Tuesday, September 27, 2011

What happened in Indonesia during the cold war?

I need to the years that the cold war affected Indonesia


for example: 1965-1968





What affected indonesia that was cold war related?|||The main independence movement, the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), emerged in the 1920s under the leadership of Ahmed Sukarno. It was thoroughly suppressed by the Dutch and remained largely underground until the Dutch East Indies were overrun by the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese installed a puppet PNI government for the duration of their occupation. Following the Japanese defeat in 1945, the PNI declared independence. This was quickly challenged by the Dutch who dispatched a military expeditionary force to Indonesia and arrested Sukarno. However by 1949, under international pressure, they were forced to concede the country鈥檚 sovereignty.





The colonial powers had depleted much of Indonesia鈥檚 wealth while contributing little to its development. The Sukarno government had a massive development task ahead of it. It also had to forge a national consciousness among dozens of mutually suspicious tribes and ethnic groups. The leaders chose as their national motto the phrase Bhineka Tunggalika, meaning 鈥榰nity in diversity鈥?





The new Government planned a federal structure for the country, but in 1950 reverted to a unitary state. This concentrated political and economic power in Java, and produced resentment elsewhere. Sukarno鈥檚 growing authoritarianism at home was accompanied by an activist foreign policy which attracted, in particular, the enmity of the USA and its allies, who were suspicious of Sukarno鈥檚 Cold-War neutrality.





Economic difficulties further fuelled the growth of the opposition, in particular the powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). In September 1965, a coup was launched by sections of the army with full PKI support. The immediate political struggle, which the Government eventually won, was one of the closest in recent history. With discreet support from the Western powers, the army Chief of Staff, General Suharto, backed Sukarno, and saved the regime. Between 400,000 and one million were massacred by the army in the aftermath of the coup. Sukarno was now politically crippled and, in March 1967, was replaced by Suharto.





Suharto remained as President until his (forced) resignation in May 1998. Under the Suharto government, the army always held ultimate political power while a technocrat class was left to run the country day-to-day. The Golkar (Partai Golongan Karya) party was established as the regime鈥檚 official political vehicle. Until the fall of Suharto in 1998, Golkar and its candidates won every election with with comfortable majorities.





The regime brought Indonesia relative peace and stability and steady economic growth. Manifestations of Muslim fundamentalism 鈥?Indonesia is the world鈥檚 largest Muslim country 鈥?were rigorously controlled by the Government: both Sukarno and Suharto adhered to a policy of allowing religious diversity as a guarantor of social stability, although attempts to enshrine this formally in an official doctrine of Pancasila were dropped and the Government introduced various stop-gap pro-Islamic policies.





Sukarno鈥檚 foreign policy was determinedly neutralist: Indonesia was a founding and active member of the Non-Aligned Movement. His successor, Suharto, steadily tilted his country towards the West and joined the pro-Western ASEAN bloc (Association of South East Asian Nations). From the mid 1980s onwards, he also made some efforts to improve relations with the Soviet Union and China.





The trigger for the fall of Suharto was the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Indonesia suffered particularly badly, as the structural flaws in the economy were laid bare As thousands were thrown out of work, months of rioting and protest followed. The army, which was already struggling with several insurgencies on Indonesia鈥檚 outlying territories (see below), began to show signs of dissent. In May 1998, once the influential Muslim leader Amien Rais and various senior military figures had lent their voices to the clamour already demanding Suharto鈥檚 departure, the President was left with little choice but to resign (years of bottled-up resentment at the extended Suharto clan鈥檚 general freeloading and wholesale corruption also played its part in this scenario).





Suharto鈥檚 deputy, Jusuf Habibie, took over until presidential elections were held under new rules in November 1999; national assembly elections were held five months earlier, in June. These saw Golkar pushed into second place by the principal opposition party, the Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan (PDIP, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle) headed by the daughter of former President Sukarno, Megawati Sukarnoputri.

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