Rabu, 16 Juli 2008

Indonesia 1960-1970

TIME, July 20, 1959: THE GOOD OLD DAYS

The urge to turn back the clock is as strong among revolutionaries as reactionaries. Saddled wih the chaos and corruption of 14 years of freedom, many Indonesians yearn for the good old days of 1945, when life was violent but simple and all that had to be done was win independence from the Dutch.
On a rainy afternoon last week President Sukarno tried to find the way back for himself and his country. Dressed in a spotless white uniform, with a black petji set jauntily on his head, Sukarno stood under a brown awning on the columned porch of his Freedom Palace and, "in the name of the one and only God." announced the revival of the 1945 revolutionary constitution. His fiat swept out of office the 17th government to rule Indonesia in 14 years, dissolved the Constituent Assembly, emasculated some 40-odd political parties and caused the resignation of the 27-man Cabinet of his loyal ally, Premier Djuanda.
Under the monolithic 1945 constitution, which he helped devise, Sukarno can be both President and Premier, responsible only to a 500-man Consultative Council—more than half of whose members he will nominate himself. It would seem the perfect blueprint for a dictatorship anywhere except in Indonesia, whose 3.000 scattered islands, 87 million individualistic citizens, poor communications, endemic rebellions and strong regional rivalries are too chaotic to be mastered even by a tyranny.
And Sukarno himself is less a strongman than a symbol. He must rule in partnership, and only two organizations—the army and the Communist Party—have the efficiency and administrative knack to help him govern. In naming his ten-man "inner" Cabinet last week, Sukarno clearly chose the army. Not a single post went to a Communist or a fellow traveler. Able ex-Premier Djuanda was named First Minister and Finance Minister. The army got two plums: the important Ministry of Security and Defense went to Army Commander Lieut. General A. Haris Nasution and the Production Ministry to Colonel Suprajogi. The harried Communists, who still support Sukarno because any other choice might mean extinction, cheered faintly and continued their quiet but painstaking infiltration of the civil service, the armed forces and the regional administrations.
Sukarno, perhaps the best phrasemaker in Southeast Asia, dubbed his Cabinet the "Kabinet Kerdja—the Cabinet of Work." Its program, he added, is "a very simple one: to provide food and clothing for the people in the shortest possible time, to establish security, and to continue the struggle against economic and political imperialism." This last item was a flag-waving attempt to reawaken the nationalistic fervor of 1945 by intimating that an attempt would be made to wrest West Irian (Western New Guinea) away from the Dutch. If words alone could save the staggering nation of Indonesia, Sukarno would be its savior.


TIME, Feb.8, 1960: DESPERATE BUT NOT SERIOUS

In cities throughout Indonesia, housewives defied a police ban on demonstrations to march on government offices; in Djakarta, students and trade-union deputations presented petitions of protest. Reason: within seven days, the price of rice had doubled and the cost of cooking fuel had shot up 61% as Indonesia's rupiah plunged unchecked. In less than two months the rupiah (officially 45 to the dollar) had fallen from 150 to a record low of 500.
Adding twirls to the inflationary spiral were the 2,500,000 Overseas Chinese who have been banned since Jan. 1 from doing business in rural areas. Packing up for Hong Kong, Formosa or Red China, they have bought up watches, cameras and any other consumer items that they could carry with them. By week's end, imported bicycles sold for the equivalent in rupiahs of $1,000, and refrigerators, when they could be found, commanded $4,000. Hong Kong sources estimate that Indonesian Chinese have smuggled out $4,000,000 to $6,000,000 in cash to Hong Kong, and diverted another $10 million to Singapore in the past six months.
As usual in the wild confusion of Indonesian affairs, the situation was desperate but not serious. Sending police into shops to stop further price boosts, the government blamed the drop-off mainly on Chinese panic buying. Actually, the government has gone on financing the deficit incurred fighting the 1958 rebellion by printing more rupiahs than the exports of Indonesia's rich natural resources (nearly half the world's rubber, a fifth of its tin, a third of its copra) could handily pay for. But 95% of Indonesia's 90 million inhabitants, living in a subsistence rural economy that lies below the modern urban superstructure like the coral foundation of a South Pacific atoll, are undisturbed by the currency crises and budgetary storms that agitate the fringing reefs above.
That seems to be the easygoing appraisal of the U.S. Export-Import Bank in granting loans totaling $47.5 million to Indonesia last week for 1) a plant to use the natural gas of Palembang's oilfields for making fertilizer for Indonesia's rice terraces, 2) an electric power plant for East Java.
The loans, largest to be granted by the bank to Indonesia in ten years, were announced just five weeks before Soviet Premier Khrushchev's scheduled good-will visit to Djakarta. Flashing his brightest smile, President Sukarno assured housewives on a Djakarta street corner that the U.S. loans, and Soviet and Red Chinese pledges of "unlimited credit," were "proof of Indonesia's increasing solvency."


TIME, Mar.21, 1960: THE VAGRANT MIG

A flight of four MIG jet fighter planes, with the red and white markings of the Indonesian air force, flashed over the capital city of Djakarta one day last week. Suddenly, one of the MIGs broke formation and, with spitting guns, dived on Merdeka palace, residence of President Sukarno. Bullets smashed through the roof, and chandeliers exploded into glass splinters. A man whitewashing an outside wall was hit in the shoulder; a sentry fell, wounded in the thigh; two passers-by were hit in the legs.
Personable President Sukarno was presiding at a meeting of his Supreme Advisory Council, only a few hundred feet from the palace. When the firing ceased, Sukarno paused only to grab a long-handled black umbrella and then raced across the palace lawn, was relieved to find that his seven children had not yet come home from school.
The vagrant MIG flew on to the nearby port city of Tandjung-priok, opened fire at the huge gas tank of the Stanvac Oil Co., missed the tank but wounded 14 people. Next, the plane swept over Bogor, 30 miles from Djakarta, made a strafing run at Sukarno's massive Bogor palace, and missed again. With its fuel exhausted, the MIG made a bellylanding in a West Java rice field. As the pilot, Lieut. Daniel Maukar, 28, looking dazed and shaken, stumbled from his Russian-made plane, he was seized.
Air Marshal Suryadarma rushed to Merdeka palace and tried desperately to explain what had happened. He had much explaining to do, for it developed that trigger-happy Lieut. Maukar comes from revolt-ridden North Celebes, and has been on the police blacklists for some time (his brother was under arrest there for suspected dealings with the anti-Communist rebels). Government officials gulped even more uncomfortably on learning that Maukar had been one of the Indonesian pilots to fly escort for Nikita Khrushchev when the Soviet leader came to visit Sukarno last month.
Outsiders can seldom make sense of Indonesian politics, but last week Indonesians as well as outsiders were in confusion. Why, they asked, did the three pilots flying with Maukar not try to shoot him down? Was Lieut. Maukar sane and a conspirator, or was he out of his mind? Sukarno appeared to take the assassination attempt in stride, just as he had the last one in 1957, when five grenades were hurled at him, killing ten bystanders but leaving the President unscathed.
Only four days before Maukar's strafing, Sukarno had suspended the 257-man Indonesian Parliament, thus removing the nation's last vestige of constitutional democracy. Through his tame Supreme Advisory Council, Sukarno ordered sweeping land-reform measures, directly threatening the vast plantations producing rubber, palm oil, tobacco, tea, sugar and coffee chat have been in foreign hands for decades. It was an action that seemed certain to depress even further the nation's faltering economy.
At week's end, despite the strafing, the grumbling of members of the dismissed Parliament, and the political and military unrest, President Sukarno was still planning to leave on April 1 for another of his long junkets, this time to Africa and the Middle East. Whenever things get too worrisome at home, it's so nice to go off on a trip.


TIME, June 20, 1960: HOME IS WHERE TROUBLE IS

After junketing around the world for 64 days, Indonesia's President Sukarno finally returned to his land of customary turmoil last week. On his swing through 18 nations, he had picked up five honorary degrees, nine decorations and still another shapely airline hostess to go nightclubbing with: a 22-year-old Hawaiian beauty queen named Carol Ah You, who works for Great Lakes Air Lines and accompanied the President from San Francisco to Hawaii. Said Bung Karno, step ping off a charted Pan American DC-6B still staffed by favorite stewardess No. i, 25-year-old Joan Sweeney: "This has been much more successful than my earlier trips." But the old place was not much fun to come home to. Rebel and bandit fighting continued in Java, Sumatra, the Celebes and Borneo. The monetary reform so ambitiously decreed last year was a total failure. With more currency in circulation than ever, the rupiah was down to 250 to the dollar on the free market (official rate 45 to one), and the presses still clacked out new money to support a 250,000-man army that gobbles up 50% of the budget. Commerce had slowed to a near standstill; in central Java only 50 sugar mills were operating (v. 120 prewar), and some 200,000 mill workers were unemployed. Everywhere, there was graft, red tape and spectacular inefficiency. Shiny new Czech tractors proved useless in the flooded rice fields; some 30% of a 100,000-ton Swedish shipment of cement had turned to rock because no one thought to bring it in out of the rain.
In the past Sukarno has always been able to push ahead as he liked with his "guided democracy," because his opponents were hopelessly fragmented among some 27 different parties. But Sukarno came home to find many of his old opponents united for the first time. Formed by members of the old elected Parliament that Sukarno dismissed last March and replaced with a hand-picked legislature of his own choosing, the new anti-Communist opposition calls itself the Democratic League, unites Muslims, Catholics, Protestants and splinter parties behind one idea: the necessity for radical changes in Sukarno's one-man rule.
In three months the league has mushroomed into 60 chapters throughout the archipelago, plans to present Sukarno with a petition of several hundred thousand signatures demanding reinstatement of the elected Parliament.
Whether or not the league becomes a force depends largely on the army and its strongman army chief of staff, General Abdul Haris Nasution, 41. Though Nasution has consistently supported Sukarno, one of the league's charter parties is the Indonesian Independence Upholders Union, formed several years ago by General Nasution himself. Significantly, military commanders in most areas have allowed the league to recruit members and hold meetings.
Shortly after his return last week, Sukarno had lunch and a long talk with General Nasution. emerged conceding that the new Parliament needed "some improvements" before it was installed later this month. Exactly what the improvements would be, Sukarno did not say. But the word was that he would distribute another 25 seats, so that the Communists, now commanding about 60 of 261 proposed seats, would not loom quite so large.
With that, the man who describes himself as "the voice of the Indonesian people" got set to leave his troubled capital once more, this time for a sojourn at the government guest house at Tampaksiring in Bali. It was not just another holiday, said Sukarno; he was also "going for the settlement of some important work."


TIME, Aug.1, 1960: CHINESE, GO HOME

Red China's Chou En-lai and Indonesia's President Sukarno basked in each other's compliments at the 1955 Bandung Conference, found common cause in anticolonialism. But last year, looking for a scapegoat for his crumbling economy, Sukarno cast his restless eye on the Chinese who run the stores and make the most money in nearly every village and town in Indonesia. He decided to transfer this lucrative business to deserving Indonesians, lightly overlooked the fact that few Indonesians have the know-how or energy to replace the industrious Chinese. He offered the Chinese a harsh alternative: retire to the cities or leave the country. Since the beginning of the year, more than 40,000 Chinese have been shipped off to the Chinese mainland.
Three weeks ago, Sukarno, refreshed from his tour of Asia, the satellites, Africa, South America and the U.S.. ordered a final drive to clear the Chinese from the countryside. At the mountain town of Tjimahi, police looking for Chinese holdouts got into a scuffle with broom-wielding housewives, shot and killed two of them. Leaping to denounce this "shocking atrocity," Peking organized mass protest meetings all over China, recited a list of other atrocities against the Chinese, blamed the police, the "reactionaries," and even the U.S. Continued persecution, it solemnly declared, would "poison the friendly relations between China and Indonesia."
Retorted Chief of Staff Army General Abdul Haris Nasution, who is directing the Chinese evacuation: "The trade ban on foreign nationals is an internal affair, and outsiders should not interfere with it." To underline his point, he ordered a Communist daily banned, rounded up Communist Party leaders for prolonged questioning.
The spirit of Bandung has plainly soured. But Sukarno made plain that his quarrel was only with Red China; he had nothing against Communists generally. He recently accepted a $10 million loan from Russia to build an iron and steel works, a $12 million loan from Czechoslovakia to build a dozen chemical plants. This week, with due fanfare, he will be presented with the Lenin peace prize. "You may call my theories red," he told a gathering of teachers last week. "Red is the color of the rising sun, which will bring bright weather in the morning."


TIME, Aug.29, 1960: CHILD’S PLAY

Nothing ever works quite the way it should in Indonesia. Scarcely had the red and white flags been put up to celebrate the nation's 15th independence day last week when workmen were back in the streets of Djakarta. Their task: to take down 12-ft.-high poster portraits of Guinea's President Sekou Toure and Egypt's Vice President Abdel Hakim Amer, both of whom had reneged, without notice, on promises to put in an appearance at the independence-day festivities.
Undaunted by these snubs, Indonesia's volatile President Sukarno went right on to celebrate the holiday with a 54-page speech entitled "Like an Angel That Strikes from the Skies." To some of his countrymen, 54 pages seemed scarcely enough to explain recent events in In donesia. In the past year, Sukarno's breezy decision to freeze all bank accounts over $2,000 and devalue Indonesia's currency by 75% had produced a 92% increase in the amount of paper money in circulation and a 22% jump in retail prices. By driving 2,500,000 Chinese, mostly small shopkeepers and their families, out of Indonesia's villages, he had involved the nation in a bitter feud with Red China. Then, too, there was the knotty question of Presidential Regulation No. 5, which prohibits public criticism of any Sukarno decree until the would-be critic obtains a license from the proper authorities.
But Sukarno, who plays at government the way a child might play at Monopoly, chose to ignore such mundane matters. Instead, he sang the praises of the hand-picked "Mutual Help" Assembly with which he has replaced Indonesia's former elected Parliament and glowed over the new National Front, a "nonpolitical" movement consisting of Sukarno's own Nationalist Party, the inept Muslim Teacher's Party and the dazed Communists, who find Sukarno even more disruptive than they are.
The National Front, Sukarno predicted, would always reach unanimous agreement on everything "without taking votes." Then, as a lesson to those who still thought there might be something in voting, he abruptly announced a ban against two of Indonesia's remaining anti- Communist political parties: the Muslim Masjumi and the Socialist Party.
All this left the crowd in front of Djakarta's handsome Merdeka Palace uncommonly apathetic. But like the skilled spellbinder he is. Sukarno finally got his audience roaring with a burst of demagogic thunder in which he attacked The Netherlands for sending an aircraft carrier and 1,000 troop reinforce ments to neighboring Dutch New Guinea — which Sukarno claims is part of Indonesia and properly called "West Irian." Sneering at The Netherlands as a "country of small creditors that still preserves its taste for colonialism," Sukarno wound up by announcing the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the Dutch. In The Netherlands, his oratory was received with a shrug. After nationalizing Dutch property in Indonesia, driving out more than 90.000 Dutch residents and daily threatening ruin for the 4,000 who remain, Sukarno's snapping of diplomatic relations seemed a bit of an anticlimax.


TIME, Jan.27, 1961: UP FROM THE STONE AGE

Three weeks ago, Indonesia's Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution set off for Moscow on what he called his "West Irian mission." Last week he returned to Djakarta in triumph. His trophy was a promise of $450 million in military aid and equipment, enough to double the fighting potential of Indonesia's armed forces, and a Russian pledge to support Indonesia in its efforts to free West Irian (Netherlands New Guinea) from the Dutch "colonizers."
Shrill threats to "liberate West Irian" have long been President Sukarno's favorite device to rouse Indonesian patriotic passions and divert attention from the myriad shortcomings of his floundering economy at home. Indonesia's claim to Netherlands New Guinea is based on the fact that the Dutch administered it as part of The Netherlands East Indies along with the other islands that now make up independent Indonesia.
But the fact is that Netherlands New Guinea's Papuans want to be no part of Indonesia. They are Melanesians, with no racial kinship to the Indonesians. Their skins are darker, their languages totally different. Furthermore, the Papuans have no desire to trade Dutch colonialism for Indonesian colonialism, want to join together instead with Australian New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in a union to be called the United States of Melanesia.
As for the Dutch, they want to get out. Their territory is suffering from economic malnutrition, has brought no return from the millions of dollars sunk into it. Last year the territory's total exports of crude oil, copra, spices and skins dwindled to less than $7,000,000. But the Dutch, chastened by their mistakes in Indonesia, are reluctant to abandon New Guinea until the Papuans are ready for self-government, an eventuality that some colonial officials estimate will take 40 years, perhaps considerably longer.
Nearly half of Netherlands New Guinea's 700,000 Papuans still live in primitive villages where the cowrie shell is the medium of exchange and where women often rank below pigs on the social scale. For the primitive tribesmen of the interior, the concept of government does not exist; their only political guideposts are myth and magic. Head-hunting and cannibalism are still practiced in some areas. Some Papuan natives wear no clothes save for string, have no dishes or cooking utensils. They consider death the action of a wizard, often chop off the ends of their fingers as a sign of mourning.
In the coastal areas where the Dutch exercise firm administrative control, some 30,000 Papuans attend primary school, and one lone native is a student at a university in The Netherlands. Next month the Papuans will hold their first election ever for a New Guinea-wide council, to which the Dutch will turn over the power to pass its own ordinances regulating health, marriage, crime, labor and taxes.
In the meantime, Indonesia shouts on, has twice landed armed parties in abortive raids. President Sukarno steadfastly has opposed Dutch offers of an invitation to the U.N. to send an observer to inspect colonial administration of the colony. Says Indonesia's Foreign Minister Subandrio: "Why should any U.N. mission go there? The territory belongs to Indonesia and should come back to us. That's the only basis on which Indonesia will consider any talks."


TIME, Apr.28, 1961: ABSORBED, CRAZED & OBSESSED

President Sukarno of Indonesia is probably the most footloose head of state since Richard the Lionhearted. Last week, as is his yearly wont, he took leave from his Djakarta palace and his lesser palace at Bogor, with its surrounding park stocked with small white deer, to fly off on a three-month junket in a chartered DC-8 (estimated charter cost: $600,000) to Thailand, South America, Europe, Moscow and Washington.
At his first stop, Thailand, where the 59-year-old Indonesian's hobbies are by now well known, the King and Queen whisked him off to languid Chiang Mai, where 300 maidens danced prettily for the visitor. When ex-Beauty Queen Rajadaporn Srivichai proffered an orchid, Sukarno gallantly reciprocated with his own silk handkerchief. "You should enter the Miss Universe beauty contest," he told her.
There is no denying that, for the man in charge, Indonesia is a good place to get away from, these days. Prices have risen fourfold in the past seven years; the production of Indonesia's important palm-oil and rubber estates is down at least 30% compared to pre-World War II. Sugar, which used to be a major export, is now so scarce that in places it can be found only on the black market. The government's presses are rolling out paper money that has no backing. Bureaucracy is so rampant that 32 separate signatures and stamps are required to authorize the import of a book. A grandiose $6 billion economic and social development program has been launched in airy disregard of the fact that there is scarcely a rupiah in government coffers to pay for it.
Such humdrum realities get little attention from Sukarno, a self-confessed romantic who said last year: "I belong to that group of people who are bound in spiritual longing by the romanticism of revolution. I am inspired by it. I am fascinated by it. I am completely absorbed by it. I am crazed. I am obsessed by the romanticism of revolution."
Thus Indonesia's leaders can publicly shrug off the three separate rebellions that are still in progress in three distinct parts of the Indonesian archipelago and that Army Chief of Staff General Nasution himself figures will take at least another two years to clean up. With the help of a Soviet $450 million arms loan, Nasution is building up military forces in the Moluccas, frankly aimed at adding weight to Sukarno's repeated demands for the "liberation" of what he calls West Irian—the half of New Guinea that the Dutch currently administer.
On landing in the U.S., Sukarno headed first for the Paramount lot and the high life of Hollywood. On the itinerary for this week is Washington, where President Kennedy plans personally to meet Sukarno when he lands at the National Airport, for Sukarno is both vain and touchy. "It is wise of President Kennedy to invite one of Asia's leaders at the start of his term," noted Sukarno grandly.
Sukarno will certainly be looking for support on his claims to West Irian. "We will gladly accept the good offices of the United States in solving the question, as long as such mediation leads to the complete transfer of West Irian to Indonesia," explained Foreign Minister Subandrio. The Kennedy Administration has already encouraged the Indonesians (and alarmed the Dutch) by refusing to send a U.S. representative to ceremonies last month celebrating the installation of The Netherlands New Guinea's first elected council (23 of its 28 members are natives), in an effort to show itself neutral in the controversy.
Predictably, Sukarno will ask for more aid—he always does—since foreign money is the only thing that keeps his staggering economy going. The U.S. has already, in the eleven years of Indonesia's existence, given it $660 million in economic assistance, and Sukarno may have better luck with Kennedy than he did with President Eisenhower, who frankly did not like him. Apparently, the Kennedy Administration figures that unless Sukarno can be steadied down, the world's sixth most populous nation may break into warring fragments, or fall into the waiting arms of the Communists.


