|
It is generally
believed that the earliest inhabitants of the
Indonesian archipelago originated in India or
Burma. In 1890, fossils of Java Man (homo erectus),
some 500,000 years old, were found in east Java.
Later migrants ('Malays') came from southern China
and Indochina, and they began populating the archipelago
around 3000 BC. Powerful groups such as the Buddhist
Srivijaya empire and the Hindu Mataram kingdom
appeared in Java and Sumatra towards the end of
the 7th century. The last important kingdom to
remain Hindu was the Majapahit, which was founded
in the 13th century. The subsequent spread of
Islam into the archipelago in the 14th century
forced the Majapahits to retreat to Bali in the
15th century.
By this time, a strong Muslim
empire had developed with its centre at Melaka
(Malacca) on the Malay Peninsula. Its influence
was shortlived and it fell to the Portuguese in
1511. The Dutch displaced the Portuguese and began
making inroads into Indonesia. The Dutch East
India Company based in Batavia (Jakarta) dominated
the spice trade and took control of Java by the
mid 18th century, when its power was already in
decline. The Dutch took control in the early 19th
century and by the early 20th century, the entire
archipelago - including Aceh and Bali - was under
their control.
Burgeoning nationalism combined
with Japanese occupation of the archipelago during
WWII served to weaken Dutch resolve, and it finally
transferred sovereignty to the new Indonesian
republic in 1949. Achmed Soekarno, the foremost
proponent of self-rule since the early 1920s,
became President. In 1957, after a rudderless
period of parliamentary democracy, Soekarno overthrew
the parliament, declared martial law, and initiated
a more authoritarian style of government, which
he euphemistically dubbed 'Guided Democracy'.
Once in the driving seat, Soekarno, like many
like-minded military strongmen, set about consolidating
his power through monument-building and socialising
the economy, a move that paradoxically opened
up a huge divide between the haves and have-nots
and left much of the population teetering on the
edge of starvation. Rebellions broke out in Sumatra
and Sulewesi, Malaysia and Indonesia came perilously
close to an all-out confrontation and instability
was the general order of the day. Things came
to a head in 1965, the eponymous Year Of Living
Dangerously, when an attempted coup (purportedly
by a Communist group) threatened Soekarno's hold
on power.
Soekarno won that particular
battle but lost the war when the man responsible
for putting the coup down, General Soeharto, wrested
presidential power from him in 1966. Soeharto
started off with a nice line in political reconstruction,
but the promises of economic reform and greater
government transparency quickly degenerated into
much of the same-old same-old. Nepotism, cronyism
and grandiose spending, coupled with the brutal
massacre of East Timorese nationalists in Dilli
in 1975, proved that much of the talk was mere
rhetoric. By March 1998 Soeharto was out of touch
with the people and, perhaps seeing the writing
on the wall, awarded himself only five more years
in office. He never made his own benchmark and
by the end of May that year he was out of office
and the vice-president, Jusuf Habibie, was installed.
Habibie, never popular to begin
with, mouthed the same promises of reform and
even appeared willing to consider independence
for East Timor, but it was all too little too
late. The uncompromising stance by East Timor
set off a chain reaction and sectarian violence,
student protests and increased demands for independence
spread like wild fire through Ambon, Kalimantan
and Irian Jaya. Rogue militia groups, widely thought
to be controlled and equipped by the Indonesian
miltiary, rampaged through East Timor after it
overwhelmingly voted for independence in 1999;
local police forces and parts of the army were
sent in to quash other rebellions; protesting
students were killed in the streets and the whole
country went to hell in a handbasket.
After much fiddle-faddle and
talk of international protocol, the UN and Australia
got involved in the melee: the UN sent in a token
number of troops to express disapproval of Indonesia's
methods, while Australia sent a sizable contingent
of their army into East Timor. Indonesia was outraged
at what they considered an act of aggression and
unwanted meddling in their domestic affairs, and
there were tense standoffs during many of the
highlevel powwows between the big cheeses. Subtle
threats and counter threats were made, but none
eventuated. When the dust finally settled East
Timor had been granted independent rule over the
smoking ruins of its own country; Habibie was
out; Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, the first democratically
elected president was in; General Wiranto, head
of the Indonesian army, had been dismissed; the
rogue milita groups had melted back into the streets
of Jakarta; the rupiah was still in critical condition;
and relations between Indonesia and Australia
were still snippety and tense, but marginally
improved.
On 23 July 2001, the People's
Consultative Assembly sacked President Wahid and
elected Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri in
his place. With Indonesia at the forefront of
numerous crisies - the 'War on Terrorism', Ache,
West Papua and the October 2002 Bali attacks to
name but a few, Megawati has a huge job ahead
of her. |
|
Indonesia
