, however, the Revolution is the turning point of
modern Indonesian history, and it has provided the reference point and
validation for the countrys major political trends that continue to the
present day. It gave impetus to communism in the country, to militant
nationalism, to Sukarno's 'guided democracy', to political Islam, the
origins of the Indonesian army and its role in Indonesian power, the
country's constitutional arrangements, and the centralism (as distinct to
regionalism) of power in Indonesia.[53]

The revolution destroyed a colonial administration ruled from the other
side of the world, and dismantled with it the raja, by many seen as
obsolete and powerless. Also, it relaxed the rigid racial and social
categorisations of colonial Indonesia. Tremendous energies and
aspirations were created amongst Indonesians; a new creative surge was
seen in writing and art, as was a great demand for education and
modernisation. It did not, however, significantly improve the economic or
political fortune of the populations poverty-stricken peasant majority;
only a few Indonesians were able to gain a larger role in commerce, and
hopes for democracy were dashed within a decade.[53]

Many of the trends mentioned in this quotation have indeed shaped the
history of Indonesia since Kemerdekaan: communism, militant nationalism,
'guided democracy', political Islam, the power of the Indonesian army, the
constitutional arrangements, and the centralism of power have all played
determining roles in the course of later history. How these themes have
played themselves out might well be the subject of a later course; for the
moment however, we are going back to the very beginning, to the time human
beings first came to the archipelago, who they were and how, in millennia to
follow they built a civilization Indonesians can now call their own tanah-air,
their land and water, their homeland

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