TIME, Sept.8, 1961: RITE OF BELGRADE

To brush-clean, flag-bedecked Belgrade last week came an emperor, two kings and two princes, three foreign ministers, six prime ministers and nine presidents.-Representing 23 countries, they had been invited by Yugoslavia's President Tito for a Conference of Unaligned Nations.
Even as the delegates began to stream in, word reached Belgrade of Russia's announcement that it intended to resume nuclear testing. The news struck the neutrals like a slap in the face. Hardly united and agreed on anything except their common animus against a big-power thermonuclear holocaust that would endanger them all, the neutralists at first greeted the news with grim silence. Only India's Nehru stated bleakly: "I am against nuclear tests anywhere."
Despite Khrushchev's blatant disregard for their opinions, next day the delegates earnestly began to discuss how to make their opinions felt in world politics. In his keynote speech, Tito grumbled, "Small and medium-sized countries are considered as a kind of reserve and voting machine in international forums. Nonaligned countries can no longer reconcile themselves to that role. They have a right to participate in the solving of problems."
Nasser echoed Tito's lofty proposition that the neutralists are "the conscience of the world" for peace. Referring to Russia's rudely timed nuclear testing announcement, he made a promising start. "This decision shocks me just as it shocked all world opinion," he said. "Whatever the motives of the Soviet government [it has] a clear bearing on the deterioration of the dangerous international situation." But his moment of conscience quickly passed; he spent the rest of his time on the rostrum denouncing the West and Western colonialism.
For men aspiring to be the "conscience of the world," the neutralists as a whole have all too often seemed curiously reluctant to make any of the moral judgments on Russian behavior that conscience would seem to dictate. President Ibrahim Abboud of the Sudan criticized the French for nuclear testing in the Sahara, did not mention Russia. Sukarno hacked away on the old anticolonialist theme. Only Burma's U Nu seemed willing to give the West an even break. "Let us realize a start has been made toward coexistence," he urged. "There is a growing recognition of personal integrity rather than color, a stirring of the conscience of wealthy countries for the less fortunate."
Sitting around a huge oval table in the Federal People's Assembly as they listened to the speeches, the delegates presented a sharp study in contrasts. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was grave, aloof, sad-eyed, a figare out of the past. Some were old antagonists: Ethiopia and Somalia have been squabbling over borders for years.
Some were mint-new friends: Nasser and Tunisia's Bourguiba met at Belgrade, having patched up their bitter, four-year-old quarrel. Even in their approach to the cold war, the delegates sharply differed: U.A.R.'s Nasser and U Nu ruthlessly repress their local Communists; Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Nkrumah (fresh from a red-carpet visit to Russia) actively encourage them.
For some, like India, neutralism is an effort to escape to the sidelines, to get out of the way of the "fighting buffaloes." For others, like the U.A.R. and Afghanistan, neutralism is an attractive and well-paying way to draw economic and military aid from both blocs. For almost all, lambasting the West is an automatic reflex, since nearly all have emerged from fierce nationalist struggles against some form of Western hegemony. What they fail to realize is that they can enjoy the luxury of neutralism only because the West stands between them and Russia's ambitions for worldwide dominance. If the Western "imperialists" ever go under, the neutralists' new-found freedom will go with them.
At week's end, after the Russians added injury to insult to the assembled neutralists by setting off their bomb, there were signs that the reluctant leaders at Belgrade were getting the point. Senior Neutralist Nehru, who often sees two sides even when there is only one, took the speaker's platform, declared: "The danger of war comes nearer and nearer by the recent decision of the Soviet government to start nuclear tests. Our situation today is the most dangerous since World War II ended." The conference, he urged, should first address itself to this issue, laying aside the old shibboleths of colonialism and imperialism. He recalled his stint at the League of Nations in 1938 to underscore his point: "There was fear of war all over Europe, but the League of Nations was discussing the opium trade. Opium was a very important subject, but it was not the important subject."
Question was, would the neutralists at Belgrade put first things first?

-Emperor: Ethiopia's Haile Selassie. Kings: Nepal's Mahendra and Morocco's Hassan II. Princes: Cambodia's Norodom Sihanouk and Yemen's Seif el Islam el Hassan. Foreign Ministers: Guinea's Beavogui Lansana, Saudi Arabia's Ibraham Sowail and Iraq's Hashim Jawad. Prime Ministers: Afghanistan's Sardar Mohammed Baud, the Algerian F.L.N.'s Youssef Ben Khedda, Burma's U Nu, Ceylon's Mme. Bandaranaike, India's Nehru and Lebanon's Saeb Salaam. Presidents: Cuba's Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado, Cyprus' Archbishop Makarios, Ghana's Nkrumah, Indonesia's Sukarno, Mali's Keita, Somalia's Adben Abdullah Osman, the Sudan's Ibrahim Abboud, Tunisia's Bourguiba and the U.A.R.'s Nasser.


TIME, Dec.29, 1961: FIGHT OVER THE PAPUA

As India's armed forces rolled into Goa last week, Indonesia's jaunty President Sukarno tried to hitch a ride. Standing beneath a canopy in the cultural center of Djokjakarta, Sukarno told a wildly cheering crowd of 100,000 to prepare "for the coming general mobilization of all the Indonesian people soon to liberate West Irian from the claws of Dutch imperialism. My brothers, this is my command!"
West Irian is the Indonesian name for a California-sized island of swamp and jungle that the Dutch call Netherlands New Guinea (the eastern part of the island is administered by Australia, whose rights there Sukarno so far has not disputed). To add muscle to his speech, Sukarno has assembled an invasion army of 16,000 (backed up by another 100,000) on a small group of islands near the coast of New Guinea, which is defended by some 5,000 Dutch soldiers and marines. For air cover Sukarno can use 60 MIG jet fighters and 26 TU-16 bombers supplied him by the Soviet Union.
To the extent that the conquest of Goa encouraged Sukarno to hope for a cheap victory of his own, it also caused widespread dismay in The Netherlands. Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Luns, 50, a strong man in a weak, conservative Cabinet, had based his New Guinea policy on the belief that India's "peaceable" Nehru would never support military action by Indonesia, and that the U.N. would immediately act against aggression. Now his policy lies in ruins.
The cancerous dispute over New Guinea is almost entirely one of national prestige. Sukarno bases his claim on the 1946 agreement between Indonesian leaders and Dutch representatives that gave sovereignty to Indonesia over "the whole territory of the Netherlands Indies." There were loopholes, however, providing "special arrangements" for regions not wanting to join the Indonesian union. The Dutch did withdraw from some 3,000 islands inhabited by 95 million people, but under the treaty loophole held onto New Guinea, on the ground that the Papuan inhabitants are ethnically, linguistically and religiously different from the Indonesians and (claimed the Dutch) do not really want to belong to Indonesia. The Dutch also held that New Guinea could serve as an asylum for some 200,000 Eurasians of mixed Dutch and Indonesian blood who might not wish to live under Indonesia's new rulers.
The then resident Dutch governor offered another explanation: "We are a seafaring, air-minded people. We cannot give up our last possession in the Pacific."
To the Indonesians, the continued Dutch occupation of barren, poverty-stricken New Guinea represents the loss of one-sixth of the land area of Indonesia, and, valueless or not, they want it.

As for the 700,000 Papuan inhabitants of New Guinea, many of them living deep in impenetrable jungle valleys are unaware that there is either a Netherlands or an Indonesia, much less a dispute. The few educated Papuans seem inclined toward independence but recognize their present inability to stand alone.
The seemingly senseless struggle has cost both sides dear. In 1957 Sukarno brutally expropriated $1.5 billion in Dutch investments in Indonesia and expelled 50,000 Dutch residents. In addition, the Dutch government has had to sink nearly $30 million a year into New Guinea just to keep it economically afloat. Because of Indonesia's determination to regain its "lost" territory, Sukarno devotes a large part of his annual budget to arms, thus further wrecking the wobbly economy of his island nation.
At the U.N. last September, Foreign Minister Luns stated that "The Netherlands wishes irrevocably to terminate its history as a colonial power." He proposed handing over New Guinea to the U.N., which could then allow the native Papuans to determine their own fate. Indonesians view the Dutch move as simply an attempt to give a "cloak of legality" to an illegal act. In a speech to a mothers' meeting last week, in which he urged them to put their sons and daughters in uniform, Sukarno cried: "I call on the whole world not to bother trying to get us talking about self-determination for West Irian. We definitely reject that sort of self-determination."
Last week the U.N. appealed to both countries for a "peaceful settlement" of the issue. In The Netherlands, Foreign Minister Luns is propelled toward negotiation by the obvious reluctance of the Dutch to get involved in a pointless colonial war. A majority of the Cabinet also backs negotiations but a stubborn and potent minority, including Luns himself and Home Affairs Minister Edzo Toxopeus. wants Papuan self-determination guaranteed by the Indonesians before sitting down to the conference table. In Indonesia, Sukarno is restrained by the fact that an invasion of New Guinea is a far more risky military operation than was the Indian walkover in Goa. Should the invasion fail, Sukarno might well be overthrown as a consequence.


TIME, Jan.26, 1962: SETBACK FOR SUKARNO

One moonlit night last week, three blips flashed on the radar screen of a Dutch Neptune patrol bomber some 60 miles southwest of New Guinea. They turned out to be three Indonesian torpedo boats racing at flank speed (40 knots) toward the Dutch New Guinea coast. Just over two hours later, after alerting two 2,000-ton Dutch frigates in the area, the Neptune dropped flares over the torpedo boats and was greeted with a salvo of antiaircraft fire.
The Dutch ships' radar-locked 5-in. guns replied, sinking one of the Indonesian craft and forcing the others to flee. After giving chase, the Dutch ships rescued 52 survivors; about 30 Indonesians drowned, including Commodore Sudarso, deputy naval chief of staff.
Thus, after years of negotiation and threats, Indonesia's campaign to take over Netherlands New Guinea flared up in head-on fighting. The Netherlands government protested that Indonesia had been caught in "an unashamed attempt at open invasion."
Arguing that his ships were only on routine patrol and in any case outside Dutch territorial waters, Indonesia's President Sukarno summoned a special meeting of his West Irian (Indonesian for New Guinea, meaning "hot country") Operations Staff and, as usual in times of crisis, arrested 16 prominent critics of his regime. The army announced that 3,000,000 Indonesians had registered as volunteers for the invasion of New Guinea; one grim-faced army officer warned: "The Dutch have chosen to use force, and Indonesia will respond in kind."
In identically worded notes to Djakarta and The Hague, U.N. Acting Secretary-General U Thant urged both governments to refrain from "precipitate action" and resume negotiations aimed at seeking a peaceful solution. Netherlands Prime Minister Jan de Quay accepted U Thant's proposal, reported that his military commanders had orders to act with the "utmost restraint." At week's end, Indonesia's Sukarno agreed to negotiate a settlement "in conformity with the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter." Nonetheless, though he has four Russian destroyers and 75 fighters and bombers, and took delivery last week of four new Soviet submarines, for a total of six, Western observers agreed that Sukarno is still badly short of the air and naval transport needed for a major invasion of Netherlands New Guinea.
Sukarno's strategy meanwhile has been to land small bands of "infiltrators" in New Guinea to "show the red and white flag" of Indonesia and stir anti-Dutch feeling among its tribesmen—many of whom have never heard of Indonesia. More sophisticated New Guinea natives are mostly hostile to Sukarno's "liberation" plans. Last week in Manokwari, where the Dutch first established an ad ministrative post 64 years ago, 3,000 dark-skinned Papuans staged an anti-Indonesian protest march—with encouragement from the Dutch. Waving their own red-and-blue national flag, they paraded to the strains of an old Dutch anthem. Its name: We Want to Keep Holland.


TIME, Apr.13, 1962: DUTCH SQUEEZE

Indonesian guerrillas crept through the dense jungles of Dutch New Guinea last week, and it became clear that Indonesia's President Sukarno was at last going to do more than talk about grabbing the disputed territory that he calls West Irian. He also adroitly deployed psychological warfare: Indonesia broadcast reports of widely spaced new landings on New Guinea's coast and Waigeo Island, forcing the Dutch to spread out their meager defenses (5,800 combat troops). And by compelling The Hague to ship new troops to the Pacific on the eve of a big debate on New Guinea in the Dutch Parliament, Sukarno played shrewdly on the knowledge that a bloody defensive war would be unpopular in The Netherlands.
When Netherlands Premier Jan de Quay announced that he would send 1,400 more troops to New Guinea this week, the minority Calvinist Anti-Revolutionary Party in his four-party coalition government threatened to defect rather than risk voters' ire. The troubled Calvinists re quested a postponement of the debate. Sukarno increased the pressure on Dutch public opinion by offering to send his powerful vice premier, Mohammad Yamin —who is in charge of Sukarno's West Irian "development planning" — to Washington for a new round of talks on a settlement.
The Dutch government, though it would like to be free of New Guinea peacefully, stuck to its guns. Argued De Quay's Foreign Minister Joseph Luns: ''How can you go to the conference table announcing in advance that you will capitulate on the very issue you are going to talk about?" Finally the Calvinists caved in, and the government won majority sup port for its refusal to hand over New Guinea.
And so Sukarno went back to his military preparations. More than 25,000 Indonesian invasion troops are now in training, and even young girls in toreador pants and green forage caps drill in Djakarta parks. In Hong Kong and Tokyo, Indonesian agents are shopping for the landing craft that Sukarno needs to ferry troops across 1,600 miles of sea to New Guinea.


TIME, Aug.10, 1962: SETTLEMENT AT HUNTLAND

Over the roads near Middleburg, Va., a convoy of limousines daily moved into a lavish colonial estate called Huntlands. Shielded from prying eyes by a high, cream-colored brick wall, diplomats from The Netherlands and Indonesia met with U.S. Mediator Ellsworth Bunker, former U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, Italy and India, to try to negotiate their dispute over the control of Netherlands New Guinea. Last week, after 4½ weary months, the negotiators shook hands on a deal.
Under its terms, The Netherlands will turn West Irian (as the Indonesians call Dutch New Guinea) over to U.N. stewardship until next May 1, at which time administrative control of the territory will pass to Indonesia. No later than 1969 (giving the Indonesians six years to establish their control) Indonesia will conduct a U.N.-supervised plebiscite in West Irian in which the colony's 700,000 Papuans will decide either on independence or final annexation by Indonesia.
The Huntlands agreement, still to be ratified by the Dutch and Indonesian governments, was succinctly described by a State Department official: "The Indonesians got Dutch New Guinea, which was inevitable, and the Dutch got off with most of their pride, which was not inevitable." Satisfied that they do not have to turn their former colony directly over to Indonesia and that provisions for an eventual plebiscite have been made, the Dutch are expected to accept. What Indonesia does is subject as always to the whim of its mercurial President Sukarno, who has been waging a nasty little paratroop war against the Dutch over the disputed territory.
If Sukarno accepts the agreement, it means that he will have to back down from his longstanding boast that he would throw the Dutch out of western New Guinea by next Jan. 1. Said an Indonesian diplomat to a Dutch newspaperman: "The big Bung [brother] will have to decide. If the Bung says 'Yes,' you are my good old Dutch friend; if the Bung says 'No,' you are my good old Dutch enemy."


TIME, Aug.24, 1962: TOWARD WEST IRIAN

Over a horseshoe-shaped table at the United Nations Security Council conference hall in Manhattan, The Netherlands and Indonesia last week formally ended 13 years of bitter wrangling and spasmodic war for possession of the steaming archipelago called New Guinea.
Broadest smile was on the face of Indonesia's Foreign Minister Subandrio, for the document that both sides signed calls for a U.N. police force to take over West New Guinea from the Dutch on Oct. 1, pass it on to the Indonesians seven months later.
It was a compromise engineered by retired U.S. Diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, whose plan was swallowed reluctantly by Holland. The Dutch made no secret of their bitterness. Said Premier J. E. de Quay: "Holland could not count on the support of its allies, and for that reason we had to sign."
Under the Bunker plan, the Indonesians promise to hold a plebiscite by 1969, giving the 700,000 native Papuans of West Irian (as the Indonesians call it) a choice of independence or permanent union with the rest of the old Dutch East Indies. The Dutch could only hope that Indonesia would abide by whatever choice the Papuans made.
Next question: Who would boss the tricky U.N. interim administration? First choice of both sides was patient, professional Ellsworth Bunker, 68, who had vainly hoped to go back and relax on his Vermont farm after the tedious, five-month negotiations.


TIME, Sept.7, 1962: GAMESMANSHIP

The Western world clings fondly, and fairly successfully, to the ideal that athletic rivalry between nations should tran scend political differences. At the fourth Asian Games in Djakarta last week, Indonesia's President Sukarno tried to have the best of both worlds — and dealt supra national sportsmanship in the Far East a possibly fatal blow.
When the Asian Games were started eleven years ago, their aim was to foster good will among nations of all political, racial and religious backgrounds. After the third Asiad in Tokyo in 1958, mercurial, left-leaning Sukarno successfully lobbied to hold the fourth in Djakarta in hopes of boosting Indonesia's prestige. To aid his chances, the Russians built Sukarno a $17 million stadium.
They might have saved their money. By last week, as crowds of 100,000 cheered 1.300 athletes from 17 participating nations in spanking-new Senayan Stadium, the games had stirred more animosity and anguish than amity.
Conspicuously absent were Nationalist China and Israel, both accredited members of the Asian Games Federation. Neither nation, as it happens, is recognized by Indonesia's government, which generally sides with the Arab nations and Communist China in international disputes. Red China had pressured Sukarno for months to exclude Formosa; the Arab bloc did its best to convince Big Bung (brother) that it would be a diplomatic embarrassment for a Muslim nation like Indonesia to play host to Jewish athletes. To keep the two countries out, Sukarno used some gold-medal gamesmanship of his own.
Both Nationalist China and Israel received official invitations to the games. But when the Chinese received their packet of identity cards, which were to serve also as entry visas into Indonesia, they found only blank pieces of cardboard.
Cabled inquiries from the Chinese brought the bland answer from Djakarta that the oversight would be investigated. When no further word was heard, a Chinese official flew into Djakarta to settle the matter. No sooner had he landed than he was mysteriously warned that his life was in danger; he hotfooted it home on the next plane. Indonesia's Foreign Minister Subandrio then announced that Nationalist China had been excluded from the games because of "the sneaky attempt of a Chinese sports official to slip into the country and disrupt the games."
Israel did not even receive blank cards. Djakarta's explanation: "Too many cards have been sent out, and an investigation is now proceeding." After that, repeated cables brought no response, and international telephone calls were invariably cut off. The Indonesians deadpanned: "Faulty communications." The Israelis finally got the message. Protested an Israeli official: "It's like sounding the starter's gun for a race, then tripping the runner."
Indonesia's tactics brought a blast from the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which canceled its sanction, costing the games their international status. The I.A.A.F. warned that any athletes who took part in them might lose the right to compete in the 1964 Olympics. Because an Indian official had backed the Israeli protests, Indonesian commerce officials were instructed not to enter into any new trade agreements with India.
Though South Korea immediately withdrew, Japan, which will host the next Olympics, wavered. Despite furious come-home cables from Tokyo, the strong Japanese team decided to stay and play. Explained a Japanese official lamely: "We were afraid of reprisals against Japanese living in Indonesia if we pulled out." Japan's persistence paid off; by week's end it had garnered 69 gold medals in no events.


TIME, Oct.12, 1962: UNTEA PARTY

The first Europeans to sight New Guinea were two 16th century Portuguese sea captains who were so unimpressed that they did not even bother to claim it for their King. Second largest island in the world (after Greenland), it was a tangle of tropical jungle inhabited by mosquitoes, crocodiles, and man-eating savages. In 1828 The Netherlands claimed western New Guinea, ruled it benevolently but with distant interest; in the words of one observer, it "became a sort of Dutch hobby."
Last week, as the Dutch finally abandoned their costly hobby, the place seemed to have changed remarkably little. On the rain-drenched central plaza of West New Guinea's capital city of Hollandia, Dutch officials transferred temporary control to the United Nations.
By the agreement worked out under U.S. pressure, after two years of threats and raids from Indonesia, the U.N. will be in charge until May 1, 1963, when West New Guinea will be handed over to the Indonesians and become officially known as West Irian. Not later than 1969 a U.N.-assisted plebiscite is to allow the territory to choose independence or final annexation by Indonesia.
As the 20 men of UNTEA, the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority, set up shop under Guatemala's Jose Rolz-Bennett, not even the most optimistic expected that they could accomplish much during their seven caretaker months. Already more than two-thirds of the territory's 17,000 Dutch have gone, despite UNTEA offers to many doubling their salaries. Left in the hands of ill-trained Papuan natives, administration is in a state of sputtering disorder. In Hollandia the water supply is polluted, telephone and mail services have been disrupted, and communication with the interior has broken down. Food is short, and Papuan policemen, no longer commanded by Dutch officers, are reluctant to break up the constant brawls.
In the entire territory there is not one Papuan doctor or lawyer. So unsteady is the economy that a run on the territory's sole bank was averted only when the U.N. announced that it would guarantee the currency. Over the past five years, essential oil exports have dropped by two-thirds. As Dutch businessmen keep pulling out, unemployment figures climb. Life in the interior is still only a step away from the Stone Age. The 700.000 Papuans are scattered into some 200 different tribes, each with its own language and each savagely hostile toward the others. Since killing virtually holds the status of a sporting event among the tribesmen, a Papuan convicted of murder is apt to get only two weeks in jail by a backwoods court, while a European would in all likelihood be hanged. In some areas, pigs are more valuable than women. To get strength, native warriors tie dried pigs' testicles around their arms, later roast and eat them. Their animalist religion teaches them to believe that death comes only because millions of years ago a bird and a snake raced and the snake lost; had it won, man would have changed skins many times. Primitive as West New Guinea is, Indonesia's President Sukarno is determined to keep it as his own hobby. Hours after the changeover from Dutch to U.N. control, a planeload of Indonesian officials flew into Hollandia to "help" the U.N. They promised the moon: $100 million worth of development aid, 2,000 teachers, establishment of a West Irian university. Purpose of pledges: to con the Papuans out of any independence movement that might jeopardize control by Indonesia, the new imperial power in the area.


TIME, Mar.29, 1963: THE GODS SPEAK

When Java was lost to Islam 485 years ago, so the legend goes, the disgusted Hindu gods hunted around for a new home. They chose the island of Bali, and since their exalted rank demanded a high dwelling place, they created a chain of mountains. On the most sacred eastern end of the island, the gods erected the highest of Bali's mountains, the 10,308-foot volcano of Gunung Agung, regarded by the Balinese as "The Navel of the World." Halfway up the slope of Agung, the pious Balinese built the huge mother temple of Besakih, and every hundred years they have held a solemn rite there to rid the island of ghosts. Last week, in the midst of the once-a-century festival, Agung erupted with catastrophic fury.
Agung gave fair warning. Only last month, after more than 100 years of inactivity, it burst forth with a shower of smoke and brimstone that killed 17 persons. There was worried talk on Bali that the gods were angry because the people had not asked permission to hold their festival. But the priests and their disciples stayed on to pray. At 7 o'clock one morning, Agung erupted again. The villages of Sebudi, Sorgah, and Sebih were engulfed by a lethal black cloud of searing, 230° ash that roasted hundreds where they knelt. Rivers of grey-black lava boiled over Agung's southern lip and flowed in fiery rivulets down stream beds, raising clouds of steam; heavy rains, possibly caused by the heat of the volcano, mixed with the sulphurous ash to form an acid that killed plant life for five miles around.
For five days Agung belched death. At week's end the death toll stood at close to 1,200, and another 200,000 were left homeless. As survivors streamed into towns at the base of the mountain, many suffering third-degree burns from a trek over beds of smoldering ashes, Indonesia's President Sukarno declared all Bali a disaster area. There was little hope that Agung's fury was over. Experts in Djakarta predicted even more violent eruptions to come and ordered all residents to leave the area for at least two months.


