With its new accent on constitutionality and legality, the Indonesian leadership now scheduled a session of the People’s Consultative Congress for May 12. The aim was to revive the constitutional process, breathe new life into the Congress, and transform it from an instrument of Sukarno into the genuine policymaking body it was originally intended to be.
General Nasution, now speaking out increasingly critically of the old Sukarno order, had already left little doubt about what was expected of the Congress. Several years before, at a session dominated by Sukarno, the Congress had elected Sukarno President for life. But this, said Nasution, was “clearly a deviation from the 1945 constitution, which unmistakably states that the tenure of office of the presidency is five years. And five years does not mean a lifetime.” Nasution also talked of holding elections within three years.
To Sukarno himself, it was all clear enough. His opponents were calling the Congress into session to curb him still further and formalize the figurehead role for him the army intended. He balked, and Suharto compromised, postponing the Congress session till August. But anti-Sukarno students put on a fiery series of demonstrations against the postponement, and the session was finally set for June 20.
The Congress met for two weeks in the Soviet-built sports palace at Senajan within a protective ring of troops and tanks. During most of the session, students staged forceful demonstrations throughout the capital to make sure Congress delegates understood their opposition to Sukarno and his policies. There was now no longer any pretence about the real target of their criticism. “What is in Sukarno’s heart?” demanded the student banners. “He is trying to revive Communism. He is flirting with China. He likes building monuments.” One student truck in a procession through the capital carried a dummy of Sukarno sitting on a throne, his arm around a man clad in a Communist flag, taking money from a Chinese. On several occasions, troops broke up crowds of students demonstrating outside the Congress hall and near Sukarno’s palace.
One of the first actions of the Congress was to appoint General Nasution its chairman, in place of imprisoned Deputy Premier Chairul Saleh. For Sukarno, who had thrown Nasution out of his cabinet only four months before, it was an obvious snub.
Nasution was sworn in as chairman just before Sukarno arrived to deliver a 40-minute address. In it, Sukarno said he would give up his title of lifetime President if the Congress so decided. With his hand on his heart, and apparently at one stage close to tears, he said, “Everyone has the right to serve the country. The body can be jailed, the body can be overthrown, the body can be shot, but not the cause of freedom.
“The cause of freedom is a deathless cause, the service of freedom is a deathless service, and for forty years I have dedicated myself to that service. I leave it to God if He wants to give me strength to carry on that service.”
With a disdainful reference to the new leadership’s quest for foreign help, he emphasized his own berdikari policy of self-reliance. “Economics,” he told the delegates, “cannot be separated from politics. Emphasis should be placed on self reliance.”
In a plea for a new lease on his authority, he declared, “I will give leadership to Indonesia, to all of you, excellent leadership.”
Neither the Congress nor the demonstrating students outside were inclined to give him the opportunity. The students labeled the President’s speech unsatisfactory. KASI, the action front of graduates and intellectuals, came out flatly demanding Sukarno’s resignation. Thousands more demonstrators demanded that Suharto should form a new cabinet to tackle the country’s problems.
Commenting on the presidential address, the independent daily, Operesi declared in a headline, “Bung Karno Let His People Down.”
Said another newspaper, “Populace dissatisfied, displeased, discontented … It’s the same old story. It does not meet the wishes of the people.”
In closed session, the Congress went purposefully about its business. It ratified the March 11 delegation of emergency powers by the President to General Suharto. It ratified the dissolution of the Communist Party, and ordered a ban on Communism, Marxism, Leninism. Finally, it approved a string of decrees formulated by various Congress committees during the two-week session.
To thunderous applause from the 500-odd delegates, the decisions were reeled off. The Congress decided there should be free elections in Indonesia not later than two years hence—by July 5, 1968. It instructed General Suharto to form a new cabinet by August 17, Indonesia’s national day. It directed that Indonesia’s foreign policy should be non-aligned—the end of the Djakarta-Peking axis.
It set up a special committee to review the President’s political teachings and called upon him to explain the nation’s “economic and moral decadence,” as well as circumstances surrounding the coup attempt of 1965.
Then came the decision: Sukarno’s title of President for life was revoked. For the moment, he would remain Great Leader of the Revolution, but the title would carry no power. And he was to stop issuing presidential decrees.
