THE ORIGIN OF INDONESIA

Indonesia Dutch East Indies The Republic of Indonesia (Republik Indonesia) since 1950 when a unitary constitution was introduced. Previously the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (1949) with a federal constitution.

The Dutch arrived in 1595 in search of spices and sandalwood and ejected the British who had already ousted the Portuguese. From 1602 the Dutch East India Company gradually conquered the area and held sway until its dissolution in 1798. The Dutch government assumed control in 1816 and ruled until 1941 when the Japanese occupation began. Until the establishment of Dutch colonial rule the region had never constituted a single political entity.

In 1945 an independent republic was declared but this was not recognized by the Dutch until they transferred sovereignty in 1949. Nevertheless, 17 August 1945 is celebrated as independence day.

A huge archipelago, Indonesia consists of the Greater Sunda Islands (southern Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, Java, and Sumatra), the Lesser Sunda Islands (the islands between Bali and Timor), the Moluccas (Maluku), and western New Guinea; together, they total 13 667 islands.

The name is probably derived from the Greek Indos Nesos ‘Indian Islands’, its modern name being coined in 1884 by a German geographer, although it did not come into more general use until the 1920s. Some of Indonesia's islands, notably the Moluccas and Sulawesi, were famous as the ‘Spice Islands’.

- THE ORIGIN OF INDONESIA

SOEKARNO N' FRIENDS

Following the Japanese surrender, Soekarno, Mohammad Hatta, and Dr. Radjiman Wediodiningrat were summoned by Marshal Terauchi, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's Southern Expeditionary Forces in Saigon. Soekarno initially hesitated in declaring Indonesia's independence. He and Mohammad Hatta were kidnapped by Indonesian youth groups to Rengasdengklok, west of Jakarta. Finally Soekarno and Hatta declared the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1945.


In the 1950s he increased his ties to the People's Republic of China and admitted more Communists into his government. He also began to accept increasing amounts of Soviet bloc military aid. This aid, however, was surpassed by military aid from the Eisenhower Administration, which worried about a leftward drift should Soekarno rely too much on Soviet bloc aid. However, Soekarno increasingly attempted to forge a new alliance called the "New Emerging Forces", as a counter to the old superpowers, whom he accused of spreading "Neo-Colonialism, Colonialism and Imperialism" (NEKOLIM). His political alliances gradually shifted towards Asian powers such as the PRC and North Korea.

In 1961, this first president of Indonesia also found another political alliance, an organization, called the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM, in Indonesia known as Gerakan Non-Blok, GNB) with Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito, and Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah, in an action called The Initiative of Five (Soekarno, Nkrumah, Nasser, Tito, and Nehru). This action was a movement to not give any favour to the two superpower blocs, who were involved in the Cold War.


The Bandung Conference was held in 1955, with the goal of uniting developing Asian and African countries into a non-aligned movement to counter against the competing superpowers at the time. In order to increase Indonesia's prestige, Sukarno supported and won the bid for the 1962 Asian Games held in Jakarta. Many sporting facilities such as the Senayan sports complex (now Bung Karno Stadium), and supporting infrastructure were built to accommodate the games.

- SOEKARNO N' FRIENDS

SOEKARNO'S SPEECH

Soekarno was one of the great orator. Each speech always makes the listener stunned. Soekarno's speech with excitement and the crowd's attention. Each person will be carried away by the spirit of Soekarno. So, no wonder that until now there are many followers of Soekarno. Unfortunately, I've never heard of Soekarno's speech directly, so I never felt the spirit that brought Soekarno.

- SOEKARNO'S SPEECH

SOEHARTO (SUHARTO)

Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was the second President of Indonesia. He held the office from 1967 following Sukarno's removal up to his resignation in 1998.

Suharto was born on 8 June 1921 during the Dutch East Indies era, in a plaited bamboo walled house in the hamlet of Kemusuk, a part of the larger village of Godean. The village is 15 kilometres west of Yogyakarta, the cultural heartland of the Javanese. Born to ethnic Javanese parents of peasant class, he was the only child of his father's second marriage. His father, Kertosudiro had two children from his previous marriage, and was a village irrigation official. His mother Sukirah, a local woman, was distantly related to Sultan Hamengkubuwono V by his first concubine.

Like many Javanese, Suharto had only one name. In religious contexts, he is sometimes called “Haji” or “el-Haj Mohammed Suharto”, but this Islamic title is not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling "Suharto" reflects current Indonesian spelling, but people's names were always exempt from this. The English-language press generally uses the spelling 'Suharto', but Suharto and his family, as well as the Indonesian government and media, use 'Soeharto'.

- SOEHARTO (SUHARTO)