TIME, May 10, 1963: BROTHER TAKES OVER

At 12:30 p.m. in the old Dutch New Guinea capital of Hollandia one steamy day last week, the blue-and-white United Nations banner was hauled down, and the red-and-white flag of Indonesia stood waving triumphantly alone. Thus did President Sukarno complete his grab of a California-size chunk of new territory to add to Indonesia's sprawling island chain.
It was only last year that Sukarno climaxed a 13-year campaign to annex the area with a bitter little war of harassment. The Dutch, under pressure from the U.S., finally agreed to hand their colony over to the U.N., which would administer the territory for seven months, then turn it over to Indonesia. Under the compromise, Sukarno promises to hold a plebiscite "by 1969" to give the 700,000 primitive Papuan inhabitants a chance to opt for independence.
But as Bung (Brother) Karno arrived last week for his first visit, there was something about the way he and his Indonesian troops strutted through the streets of Hollandia (renamed Kotabaru) that made many wonder if he would ever permit the region to be more than just Indonesia's province of West Irian.


TIME, May 31, 1963: PRESENT & FUTURE

It has been a month of hatred in Indonesia. More than 500 shops in Bandung were wrecked in a single day. At Sukabumi, youthful rioters hurled six automobiles over a precipice. Fistfights were common in dozens of other towns and villages.
The ugly violence has one common denominator: all the victims were Chinese, that minority of 3,000,000 among Indonesia's 97 million which by hard work and nimble brain has extracted wealth from the overheated, forested archipelago of President Sukarno. The racial bitterness beats even Birmingham, for despite repeated government efforts to crack their economic power, the Chinese—sometimes operating through middlemen to circumvent official sanctions—still control trade, agriculture, small industry, the black market and other forms of commerce. "Go into even the smallest village in Indonesia," an Indonesian army officer once complained, "and you will find one man whose house has electric lights and a refrigerator. That man will be Chinese."
There is nothing new in Indonesia's prejudice, since the overseas Chinese have been running things there for years. But feeling against the Chinese has risen higher as Indonesia has slid toward the brink of economic ruin.
Inflation is out of control; banknotes in circulation have doubled in the past year, and the U.S. dollar, officially pegged at 45 rupiahs, now gets 1,500 rupiahs on the black market. A good sarong costs a worker three months' pay, and one Indonesian airline pilot has complained that he can make ends meet only by smuggling in cameras from Hong Kong. Government-subsidized schoolbooks are too expensive for some students. There are periodic rice shortages, and production of rubber, copra, and tin on expropriated Dutch estates has declined sharply under the management of fumbling government bureaucrats. Students have staged demonstrations with banners screaming: "We are hungry."
Resentment against the rich, well-fed Chinese minority finally exploded after a fistfight between an Indonesian student and a Chinese student at Bandung's Institute of Technology. When a youthful rioter was shot by police in one town, mobs with bamboo clubs herded Chinese from their houses and made them bow their heads as his funeral procession passed by. Firing over the heads of a screaming throng in Bandung, police brought down a power line which electrocuted two Indonesians.
Predictably, Indonesia's President Sukarno blamed neither himself nor his chaotic economic policies for the riots, said that they were caused by "counterrevolutionaries trying to capitalize on the food and clothing situation and on the Chinese minority problem." He went right ahead with plans to squeeze out Western oil companies, though in the process he risked losing the source of one-third of his nation's total export earnings.
Not one to be disturbed long by mere economic questions, Sukarno was more interested in tenure. So as to be able to cope with any future disorders, he had his rubber stamp Congress "appoint" him to the presidency for life. "This decision might not entirely live up to certain constitutional requirements," harrumphed an Indonesian Cabinet Minister, "but it should be remembered that it is a political revolutionary product and not a legalistic product." With his continued career thus assured, Sukarno flew off for what was described as a long rest in Japan, Belgrade, Vienna, Rome, and France, which he is always prone to enjoy. At Sukarno's stop in Tokyo last week, the buss was waiting at the airport—in the form of three delectable things overdressed for the occasion.


TIME, Aug.9, 1963: THEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT

At the formal opening of the Manila meeting last week, Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal heaped praise upon his two guests. He hailed Indonesia's fun-loving President Sukarno as a "great leader" and paid tribute to the "stabilizing influence in Asia" of Malaya's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, who hopes, on Aug. 31, to preside over the birth of Malaysia, a merger of Malaya with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo. Macapagal went on: "The question in the minds of many is, 'Will this conference succeed—?' " At that moment the power failed, out went the lights, off went the microphones and air conditioning. It looked like a sign.
At first the three leaders seemed to ignore ill omens. Next morning at Malacanang Palace, Sukarno said he had gone to bed early. Then he winked, "But that doesn't mean I went to sleep early." Macapagal and the Tunku roared with laughter. Getting down to business, the three leaders swiftly approved the principle of a loose association of the future Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, to be known, by syllabic fusion, as Maphilindo. But then came the blow from Sukarno, who has long opposed Malaysia, has only lately and reluctantly accepted the idea. Sukarno insisted on a full-scale referendum in Sarawak and North Borneo before Malaysia comes into existence, to "ascertain" whether these territories really want the federation. They plainly do, but Sukarno just wanted to throw his weight around. He was supported, halfheartedly, by Macapagal, since the Philippines has a shadowy legal claim to certain parts of North Borneo and a referendum would offer a face-saving way of abandoning the claim.
The man who was supposed to do the ascertaining, the U.N.'s already overburdened Secretary-General U Thant, was also thinking in terms of a referendum, which would take at least four weeks and might require a mandate from the General Assembly. All this could push the Malaysia timetable from late August until November. The British government applied some needed stiffening to Tunku's back by telling him bluntly that they were pulling their troops out of Sarawak and North Borneo on schedule, thereby opening both territories to possible Indonesian infiltration and terrorism.
By week's end tempers were rising in Manila. The Tunku pointedly reminded Sukarno that he had taken over West Irian without a plebiscite and that the legislatures of North Borneo and Sarawak had passed resolutions in favor of the new federation. No man to be troubled by inconsistencies, Sukarno nevertheless demanded his referendum. Only the soothing presence of Macapagal prevented a walkout by the Tunku.
Failing to reach a decision, the meeting went on into this week, with indications that a compromise might emerge. U Thant was reported ready to visit the Borneo territories, without waiting for General Assembly approval, and prepared to make his "ascertainment" without a formal referendum.
Sukarno, switching from intransigence to blithe unconcern, took time off to collect an honorary degree (his 21st) from the University of the Philippines, to pursue a pretty Malayan correspondent, and to demonstrate for photographers the intricacies of the lenso, a sort of static Indonesian twist.


TIME, Sept.20, 1963: HURRAY FOR HARRY

When pretty Catherine Loh was elected Miss Malaysia last April, the pert beauty from the oil-rich British protectorate of Brunei fully expected to preside over the independence ceremonies of the newly formed Federation of Malaysia. But that was before Brunei withdrew from the planned federation in a state of pique, leaving Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo to go it alone. Brunei's defection not only left this week's joyous celebrations without a beauty queen but it also took Malaysia out of the running for the Miss Universe contest.
The beauty queen flap was low on the list of last-minute labor pains attending the long-awaited birth of Malaysia. At the insistence of Indonesia's belligerent President Sukarno, who bitterly opposes the federation, Malaysia's independence had been postponed two weeks beyond the original Aug. 31 starting date, while a United Nations team investigated whether or not North Borneo and Sarawak really wanted to join. Hoping to influence opinion against federation, Sukarno began moving paratroopers into Indonesian Borneo along his 900-mile-long border with the two territories. Some Indonesian guerrillas even sneaked through the jungles into Sarawak to stir up trouble; they were relentlessly hunted down by tough little British army Gurkhas, aided by half-naked Iban tribesmen, who hung up at least one Indonesian head in the rafters of their longhouses.
Fearful that Indonesia might extract further delays out of Malaya's easygoing Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, the architect of the federation, Singapore's brilliant, shifty Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who regards Sukarno as "an international blackmailer," swung into action. Flying to Sarawak and North Borneo, "Harry" Lee picked up the chief ministers of both territories and brought them back to Kuala Lumpur to stiffen up the Tunku. Britain's Commonwealth Secretary Duncan Sandys was also on hand, working hard to get agreement. Threatening to declare Singapore an independent state, Lee pressured Abdul Rahman into holding firm for the federation's Sept. 16 deadline.
Last week the final obstacle to independence was cleared away when the U.N.'s Malaysia team reported that both North Borneo and Sarawak favored the federation. As the new nation prepared to unfurl its red-and-white-striped flag, Harry Lee was quick to capitalize on the occasion. With his popularity at its zenith for his major role in bringing the federation about, he scheduled immediate elections in Singapore.


TIME, Oct.4, 1963: WILD ACTIONS, WILDER THREATS

One week after its stormy birth, the infant nation of Malaysia was hoping for peace but preparing for war. Two Malayan infantry battalions packed their kit bags and prepared to embark for the steaming jungles of Sarawak and Sabah (North Borneo); in Sarawak, orders were issued to raise a native infantry battalion. A round-the-clock watch was begun on the Malayan shore of the Malacca Straits, and 6,000 British, Gurkha and local troops and constabulary units doubled their patrols along Sarawak's tangled, 400-mile border with Indonesian Borneo.
The crisis was triggered by Indonesia's puffy, demagogic President Sukarno, who has sworn to crush Malaysia at all costs. On the Sarawak frontier, an Indonesian mortar company lobbed shells across the border. Deepening Indonesia's quarrel with Britain, which is pledged to defend Malaysia, government troops in Djakarta barred British diplomats from entering their embassy, gutted fortnight ago by an unchecked mob. The guards even tried to break into the embassy's fireproof code room until they were stopped by tough, stocky Ambassador Andrew Gilchrist, who forced his way into the embassy and stood guard over the strong room himself.
In a flurry of edicts, Sukarno cut off all phone, telegraph, postal, airline and shipping links with Malaysia and abruptly halted all Indonesian trade with the federation. The trade embargo was childishly spiteful and totally without logic, for it would do far more damage to Indonesia than to Malaysia.
Over 52% of Indonesia's total annual ex ports of $674 million is to the federation, and most of Indonesia's shipping is funneled through Singapore and Penang. Only Singapore has the facilities to process the low grades that make up much of Indonesia's rubber crop.
While Malaysia has other markets in the British Commonwealth, Indonesia faces economic isolation. Even the Phil ippines, which once joined Sukarno in opposing the federation, is now seeking a graceful way to recognize Malaysia. Distressed by Sukarno's bluff and bluster, the U.S. is reconsidering its economic-aid program to Indonesia and has backed away from participation in a multinational, $250 million program to help balance Sukarno's huge trade deficit. But logic never counts for much in Sukarno's Indonesia. To the Bung, Malaysia is a challenge to his grandiose dream of a new Indonesian empire that would cut an arc through Southeast Asia from the tip of Malaya to the northern islands of the Philippines. Moreover, he is doubtless embarrassed by the contrast between Malaysia's economic well-being and Indonesia's own chaotic economy, which Sukarno has sadly mismanaged. A nationalistic crusade against Malaysia gives Sukarno a badly needed issue to divert his people's attention from the desperate shortages in food and clothing at home.


TIME, Jan.24, 1964: SEAWEED & SOOTHING WORDS

No two people seem less likely to be friendly than Indonesia's President Sukarno and U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. But on Bobby's official visit to Indonesia two years ago, he and Sukarno quickly fell into an easy kidding relationship. Hopeful that the glow from the previous meeting still lingered, Lyndon Johnson last week dispatched Bobby to Sukarno's Tokyo vacation headquarters to try to cool off the Indonesian leader in his bitter dispute with the fledgling Federation of Malaysia.
By bluff and bluster, Sukarno is determined to "crush Malaysia," which he claims is a British puppet state. Along the perilous 900-mile jungle border between Indonesian Borneo and the Malaysian territories of Sarawak and Sabah, British and Malaysian troops have fought a series of bloody clashes with Indonesian "volunteers," who dart back and forth across the frontier sacking military outposts.
Over a breakfast of seaweed, bean paste soup and pickled cabbage in Tokyo's Imperial Hotel, Kennedy told Sukarno of U.S. concern that the Malaysian crisis would flare into full-scale war. Behind Bobby's soothing words was the clear implication that the U.S. might curb its $12 million aid program to the chaotic and nearly bankrupt Indonesian economy.
Sukarno got the message, expressed a willingness to discuss the crisis with Malaysia's Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and with Philippines President Diosdado Macapagal, who also opposes the federation. At week's end Bobby flew off to Manila and Kuala Lumpur, seeking an O.K. from Macapagal and the Tunku. Chances for a meeting of the three seem good.


TIME, May 8, 1964: CONFRONTATION AT THE POLLS

"The momentous victory gives us very much courage," said Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman. "I pray that God will give us help and shelter from adversity and that Malaysia will continue to flourish and prosper in peace. To hell with Sukarno."
It was quite a post-election statement, but justified in the sense that the big issue at the polls had indeed been Sukarno and his vicious guerrilla and propaganda offensives against the new Federation of Malaysia. In a lively five-week campaign, heated slogans in Malay, English, Tamil and four dialects of Chinese filled the air as candidates ran for most of Malaysia's national Parliament and state assembly seats. Charges flew that politicians were luring women voters with love potions. More serious were charges that some of the parties were playing into the hands of the Indonesians by opposing the Prime Minister's stand against Sukarno.
The Tunku aimed his sharpest shots at the Socialists, alleged that they were cooperating with the Indonesian Communist Party; leftist workers have become increasingly militant since the stoppage of trade by Indonesia caused layoffs. But the Tunku also condemned the right-wing, fanatical Moslem groups, who might be receptive to Indonesian arguments because of their distaste for the multiracial, multireligious character of the federation. Pressing hard for a decisive endorsement, the Tunku exploited every appeal. He offered tidy development funds to strategic regions. Two days before elections, the government published a 64-page white paper charging an Indonesian plot to assassinate the Prime Minister and annex most of Southeast Asia.
Casting their ballots at 3,400 polling stations, voters gave Abdul Rahman's policies landslide approval. His three-party, multiracial Alliance won 89 of 104 seats at stake in the federal Parliament, 241 out of 282 seats in the state assemblies. In Indonesia, Sukarno responded with irritation, blustered that he had "ordered all 21 million volunteers to hold simultaneous roll calls throughout Indonesia to receive my command of action."


TIME, Nov.27, 1964: THE BAMBOO BOMB

In Geneva during his recent European tour, Indonesia's President Sukarno slipped into an out-of-the-way cinema for an evening's relaxation after a hard day of negotiations with pretty shopgirls and Swiss arms manufacturers. No doubt the "Bung" (Brother), an old movie buff, needed a bit of tranquilizing, but the feature film proved to be The Fall of the Roman Empire. In light of what has been happening in Indonesia of late, it must have scanned like a sneak preview.
Most disastrous of Sukarno's programs has been his attempt to "crush Malaysia." The neighboring nation has proved as undentable as armor plate: of 256 Indonesian-trained saboteurs, terrorists and guerrillas landed over the past three months, 47 were killed and 187 captured. Last week, when Sukarno issued his customary order to "intensify" the campaign, 20 more guerrillas sailed off by sampan to Malaya and Singapore —and were soon being hotly pursued by alert British-led troops and citizens, who can collect $300 for every interloper captured. Still, Indonesia's flourishing Communist Party (3,000,000 members) insists that Malaysia must be crushed and last week added to Sukarno's troubles by inaugurating an equally absurd "crush American imperialism" drive on the pretext that the U.S. had sent a military-aid mission to the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Economically, Indonesia's course has been almost as disastrous. With the country's current eight-year plan at the halfway mark, the government announced that fully 200 of its 335 economic projects had not yet been begun, added morosely that none of the programs aimed at earning foreign exchange had worked. Indonesia's flashily colored currency, the rupiah, last week skidded to a hundredth of its official value: 4,500 to the U.S. dollar on the free market v. a government-controlled rate of 45. At the annual congress of the Civil Servants Union, government clerks demanded a raise. They had cause; a bachelor clerk today earns only 450 rupiah, or one thin dime, a month.
Even with more money, there would be little to buy. With rice in short supply, Sukarno urged his people to cultivate a taste for corn and sweet potatoes. That could help to balance the diet of rat meat recommended by Communist Party Chairman D. N. Aidit, executive chairman of Indonesia's antirodent drive. "If the peasants start eating rats eagerly," said Aidit, "the rats will be wiped out, and there will even be a shortage of rats."
None of this hardship seemed to affect the leaders of Sukarno's swollen (412,000-man) armed forces, which this year will receive half of Indonesia's $2 billion budget. Gold-braided and grinning, the army chief of staff recently pressed a button on a Djakarta beach to lob an Indonesia-built rocket a full 21 miles into the Java Sea. Immediately the army began boasting that it would have intercontinental ballistic missiles in no time at all.
What's more, exclaimed one euphoric brigadier, "we plan to explode an atom bomb next year." Though Indonesia does have a functioning nuclear reactor (supplied by the U.S. Atoms for Peace program), it cannot produce materials for weapons. Even the foreign ministry shamefacedly admitted as much. The brigadier's boast was so patently hollow that the Malaysians—who obviously were the target of its propaganda potential—scornfully talked of Sukarno's "bamboo bomb."
And even if the Bung's wobbly country could support the debilitating cost of developing a bomb, Sukarno could not count on being around to profit from it. He has aged visibly since his treatment for a kidney ailment last month, and his hands are as paper-thin and shaky as his economy. Sukarno, 63, has lately begun suffering from intimations of mortality, told a confident that he would like to be buried on Bali, the Indonesian island of lovely women where his mother was born.


TIME, Jan.8, 1965: PRESSED BUT UNCRUSHED

Indonesia's President Sukarno once boasted that his campaign to "crush Malaysia" would triumph before the cock crowed on Jan. 1, 1965. Last week the deadline passed with the 15-month-old, British-backed federation pressed harder than ever but apparently as far as ever from being crushed.
Though the 800-mile Malaysia-Indonesia frontier on Borneo, where Sukarno began his guerrilla raids, has been the scene of only sporadic clashes of late, Indonesia has stepped up its attacks on the Malay Peninsula itself. So far, each little marauding band has been wiped out almost as fast as it arrived. Christmas week was typical: 30 raiders debarked in southwestern Johore State, took to the adjacent swampland; within hours, three were dead, the rest captured. Next day the British frigate Ajax intercepted seven sampans carrying 22 raiders trying to sneak across the Malacca Strait to Malaysia.
All told, since Sukarno first sent his guerrillas into Malaya last August, 55 have been killed and 243 captured; last week Malaysian security officials claimed that only one invader was unaccounted for. The main reason for the Indonesians' lack of success has been Britain's firm determination—continued by the Labor government—to honor her treaty obligations for the defense of Malaysia.
In the past six months Britain has doubled her troop strength in Malaysia, to some 20,000, and British tommies are doing most of the actual fighting in the bitter little war.
By tacit agreement, the U.S. has left Malaysia to the British, while concentrating on the expensive war in Viet Nam.
However, during a visit to Washington last July, Malaysian Premier Tunku Abdul Rahman let it be known that he would welcome some American aid too, and a U.S. delegation recently arrived in Kuala Lumpur for talks. But last week, when the delegation got down to crossing the t's and dotting the i's on an aid deal, howls of shock and chagrin arose from the Malaysians.
The U.S., it seemed, was offering a loan for the purchase of jet trainer aircraft, at the 5% interest rate that the State Department called "standard" for military purchases. What the Malaysians apparently expected was a straight grant from the U.S. or a credit on softer terms. After all, was Washington not supplying Malaysia's archenemy Sukarno an annual gift of $10 million in aid? Declared Malaysian Defense Minister Abdul Razak: "We are disappointed. If our friends wish to help us, now is the time."


TIME, Jan.15, 1965: CASSAVA, ANYONE?