On the face of things, Sukarno appeared to accept the decisions of the Congress calmly. As a matter of fact, he said, as far as elections were concerned, he would be prepared to hold them right away. He wanted “to know the real will of the people of all Indonesia from Sabang [on the northern tip of Sumatra] to Merauki [in West Irian. I know,” he went on, “that the will of the people is not only that reflected in Djakarta.”
It was an obvious reference to his support in Central and East Java. But the armed forces Daily Mail took swift issue with him. The Congress, said the newspaper, consisted of delegates from all parts of the country, and it was an insult to them to doubt whether they represented the voice and will of the people.
The Congress had instructed Suharto to form a new cabinet. Now the General began a round of negotiations and bargaining to produce one. Sukarno put on a brave show, intimating that his hand was a strong one in the selection and molding of the cabinet, but when the names were announced, it was clear that he had suffered another defeat.
Heading a five-man presidium, or inner cabinet, was Suharto himself. Alongside him, in the same triumvirate which had run the country since the previous cabinet changes in March, were Adam Malik (foreign affairs) and Sultan Hamengku Buwono (economic affairs).
The two other members of the presidium were Idham Chalid, retained from the old presidium, and Sanusi Hardjadinata, a former Indonesian Ambassador to Cairo and minister of internal affairs.
Out of the cabinet went two old Sukarno cronies, former Deputy Premier Johannes Lemeina, and Ruslan Abdulgani. Anti-Sukarno students had maintained a vigorous campaign against them on the grounds that Lemeina was a “yes-man” and Abdulgani an “opportunist.”
Of the twenty-seven ministers in the-new cabinet, twelve were military men. The new ministers included such strongly anti-Sukarno figures as Major General Sutjipto (agriculture), and Burhanuddin M. Diah, recalled from his post as Ambassador to Thailand to become information minister.
Key Sukarno supporters were dropped, and some figures militantly opposed to him were brought in. Particularly galling to Sukarno was the retention in a vital role of Adam Malik, a Sukarno foe whose campaigns to end Indonesia’s confrontation with Malaysia and to wean Indonesia away from Peking had particularly infuriated the President.
There was criticism of the new cabinet from various political and religious groups who had not fared in it as well as they believed they should. But probably its most serious defect was its paucity of skilled technicians—economists and administrators so badly needed to set the Indonesian economy back on its feet. Perhaps of necessity, Suharto opted heavily for military men in key roles, whose loyalty and political reliability was beyond question. Though filled with the best intentions, they did not necessarily know anything about running their complex ministries.
After the installation of the new cabinet, Sukarno spluttered and fumed in an hour-long speech. Looking at Lemeina, who stood with tears rolling down his cheeks, Sukarno declared, “I am deeply hurt that youth has branded Lemeina a yes-man, and no good. I know Lemeina is a true patriot. Those slogans which said ‘Reject Lemeina’ were an insult.”
Meanwhile, though General Suharto had earlier declared that Sukarno was no longer Prime Minister as well as President, Sukarno rumbled angrily that he really was still Prime Minister, too. “I tell foreign correspondents,” he said, “that I am still Prime Minister because I am the President. In accordance with the 1945 constitution, the President is the Prime Minister.” The constitution did not specifically say this, he added, but it was an established fact.
Then referring to his March 11 order bestowing executive power on Suharto, which had been confirmed by the People’s Consultative Congress, he said, “I stress it is not a transfer of authority.”
As if to convince his listeners that he was still really in charge, he announced that the confrontation with Malaysia would continue, but when reporters scurried along to question Suharto about this, the General took it all calmly and would only say, “Wait two more weeks.”
Suharto had cause for quiet confidence. He knew what he was talking about. Two weeks later to the very day, Foreign Minister Malik and the Malaysian deputy-premier, Tun Abdul Razak, sat alongside each other in Djakarta and with a flourish of gold pens signed the peace treaty ending confrontation between their two countries.
On August 11, Tun Razak flew into Djakarta with a 50-man delegation from Malaysia. Precisely at noon, with a ceremony at the foreign ministry, the undeclared war between Malaysia and Indonesia came to a formal end. The terms of the treaty were straightforward. First, the Malaysian government agreed to give the people of its two Borneo territories, Sabah and Sarawak, the chance to “reaffirm as soon as possible their position in the Malaysian federation through independent and democratic general elections.” This was the face-saving clause for Sukarno, which cost the Malaysians nothing, for elections would ultimately be taking place in the Borneo territories, anyway.
