Indonesian National Revolution
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- This article describes the events that led to Indonesian independence from the Netherlands in the late 1940s. For the events related to the 1998 fall of President Suharto, see Indonesian 1998 Revolution.
| This article is part of the History of Indonesia series |
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Aftermath of World War Two
After the collapse of Japan at the end of World War II, Indonesian nationalists under Sukarno recognized the opportunity presenting itself and declared independence from Dutch colonial rule. With the assistance of indigenous army units created by the Japanese, an independent Republic of Indonesia with Sukarno as its president was proclaimed on August 17, 1945.The Netherlands, only recently freed from German occupation itself, initially lacked the means to respond, allowing Republican forces to establish de facto control over parts of the huge archipelago, particularly in Java and Sumatra. On the other, in the less densely populated outer islands, no effective control was established by either party, leading at times to chaotic conditions. Effective control of the establishinism of both parties lead to chaotic conditions at times.
British involvement
Initially the United Kingdom sent in troops to take over Indonesia from the Japanese and soon found itself in conflict with the fledgling government. British forces brought in a small Dutch military contingent which it termed the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA). When a member of the NICA raised a Dutch flag on a hotel in the country's second-largest city, Surabaya, Indonesian nationalists overran the Japanese proxies guarding the hotel and tore the blue stripe off the flag, forming the red-and-white Indonesian flag.The British became worried about the increasing boldness and apparent strength of the nationalists, who attacked demoralized Japanese garrisons across the archipelago with crude weapons like bamboo spears in order to seize their arms. A British Brigadier General, A.W.S Mallaby, who was trying to negotiate with the nationalist leaders, was killed after his superior General Hawthorne attempted to push an ultimatum stipulating that the Indonesians surrender their arms or face a major assault. The ultimatum was printed on leaflets and dropped from a plane over Surabaya, without the Brigadier General's A.W.S. Mallaby's knowledge. After his death, the British forces, under the leadership of Sir Philip Christison, retaliated and on November 10, 1945, attacked Surabaya, leading to a bloody street-to-street battle. The city was secured later that month after fighting that far surpassed British military planners' expectation of a three-day token resistance.
The battle for Surabaya was the bloodiest single engagement in the war and had successfully demonstrated the determination of the rag-tag nationalist forces. It also made the British reluctant to be sucked into a war it did not need, considering how outstretched their resources in southeast Asia were during the period after the Japanese surrender.
Dutch reaction
As a consequence, the Dutch were asked to take back control, and the number of NICA forces soon increased dramatically. Initially the Netherlands negotiated with the Republic and came to an agreement at Linggajati, in which the 'United States of Indonesia' were proclaimed, a semi-autonomous federal state keeping as its head the Queen of the Netherlands.Both sides increasingly accused each other of violating the agreement, and as consequence the hawkish forces soon won out on both sides. A major point of concern for the Dutch side was the fate of members of the Dutch minority in Indonesia, most of whom had been held under deplorable conditions in concentration camps by the Japanese. The Indonesians were accused of not cooperating in liberating these prisoners.
Police actions and guerilla war
The Netherlands government then mounted a large military force to regain what it believed was rightfully its territory. The two major military campaigns that followed were declared as mere 'police actions' to downplay the extent of the operations. There were atrocities and violations of human rights in many forms by both sides in the conflict. Some 6,000 Dutch and 150,000 Indonesians are estimated to have been killed.Although the Dutch and their indigenous allies managed to defeat the Republican Army in almost all major engagements and during the second campaign even to arrest Sukarno himself, Indonesian forces continued to wage a major guerrilla war under the leadership of General Sudirman who had escaped the Dutch onslaught.
A few months before the second Dutch offensive, communist elements within the independence movement had staged a failed coup, known as Madiun Affair, with the goal of seizing control of the republican forces.
Indonesian independence
The continuing existence of Republican resistance following the second 'Police action', paired with active diplomacy, soon thereafter led to the end of colonial rule. Journalistic opinion in much of the rest of the world, notably in the United States of America, began to disfavor the Dutch. The Netherlands government was forced back into negotiations, and after the Round Table conference in The Hague, the Dutch finally assented to Indonesian independence on December 27, 1949.In the following decades, a diplomatic row between the governments of Indonesia and the Netherlands persisted, over the officially recognized date of Indonesian independence. Indonesians commemorate as the anniversary of the August 17, 1945 day of Sukarno's proclamation as their official independence day holiday. The Netherlands, having taken in a number of loyalist exiles who (for various reasons) viewed Sukarno's government as illegitimate, would only recognize the date of the final withdraw of Dutch forces from Indonesia on December 27, 1949. This changed in 2005 when the Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, made several well-publicized goodwill gestures: officially accepting Indonesian independence as beginning on August 17, 1945; expressing a regret for all that suffering caused by the fighting during the war; and attending 60th anniversary commemoration of Sukarno's independence proclamation, as a part of the first Dutch delegation to do so.
References
- http://countrystudies.us/indonesia/16.htm
- ["Speech by Minister Bot On the 60th anniversary of the Republic of Indonesia’s independence declaration"] - Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs' apology statement to the Indonesian government and people, dated August 16, 2005.
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