Every Great Man has one Great Moment in life. For Indonesia's President Sukarno, it may well have come at 10:30 one sticky night last week in Djakarta's sports stadium. There, before thousands of cheering admirers, Bung drew himself up to his full height (5 ft. 4 in.), pointed a finger toward the sky, and announced his country's withdrawal from the United Nations.
It was one way to fame. In the U.N.'s .19 years of existence, no other nation had pulled out. There were those who thought it good riddance. But others pleaded earnestly with the stubborn leader to think twice. Japan's Premier Eisaku Sato, for instance, is said to have sent Sukarno a personal letter recalling the tragic path Japan followed, which led to Pearl Harbor, after it had been the first to abandon the League of Nations in 1933.
But there was no backing out now. What was more, Sukarno said, Indonesia wanted no more aid from U.N. agencies—a remark that must have stirred the bellies of his underfed audience. "What is UNICEF?" cried Sukarno. "It is powdered milk. I prefer to eat cassava [a flour-yielding root]. FAO sends experts who know nothing about Indonesia's agriculture. I say to them, To hell with your aid!"
Ostensible excuse for Indonesia's withdrawal was the seating of its fancied archenemy, British-backed Malaysia, as a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council. But it had been known for months that Malaysia was assured the seat, and when the actual vote came in December, Indonesia's delegates made no protest. Could it be that Sukarno's sycophantic ministers might have kept him in the dark about the whole thing until now?
True, the 63-year-old Sukarno has had his health problems. One kidney is said to be out of commission, and the other has a stone; of late Sukarno has sometimes appeared in public barefoot, with swollen ankles. Did health account for his erratic behavior?
Probably not. A better guess seemed to be that Sukarno was bent on forming a new organization to rally what he calls the "NEFOS" (New Emerging Forces) against the "OLDEFOS" (Old Established Forces) and thus put an end to "NECOLIM" (NeoColonialist Imperialism). There were those who feared that Sukarno was now in full collusion with Red China in a master plot to establish a Peking-Djakarta axis.
It was obvious that Sukarno was caught between his country's 2,500,000-member, Peking-controlled Communist Party (P.K.I.), third largest in the world, and the nationalist forces led by the army. It was also true that Sukarno has leaned toward the Communists of late. Last month he surprisingly dissolved the "Body for the Promotion of Sukarnoism," an organization created to counter the P.K.I. Last week Sukarno also made the decision to ban the Murba (Proletariat) Party, an anti-P.K.I. splinter group that expounds "national Communism."
Whether or not anyone buys the theory of collusion with China, eyebrows in the West rose at news of the surprise visit to Djakarta in November by Red Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi. Last week, while Russia was among those trying to head off Indonesia's U.N. walkout, Peking applauded it, ridiculing the world organization as "a vile place for a few powers to share the spoils." In any case, the objectives of Sukarno and Mao Tse-tung on Malaysia clearly converge: both want the downfall of its pro-West regime—a prospect that holds grave political and strategic implications for the West.
A hostile Malaysia aligned with a powerful Indonesia would halt the flow of East-West shipping through one of the world's busiest waterways—the vital Strait of Malacca. And since Indonesia lies athwart other passages north of the 10th Parallel, a sea voyage from Hong Kong to Rangoon would require a detour of some 7,000 miles. Should Viet Nam also fall, west bound jetliners that now fly to India via Thailand would have to be rerouted via Australia—double the distance.
But these problems were small beside the enormous political implications. The ultimate collapse of Malaysia and Indo-China could be a coup de grâce to the West's remaining position in all of Asia. The next target might well be the Philippines. Japan would be put under serious new pressure. And the psychological shock waves in Africa and the Latin American countries would be very grave indeed.
Aware of the long-range stakes, the British last week poured still more reinforcements into Malaysia. Airlifted from London to Singapore were the first of 1,000 paratroopers and Scots Guardsmen. Husky, ruddy-cheeked young tommies in heavy suits and bulky sweaters, they looked like members of an oversize Rugby team.
Not many miles away, other British troops stripped protective covering off small, grey woodhull ships—mothballed minesweepers and patrol boats that have been kept ready for use ever since World War II. From East Africa steamed Britain's biggest aircraft carrier, the 44,000-ton, missile-armed H.M.S. Eagle, bringing to 70-odd the number of British vessels on patrol in Malaysian waters. Singapore bristles with British warplanes. In London, Prime Minister Harold Wilson, re-emphasizing the "resolve and determination with which we stand by our partner Malaysia," revealed that British military personnel in Malaysia total 50,000—the greatest concentration of British forces in the Far East since the Korean War.
In recent months Sukarno has enlarged his nasty little campaign against Malaysia. Formerly content with guerrilla raids across the border on Borneo, where last week Indonesia was reported massing more troops, he has sent waves of sampans loaded with armed infiltrators across the Malacca Strait into the Malay Peninsula. Most have been caught or killed. Last week another band of 14 piled ashore in swampy Johore State above Singapore; security forces quickly rounded up half a dozen.
Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman advised the U.N. that in the event of "more intensive Indonesian attacks" Malaysia would immediately seek United Nations assistance. At home, he called for preparations for "retaliatory action." British officers are restrained on the subject of "hot pursuit" of Indonesian marauders back into Indonesia. They would seriously strike Indonesia only if it actually bombed Malaysia or launched a massive invasion. What the British really expect is more of the same sort of hit-and-run harassment. But they have beefed up their guard, as one Whitehall official put it, in case "Sukarno goes off his nut."


TIME, June 4, 1965: JINGO JAMBOREE

Djakarta was all decked out for another political circus. Along the sere, sun-scoured boulevards of Indonesia's capital, the gaudiest splashes of color were billboards showing Uncle Sam stomping a few Negroes, handsome Asians engaged in a fierce tug of war with ugly white colonialists, a fearless President Sukarno hurling Malaysia's cringing Tunku Abdul Rahman into the Malacca Strait. Illuminated fountains tinkled merrily around the unfinished obelisk designed by Sukarno to commemorate 20 years of Indonesian independence.
Across from the burnt-out shell of the British embassy, the Hotel Indonesia dispensed hot water, air conditioning and Palmolive soap in a futile attempt to insulate political delegates from the shabby city around them.
The occasion was the 45th anniversary of the Partai Komunis Indonesia, Asia's oldest Communist Party and, with 3,000,000 members, its second largest. The P.K.I.'s jingo jamboree brought relays of runners bearing red and yellow flags into Djakarta from points as distant as Bali (560 miles), tied up the capital's Mercedes and betjak (pedicab) traffic for three hours with a torchlight parade that ended in an effigy-burning of Uncle Sam and the Tunku. Over the whole scene reared a 40-ft. hammer and sickle woven from straw and bamboo.
Appearing at the stadium named in his honor, Bung (Brother) Karno applauded the P.K.I, as "a very important factor in the Indonesian revolution." His 33-minute speech drew cheers from such honored guests as the Red Chinese, Albanian, North Vietnamese and Cuban delegations. And the U.S. (which has granted Indonesia $896 million in aid) observed the occasion with an ambassadorial switch. American Ambassador Howard Palfrey Jones, 66, a seven-year veteran of the Bung's bombast, of whom it has been said, "Sukarno perhaps understood Jones better than Jones understood Sukarno," departed, with U.S.-Indonesian relations at their lowest ebb since 1958—a fact that clearly delighted the Communists.
In their own speeches, P.K.I. officials pressed Sukarno for elections at the village level, confident that they could win control of Java, which represents 70% of Indonesia's 104 million population. Party Boss D. N. Aidit suggested that Indonesia's 412,000-man armed forces be "supervised" by politically oriented NASAKOM cadres, which the P.K.I. believes it could dominate. That seemed all right with Sukarno. "Go ahead," he urged the P.K.I. "Go onward and never retreat."
The main theme of the week, of course, was "crush Malaysia," and Sukarno's invaders were trying to do just that. In the biggest action of the two-year border war, more than 100 Indonesian regulars tackled British and Malaysian troops in a running jungle battle on Sarawak.
Indonesian pressure on Malaysia—originally urged in 1961 by the P.K.I. —has raised Malaysia's defense costs nearly fivefold (to $70 million this year, with an estimated $300 million anticipated by 1970). The Tunku's government has been forced to take emergency measures, including arrest without warrant and banning of strikes. Dissidents of every stripe, from straight Chinese Communists to reactionary Malay opportunists, are using the "confrontation" issue with Indonesia to serve their own purposes. Clearly the P.K.I, had plenty to celebrate last week.


TIME, July 9, 1965: SUKARNO STEPS UP THE WAR

While largely overshadowed by the bigger, more explosive battle for Viet Nam, the smouldering war in Malaysia has also intensified in recent months.
Along the border in Borneo, the Federation's far-flung security force—Malaysian, British and Australian—now faces an estimated 10,000 Indonesian troops. In the Riauw Archipelago, just across from Singapore, Indonesia's crack Siliwangi Division awaits President Sukarno's irredentist orders. Since late April, Malaysian patrols have annihilated four major raiding parties from the Indonesian side, severely mauled a fifth. And Sukarno's increasingly desperate "Crush Malaysia" campaign has spawned ugly new tactics. Items:
>At sea, where scores of motor-powered sampans ferrying Sukarno's guerrillas and saboteurs have been intercepted off the Malay Peninsula in the past year, the Indonesians are now using kamikaze tactics to frustrate Malaysian patrol boats. Suicide sampans are rigged with explosives so that they blow up when halted or hit by naval guns, thus deterring attack and giving other insurgent craft a chance to escape in the confusion.
> On land, Sukarno's infiltrators are effectively exploiting the corrosive ethnic and economic rivalries that divide the Federation's Chinese and Malays. Last week, after bellying through the bush near Sarawak's provincial capital of Kuching, a band of some 40 Indonesians in berets and tennis shoes surprised a police outpost, chopped down six Malaysian cops with a burst from a Czech burp gun. Led by a pair of Malaysian exiles, both Chinese Communists, the guerrillas went searching for Chinese peasants loyal to the government of Tunku Abdul Rahman. They killed three in one family, stabbed three men near a bridge on the road to Kuching, and reportedly hanged a Chinese patriarch, in an attempt to scare others into turning against the government.
Though government radio broadcasts urged the Chinese of Sarawak to remain calm and loyal, the raiders had done their work well. "Nobody is talking," said a senior police officer.


TIME, Aug.6, 1965: COPING WITH THE BUNG

"I am glad to be here and I am looking forward to my assignment," announced the U.S.'s new Ambassador to Indonesia, Marshall Green, 49, arriving at Djakarta airport.
Spoken like a true diplomat, since Green undoubtedly knew the well-rehearsed sort of welcome he could expect. Act I took place at the Presidential Palace, where he presented his credentials, and consisted of champagne toasts with President Sukarno, together with a cordial lecture from the Bung on how U.S.-Indonesia relations were at their lowest ebb, all because U.S. policies in Viet Nam and Malaysia were "discouraging the Indonesian people in their wish to develop friendship with the United States."
Act II, performed as Green drove back to the U.S. embassy, featured 2,000 Communist students and women chanting "Green, go home," and waving posters saying GET OUT OR WE'LL KICK YOU OUT. By way of epilogue, another 1,000 youths stoned the U.S. consulate at Medan, plastering its walls with signs reading GO HOME YANKEE and GO HOME GREEN.
Still, red-haired Green is a tough, talented envoy who thrives on contrasts and postings where U.S. influence is, to put it mildly, mild. He underwent his apprenticeship as personal secretary to the late, gallant U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Joseph Clark Grew during the last stormy days before Pearl Harbor. As officer in charge of the U.S. embassy in Seoul in 1961, when General Chung Hee Park unseated the democratically elected President John Chang, Green outspokenly opposed the unconstitutionality of the new government, after which the State Department tactfully transferred him to Hong Kong as consul general.
In Djakarta, his first ambassadorial assignment, he replaces genial Howard P. Jones, whose seven years of effort to win over Sukarno with tolerant understanding did not deter the Bung from continuing to heap contempt and ridicule on the U.S. Whether a blunter approach will bear fruit is anyone's guess. The U.S. sympathizes with Malaysia, but would like to cling to some friendly ties with Indonesia, however tenuous. Sukarno may be angry at the latest U.S. loan to Malaysia for military equipment, but the Malaysians of late have been equally miffed by the proposed sale of $4,000,000 worth of communications gear by a U.S. company to Indonesia's armed forces.
In any case, Green will be manning a post that is fast becoming an outpost. With the phasing-out of the U.S. AID mission, the USIA and the Peace Corps, the number of Americans on Government business in Indonesia has dropped to about 70.
A few hundred missionaries still operate, mostly in remoter Borneo and West Irian, and there are about 800 employees (and their families) of Stanvac, Caltex and the American rubber companies. But the rubber companies were expropriated in February, and Sukarno is expected to give in to the demands of his own nationalist party, the P.N.I., and the powerful P.K.I., world's third largest Communist Party, for complete takeover of the oil companies, last remaining major American investments in Indonesia, by the end of the year.


TIME, Aug.27, 1965: DOWN WITH THE BEATLES!

President Sukarno's Anniversary Day speeches are usually something to behold. His head bobbing furiously, a finger jabbing at the sky, he loves wild histrionics that send crowds into chanting, clapping frenzies. But last week as 60,000 gathered before the canopied platform at Merdeka Palace, Indonesia's ruler put on a strangely muted, flat and unspirited show. He called his speech "Reach for the Stars," but it did not get off the ground.
Perhaps it was because he had nothing new to say. He spoke grandly of attacking the "imperialists" with a "Djakarta-Pnompenh-Hanoi, Peking-Pyongyang axis," which sounds like an airline route but is nothing more than a dream that he has often toyed with in the past. The speech confirmed continuance of Sukarno's far leftward drift. With Red China's Foreign Minister Chen Yi sitting near by as an honored guest, Sukarno predictably ripped into the U.S., pledged "active support" to the Viet Cong guerrillas in South Viet Nam and threatened to nationalize U.S. oil and rubber interests that are already undergovernment control. U.S. Ambassador Marshall Green heard him out in stony silence.
Sukarno also referred to the recent military coup in Algeria, and he may well have been worried by the obvious parallels. "The fall of Ben Bella," he cried, "should serve as a reminder to every leader that the moment a leader puts a distance between himself and the interests of his people he will certainly topple."
Wistfully, Sukarno regretted that he could not live for a thousand years, but "I pray that my concepts, my teachings, will live for another thousand years." Such incantations drew applause all right, but the crowd of 60,000 was the smallest and the most apathetic in Anniversary Day history. Perhaps by now skeptical of the ludicrous claim that Indonesia is developing an atomic bomb, the throng responded with dead silence when Sukarno threatened nuclear retaliation against his foes.
Though he looked fit and healthy in his fresh white uniform, gold-topped swagger stick and black Muslim cap, Sukarno had fallen ill twice during August, probably because of his chronic kidney trouble. During his recent trip to Europe, Viennese specialists urged an operation, but Sukarno is said to fear the scalpel, since his horoscope predicts that he will die by steel.
If Sukarno is ailing, he is certainly in no worse shape than his country. Food prices continue to soar. An egg that cost 2 rupiahs in Djakarta in 1961 now costs 170 rupiahs. In the past four months, prices have risen 50%. Sukarno is still grabbing for instant cures. When he was in North Korea recently, he was told that the Communists were making cloth from stones, and he has ordered his own experts to turn Indonesian rocks into textiles.
In his Anniversary Day speech, Sukarno urged Indonesians to "wage a campaign against Beatle music, cheap literature and crazy dances." In response, a crowd gathered before Djakarta's police headquarters and made a small bonfire of Beatle records, comic books and U.S. westerns.

The one place where Sukarno's speech was received with relief was in Malaysia. For the past two years, the Indonesian President has staged a "confrontation" that sought to bring down the federation by economic blockade and guerrilla infiltration. When Singapore seceded from Malaysia early this month, Sukarno could have read it as an argument for the success of his hostile policy.
But Sukarno was noncommittal about Singapore's new status; he merely commented that Malaysia was "beginning to fall apart from the inside."
British officials, who have been supporting Malaysia with 50,000 troops and a sizable fleet, thought it likely that Sukarno was waiting for a lead from Red China. They also noted that there have been no significant Indonesian attacks since Singapore's secession.
Like many divorced couples, Malaysia and Singapore have been getting on better since the separation than before. Though now independent, Singapore honored its defense commitments by sending half of its two-battalion army to replace a Malaysian detachment in Borneo, thus demolishing whatever prospects Singapore may have had of reconciliation with Indonesia. Singapore's Defense Minister Goh Keng Swee declared: "Our defense is indivisible," and Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman clapped him on the back, saying, "We will do or die together." Ministers of the two states are holding a series of meetings on economic cooperation, as well as preparing to negotiate with Britain the rewriting of defense treaties. Singapore seems certain to retain the economically important British military bases, with the additional proviso that they will be used for defensive purposes only.



TIME, Oct.8, 1965: AFTER AN EVENING WITH MORNING STAR

When revolt struck Djakarta last week, it seemed appropriate that President Sukarno was in the company of a lovely woman. He was with Morning Star, his most recent wife, a 26-year-old former Japanese bar hostess. Sukarno had left Merdeka Palace to visit her brown-walled bungalow for dinner beneath dozens of Indonesian statues. As the meal ended, word came of a military uprising in the city. Dismissing his motorcade, Sukarno summoned a helicopter and was lifted up into the night sky—and for four days, the flamboyant, hard-living leader of a nation of 104 million was not seen or heard from.
Rumors flew that Sukarno was dead, seriously ill, in prison or in flight. But Bung Karno has spent a lifetime showing the world how to be a survivor. He has nimbly escaped innumerable assassination attempts by bomb and bullet, grenade and jet fighter. Insurrections against him constantly erupt in the Outer Islands only to be put down or neutralized. What made last week's coups different was that leaders of both the first coup and the one that followed insisted loudly that they were defending Sukarno against the plots of others.
The first revolt was staged by a lowly lieutenant colonel in an army overloaded with generals. His name was Untung, which means "Good Luck," and he commanded a battalion in the palace guards. He launched his troops on a double mission: to round up 20 generals and seize Radio Indonesia. The transmitter was swiftly captured and was soon pouring out communiqués in the name of the "30th of September Movement." It was a thrilling plotline: Untung had uncovered a "generals' conspiracy” to overthrow Sukarno during this week's scheduled celebration of Army Day. Behind the conniving generals, charged Untung, was the wily hand and dizzying wealth of the CIA. Radio Indonesia also announced the formation of a 45-man "Revolutionary Council," including some of the biggest names in the country, along with others that sounded as if they had been picked blindfold from a hat.
Some of the surprise members: Foreign Minister Subandrio, long regarded as Sukarno's heir apparent, and last week absent on a tour of Sumatra; Air Force Chief of Staff Omar Dani, reputedly a Communist; and Admiral Martadinata, whose fleet has been immobilized for months by a strike of 700 junior naval officers.
The restless nation was assured by the rebels that Sukarno was "safe and under protection," and, as an afterthought Untung abolished all military ranks above his own. A new Cabinet was also announced, headed, of course, by Untung.
Untung's good luck began to run out early. As his men rounded up the suspect generals, Army Chief of Staff Ahmad Yani and a quartermaster corps general were said to have been killed. The detachment sent to arrest Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution bungled the job: Nasution and his five-year-old daughter were reportedly both wounded.
Was Nasution really wounded? Once free, he apparently rallied the troops on the city's outskirts and sent word to the crack Siliwangi Division at Bandung to move on the capital. General Suharto, commander of the strategic reserve, was placed in charge of operations. At 8 in the evening, Suharto's forward units were moving toward the center of the city and exchanging fire with Untung's palace guards. By midnight, Radio Indonesia had fallen to the attackers, and by the next morning, Untung and his men were in full flight. Their possible destination: a stronghold in central Java, where a colonel of the Diponegoro Division had already announced his support of the coup.
Radio Indonesia now spoke with another voice, proclaiming martial law and placing Djakarta in "a state of war." The revolt was said to be crushed, and Nasution's spokesman derided Untung's charge of a generals' plot as merely a pretext for his own personal coup. Sukarno was reported "safe and well," and rumor had it that the President was waiting out events at his summer palace in Bogor, 30 miles from Djakarta. The army also revealed that some of the names on Untung's Revolutionary Council were imaginary, and that many others had been used without their owners' permission. General Suharto announced an "understanding between the army, navy and police" to eliminate the remnants of Untung's followers. One mystery remained: where were the flyboys and their marvelous MIGs? The absence of the air force from this list made it seem likely that its commander, Omar Dani, had gone over to the rebels.
With all communication lines to the outside world severed, the only source of hard information was the disjointed communiqués served up on Radio Indonesia between intervals of music. Under Sukarno, there have been only two power centers in the country, the armed forces and the 3,500,000 members of the Indonesian Communist Party, led by cagey, cautious D. N. Aidit, who was off on a junket to Red China when the shooting started.
A showdown between the Reds and the nationalist-minded officers has long been expected, and it was tempting to regard last week's skirmishing as the first round in an intra-Indonesian knockdown drag-out. Defense Minister Nasution has long complained of Sukarno's wooing of the Communists, and successfully blocked a Red plan to have arms issued to its own militia.
But Communist headquarters seemed as confused as everyone else. One Red newspaper did come out in support of the 30th of September Movement, but the others were silent.
Observers were also quick to warn that events in Indonesia bore little resemblance to events elsewhere. The Indonesian character is one that shies from reality, hesitates to push things to a conclusion, and has a positive genius for never resolving difficult problems. Whether Untung's coup represented a one-man aberration or was part of a faultily executed Communist plot remained to be seen. The most puzzling factor was the silence of Sukarno. A man who dearly loves the spotlight and who is nearly as happy making a speech as chasing a pretty girl, his behavior was inexplicable, unless he was seriously ill or dead. At week's end, 64-year-old Sukarno proved he was neither. In a live broadcast over Radio Indonesia, the durable President told his people that he was sound and well. "This is my voice," declared the Bung. "I am still alive. This is your President." Calling for "increased vigilance" against his enemies, Sukarno seemed to be suggesting that he was easily back on top again.


TIME, Oct.15, 1965: WANTED: A MAGICIAN

At National Heroes Cemetery, outside Djakarta, the coffins of the six slain generals were draped with the red-and-white colors of the Indonesian flag. Twenty tanks lined the approach road, and an honor guard in bright berets stood at attention. Antiaircraft guns pointed skyward, evidence that the army top brass still does not trust the air force, which has been behaving ambivalently. As a crowd of 10,000 looked on, General Abdul Haris Nasution, Defense Minister and Commander of the Army, hobbled forward on crutches, supported by two aides. Nasution had been a prime target of the assassins and had broken an ankle in his escape. His five-year-old daughter Irma was shot and killed. "We living witnesses know that you were upholding truth and justice," said Nasution, addressing the dead. "In our heart you are the heroes. We believe the truth will win."
The truth is hard to find, especially in Indonesia, where confusion is a way of life, and President Sukarno is the greatest obfuscator of them all. Still unresolved last week was whether the six generals were martyrs slain by Communist-supported plotters or whether they had been killed by Lieut. Colonel Untung and his palace guards to prevent their launching a coup of their own. Those who suspect a direct Communist role recall that about two weeks before the Sept. 30 coup, Djakarta's Reds began preparing a foundation of some sort. Editorials in Communist newspapers, which had long grumbled about the soaring cost of living but never pressed for remedies, suddenly called for "immediate action," and their campaign against "capitalist bureaucrats" was abruptly stepped up.
A few days before the coup, Communist cadremen were issued special orders, and some were given arms. Top leaders were told not to sleep in their homes for a few nights. When the coup came, the official Communist paper came out flatly in support of the uprising.
Yet many an old Djakarta hand is convinced that the Reds were not the masterminds. For one thing, Untung's clumsy and ill-planned coup lacked the slick organization one would expect from efficient Communist Party Chief D. N. Aidit. With 3,500,000 members, plus his large and increasing influence on Sukarno's policies, Aidit was doing well enough as things were.
One theory is that there actually was a plot by the generals to take over control and put an end to the growing power of the Communists. It gains color from the fact that Sukarno did not even appear at the funeral of the slain officers. Next day, as Sukarno called his Cabinet into emergency session at his summer palace in Bogor, Nasution did not show up—but two Communist ministers did, along with Air Force Chief General Omar Dani, a Communist sympathizer.
After 31 hours of closed-door talk, Foreign Minister Subandrio said that President Sukarno had prevailed on the cabinet to 1) regard the Untung affair as an "internal problem" of the army that would be settled by the army; 2) accept the statement by the Communist Party's Politburo that the Reds had nothing to do with the attempted coup; 3) support a return to unity and a revival of "Nasakom"—one of the portmanteau words Sukarno loves to invent. This one is composed of the first letters of the words for nationalism, religion and Communism and is supposed to symbolize the merging of all three currents to carry forward the "revolution."
It was not a line calculated to placate the army, which remained firmly in control of Djakarta. All Communist newspapers were shut down, a dusk-to-dawn curfew was established, the army-run Radio Indonesia and the newspapers headlined charges that the Communists were deeply involved in Untung's coup. Communist leaders were jailed, and there was an intense search for arms.
A huge anti-Communist rally was held at Bung Karno Stadium, and thousands of students paraded in Djakarta's streets shouting "Kill Aidit!" and "Dissolve the Communist Party!" As approving soldiers looked on, the crowd set fire to Communist headquarters, completely destroying the one-story building. Since this was Indonesia, the students left untouched the nearly finished five-story Red headquarters in the next street. To add to the confusion, one group of students marched to the U.S. embassy to shout "Long live America!" while another group chanted the accusation that the CIA was backing the Indonesian Communist Party.