Second, the two governments agreed to restore diplomatic relations. Third, they agreed to cease hostilities.
Prior to the signing ceremony, Tun Razak sped to the presidential palace and in a swift little ceremony presented Sukarno with a silver tea service, a gift from the king of Malaysia. The day after the ceremony, Foreign Minister Malik flew with an Indonesian delegation to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for a one-day return goodwill visit.
Clearly, the peace treaty had been signed over the President’s vigorous opposition. He tried to put the best face on it, declaring that the treaty signed in Djakarta differed “in content and spirit” from the agreement worked out in Bangkok two months earlier. The inference was that Indonesia had stiffened its terms and extracted concessions from Malaysia, and that he had agreed to the signing of the treaty for these reasons. But when Malik got back from Kuala Lumpur, he bluntly and decisively shot down the presidential assertion. It was, said Malik, the “very same accord, intact,” that had been agreed upon in Bangkok. “There is no difference from or modification to the Bangkok agreement.”
Five months had now elapsed between Sukarno’s order bestowing executive authority on Suharto and the signing of the peace treaty with Malaysia. After a cautious start, the new leadership had begun to issue a flurry of announcements of its good intentions. At home it had announced a new austerity program. To listeners abroad, it indicated Indonesia would return to the United Nations and rejoin a string of international organizations like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Indonesian leaders dropped hints that they would like their country to be invited to the December Asian Games in Bangkok—and would seek forgiveness for past sins. At the 1962 games in Djakarta, Indonesia’s refusal to invite Nationalist China and Israel had touched off a major political row.
Indonesia announced it would make reparation to the British government of more than $1,840,000 for the sacking of the British Embassy in 1963, and would pay for damage caused to American diplomatic property.
Political prisoners of the Sukarno regime were released, among them Mochtar Lubis, the crusading Indonesian journalist jailed for nine years for his opposition to the government.
Though the army kept newspapers at home in check, and censored the outgoing cables of foreign correspondents, reporters and editors began to enjoy more room for maneuver. Some brutally frank cartoons began to appear, mainly mocking Sukarno but occasionally prodding the military, too. The newspaper run by the foreign ministry carried one cartoon blasting Sukarno for his addiction to monument-building while the people went poor. Sukarno raged at Foreign Minister Malik over that—and Malik leaked the story to reporters.
KAMI students put on a public display of more than a hundred political cartoons. The opening ceremony was delayed for two days until student leaders agreed to with-draw eight cartoons the military regarded as over-critical of Sukarno. Even so, the ones exhibited left no doubt about student contempt for Sukarno and the old order.
For many Indonesians this contempt was underlined by their sudden discovery of the contrast between living standards in Indonesia and in the Asian countries around them. With the end of confrontation, Indonesian delegations of students and communications experts and trade officials went trundling off to Malaysia. They came back stunned by the development and economic progress there. Said one such Indonesian official to me bitterly, “What have we in Indonesia been doing for twenty years? We’ve just frittered things away.”
As the new leaders started the country on the long climb back to international respectability, however, they were beset by a lingering problem. Its name was Sukarno. The President was not playing the game by the rules the army believed it had laid down, back in March. With the transfer of executive authority to Suharto, confirmed by the People’s Consultative Congress, the army thought the future was clear: Sukarno would retain his palaces, his cars, his women, his funds, but would keep his hands out of politics and become a figurehead President. In exchange for the surrender of power, he would retain his niche in Indonesian history, his earlier contributions to the nation would be stressed, and eventually he would pass from the scene without any public exhibition of embarrassing disgrace.
Sukarno, however, was not willing to become a sort of Grand Old Man of the Indonesian Revolution. He fought back, clawed at the new leadership, contradicted its reassuring statements to the outside world.
On August 17, 1966, came his opportunity to tell the nation and the world of his frustrations. He grasped it with both hands. The occasion was the anniversary of Indonesian independence, the national day. Every year for twenty years on this day he had emerged to give a sort of state-of-the-nation address with all the dazzling display of verbal fireworks that was his speciality.
For two hours now, he addressed a huge crowd under the broiling sun in Djakarta’s Merdeka Square. The new leaders listened tight-lipped and grim. Some students booed and left. For in his speech Sukarno roared out all the clichés of the old order.