Sukarno is a sick man (kidney and gall-bladder trouble), and it seems likely that the sudden rash of plotting represented maneuvers for position by factions anticipating his departure from the scene. Seven Chinese doctors constantly attend him, and he stayed all week at Bogor. But he didn't look very ill as he paced his palace corridors. In fact, his familiar charm seemed still to have some of its old effect. The army reluctantly called a halt to its roundup of Communists and even anti-Red newspapers were responding to the call for unity. But if, after the murder of the generals, Sukarno can get the infuriated army once again to work in tandem with the Communists, he deserves top honors as a mediator—or magician.


TIME, Oct.22, 1965: JUSTICE IN DJAKARTA

"Gantung Aidit!" demanded the crudely painted slogans on Djakarta's downtown walls. That meant "Hang Aidit!" — the pro-Peking boss of Indonesia's 3,500,000-member Communist Party. The wily Red was nowhere to be found, so the rampaging mob last week had to make do with less. They sacked one of Aidit's four Djakarta homes and burned his furniture, then headed for the offices of his cocky Communist Youth Front. There, at the starting point of many a raid on the American library or embassy, the rioters administered poetic justice: the Red headquarters went up in flames.
Other symptoms of rampant anti-Communism and hatred of Aidit's Peking masters abounded throughout Indonesia last week. A mob of 800 stormed the Chinese-run Respublika University in the capital, wrecked and burned a two-story building, then invaded the dormitory with knives and submachine guns. Chinese shops in East Java were ransacked, and a newspaper editorial ranted ferociously against the "CIA"—meaning the "Chinese Intelligence Agency."
To Indonesians, long accustomed to President Sukarno's friendship with Peking, it seemed odd indeed that Red China could be so viciously maligned. There was nothing really odd about it, for the anti-Chinese campaign simply marked the determination of the army under Defense Minister Nasution to wipe out all traces of Aidit and his Partai Komunis Indonesia. Nasution would probably succeed, for he and his generals seemed in firm command of the country.
This did not mean that the army was broadly anti-Communist or pro-West, since Marxism and Communism remain respectable among most Indonesians, including the military. Indeed, with Nasution's obvious approval, Sukarno last week set about salvaging what he could of his beloved Nasakom—the tenuous blend of nationalism, religion and Communism on which political control in Indonesia has long been balanced.
Part of the salvage plan: formation of a "new" Communist Party based on nationalism and Indonesian self-interest rather than Peking's influence. Aidit, who was believed still hiding out in Middle Java, was branded "a renegade and an outlaw." He would be purged, and the new party would lean toward the Soviet orbit rather than the Chinese. "The President will settle the upheaval," assured a Sukarno aide with typical Indonesian optimism. "If you eliminate the kom from our Nasakom then the balance has been destroyed. That is not practical politics. But you can eliminate the kom that is against you and create another in its place."
Whatever the cast of the kom, Defense Minister Nasution was continuing his purge of Communists in the armed forces. Top Red to topple: Major General Pranoto, who was appointed by Sukarno to succeed the murdered Achmed Yani as army chief of staff. Pranoto's replacement is rightist General Suharto, the tough, Dutch-trained boss of Djakarta's strategic reserve who commanded the anti-coup forces for Nasution. Suharto's elevation promised more trouble for the Reds. One current story has it that Suharto last week approached pro-Communist Air Force Boss Omar Dani in Sukarno's presence at the Merdeka Palace and questioned him closely about the air force role in the coup. When Dani pleaded ignorance, Suharto reportedly slapped his face and ripped off Dani's epaulets. Dani has not been heard from since.
One army officer who has been heard from, though, is Lieut. Colonel Untung, the obscure battalion commander in Sukarno's palace guard who launched the abortive revolt. Untung, whose name in Indonesian means "lucky," pushed nomenclature too far: riding on a bus also named Lucky, Untung was recognized near the Middle Java town of Semarang by two soldiers. Untung vaulted from the bus window but was nabbed by fellow passengers, who took him for a pickpocket and beat him severely before surrendering him to the soldiers. At week's end Untung was back in Djakarta for interrogation and probably ultimate execution. But not before Nasution's inquisitors find out for certain if it was really Peking who put Untung up to it.
There are those who say Sukarno was behind it all. The facts may never be known, particularly in light of last week's disclosure that the events of the coup are being chronicled by that well-known diarist the Bung himself, who is compiling the story from "all groups and sources, including the P.K.I."


TIME, Nov.5, 1965: IN THE MIDST OF MUSHAWARAH

The preferred Indonesian method for solving complex problems is through musharawah—a long, lung-wearying dialectic that arrives, however belatedly, at consensus. Musharawah was everywhere in Djakarta last week. Hardly a day went by without endless powwows in army headquarters, at Merdeka Palace, and in the steaming streets and squares of the capital.
The results were as confused and kaleidoscopic as the process itself. Across from the lavish Hotel Indonesia, a sign showing a jowly Uncle Sam with a dagger at his throat had quietly disappeared. "It was the wind," explained grinning Indonesians. Near the reeking canals off Merdeka Square, Muslim youth groups in straw hats drilled where young Communists once sang their favorite anthem: America, Satan of the World. Through the capital's dusty, palm-studded streets, army patrols quietly rounded up minor Red officials and led them off to secluded firing squads. And on walls, fences and curbstones blazed the angry slogan: "Saté Aidit" (Fry Aidit).
Though D. N. Aidit, Indonesia's top Red, was still at large, it was becoming increasingly clear that Communism—at least of the Peking variety—was finished in Djakarta, for the moment if not for keeps. At every government gathering, hard-faced army officers monitored the overly jolly goings on. Even President Sukarno, puffy-cheeked and perspiring, was forced onto the defensive. Warning against the danger of Indonesia's suddenly becoming pro-Western (and anti-Sukarno), he pursued one of his own quaint theories to its illogical conclusion: "If they didn't try to crush us, the Western powers wouldn't be nekolim" (a Sukarno acronym for neocolonialist imperialism).
But the army has coined its own acronym for the abortive coup d'état that killed six loyal generals and nearly toppled Sukarno. Gestapu—the initial syllables of the 30th of September Movement—is now Indonesia's vilest villain, as Sukarno's heir apparent, Foreign Minister Subandrio, learned much to his dismay. The army was now wondering if he did not have a role in the bloody coup attempt. But last week Subandrio tried to blame it all on the American CIA. "There are indications," he declared in a speech beneath tinkling glass chandeliers at Merdeka Palace, "that several Indonesian newspapers are now financed by the CIA."
Army Commander Suharto, the tough little major general who crushed the Red-led coup, called Subandrio's bluff, demanded proof of any CIA backing for the strongly nationalist newspapers that the army has allowed to publish. After a bugle-blowing mob of 3,000 Muslim youths demonstrated in front of the Foreign Ministry, Subandrio backed down. "I wish to correct my speech," the once cocky diplomat allowed. Headlined an army daily: SUBANDRIO REFUTES HIMSELF!
By then, Subandrio had earned for himself a constant military escort, and it was soon clear that he was virtually a prisoner of the army. When Indonesia's delegation to the Algiers conference of Afro-Asian foreign ministers took off, it was headed not by the Foreign Minister but by a minor official. But just how far could Indonesia's 3,500,000 Communists be pushed? As the army's anti-Red drive continued last week, the Communists began fighting back in Middle and East Java.
Members of Aidit's Partai Komunis Indonesia and its Peasants' Front cut phone lines and blocked roads with boulders and trees; whole companies of the politically doubtful Diponegoro Division deserted their barracks, apparently for the jungle-grown hills around Djokjakarta. Reports said 200 died.
Though General Suharto pleaded for his "children" to return to barracks, it seemed to many that the civil war between Reds and the army was becoming ever more likely. But then again, musharawah had a long time to run. As Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution, the real power behind the army, cautiously said last week: "The most important thing at present is that we fully realize the beastly gadding about, the personal and political ambitions, behind the coup."


TIME, Dec.3, 1965: THE LIGHT THAT FAILS

There was a time when Bogor Palace was a fun place. Indonesian President Sukarno would sweep in triumphantly from a hot-lipped harangue in downtown Djakarta, pull the black Muslim cap of leadership from his balding head, toss aside his girdle, and relax in sandals and slacks with his lovely Japanese wife Dewi. The legion of servants, the carefree dinners, the delight of being on top —all of it made Bogor a pleasure dome beyond compare. Not any longer.
Last week at Bogor, a grim-faced Sukarno recalled a dolorous notion from historian Arnold Toynbee. Said Sukarno: "A great civilization never goes down unless it destroys itself from within." Since Sukarno considers him self the embodiment of Indonesia, it was a gloomy quote indeed. Relentlessly, the Indonesian army is tightening its noose around the throat of the Partai Komunis Indonesia, and with every turn Bung Karno's beloved Nasakom—the blend of nationalism, religion and Communism that he believes is the essence of Indonesia—is dying.
Throughout the far-flung archipelago, at least 30,000 proCommunists have been arrested since the Red-led October coup attempt. According to rumors, hundreds of Red leaders have been quietly killed.
In West Java, the Moluccas and the East Celebes district military commanders last week took it upon themselves to ban local Communist parties—a move that Sukarno has been "considering" but has not yet been able to stomach. The Bung, who badly needs the Communists as a balancing force against the military, has been toying with the idea of a new nationalistic Communist Party, free of Peking's influence, that might be acceptable to the army. But many officers reject a "neo-P.K.I." Says Defense Minister Abdul Harris Nasution: "We should destroy the P.K.I., not because we are antiCommunist, but because the Communists have already betrayed the state with slaughter, torture, terrorism and treason."
Nasution and the Army Chief of Staff General Suharto are carrying their struggle to reorganize the nation beyond the mere killing of Reds. Last week the entire Indonesian price-wage structure was shaken up by what could only be army orders. Fuel, postal and railway rates were upped by roughly a factor of 100 to bring the rupiah (currently 22,500 to $1 on the black market) into realistic line. Agents hustled off to other Southeast Asian nations in search of rice for the food-short nation. Wages must still be brought up to meaningful levels, but that much-needed step could well lie in the near future.
Within the Djakarta power structure itself, the army was also cleaning house. Last week the Supreme Operations Command, called Koti in Sukarno's acronymese, was scoured of seven civilian portfolios, and the empty places were filled by soldiers. Left-leaning Foreign Minister Subandrio's seat on the council remained in doubt, but since the army suspects him of sympathy—if not involvement—with the Communists, his power is doubtless stringently curtailed.
Still the Communist Party of Indonesia is the third largest in the world (its 3,500,000 members rank just behind Red China and Russia), and the army bosses are taking no chances. To back up their firm control of military power—including, ironically, Red-supplied MIGs, patrol boats and artillery—they are busy training some 24,000 anti-Communist youths in villages from Bali to West Irian. Most of the trainees are drilling with bamboo sticks, but arms may be supplied later. All of this makes Sukarno very sad. "Other countries in Africa and Asia considered us a beacon of the New Emerging Forces," he remarked at Bogor last week. "But Subandrio has told me that our beacon has been fading recently—the beacon that earlier gave light to the world."


TIME, Dec.10, 1965: THE BUNG STANDS ALONE

No one has been more tolerant of the Communists in Indonesia than Peking-leaning Foreign Minister Subandrio. But last week Subandrio abruptly changed his tune. To the amazement and shock of an audience of university students in Djakarta, he declared that the Communists' involvement in the Sept. 30 coup was "treasonous" and "unmasked the true character of the party."
A couple of days later, he told Peking to stop meddling in Indonesia's internal affairs, declared his nation neutral in the Sino-Soviet feud and brushed off Peking's protest over sackings of Chinese shops in East Java with the remark that Indonesians had a right to be angry with the Red Chinese.
By his sudden switch, Subandrio served notice that he was through with President Sukarno and ready to side with Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution and the rest of the military brass, who are consolidating their hold on the country. Whether his move will be successful is in doubt. Many officers still suspect Subandrio of sympathy with—if not complicity in—the coup attempt, and the army shows no willingness to settle for anything less than a clean-broom housecleaning of all Reds and Red sympathizers. Stepping up its campaign' to discredit the Communists, the army last week made public the confession of the country's sixth-ranking Communist, a labor leader named Njono who was arrested two weeks ago. According to his confession, the Communists not only planned and executed the attempted coup, but also intended to assassinate President Sukarno if he opposed the council that the Reds intended to set up to rule the country.
The defection of Sukarno's top sidekick, plus the revelations of what the Reds had in store for him, would be enough to make a lesser man quake. But not Bung Karno. Though now standing virtually alone, he continues to resist the army's demands that he outlaw the Communist Party.


TIME, Dec.17, 1965: SILENT SETTLEMENT

In Djakarta last week, President Sukarno continued to resist the demands of military leaders that the Communist Party be outlawed for its sponsorship of the Sept. 30 coup attempt. Meanwhile, outside the capital in the hundreds of islands that form the Indonesian archipelago, individual army units and bands of violently anti-Communist Muslims were reportedly working to make the argument academic.
According to accounts brought out of Indonesia by Western diplomats and independent travelers, Communists, Red sympathizers and their families are being massacred by the thousands. Backlands army units are reported to have executed thousands of Communists after interrogation in remote rural jails. Muslims, whose political influence had waned as the Communists gained favor with Sukarno, had begun a "holy war" in East Java against Indonesian Reds even before the abortive September coup. Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Muslim bands crept at night into the homes of Communists, killing entire families and burying the bodies in shallow graves.
Resentment against Communists that swept the country after the coup attempt heightened the Muslims' fervor and persuaded the army to turn its head as the holy war spread quickly to western Borneo and Sumatra. In Central Java the army even gave military training to Muslim youths. The murder campaign became so brazen in parts of rural East Java that Muslim bands placed the heads of victims on poles and paraded them through villages.
The killings have been on such a scale that the disposal of the corpses has created a serious sanitation problem in East Java and northern Sumatra, where the humid air bears the reek of decaying flesh. Travelers from those areas tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with bodies; river transportation has at places been impeded.


TIME, Dec.24, 1965: THE CUTTING EDGE OF KOTI

"I don't want to be ignored," moaned President Sukarno last week. All but ignored he was, as Indonesia's high-riding soldiers relentlessly pressed their campaign to sweep Communist sympathizers out of positions of power and to reshape the nation's rickety economy.
A victim was pro-Communist Foreign Minister Subandrio, who held key positions not only in the Djakarta Cabinet's presidium, but in the Supreme Operations Command (Koti) as well.
Abruptly last week the army bounced Subandrio out of Koti, stripped him of control over Indonesia's intelligence network. Suddenly it became clear that Koti was emerging as the key controlling body of the country, with powers in every field from economics to education. And into Koti's key post stepped General Abdul Haris Nasution, Defense Minister and No. 1 military strongman.
Then came an effort to cope with Indonesia's chaotic currency. Since the coup attempt, the rupiah's black-market price has soared from 10,000 for one U.S. dollar to a still-climbing 30,000. Rice prices rocketed from 310 rupiahs per liter last summer to the current high of 2,000 rupiahs. The generals announced that over the next six months, all old rupiahs would be withdrawn from circulation and replaced by new rupiahs at a rate of one new rupiah for each 1,000 old. The move would have limited value, since the lopping off of three zeroes was a mere invitation to shopkeepers to adjust their prices accordingly, for all the government's admonitions against such action.
Koti's cutting edge would at least reduce the bulk of bank notes Indonesians have had to lug around with them. But far more was needed to revamp the entire price-wage structure and provide incentives to restore production to decaying plantations and mines. Though the peasantry survives happily enough on bananas, breadfruit and barter, few city dwellers today can make ends meet without handouts of rice, free housing and cash from their employers.
One way to aid the economy would be to end the "confrontation" with Malaysia and Singapore, a Sukarno fancy that took 20% of Indonesia's 390 billion rupiah budget last year. That the generals are thinking of terminating the expensive program of armed hostility came out fortnight ago, when the Foreign Ministry casually offered to negotiate with the states of Malaysia and with newly independent Singapore. The offer was rejected by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak as an attempt to "disintegrate the unity of Malaysia," but Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew welcomed it warmly. "Malaysia's friends may be our friends," said Lee, "but Malaysia's enemies need not be our enemies." Encouraged perhaps by Lee's response, the authoritative newspaper Indonesian Herald published an editorial reiterating Djakarta's "position of flexibility" on the confrontation issue.


TIME, Mar.4, 1966: THE BUNG’S BOUNCE

"Here I am, Sukarno, President and Great Leader of the Revolution. I will not retreat one step or even one millimeter!" There he was indeed, full of bombast and braggadocio, munching cake and sipping orangeade — and apparently back on top of the heap. After five months of submission to his anti-Communist generals, Indonesia's President last week demonstrated the reasons behind his reputation as Southeast Asia's most durable politician.
Almost as if his own position had never been in jeopardy, Sukarno blithely fired Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution, leader of the anti-Red forces that put down last October's Communist coup. He also installed a new Cabinet, some of whose members — though avowedly non-Communist — were far to the left of the generals. Nasution took the demotion quietly, but it was an ominous silence. Still loyal to him are Army Chief Suharto and the crack Siliwangi Division, elements of which moved into Djakarta last week. "We are ready to move the second Nasution gives the signal," claimed the Siliwangi's commander.
Sukarno man aged his comeback subtly. Outwardly he appeared submissive, while secretly calling in junior officers for sessions ripe with flattery and promises. The seeds of rivalry were quick to sprout. At the same time, he wooed and won Muslim groups long neglected by the government. All the while, the Bung was practicing the traditional Indonesian musjawarah, a catharsis by conversation that ultimately leads to consensus. Last week Sukarno felt it had been reached.
Whether or not Nasution's ouster sticks, it will be some time before Sukarno again feels free to court the Chinese-backed Partai Komunis Indonesia as ardently as he did before the October coup. In the first place, P.K.I. ranks have been severely depleted by anti-Communist slaughter, and surviving party members are lying low. Secondly, Sukarno knows that a return to the pro-Communist past would trigger an army coup, Nasution or no Nasution. Indonesia has accepted the decline of Communism to such an extent that even Sukarno's beloved acronym Nasakom (a combination of nationalism, religion and Communism, on which his policy is based) has been amended to Nasasos (for socialism).
Even at that, Sukarno's balance is precarious. Last week mobs of angry anti-Red students stormed through Djakarta, blocking entrances to Merdeka Palace with stolen trucks and forcing Sukarno to send helicopters to pick up his Cabinet ministers for the swearing-in ceremony. Nervous guards fired into one group, killing three students. That brought on a second mob scene, with 100,000 students—led by yellow-shirted members of the Indonesian Student Action Command (KAMI)—lining the five-mile funeral route. Sukarno retaliated by outlawing KAMI, declaring a curfew, and forbidding groups of five or more to meet in Djakarta. With that, he retreated behind machine guns to Merdeka Palace to await developments.


TIME, Mar.18, 1966: NOW YOU SEE HIM ….

Things are seldom what they seem in Indonesia. After last October's coup, rumors flew through Djakarta that President Sukarno was either dead, seriously ill, in jail or in flight. But up he bounces, like a kid's bell-bottom toy, and last month he was back issuing decrees, making speeches, and being the same old Bung. Then last week, once again, Sukarno was shoved aside by the military. Or was he?
Certainly, the generals had plenty to complain about. Indonesia's economy is a mess, proCommunists are back in the Cabinet, and Sukarno even had the effrontery to dismiss Defense Minister Abdul Haris Nasution, 47, leader of the anti-Red forces that thwarted the Communists' October coup.
When the generals let matters ride, thousands of Djakarta students—with tacit approval from the military—went on a wild, three-week rampage, sacking government ministries, pillaging the Red Chinese consulate, and clogging the streets with their demonstrations.
Through it all, the cocky, flamboyant Sukarno held to his view not to "retreat an inch or even a millimeter." He vainly outlawed all demonstrations or gatherings, banned student groups, even closed down the University of Indonesia. To keep the generals in their place, he played on military rivalries.
Yet somehow the generals came together under one man: Lieut. General Suharto, 45, who became army chief of staff last October after the attempted coup. Suharto was always personally devoted to Sukarno, though disagreeing with him on his left-leaning politics and catch-as-catch-can statesmanship. Last October, Suharto's disagreement deepened into bitterness when he saw the bodies of six anti-Communist generals killed during the coup attempt. In recent weeks, Suharto and Nasution had been huddling with ranking officers in Bandung and Djakarta, and all agreed that Sukarno had to knuckle under once and for all. Finally, last week, Suharto told the Bung that it was all over. Sukarno gave in and transferred full political power to Suharto.
Suharto moved swiftly, banning the Partai Komunis Indonesia and booting out Sukarno's pro-Communist Cabinet members. Yet at week's end, there was Sukarno, once again meeting with the military leaders. This time he was listening far more than he was talking—but he was still talking.


TIME, Mar.25, 1966: EMERGENCY TIME

Ever so politely, yet ever so firmly, Lieut. General Suharto, 45, the new strongman of Indonesia, was stripping President Sukarno of his last vestiges of power. It had to be done politely because that is the way things are done in Indonesian politics, and because Suharto still needs Sukarno as a figure head. But it had to be done firmly because the generals were now determined once and for all to oust Sukarno's strongest ally, crafty Foreign Minister Subandrio, and the rest of the pro-Communist Ministers, from the 96-man Cabinet. So day after day, the delicate minuet continued as Suharto alternated between public assurances that Sukarno was still top man and private pressure on him to give in to the army's demands.
The pressure was being applied at the Bogor summer palace, 40 miles south of Djakarta, where Sukarno, Subandrio and some 20 of the suspect Ministers were kept tightly penned in by the tanks and armored cars of the green-bereted Siliwangi Division and the tough R.P.K.A.D. paracommandos (comparable to the U.S. Special Forces). As the generals patiently shuttled back and forth to Bogor, Sukarno held them off with his celebrated command of musjawarah, the cerebral Javanese equivalent of blarney.
Out of range of his voice, however, were Djakarta's rampaging student hordes, whose loathing of Subandrio makes the generals look like his fans by comparison. Growing restive, the students hit the streets in swarms, from aging undergraduates of 26 and 27 to ten- and twelve-year-old girls, storming through pro-Communist ministries and homes, singing savage, and frequently bawdy, songs. "There is a little Peking dog called Subandrio, and he barks, gug, gug, gug," ran one of the tamer refrains. The demonstrators finally threatened to attack Sukarno's gleaming white Merdeka Palace in Djakarta, where Subandrio and some of the other Ministers had been trans ferred. There they would cut off the Ministers' heads and impale them on the spiked walls outside the palace.
Even for Indonesia, things were getting a bit out of hand. The generals decided that the time for tact was past. Machine-gun-toting troops crossed the lush lawn of the Merdeka to arrest Subandrio and 14 leftist Ministers, reportedly flung them into the grimy guardhouse at Djakarta garrison headquarters. Then Suharto announced over the Djakarta radio, which he had also seized, that he had done it "in the name of President Sukarno," to prevent the Ministers "from becoming the victims of the Indonesian people, who are becoming restless and uncontrolled."
To be on the safe side, Suharto also ordered extra troops into Djakarta's sun-baked streets, briefly closed its airport and cable office, disconnected telephone links with the outside world. Djakarta operators responded to queries with a singsong "Circuit not operating, emergency time."
Only the students continued to enjoy their customary freedom from military interference. Sukarno's third wife, beautiful Japanese Ratna Sari Dewi, 26, left her luxurious mansion for another house after students raided it and dumped garbage into her swimming pool.
At week's end Suharto named the first appointees to "Sukarno's" new half-military, half-civilian Cabinet. As senior civilian and first Deputy Premier, he chose the respected Hamengku Buwono IX, 54, Sultan of Djokjakarta in Central Java, who was a leader in Indonesia's struggle for independence while Sukarno was in jail during the late 1940s. Possibly due for a prominent post was General Abdul Haris Nasution, 47, whom Sukarno fired as Vice President just last month, and who has been acting as Suharto's behind-the-scenes adviser.
The new Foreign Minister was Adam Malik, 48, a former newsman, chief of the leftist-inclined Antara News Agency, and former ambassador to Moscow. Though a Marxist, Malik is author of a book criticizing Soviet police-state methods. Under his ministry, the new regime will most likely pursue a neutralist foreign policy somewhat to the right of Sukarno's, but probably not much warmer to the West. To be called a "pawn of the Nekolim"-Sukarno's acronym for Western imperialists-is still an insult in an Indonesia so largely shaped by Sukarno.


TIME, Apr.8, 1966: A GENERAL AT THE PALACE

It was dinner time at Merdeka Palace. There, at the round table, was President Sukarno, glaring nervously around him. There was his charming young Japanese-born wife, Ratna Sari Dewi, the hostess with the mostest in Indonesia. And there was quiet, almost shy Army Lieut. General Suharto, Indonesia's apparent new strongman, sitting on Dewi's right. As photographers clicked away, the dinner guests sipped their soup in icy silence. Not until Dewi coaxed a smile, and then a laugh, from Suharto did everyone relax.
There was reason for strain. The dinner was intended to smooth the way toward an agreement between the President and the general. But only hours earlier, Sukarno had been forced to go along with the appointment of a new military-civilian government whose key figures were picked by Suharto. A face-saving compromise, not unusual for such Javanese drama, had saved a few Sukarno associates for minor roles. But the men who would call the shots were Suharto, in charge of defense and security; brainy former Ambassador to Moscow Adam Malik, in charge of foreign affairs as well as social and political matters; and widely respected Hamengku Buwono IX, the Sultan of Djokjakarta, in charge of economic, financial and developmental affairs.
Back in the government, though not in the top rank, was General Abdul Haris Nasution, dumped by Sukarno as Defense Minister in February in a move that set the Indonesian political pot aboiling. With Suharto, impassive in open-necked khaki uniform, at his side, Sukarno himself announced the new presidium, claimed the new government would operate strictly on his direction.
One clue to where the power lay came when General Suharto took to radio and television to declare that "the people are fed up with fake leaders" and to plead for patience in the struggle for a new political and economic order. The Cabinet shakeup, Suharto said, was only the first in a series of steps "which will lead to our ultimate victory." The general's emphasis was on doing things gradually, and his plea was primarily directed toward Djakarta's restive students, who would have liked to see a bigger shake-up and who had recently begun clamoring for a cleanup of Parliament, for "social justice" and for elections.
Their demands may well be met. For the moment, however, Suharto's associates were more concerned with finding means to ease Sukarno from the scene, perhaps even into exile. Already the new government is looking for a quiet way to re-enter the United Nations, which Sukarno quit in 1965, and is sounding out other countries on the possibility of aid to strengthen Indonesia's economy. The hope is eventually to slide the island republic from its leftist posture into a genuinely non-aligned position.
All of which Indonesians seemed to like. Crowed one Djakarta paper: "The people are behind Suharto." Said another: "A new Cabinet—yes. A new program—by all means. But above all, a new way of life. To sanity."


TIME, Apr.22, 1966: REDUCING THE AURA

When President Sukarno decided to pester Malaysia with his konfrontasi, a kind of demi-war in which feints are more important than fighting, he little imagined that he would one day be the victim of his own tactic. Yet konfrontasi is just what Sukarno is experiencing at the hands of Indonesia's new triumvirate, headed by Army Lieut. General Suharto. The triumvirate still feels that Sukarno is too powerful to be openly challenged, but it is systematically reducing the aura that once surrounded him. Last week the aging (65) dictator could not pick up a newspaper, or even glance from the windows of Merdeka Palace without being exposed to new evidence that his policies were being reversed, his pet construction projects shelved, his confidants jailed, and his own reputation openly attacked.
Indonesia's relations with Sukarno's old cronies in Peking, for instance, have rapidly gone from bad to worse since last October's at tempted Communist coup. Rampaging anti-Communist students have forced so many Chinese merchants to close down and have seized so many Chinese schools that Red China last week complained to Djakarta that Indonesia stands by while "hoodlums" drag Chinese nationals to "forcible interrogations at secret torture chambers."
The only response in Djakarta was more anti-Peking outbursts—this time by Indonesians of Chinese descent who were trying to fend off the students' attack by showing where their loyalty lay. Chanting anti-Peking slogans, 40,000 of them paraded through the city. As the demonstrators cheered them on, a mob of about 2,000 broke down the heavy gate to the Chinese Embassy and stormed into the grounds. They smashed windows, tossed books and furniture onto a bonfire in the courtyard, gulped down Chinese wine and wiped the perspiration from their faces with Chinese flags. In a new protest, Peking likened the rioters to "Hitlerite hordes."
In the trial of alleged participants in the abortive Communist coup, several witnesses last week implicated Sukarno as party to the plot, in which one aim was to kill off all the military brass. The judge ordered passages concerning Sukarno suppressed, knowing full well that they would seem more credible when they leaked out. The government next month will bring to trial ex-Foreign Minister Subandrio, whose evidence, say examining army officers, will openly link Sukarno to the Communist conspiracy.
As part of a campaign to discredit Sukarno further in Indonesian eyes, an Army newspaper ran sections from his latest autobiography, which Sukarno did in collaboration with his adoring chronicler Cindy Adams, under such true-to-text headlines as I LOVE ART, I LOVE WOMEN, BUT MOST OF ALL I LOVE MYSELF.
The most telling indictment of Sukarno was made on the grounds of his past economic policies by Deputy Premier Hamengku Buwono IX, the Sultan of Jogjakarta, who is the third man in the triumvirate with Suharto and Foreign Minister Adam Malik. Indonesia owes $2.4 billion to foreign creditors, said the sultan, and faces economic collapse unless it receives foreign aid. Its economy is so inflated that prices may rise 1,000% this year.
The sultan reversed Sukarno's socialism by inviting new foreign investment and a strengthening of the private sector, also called for a halt to grandiose building projects. Taking him at his word, workers walked off their jobs at the $27 million skyscraper complex that was to house Sukarno's Committee for Emerging Forces, a sort of United Nations of the underdeveloped countries.
While the actions are clear enough, the words coming out of Indonesia are still often contradictory, partly because Sukarno continues to boast that he is boss and partly because the triumvirate has to indulge in a doubletalk as long as he is around.
Last week Foreign Minister Malik announced that Djakarta would recognize Singapore, adding that it was "a measure to intensify konfrontasi with Malaysia"—even though it is clearly a gesture in the opposite direction. Malik says that Indonesia will rejoin the United Nations; Sukarno insists that "Indonesia will never go back until the U.N. is changed." Nonetheless, the triumvirate seems willing to let Sukarno keep talking as long as he does not interfere, hoping that he will finally become so discredited that he can be eased into exile.


TIME, May 27, 1966: TIGHTENING THE NOOSE

Sukarno was looking more and more like the old Bung (brother). At a press conference, he playfully tweaked the nose of a reporter, tried on another correspondent's sunglasses, fiddled with a photographer's camera, and ordered General Abdul Haris Nasution, whom he had fired as Defense Minister last February, to help a female reporter down from a railing. "There is no new light in Indonesia," Sukarno beamed with all his old familiar wattage. "There is the same light." Strolling out of a meeting of his Crush Malaysia Command, he shrugged off the army's talk of peace and snapped that "confrontation will continue with Malaysia, both political and military."
For all his bluff and bluster, Sukarno was increasingly out of date. Already overruled by Indonesia's new chiefs was the konfrontasi that Bung Karno invented. Last week Foreign Minister Adam Malik, who has the army's backing, agreed to meet in Bangkok with Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak. Malik's purpose: to end the foolish fight with Malaysia. Though Sukarno angrily advised Malik not to go abroad, Malik seemed set on his course. "The confrontation of the people's stomachs," he said, "is more important than any other confrontation."
Sukarno, in fact, was being overruled on all sides. Day by day, Indonesia's tough little Army General Suharto was picking up the threads of government and weaving them into a noose that could eventually drag Sukarno into retirement or exile—once Suharto consolidates his strength.
With tacit but clear approval from the military, Indonesian students continued to roam Djakarta's hot, humid streets, chanting shrill slogans, waving signs, and daubing threats on walls, shop windows and automobiles—demanding that the long-postponed Provisional Peoples Consultative Congress convene by June 1. The students want Congress to strip Sukarno of his President-for-life title, call new elections, and provide for a return to parliamentary rule.
After several stormy days in the streets, one group of students called on the Sultan of Jogjakarta, Suharto's economics chief, and learned that Congress would likely convene in July, well before Sukarno's customary Independence Day policy speech on Aug. 17.
If new elections are called, Sukarno might suddenly find a lot of old enemies running for parliamentary seats. Last week the military released 15 top political prisoners who had been jailed four years ago, and more were expected to follow. Last week's group included two onetime Foreign Ministers, the former chairman of the anti-Communist League of Democracy and the editor of Indonesia Raya, a hard-hitting newspaper that was banned in 1958 after revealing a series of government scandals. No sooner was Editor Mochtar Lubis free than he announced plans for reopening the paper. "It is more true now than ever before," he said, "that the country needs a good, honest, critical press."


TIME, June 3, 1966: MISSION TO MALAYSIA

They were ranking members of Indonesia's "Crush Malaysia" Command, and their C-130 Hercules turboprop was speeding toward the capital of their enemy. But it was not another act of war in the three-year konfrontasi with Malaysia. Instead, the Indonesian officers came on a mission of peace. Stepping from the plane at Kuala Lumpur, they exchanged embraces with waiting Malaysian officials, then were driven to meet Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak for breakfast and talks. Declared Razak after the meeting: "The visit has created a very congenial and happy atmosphere. You can begin to see the ending of the confrontation."
Thus last week Indonesia's military seized the initiative in ending the costly demiwar with its neighbor. The mission to Malaysia, which had been kept secret in Djakarta, further undercut President Sukarno's already weakened position. Sukarno had apparently hoped to persuade the military to reverse the policy of Foreign Minister Adam Malik, who has been openly demanding an end to konfrontasi. But the fact that the "Crush Malaysia" commanders themselves undertook an independent peace mission seemed to demolish that hope. The military's action, in fact, buttresses Malik's position as he leaves this week for Bangkok to begin formal talks with Abdul Razak for bringing peace between the two countries.
On other fronts, there was equally bad news for the fading Sukarno last week:
¶New Economics Boss Hamengku Buwono IX, the Sultan of Jogjakarta, flew to Tokyo to make his bid for $100 million in emergency loans and credit, announced that the new regime had decided to rejoin such Sukarno-hated institutions as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.
¶In West Java, political-action groups representing Indonesian students and other civic organizations joined forces to demand that the Provisional People's Consultative Congress fire Sukarno as the nation's lifetime President, call elections to replace him.
¶In Djakarta, 35,000 students demonstrated for two successive days against Sukarno, returned to their classrooms only when Deputy Premier Lieut. General Suharto promised that the Consultative Congress would be called into session this month—and hinted broadly that it would indeed sharply reduce the President's powers.


TIME, June 10, 1966: AN UPROAR OF PEACE

Champagne glasses clinked in Bangkok last week. At long last, Indonesia's konfrontasi with Malaysia was over. It had taken the Deputy Premiers of the two Muslim nations only three glowing days together to resolve most of their differences, agree on "practical steps to restore friendly relations," and call off the three-year war that had given all of Southeast Asia the jitters. "It is a moving spectacle," beamed Thailand's Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman, who had sponsored the talks, "to see estranged friends shake hands again and even embrace."
What Indonesia's Adam Malik and Malaysia's Abdul Razak actually signed last week fell considerably short of the official peace treaty for which Malaysia had hoped. It was, rather, a limited declaration of intent—which, at Indonesian insistence, would have to be ratified at home before it became official. This, Malik was frank to admit, was merely to avoid agitating President Sukarno, who has lost most of his former power but still holds out against peace with his old enemy. Besides, Malik explained, "our people have been led to crush Malaysia for the past three years by the former regime. It takes time for us to prepare them to accept the new situation."
Impressed by Malik's obvious good will, the Malaysians accepted his reasoning without question. At a press conference, Razak waved off the doubters with a single sentence: "You may think it a strange way of doing things, but it is our way—the Asian way." And, in fact, there was every indication that his faith was justified. In Djakarta, the Indonesian government suddenly called a halt to its long propaganda barrage against Malaysia, followed that up by recalling its Fifth Mandao Brinof Brigade from the Malaysian border with the explanation that the "physical and technical" confrontation against "a foreign country" had ended. It was an expensive affair while it lasted. Britain alone spent $1.7 billion and was forced to send 50,000 troops and 70 warships to defend her former colony from the incursions of Sukarno, and the war all but wrecked Indonesia's stagnant economy.
The end of konfrontasi was cause enough for celebration, but its side effects were almost miraculous. Suddenly last week an uproar of peace noises echoed all over the Far East. In addition to its agreement with Malaysia, Indonesia unexpectedly announced recognition of Singapore. In Manila, the Philippines suddenly dropped its claims to Sabah in North Borneo, established diplomatic relations with Malaysia. In Tokyo, Japan agreed to an emergency $30 million loan to Indonesia, offered to bring all her international creditors together in a "Tokyo Club" to ease the pressures on Indonesia's economy. In Bangkok, Foreign Minister Thanat even hinted that Thailand was anxious to end its long-festering feud with Cambodia.
Amid the peace talks came the first tentative steps toward establishing an Asian common market. As long as Sukarno was free to play the spoiler, not even smaller regional organizations such as the proposed "Maphilindo" union of Malaya, the Philippines and Indonesia had any chance at all of getting off the ground. But last week Indonesia's Deputy Premier Malik was openly courting an invitation to join the newly revived Association of Southeast Asia, which could link the economies of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. Next week the foreign ministers of nine Far Eastern nations will gather in Seoul to hammer out a wider economic compact. What did Sukarno think of it all? Under the watchful eye of Army Strongman Lieut. General Suharto, the Bung had little to say. "I remain silent in a thousand tongues," he told a nationwide radio audience.


TIME, July 1, 1966: THE UNMAKING OF A PRESIDENT

Trumpets blared. President Sukarno entered the Bung Karno Sports Palace and strode down the red-carpeted aisle with an honor guard of military police. He wore one of his crisp white uniforms with gold braid. On all sides of him, applauding ceremoniously, stood the 546 members of the Provisional People's Consultative Congress, his nation's highest legislative body. Ratna Sari Dewi, his lovely young Japanese wife, smiled down from the diplomatic box. When he mounted the platform and took his seat, three military aides appeared with orange juice, tea, and his eyeglasses. When he rose to speak, they popped up behind him to hand him his text a few pages at a time.
The Congress had once been Sukarno's rubber stamp, but it was in session last week for the purpose of formalizing the destruction of his power. Presiding over the assembly when the Bung got up to speak was General Abdul Haris Nasution, whom he had fired as Defense Minister only four months before; Nasution had just been unanimously elected chairman of the Congress. Seated next to the podium was Lieut. General Suharto, to whom Sukarno had been forced to relinquish emergency powers in March. Suharto had just been unanimously confirmed by the Congress as the effective head of the government. About all that was left before the Congress was whether to strip Sukarno of his title, which was about all he had left.
In the sports palace which bears his name, Bung Karno stood listlessly onstage. His speech had been censored by the military, and he read it off in a monotone. He admitted that Congress could call elections to decide whether he remained President for life, or President at all. "For almost 40 years I have dedicated myself to the service of freedom," said the Bung, clutching the microphone stand. "I continue praying to Allah to be given the strength to continue serving the nation." Sukarno's speech got just five seconds of polite applause, for the delegates were anxious to get on with their business. After Sukarno left the podium and was whisked away in his motorcade, member after member took the microphone to urge Congress to reconsider all its previous decisions "deviating from the Constitution." The Constitution, they pointed out, does not entitle anyone to be President for life.


TIME, Aug.5, 1966: STREAMLINED CABINET

For weeks, President Sukarno had resisted the new regime's efforts to replace his unwieldy, 100-man Cabinet in favor of a smaller body with lots of new faces. Day after day, the discussions dragged on as the Bung struggled to retain some vestige of his former power. If General Suharto wanted the premier ship of the new Cabinet, argued Sukarno, he would have to resign as the army commander, and on no account was the foreign ministry to remain in the hands of Adam Malik, the ardent advocate of an end to Sukarno's beloved confrontation with Malaysia.
Last week Sukarno finally announced the new Cabinet — and it was clear that Suharto had once again had his way. The streamlined model had 29 members, and Suharto was not only chairman of its powerful, five-man inner presidium, but also army boss and defense minister. Malik was in the presidium, together with the third member of the reigning triumvirate, Sultan Hamengku Buwono IX of Jogjakarta. Suharto's quiet triumph had not been with out its compromises. Two of Sukarno's most ineffectual and most obsequious plin-plan (yes) men had been dropped from the presidium, but as a face-saving gesture to Sukarno, it still included two politicians who, while less resented, are nonetheless supporters of the Bung. These two, together with the Sultan, who is economics minister, will oversee 15 Cabinet ministries in charge of trade, economic development and welfare — all of which desperately need far more expert guidance than the com promise appointees are likely to provide.
Sukarno himself lost no time in demonstrating that he still considers himself the voice of Djakarta. After swearing in the new Cabinet at the Negara Palace, he gleefully kicked off his shoes, stepped up to a microphone and reassured 200 diplomats and newsmen that he was still in charge. Suharto, said Sukarno, was merely taking instructions from him; there had been no "transfer of authority." On top of that, "The confrontation against Malaysia will continue." Malik and Suharto listened impassively to the tirade. Afterward, they quietly let it be known that the way would soon be clear for the signing of a formal truce with Kuala Lumpur.


TIME, Sept.9, 1966: WHO’S ON TRIAL?

I WAS INSTRUCTED BY THE PRESIDENT, read the headline in a Djakarta newspaper. The words heralded the testimony of onetime Central Bank Minister Jusuf Muda Dalam, 52, who last week became the first of President Sukarno's former Cabinet members to be put on trial by the new regime of General Suharto.
Jusuf was charged with just about everything, from having six wives—two more than the Islamic law allows—to embezzling $10 million from the country's treasury. But the intent of the trial seemed broader than simply bringing Jusuf to justice. It apparently marked the start of a campaign by Indonesia's new rulers to undermine Sukarno's in fluence by linking him to his ministers' misdeeds. For one thing, the prosecution charged that Sukarno had encouraged Jusuf to use his influence with importers to collect "contributions" for Sukarno's Fund of the Republic, which had financed the construction of prestige projects. And from a witness came testimony that the Bung had ordered him to hand over a luxurious house to a voluptuous film star.
In a sense, Sukarno himself had triggered the trial by becoming so assertive in recent weeks. At last month's Independence Day celebration, Sukarno flatly denounced the new regime's decision to rejoin the United Nations and to end konfrontasi with Malaysia, and called for a return to his old policies. His defiance stirred his followers in Bandung to attack anti-Sukarno student groups, killing one anti-Sukarno youth, and setting off retaliatory riots in Djakarta. Fearful that people-packed Java (pop. 70 million) might erupt in full-scale riots, General Suharto ordered the Djakarta students to cool it and started the trials instead.
Whether the former bank chief's disclosures would tarnish Sukarno's image with the Indonesian masses is questionable. But General Suharto was patient. Scheduled for trial are 14 more former Cabinet members, including onetime Deputy Premier Subandrio, who, say military investigators, masterminded the plot with Sukarno's support—to steer Indonesia into Peking's camp via last October's abortive Communist coup.


TIME, Oct.12, 1966: THE MAN ON TRIAL

It was a year to the day after the abortive coup that was meant to hand Indonesia over to Communism. Now the anti-Communist army officers who put down the revolt were preparing to show the nation just who had been responsible. Before a military court sat a lean little man whose only name was Subandrio. He had been President Sukarno's Foreign Minister, secret-police boss and closest confidant. Last week Subandrio was on trial for his life.
The charge was treason, and the testimony proved fascinating. So nervous that he often mumbled incoherently, the once-glib Subandrio admitted to a secret meeting with Chou En-lai in January of last year, in which the Red Chinese Premier had offered weapons to arm 100,000 Indonesian workers and peasants. He also admitted that he had learned that the Communist coup was in the wind but neglected to tell Sukarno about it. Why? Subandrio assumed that the President already knew. Besides, he confessed, "I have an inferiority complex about telling such things to the President."
As the prosecutor's questions made clear, Subandrio was not the only one on trial. The government's real aim in hauling him before the court, in fact, was to implicate Sukarno in the plot. So far, Subandrio had managed to avoid this, but only barely. "It's only a matter of time," said a top government officer. "If Subandrio gets up and says he was just following orders of the President—well, that's all."
Sukarno had already been tried and convicted by the mobs that clogged Djakarta's streets last week. Once again, the vocal anti-Communist student organizations ignored pleas of the generals to wait for the trial to indict Sukarno. "Court-martial Sukarno!" cried the youngsters. They tried to invade Sukarno's presidential palace three times, were finally driven back only when troops attacked them with fixed bayonets and rifle butts.
The events of the week had a visible effect on Sukarno. Although he still refused to condemn the Communists, he was nervous enough to allow in a speech to his countrymen that, in a general way, what had happened last October had been "treason.”