Shouting with all his old fire, gripping the microphone, brandishing his clenched fists, he said Indonesia would not immediately recognize Malaysia, nor would it rush to rejoin the United Nations. Those declarations, of course, cut right across Foreign Minister Malik’s laborious efforts to make Indonesia internationally respectable again.
Once more, Sukarno declared he had agreed to the peace treaty with Malaysia only after it had been radically changed. He had given Suharto “some backbone” in his negotiations with the Malaysians, he said. And Indonesia would not recognize Malaysia until after the elections promised in the Borneo territories.
As for the United Nations, Sukarno said that though Indonesia would eventually rejoin in order to “reorganize” the international organization, he planned first to intensify his reorganization campaign outside the United Nations. He indicated he would push ahead with his scheme for a Conference of New Emerging Forces (CONEFO), a sort of rival to the United Nations, in an ambitious complex of buildings he had begun at Senajan in Djakarta.
Perspiring in the sun, Sukarno declared he was working night and day to step up the battle against imperialism and colonialism. In a slashing attack on the United States, he said imperialism killed, burned, bombed, and spread poison gas in Vietnam. “Please, America,” he said, breaking into English, “please get out of Vietnam.”
He was at pains to stress that he was still the Great Leader of the Indonesian Revolution, that he was still Prime Minister, and that he had not transferred power to General Suharto.
In justification of his policies, he said rocketing inflation was not caused by his projects, but by heavy expenditure on the military.
“I am not over-ambitious. I do not seek private gains. I am not driven by self-interest,” he assured the listening crowds. Then, more sternly, “Follow my leadership, obey all my directives. March onward to continue the revolution along the path of my direction.”
Within hours there were rumbles of angry reaction. A statement from KAMI, the university students’ organization, said students regarded the speech as a guarded command to the Communists and their sympathizers to consolidate their strength for further upheaval.
Five Moslem mass organizations expressed no confidence in Sukarno as head of state and said his speech divided the people and did Indonesia great harm in the eyes of the outside world.
Several Djakarta newspapers criticized the speech, and in the West Java city of Bandung, students called on Sukarno to step down. They carried effigies of him through the streets and burned one that depicted Sukarno surrounded by pretty girls, with the Indonesian people before him in slavish postures. Some of the banners they carried warned him, “Don’t call yourself Great Leader if you do not understand the will and hearts of the people.”
Pro- and anti-Sukarno students clashed violently in Bandung, fighting for several hours. One anti-Sukarno student, Julius Usman, was killed in the melee and Major General Dharsono, the new commander of the area, who had himself been outspoken in his criticism of Sukarno, ordered the student buried with hero’s honors. Sukarno was furious, and summoned the general to Djakarta to explain. According to a version of the conversation published later by an army newspaper, Dharsono told the President: “I’m convinced, sir, that the struggle of those students was pure and in line with the demands of the people’s conscience. It is proper to appoint Julius Usman a hero.”
Sukarno then, according to the newspaper, told Dharsono he had heard there were “attempts to disinter Julius Usman” from the special heroes’ cemetery in Bandung. Did not this indicate, he asked, that the presidential followers were considerable in number?
Yes, Dharsono is supposed to have replied, it was true. “Your followers are considerable in number. They are hooligans and hoodlums operating around the square and the station in Bandung,” he is quoted as saying.
When Sukarno asked him whether he did not want to revoke his decision giving the dead student hero status, Dharsono replied flatly that he did not.
The account may be somewhat embroidered, but such was Sukarno’s deteriorating status at that time that Dharsono may well have spoken in roughly those terms.
To stem the criticism following Sukarno’s August 17 speech, and to reassure the outside world, Information Minister Diah told correspondents that Sukarno could say anything he liked, but it would have no effect whatsoever on decisions taken by the cabinet.
As if to underline the point, Indonesia returned with a flourish to the United Nations in September, despite Sukarno’s opposition, and announced that joint Indonesian-Malaysian patrols would soon be operating in Borneo “to check the Communist menace.”
Malik and the Sultan of Jogjakarta went off on separate tours around the world to seek emergency extensions of the deadlines for foreign debt repayments and to raise whatever financial help they could. Suharto stayed home keeping a watchful eye on the security situation and on Sukarno.