TIME, Nov.4, 1966: FRIEND IN NEED

“Sometimes, late at night, I phone Subandrio, and I say, "Bandrio, come and sit with me, keep me company, talk to me of silly things, tell me a joke, say anything as long as it's not political. And if I fall asleep, please forgive me."
—Sukarno's autobiography (1965)
The court-martial of the man who spent so many of his nights putting Sukarno to sleep came to its inevitable end last week. After three weeks of testimony, a military tribunal in Djakarta found Dr. Subandrio—who for nine years was the President's closest confidant and Indonesia's second most powerful man—guilty of treason. The specific charges included complicity in last year's attempted Communist coup, subverting post-coup efforts to restore order, and embezzling $500,000 in government funds. The evidence, admittedly, was mostly circumstantial.
"His actions have marred the Indonesian revolution," declared Lieut. Colonel Ali Said, president of the nine-man military tribunal. "The court sees nothing in his favor, no cause for leniency. His testimony was a series of lies." So saying, Said rapped his gavel three times and pronounced sentence: death by firing squad.
Subandrio is not dead yet. Under Indonesian law, he was given 30 days to submit a clemency plea to the President, a title his old friend Sukarno still holds. Despite friendship and title, Bung Karno is not in much of a position to save Subandrio. For the object of the trial, as Indonesians are well aware, was to discredit the Bung himself. Subandrio managed to avoid implicating Sukarno directly in the Communist plot, but his main defense was that his subversive acts were all carried out in the line of duty—and the line had been set by Sukarno. Due to start later this month is the trial of former Air Vice Marshal Omar Dani, chief of the Air-Force. From his testimony may come the answer to an intriguing question: What was Sukarno doing at Halim airbase, headquarters of the plotters, when the coup was launched? With dark suspicions hanging over his head, Sukarno might not be able to do anything more for Subandrio. He can say anything he pleases, and talk of silly things, but he must be very careful about doing anything political.


TIME, Jan.6, 1967: A SENTENCE OF DEATH, A SENTENCE OF ADVICE

When Indonesia's Communists attempted a coup in September of 1965, General Omar Dani was commander of his country's MIG-equipped air force. As a Communist sympathizer, he allowed Halim Airbase near Djakarta to be used as headquarters and staging area for the plot; in turn, he was promised that he would eventually become chief of state. But the plot was smashed by the Indonesian army, and Dani, along with Foreign Minister Subandrio and other top government officials, was put in jail on charges of treason. Subandrio was tried by a military court and sentenced to death in October. On the day before Christmas, Dani got his: after three weeks of testimony before another military court, he too was sentenced to death.
As in the Subandrio trial, much of the evidence against Dani suggested that President Sukarno himself had known about, condoned, and even taken part in the attempted coup. Dani's trial, like Subandrio's, brought renewed demands from Indonesia's anti-Communist professional and student associations that Sukarno himself be removed from his position as President and brought to court. The father of his country, however, seemed unfazed.
Last week, in a brief ceremony at his summer palace in the mountain resort of Bogor, Sukarno calmly swore in one of his old leftist cronies, Suwito Kusumowidagdo, as Ambassador to the U.S. The appointment hardly pleased the military regime, which now claims most of the power in Indonesia, and it raised eyebrows in Washington. The Bung's only answer was a sentence of advice to his new ambassador: "Tell them that Sukarno is still President of Indonesia and that he is the man who sent you there."


TIME, Jan.20, 1967: FINAL DRIVE?

Who should be tried? Sukarno!
Who is our enemy? Sukarno!
Who is the new-style pharaoh? Sukarno!
This taunting tune is the latest hit song in Djakarta, and 6,000 students sang it lustily last week as they marched through the capital's streets in camouflage shirts. They were celebrating the first anniversary of the student demonstrations that thrust General Suharto and his colleagues into power as Indonesia's rulers. The appearance of the song also marked the start of what, his enemies hope, will be a final drive to oust Sukarno, 65, the long-revered bapak (father) of Indonesia's revolution and the country's ruler for 22 years.
Many Indonesians suspect Sukarno of complicity in the abortive Communist coup of October 1965, during which six nationalist, non-Communist generals were murdered. Last week, after six months of scornful silence, Sukarno finally replied to a demand from the People's Congress that he explain his role in the coup. "Why am I the only one who is asked to render an account?" he snorted in outraged innocence. Sukarno tersely blamed the coup on "the wrong way" taken by Indonesian Communist leaders, on "the cunning" of imperialism, and on "the fact that there were persons who were nuts." He lamely suggested that Congress President Abdul Haris Nasution, the former Defense Minister who barely escaped with his life during the coup, should also answer questions regarding responsibility for the October uprising.
Nasution's response was to announce the launching of an investigation of Sukarno's involvement in the coup. The announcement coincided neatly with the capture of a key man in the coup, Brigadier General Supardjo, who was conveniently caught last week near Halim Air Force Base, where the six murdered generals were mutilated and buried. Indonesia's new leaders hope that Supardjo's testimony will link Sukarno to the coup leaders.
If his complicity is proved, what could Indonesia do to Sukarno? One possibility is hospitalization. Already some leaders are suggesting that Sukarno may be mentally ill; during a recent shopping tour, for example, he embarrassed the salesgirls with lengthy inquiries about contraceptives, adding bluntly that "homemade ones are easily damaged." Exile is another; Sukarno's youngest wife Dewi is in Tokyo awaiting the birth of a child next month, and Sukarno might make an exit on the grounds of paternal duty. If he does leave Indonesia, the odds are against his returning.


TIME, Feb.24, 1967: BUILDING PRESSURE

While the world's press reported a flurry of actions aimed at toppling him from power, Indonesia's President Sukarno held court last week in Merdeka Palace like a man who had hardly a worry in the world. Perched on an overstuffed settee and flanked by petite girl reporters, he discoursed for three straight hours before a group of correspondents, including TIME'S Frank McCulloch, the only American present. Posturing, mugging and frequently guffawing, he waxed alternately boastful and coy, intense and nostalgic, recalling at one point his 1956 trip "to that strange land, the United States of America." "I do not need a grand desk to sign important state papers," he announced. "I sign them right here on my knee." Humming all the while, he then signed a paper to prove it.
To a Japanese correspondent who had predicted that Sukarno would soon go into voluntary exile, Sukarno gibed: "Am I in Japan now? I am here and you are here, but soon"—"here he drew his fingers across his own neck—"you may have no throat. I am going to continue to work hard for a socialist society. There is enough here for everyone, but we must learn to share it equally." Did the President have any travel plans? "Yes," snapped Sukarno with a swish of his silver-mounted swagger stick, "I am going to the moon." That drew a wry rejoinder from Foreign Minister Adam Malik, seated near by. "It is impossible," said Malik. "I have not approved his visa." Malik, roared Sukarno, was quite "a jokester."
Malik and the other members of Indonesia's ruling triumvirate, General Suharto and the Sultan of Jogjakarta, have been trying for months to ease Sukarno out of the country. Turn by turn, they have gradually increased the pressure until last week it seemed as if Sukarno could hardly bear it any longer. All 21 parties in the House of Representatives signed a request to make General Suharto, the leader of the triumvirate, President in Sukarno's place. Even Sukarno's own Indonesian Nationalist Party urged him to step down while the stepping was safe, and one military man after another came to the palace to urge the same move on him.
Students, labor unions and other organizations continued to demonstrate against him. Thousands of students paraded silently through Djakarta's streets carrying effigies of Sukarno facing a noose.
In four days of marathon sessions before Sukarno's press conference, the triumvirate had pleaded with him to leave voluntarily. Suharto and his colleagues pointed out that he might have to be brought to trial on charges that he encouraged the abortive Communist coup of 1965. The verdict might well be guilty, and the sentence death. They reminded him that they were already armed with a parliamentary resolution demanding his ouster. At one point, Sukarno broke down and wept, pleading that he be given "a chance to die in my home country." But he recovered next day, presented the triumvirate with unacceptable demands.
The triumvirate is going slow because Sukarno is, after all, the only President Indonesia has ever known, and as such retains a great deal of public sympathy, especially in populous Java and among the tough Indonesian marines. Instead of taking any precipitate action that might cause civil war, the triumvirate has tried gradually to discredit Sukarno and erode his popularity. It would like to avoid a trial, hoping that Sukarno will eventually leave under pressure. Suharto intends to see to it that the pressure continues to build. He himself supervised the preparation of a scalding 120-page document, not yet made public, that reportedly establishes Sukarno's connection with the Communist coup, charges him with corruption and moral turpitude, and accuses him of destroying the Indonesian economy.


TIME, Mar.3, 1967: NOW HE’S GOING NOW HE ISN’T

On the surface at least, it seemed that Indonesia's President Sukarno had finally fallen from power. In a ten-minute session with his Cabinet, the man who had won independence in 1945 for the chain of islands that once were the Dutch East Indies sullenly transferred his administrative powers to Army General Suharto, 49, the anti-Communist leader of the "New Order" force of generals that has brought Indonesia back into the real world. Yet Sukarno, like most Indonesians, is a master of the intricate, interminable puppet play called wayang, which can go on for hours without reaching a climax. Last week it was wayang all the way.
The turnover was obviously a compromise between Sukarno and the ruling triumvirate led by Suharto. Suharto had earlier called together his generals, used charts like a busy board chairman to show how Sukarno had been involved in the unsuccessful 1965 Communist coup and how his policies had damaged Indonesia.
He had a harder time convincing some of his "hawk" generals, who would like to see Sukarno ousted and put on trial, that a gradual easing out of Sukarno is the only way to avoid civil strife. Under the compromise, after all, Sukarno won time to continue his maneuvering, which is aimed at splitting the New Order forces and regaining a measure of power.
Sukarno, in fact, not only retains his title of President but his post as supreme commander of Indonesia's 352,000-man military establishment. That point came through with ominous clarity during the trial last week of Army Brigadier General Mustafa Sjarif Supardjo, a leader of the Communist coup forces who met with Sukarno at Halim Air Force Base outside the capital of Djakarta on the day of the attempted coup. According to the indictment that was brought against Supardjo, evidence from the scene where six anti-Red generals were brutally murdered told of Sukarno slapping Supardjo on the shoulder and warning him darkly: "Beware. If you fail, I'll cut your throat."
Other evidence from such figures as former Foreign Minister Subandrio (sentenced to death last October for his role in the coup) has tied Sukarno to the plot. Many Indonesians, including the militant members of KAMI and KAPPI, the student organizations that originally challenged the Communists, feel that Sukarno should stand trial. A meeting of the People's Congress this week could strip him of his title. But Sukarno still holds the loyalty of many Javanese, along with some elements of the police, marines and navy—and Suharto is willing to let him save face so long as he behaves in his new, underpowered role of President-without-portfolio. Already Suharto has quietly appealed to his associates to find a way of getting the People's Congress to avoid the unpleasant word "remove" in any resolution that it may finally decide to pass about Sukarno.


TIME, Mar.24, 1967: THE NEW ORDER

At long last, after months of delays and confusion, Indonesia's Sukarno was removed as his country's chief of state. The People's Consultative Congress, Indonesia's highest legislative body, stripped him of his presidential powers and turned them over to General Suhar to, the strongman who already exercised them in fact.
Indonesia reacted with unexpected calm to the fall of Sukarno, who declared Indonesia's independence from The Netherlands in 1945 and has reigned as sole ruler for 22 years. The golden presidential flag no longer flew from his Bogor Palace outside Djakarta, to which Sukarno retired last week to await the return of his Japanese wife Ratna Sari Dewi, 27, from Tokyo, where she recently gave birth to a daughter.
Almost overnight, his picture disappeared from government offices. Sukarno will henceforth be referred to only as "Doctor Engineer" Sukarno, in deference to his academic training, will not be allowed to travel inside or outside the country without Suharto's permission.
Foreign Minister Adam Malik explained why Sukarno must move out of the ornate, white Merdeka (Freedom) Palace in Djakarta: "It is like a former government servant staying in a government house." But General Suharto, who does not want to give Sukarno's backers reason to rebel, is in no rush to go too far in punishing him, himself prefers to continue living in his modest one-story house. "Let him keep his ornaments," says Suharto. "What harm does it do?" As he was sworn in as Indonesia's new chief executive last week, Suharto continued that note of reasonableness and compromise: "Winners are we all. Neither group has been defeated in this Congress, nor has one been victorious. It is the people's interest that has won. The winner is the New Order."
The first task of the New Order is to clean up the incredible economic mess that Sukarno has made of Indonesia. As a Dutch colony before World War II, Indonesia supplied one-fifth of the world's tea, one-third of its rubber and palm oil, two-fifths of its kapok and four-fifths of its pepper. Scattered throughout Indonesia's 3,000 verdant islands are rich mineral deposits —gold, tin, bauxite, tungsten—and oil reserves. "Indonesia is rich in natural resources," says Suharto, "but the damage done to our country's economy has been severe."
After the Dutch departure, the riches were left largely untouched while Sukarno pursued what he called "mental investments"—big prestige projects that he built by borrowing or just by having his central bank crank out billions of new rupiahs. Djakarta is a monstrous monument to Sukarno's excesses. The opulent Hotel Indonesia, where a full-sized orchestra sometimes plays to a handful of guests, stands like an ocean liner moored in a cesspool. Thousands of gawking Indonesians stream through the Sarinah department store (named for Sukarno's childhood nurse) to view goods that they cannot afford, including chewing gum at 700 a pack and Ronson lighters at $20. Amid the shacks and open canals, in which the impoverished populace both bathes and relieves itself, stand the rusty skeletons of unfinished skyscrapers and the crumbling concrete shells of uncompleted conference halls—symbols of Sukarno's megalomaniacal dream of turning the city into the capital of the underdeveloped world.
All Sukarno actually accomplished was to bring his once rich land to the edge of ruin and total bankruptcy. His print-now, pay-never policies caused the postwar world's worst inflation, which has sent the Indonesian cost of living up an incredible 80,000% in the past six years. More than 40% of the national airline's planes are unflyable for lack of spare parts.
The country owes $2.3 billion in foreign debts, has no financial reserves and next to no credit. Its exports have plummeted, its industries are operating far below capacity, and unemployment is massive among its 107 million people. Can Indonesia be saved? Suharto believes that, with Sukarno gone, it can. His economic advisers—mostly bright, young, Western-educated men—have already taken such emergency steps as halting all "show building" construction, balancing the 1967 budget to try to rein in inflation, tightening credit and arranging for a stretched-out schedule for the repayment of foreign debts.
But Indonesia badly needs outside technical aid and foreign investments to turn its potential riches into reality. Many foreign firms, including several American ones, are already negotiating with Suharto to come in. Many more can now be expected to follow. To encourage them, Suharto's men have introduced a new tax-exemption law for foreign enterprises, and are beginning to return companies seized during Sukarno's days to their rightful owners.


TIME, Aug.18, 1967: SPORTS-SHIRT DIPLOMACY

The Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore arrived in Bangkok ready to join with Thailand in the serious business of creating a new, five-nation economic alliance. But Host Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman decreed pleasure before business. He whisked the diplomats off to the nearby seaside resort of Bang Saen for two preconference days of golf and conviviality. It was a shrewd move. By the time the ministers sat down last week for their formal deliberations, everyone had done so much private lobbying, a consensus had already emerged. "We'd all been so busy implanting ideas in the minds of others in private conversations," said one delegate, "that we didn't know whether it was finally our idea turning up in another version—or someone else's."
The combined ideas added up to a determination to create an alliance for trade, aid and economic harmonizing that may eventually lead to a more farreaching customs union of the five. The first joint efforts will include such modest projects as tourist promotion and cooperative fishing and shipping enterprises. The new alliance differs from such earlier Asian nonmilitary groupings as the Asian Productivity Organization, Association for Southeast Asia, and Asian and Pacific Council in that it includes Indonesia—the largest and potentially the richest nation in Southeast Asia. And though South Viet Nam was not included because of the war, the five left the door open for other nations to join, when their desires and domestic conditions permit.
So effective was Khoman's sports-shirt diplomacy that the five's remaining stumbling block was what to call their creation. The logical first choice was SEAARC, for Southeast Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, but Filipino tongues stumbled over the construction. Those agile acronymists, the Indonesians, came to the rescue with ASEAN—and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was christened.
The contagion of cooperation was not limited to Southeast Asia. Even as ASEAN was being born, Japan met one of the toughest tests of its regional role in the Northwest Pacific, by agreeing to $270 million in credits to finance South Korea's second five-year plan and the purchase of ships and fishing equipment. The Koreans, who still remember long, painful years of Japanese colonial rule, reciprocated in a way that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: they agreed to conduct the talks in Japanese.


TIME, Oct.20, 1967: A FIRMER HAND

Compared with the swaggering Sukarno, whom he replaced last year as Indonesia's top man, General Suharto is a cautious and colorless fellow—which is just what Indonesia needs. He rules Indonesia with such quiet modesty and attention to detail that his advisers have been constantly prodding him to make more speeches and exert more power.
Last week Suharto showed that he can act as forcefully, if not as flamboyantly, as Sukarno. In what he mildly called "a redressing," he announced his first big Cabinet shakeup, a move that consolidated his own power and clearly reflected his confident control of the country.
To end interservice squabbling in the military, which in recent months has even led to armed clashes between units, he stripped the four armed forces chiefs of their ministerial rank and put them under his direct control. In response to talk of corruption, bungling and disloyalty, he replaced several suspect ministers with competent technicians loyal to him. He retained the Sultan of Jogjakarta as economics chief and Adam Malik as Foreign Minister, but dissolved the old inner Cabinet, so that all ministers must now report directly to him. He kept for himself the posts of Acting President and Defense Minister, and he obviously does not consider the jobs temporary: he announced that the general elections scheduled for next July will probably not be held before 1970.
Indonesia's main problems are economic, and in that area Suharto has begun to make a major impact. He has assembled the best men available to doctor the economy and given them freedom to act. They have managed to cut inflation, for example, from 600% in 1965 to 60% this year. Suharto is particularly anxious to open the way for more private foreign investment, as well as to create a climate that will encourage other nations to grant loans.
Japan's Premier Eisaku Sato, the highest ranking official visitor to Djakarta since Sukarno's downfall, found the atmosphere there so encouraging last week that Japan may provide a third of Indonesia's goal of $600 million in foreign credits for next year.
The economic problem is complicated by Indonesian antagonism toward the country's 3,000,000 Chinese, who control some 70% of the country's businesses. After the Peking-inspired attempt to grab Indonesia by coup, the Indonesian public turned on the Chinese in their midst in a bitter pogrom, thus further upsetting the country's frail economy. Outside big cities and district capitals, Chinese may no longer own businesses. Chinese schools have been closed, Chinese organizations ordered disbanded and Chinese papers banned except for two run by the government. "There are too many of them," says Foreign Minister Malik, "so it is impossible to repatriate them." Instead, Suharto has set up a special bureau to deal with the problem, hopes eventually to gain the loyalty of the Chinese.
Pressured by anti-Communist rioting by students, who have attacked the Chinese in Djakarta, Suharto's government is threatening to suspend relations with China. But it has not yet made the move, and neither side really wants to go that far (Indonesia has also kept up its relations with Hanoi). Premier Sato last week urged Suharto to hang on to the present arrangement, which, even if it produces only an exchange of angry notes, at least keeps open the lines of communication.


TIME, Nov.17, 1967: THE BLOSSOMING OF PAK HARTO

Indonesia's students helped put Acting President Suharto into power, and since then have eagerly kept an eye on his government. Relations have been fairly smooth; the students have even taken to calling him "Pak Harto"—Father Harto. Last week, however, several thousand students marched on the President's office for the first time since Suharto took over, bristling with anger about the rising price of rice. Suharto, who has always been considered a shy and reticent man, went out to meet them, listened briefly to their complaints and then told them off much as he would have any of his own six children. "I am responsible for everything," he told them. "I can assure you we are all doing our level best, but running this country is like running a big family that is short of money. Be patient. Never move just because of your passions. If you do so, I will act against you. If shouting alone would bring down the price of rice, I would join you. I would even shout ten times louder, until my voice became hoarse. But the thing we have to do is work hard." Suharto's performance won over the students, who cheered him, joined him in chanting national slogans and then peacefully dispersed.
The street scene was the most dramatic display yet of Suharto's blossoming as a strongwilled, articulate leader. Last month he showed a deft touch at power politics with a Cabinet reshuffle that put the feuding military directly under his control and effectively dissolved the old ruling triumvirate in which he had shared power with Foreign Minister Adam Malik and the Sultan of Jogjakarta. Now Suharto is burnishing his style as well as his tactics.
The general has doffed his bemedaled uniform for casual mufti in order to soften his military image, has abandoned droning prepared speeches for off-the-cuff talks and has even begun to enjoy the political stump. Recently, he articulately plugged Indonesia's "New Order" on a visit to the island of Sulawesi, where he wowed the natives not only by giving pithy explanations of what his government is trying to do but by donning a sarong and the peaked local headdress. Later this month, he goes off to Bali on a similar speechmaking tour.
Suharto's restrained private tastes also please his countrymen. While former President Sukarno continues to live in a palace at Bogor even in exile, Suharto lives modestly in the same suburban Djakarta cottage that he occupied when he was an obscure army officer. He plays an occasional round of golf, spends a day at the seaside or mountains and takes bicycle rides near his home, during which he sometimes scolds neighbors who do not keep their property tidy. Suharto's wife Titi (Sukarno had seven wives in all) often appears beside her husband in public, dutifully entertains diplomats' wives and has exhibited a matronly determination of her own by stripping Merdeka Palace of Sukarno's collection of nude paintings.
By showing a firmer hand, Suharto is gradually becoming strong enough to cope with problems as numerous as Indonesia's 3,000 islands. Corruption remains a blot on Indonesian life, but Suharto is considering a housecleaning to try to root it out. Indonesia's politicians are often restive, but he has managed to keep them in line while also blocking any resurgence of the outlawed Communist party. Though he has broken with Peking, Suharto adheres to a neutralist, if slightly pro-Western, foreign policy, showing a sympathetic understanding of American objectives in Viet Nam while still retaining diplomatic ties with North Viet Nam.
Though inflation still plagues Indonesia, Suharto is working hard to restore the climate for foreign investment, to draft a five-year plan and to win additional aid from Indonesia's nine major non-Communist creditors, who will meet in Amsterdam next week to decide how far they will go along with Suharto. One little example of Suharto's personal impact is the recent proliferation of his portrait throughout Indonesia. About the only place Sukarno's face still shows is on the old rupiah bills that his free-spending ways helped make almost worthless.


TIME, Apr.5, 1968: PRESIDENT FOR REAL

Looking as nonmilitary as he could in blue business suit and Muslim petji cap, the new President of Indonesia stared steadily down at his prepared text. "We will firmly uphold the principles of democracy," he told 828 mem bers of the Provisional People's Consultative Congress. "We are determined to carry out the wishes of the people." General Suharto, 46, had just been elected to a five-year term as President — but the wishes of the people had little to do with it. Despite his promises of popular rule, Suharto last week assumed almost total power over Indonesia's government. With but a few restrictions, he became dictator pro tern.
An obscure army officer three years ago, Suharto took command of the military after putting down a Communist coup attempt in 1965, then slowly began to take charge of the government. Indonesia first regarded his quiet but drastic moves as a necessary antidote to the grandiose, 22-year misrule of Sukarno. Initially diffident even about accepting the title of Acting President, Suharto finally decided that he needed the full title to give him the authority necessary to make reforms. Once decided, he used every tactic he could to get the title—including packing the assembly by replacing 200 old members and creating 102 new ones.
The stratagem worked, but not without a few hitches; assemblymen refused to give their unanimous vote until Suharto promised to call legislative elections within three years and take steps to weed out a corrupt officialdom.
That was a small enough price to pay in return for Suharto's broad emergency powers, but it showed a widespread doubt about the honesty of his government. With a Ford Galaxie for his official limousine and a middle-class bungalow for his residence, Suharto himself is not under suspicion. Some of his top generals, with larger houses and longer cars, most certainly are, including one group in charge of foreign rice purchases that has failed to account for millions of rupiahs. One unpleasant consequence of the government's reputation is that some overseas businessmen are holding back on investments at a time when Indonesia needs all the foreign capital it can get.
As far as the nation's 110 million people are concerned, though, the most desperate need is a stable rice price, which Suharto has so far been unable to produce. Just in the past five months, a liter of rice has more than doubled in price (to 23¢), and prices change from day to day—mostly upward. On the average, rice now costs the workingman 40% of his total income. It was rice, more than anything else, that was on the new President's mind when he admitted in his inaugural address: "The results achieved do not yet meet the wishes of the people at large."
Eight hours after the ceremony, Suharto flew off to Tokyo for his first official visit outside his country. After being greeted by Emperor Hirohito at the airport, he sat down for lengthy business sessions with Premier Eisaku Sato. Indonesia's objective: to persuade Premier Sato to boost Japan's pledge of $60 million in trading credits this year to $100 million, or nearly one-third of the total promised by the non-Communist creditors helping to bankroll Suharto's economic "new order."


TIME, Aug.23, 1968: THE COMMUNISTS TRY A COMEBACK

Indonesia's Communist party was all but wiped out in the wave of anti-Communist slaughter that followed the party's abortive coup in 1965. Since the pogrom, Indonesia's leadership has warned time and again that the Communists were plotting a comeback. So often was the message repeated that most Indonesians came to pay it scant attention. This month the government produced evidence that even the most hard-nosed skeptics could not ignore: the army announced that it had broken up an incipient guerrilla movement in East Java led by surviving Central Committee members of the outlawed Partai Komunis Indonesia, or P.K.I.
East Java authorities first received reports early this year of a series of kidnapings, robberies and murders in South Blitar, a barren and isolated region distinguished only by its long tradition of rebellion.
The troubles were not linked to political activity until a Communist group staged an arms raid on an air-force installation in Surabaja, East Java's largest city.
The Communists had been active in South Blitar since mid-1966. They had evolved a program to revive their party, begin armed struggle, and establish a revolutionary united front, presumably with the left wing of the Indonesian Nationalist Party, which is particularly strong in East Java. Encouraged by Peking propaganda calling for armed uprising, they set up schools for guerrilla training, and political indoctrination and established cells in such East Java cities as Surabaja and Malang. By early 1968, they controlled two regional guerrilla groups and 17 village detachments and began to look for bigger action.
Djakarta was alerted by the Surabaja arms raid and reacted quickly. The army launched "territorial operations," occupying suspect villages and replacing village chiefs with military officers. But stronger measures were needed, and in June five battalions moved to launch sweeping search operations throughout South Blitar and its sandstone caves. In two months, they brought in 850 suspects, among them twelve members of the P.K.I.'s old Central Committee. They captured an arsenal of old bolt-action rifles, a few submachine guns and some homemade weapons. The army claimed that Oloan Hutapea, who took over the party's leadership after the death of D. N. Aidit in 1965, had been killed.
Why did the Communists rise up so prematurely—long before they were ready for a real test of armed strength with the government? Puzzled Djakarta officials put it down to the Indonesian Communists' notoriously bad sense of timing and planning. After all, an ill-prepared Communist uprising flopped in 1948, and the 1965 coup attempt was a model of mismanaged conspiracy.


TIME, Nov.15, 1968: FAMILY QUARRELS

There is a gloomy mood in Southeast Asia these days that has nothing to do with the problems of Viet Nam. The trouble has to do with family quarrels in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The group is a promising experiment in political and economic cooperation, but today four of its five members find themselves involved in bitter nationalistic disputes. Malaysia and the Philippines are squabbling over Sabah, a small state in Borneo that now belongs to Malaysia but is claimed by the Philippines. Indonesia and Singapore are at odds over the Singapore government's execution of two Indonesian saboteurs three weeks ago. Only Thailand is still friends with all its ASEAN partners.
> The Philippines v. Malaysia: At the heart of what so far remains this war of words is, quite fittingly, one particular word. That is padjak, which today in Malay means "mortgage" or "pawn" but a century ago meant "to lease" or "to cede." The issue is whether the Sultan of Sulu in 1878 ceded his rights to Sabah, as the Malaysians claim, or simply leased those rights, as is maintained in Manila. There is nothing much new about the Philippine claim—former President Diosdado Macapagal raised it during his election campaign in 1961. It remained a relatively minor issue until this summer when President Ferdinand Marcos seized on it as a handy way to win votes for next year's national elections. In what appears to have been a bid for support from the 3,000,000 Muslims living in the southern parts of the archipelago, Marcos dredged up the issue and signed a congressional bill asserting Philippine sovereignty over Sabah. The Philippine Muslims, who are mostly underprivileged and poor, would like access to Sabah's prospering economy. They also feel a kinship with Sabah's 200,000 Muslims.
Although he has on several occasions described the claim as strictly pro forma and pledged that "we will not act on it militarily under" any circum-stances," his signature of the bill triggered an angry Malaysian response. In Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's capital, effigies of Marcos were burned. A brief attempt at a cooling-off period failed. Malaysia passed legislation purporting to nullify the Philippine action and condemned it as a "composite of fantasy, fallacy and fiction." Now, diplomatic contacts are minimal. Largely overlooked in the imbroglio are the 600,000 Sabahans themselves, who, including the Muslim minority which has considerable cultural and economic influence in Sabah, would clearly prefer to stay in Malaysia.
>Singapore v. Indonesia: In March 1965, a band of Indonesian marines infiltrated Singapore, then still a part of the newborn nation of Malaysia, on a sabotage mission. They planted a 25-lb. explosive charge in an office building, and the blast left three dead and 30 injured. Two of the marines were captured, tried for murder and sentenced to death.
The incident was one of the nastier moments of Indonesian President Sukarno's campaign against Malaysia, which ended for all practical purposes with the coup against Sukarno later that year.
Indonesia's new leaders did their best to mend the ruptured relationships caused by Sukarno's irrationalities. They also tried hard to persuade Singapore not to carry out the executions of the marines. The Singapore government, however, stuck to its decision, pointing out that the act of sabotage had resulted in the deaths of three persons. And so, in a cold, misty dawn at Singapore's Changi Prison last month, the two were hanged.
Indonesians were outraged. As police casually watched, some 300 students stormed the Singapore embassy in Djakarta and gutted it. Across Indonesia, other rioters seized on the fact that Singapore's population is mostly Chinese and staged rampages through Chinese sections, burning cars and shops. The two marines were given a state funeral in Djakarta. Last week tempers had begun to cool. Foreign Minister Adam Malik, backed by President Suharto, made it completely clear that there would be no break in relations. In a further attempt to hold ASEAN on course, he offered his nation's help in mediating the Sabah dispute.


TIME, June 27, 1969: OPERATING ON A GIANT

These are the hot and sticky days in Djakarta. From countless roadside stands, spicy odors of cooking food mingle with the smell of the clove-scented cigarettes so favored in Indonesia. Skeletons of unfinished skyscrapers still stand as bleak monuments to the grandiose dreams of the Sukarno era; three-wheeled betjak rickshas duel with decrepit cars on the capital's crowded streets, just as they have for years. But despite the outward resemblances to the bad old days, change is coming to Indonesia. In sharp contrast to the early '60s, that change is for the better. Given the near-total economic chaos left behind by Sukarno, improvement is bound to be slow. Still, in the 2½ years since President Suharto's government began its stabilization program, real progress has been made. At the moment, says a senior Western diplomat with long experience in Indonesia, "the internal situation is remarkably calm, and to anyone who has known Indonesia over the years, this is simply fantastic." With at least temporary political stability in hand, Suharto's small group of Western-trained economists has managed to balance Indonesia's budget for the first time in history, has firmed up prices, and checked the runaway inflation that plagued the country.
There were risks involved in what the economists did, notably in lifting Sukarno's foreign-exchange restrictions to stimulate exports. "It was like a doctor operating on a patient," says Mohammad Sadli, head of the Foreign Investment Board. "The patient was too weak, and our instruments were crude, but we couldn't postpone the operation." In 1966, the inflation rate was 650%; now it is being held below 25% a year. The basic price of rice has been stabilized at less than half the top price of last year.
Suharto and his economists early this spring launched a five-year development plan aimed at more effectively exploiting the nation's huge natural wealth. The plan emphasizes food production, irrigation, rehabilitation of the infrastructure and land-sea-air communications.
If all goes well, Indonesia will be self-sufficient in rice production by 1974. The government also hopes to persuade 3,000,000 women to adopt birth-control methods. Exports, worth $643 million last year, are important in the country's growth plans. By 1974, Indonesia hopes to raise its export of primary commodities such as oil, rubber and spices to around $800 million.
For all the successes of Suharto's technocrats, Indonesia's persisting problems are staggering. Unless the benefits of stabilization filter down to the masses soon, political problems may surface again. The new five-year plan is dependent in part on foreign aid, which totals $500 million this year, $208 million of that from the U.S. A drop in assistance could cripple the plan. So could a bad harvest. The bureaucracy remains often corrupt, inefficient and underemployed, and civil service reform is a long way off. The nation's Chinese minority (about 3,000,000 out of a total population of more than 112 million) is a problem. They control an estimated 75% of Indonesian commerce, which provokes resentment. Moreover many of the Communists and their sympathizers who backed Sukarno were ethnic Chinese. All this makes it more difficult for the present government to utilize fully the Chinese citizens' considerable economic talents.
Perhaps most serious of all is the fact that communications between Djakarta and the outer islands of the huge archipelago barely exist. "At the moment," says Sadli, "Indonesia is not an integrated economic entity. There are many economies, living side by side, using the same currency." Only when Suharto's technocrats find a way to gear these economies together will Indonesia be well on the way to realizing its giant potential.


TIME, Aug.8, 1969: NIXON SOBERING MESSAGE

WHEREVER Richard Nixon went in Asia last week, the U.S. moon landing formed an impressive backdrop for his visit. The President was not shy about capitalizing on the feat, even promising bits of moon rock to his hosts. One Far Eastern Foreign Minister, in fact, described Nixon's approach on the Asian tour as "Apollo diplomacy." Whether that was fair or not, Nixon certainly moved with space-age speed, visiting seven countries in as many days. His whirlwind schedule and the resulting mood of if-it's-Tuesday-this-must-be-Djakarta were not very conducive to thoughtful consultations. Still, at a time when American prestige was riding high around the world, Nixon had come to Asia for more than a token visit.
As President Nixon sought to convey a new shading of American policy to the leaders of Southeast Asia last week, his passage was marked by delicate Eastern ceremonial. In Manila there was an embroidered barong tagalog for him to wear; in Djakarta, white-costumed Javanese dancers strewed frangipani blossoms in the presidential path.
Despite the ceremony, the shading came through. Nixon won full marks from Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos for his candor in explaining that the U.S. would maintain a presence in Southeast Asia while pressing Asians to take up the burden of their own defense. "Before you came," Marcos told Nixon, "we dreaded the possibility that the U.S. was going to abandon Asia completely, or on the other extreme that there might again be the policy of colonial dominance over the Asian countries." Philippine leaders have managed to contain the dissident Huks with government troops, and the country is geographically safe from anything but a massive foreign invasion by sea. As he did elsewhere, President Nixon urged on Marcos the notion of collective security for the Far East—measures bolstered, but not actively led, by the U.S.
Nixon became the first U.S. President to visit Indonesia, the sprawling island chain whose 112 million people make up nearly half the population of Southeast Asia. Indonesians gave him credit for not trying to upset their neutral status, re-established by General Suharto once the mercurial Sukarno was overthrown in 1967. Nixon wants the U.S. to participate in Indonesia's economic development, but he did not urge any shift in foreign policy. "We respect you as a proud and independent nation," he said in Djakarta. "It is on the basis of common values and ideals and not on the basis of alliance or alignment that my country seeks to cooperate with the Indonesian republic."


TIME, Aug.22, 1969: “ACT FREE OF CHOICE”

Indonesia, once a bastion of noisy self-righteous anticolonialism, last week formally took over a remote, primitive piece of real estate that can hardly be considered anything but a colony. By means of a blatantly rigged referendum, the Indonesians annexed West Irian, the western half of the rugged South Pacific island of New Guinea.
Why anyone would want the impoverished, California-size region nearly defies understanding. Indeed, the government of Indonesia's President Suharto, who commanded the forces ordered to "liberate" West Irian from Dutch control in 1962, long ago lost any real enthusiasm for the remote and unrewarding territory. For decades, Indonesians have always rallied to the cry "From Sabang to Merauke!" —from the westernmost island of the 3,000-island archipelago to the easternmost hamlet in West Irian. Said Frans Kaisieppo, the governor of West Irian: "It has become a religious conviction."
It will require more than mere conviction to govern the area. The 800,000 Papuan tribesmen of West Irian may be the world's simplest people. They live near-naked in Stone Age savagery in high, roadless valleys surrounded by nameless, unmapped tropical forests. In some of their 150 dialects, counting goes no further than "one, two, many . . . " Their weapons are stone axes, 16-ft. spears and poisoned arrows. Cannibalism, headhunting and tribal warfare are common.
Mourners offer amputated fingers as funeral gifts. Favorite adornment includes bird-of-paradise feathers, skulls on strings, and gourds to cover the genitals. The Papuans are also skilled craftsmen in wood and industrious raisers of pigs, sweet potatoes, tobacco, sugar cane, ginger and bananas.
In 1962, after a brief comic-opera war launched by Indonesia's former President Sukarno, The Netherlands reluctantly handed over West Irian to a United Nations caretaker administration. The arrangement, negotiated by veteran U.S. Diplomat Ellsworth Bunker, promised the Papuans "an act of free choice" within seven years on whether to reject or retain Indonesian control. The formula was designed to save Western face, but the "free choice" has proved lamentably free of choice.
The mechanics of the annexation vote were left to the Indonesians. They immediately rejected the one man, one vote formula, largely because the few thousand literate Papuans of the coastal settlements, who had prospered under the Dutch, were obviously hostile. Instead, the Indonesians imported their village tradition of musjawarah, meaning roughly consultations leading to consensus. For this purpose, they chose 1,025 "people's representatives," who allegedly spoke for all Papuans. The Indonesian army warned that it would not be gentle with dissidents.
"Many of us didn't agree to Indonesian control, but we were afraid," one of the delegates told TIME Correspondent David Greenway, who visited West Irian last week. Others were wooed with gifts of salt, tobacco, cloth, beer, outboard motors and junkets to Djakarta. Between intimidation and persuasion, the Indonesians managed to win a unanimous vote in favor of annexation.
For the handful of Dutch-educated Papuans in the towns, becoming the brown man's burden is likely to prove less rewarding than being the white man's burden ever was. But few Papuans outside the coastal settlements will be much affected by Indonesian rule. Their geography is their independence.


TIME, Oct.3, 1969: CONFUSION AT THE SUMMIT

"I am very happy to be here in the Kingdom of Libya," the delegate from South Yemen said as he stepped off a plane in Morocco. A number of other delegates to last week's Rabat summit of 26 predominantly Muslim nations seemed less confused than the Yemeni about where they were—but not about why. Morocco's King Hassan II helped organize the conference after the fire last August in Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque, third holiest of Islam's shrines after Mecca and Medina. The summit's aim was to discuss the problem of Al Aqsa and protest Israel's occupation of the Arab sector of Jerusalem. In addition, militant Arabs hoped that they could persuade non-Arab Muslims from Indonesia, Iran and Senegal to join in their campaign against Israel.
What with the immense diversity of the Muslim world, the delegates had trouble joining one another just to talk. In the gaudy ballroom of the government-owned Rabat Hilton sat such disparate types as Saudi Arabia's conservative King Feisal, the moderate Shah of Iran and Algeria's strongman Houari Boumedienne.
Host Hassan neatly averted the problem of sitting alongside an old enemy, Mauritania's President Mokhtar Ould Daddah, by having his placard lettered "Kingdom of Morocco." That enabled him to move down seven places at the alphabetically arranged table.
Because of their resentment of the conservative Muslim monarchies, the radical Baathist leaders of Iraq and Syria never got to the table. Neither did Egypt's Gamal Abdd Nasser. Pleading a case of flu, Nasser stayed in Cairo and sent a second-echelon delegate. He feared that the hastily organized meeting would accomplish little—despite its billing as the most important political parley in Islam's 1,389-year history.
Nasser was right. Trouble started soon after the delegates invited India, whose Muslim minority of 60 million gives it the world's third largest Islamic population (after Indonesia's 100 million and Pakistan's 90 million). Next day the Indian Ambassador to Morocco, a gray-bearded Sikh sporting an elegant white turban, joined the Congress.
He was, of course, not a Muslim. Sputtered a Pakistani journalist: "If India can come, there could be an Islamic summit next year to which Israel could be invited. They have a Muslim minority too."
Outraged, Pakistan's President Yahya Khan retreated to his white guest villa and boycotted the meeting, refusing even to answer the telephone. Only after formal assurance that India would stay away did Yahya finally rejoin the conference. In the process, he forced Hassan to begin his lavish farewell dinner nearly four hours late.
Because of the delays, the delegates stayed on an extra day to endorse a final communique. As far as the militants were concerned, they need not have bothered. Seven of the non-Arab Muslim countries, including Iran, Senegal and Turkey, have diplomatic ties with Israel.
As a result, resolutions calling for all Muslim nations to break off relations with Israel were foredoomed. The final communiqué simply echoed parts of the 1967 U.N. resolution, calling on Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories that it occupied during the Six-Day War and asked the Big Four to redouble their efforts to bring about a settlement of the area's disputes. The delegates also declared their support for the Arab refugees who have left Israel since the 1948 war. Observed a Syrian official in Damascus: "The summit failed. The only solution lies on the battlefield."
Meanwhile, a five-member Israeli investigative commission, including two Muslims, issued a 19-page report on the issue that launched the conference —the Al Aqsa fire. The report accused the mosque's Muslim guards of laxity for having allowed the alleged arsonist, a 28-year-old Australian, to slip into the shrine before visiting hours. Fire damage could have been greatly reduced if modern extinguishers had been available in the mosque, the report added, but Arab officials had rejected an earlier Israeli offer of fire-fighting equipment. Their reasoning, the report went on, was: "There is nothing to fear; God is great and he will protect the place for us."


TIME, Jan.12, 1970: THE ARMY HAS IT ALL

Indonesia, whose 115 million inhabitants make it the world's sixth most populous nation, is a land of immense resources and seemingly limitless potential. Throughout the 3,000 islands of the sprawling archipelago, however, all too few people seem to be exploiting this potential. An exception is the leadership of the 350,000-man armed forces. Since 1965, when at least 300,000 Communists were massacred in the wake of an abortive coup and President Sukarno was effectively removed from power, the military has not had a serious political rival.
The parties are fragmented, and Parliament is under the army's thumb. In economic enterprise even more than in politics, the army is making its mark—and quite a few fortunes. Generals, colonels and majors serve as governors, industrialists and hotel managers. Occasionally they even serve as soldiers.
The single most spectacular success story is that of Lieut. General Ibnu Sutowo. He heads Pertamina, the government-owned oil monopoly, which is currently harvesting a fortune in fees from foreign firms for exploration of what may prove to be a huge reservoir of undersea oil off Indonesia's coastline. Pertamina goes its own way, and a very quiet way it is. It does not disclose figures on its operations but hands out lavish financial aid for army-encouraged projects. It also does very well by its own.
On a salary of less than $100 a month, Sutowo recently threw a $60,000 wedding for his daughter, prompting one Djakarta newspaper to editorialize: "Crude oil smooths the way for love."
In addition to freewheeling Pertamina, the army is involved in virtually every part of Indonesia's economy—usually less out of greed than sheer need. Under President Suharto's austerity budget, armed forces units are required to provide between 25% and 40% of their own support. To raise funds, the army recently announced plans to commercialize engineering and transport—in effect, hiring itself out as an Indonesian version of Hertz Rent A Car. Some other examples of military business enterprise:
> Djakarta's latest luxury hotel, the Kartika Plaza, is owned by an army cooperative. As far as the army is concerned, this is legitimate, although civilians are troubled by the practice.
> Gambling casinos have been established in Djakarta by the district's military governor, who has found that slot machines and blackjack are sure and legal ways of financing the city and feeding the troops.
> An army unit near Djakarta conserves its monthly ration of gasoline and sells the surplus on the free market. Clearly, this is illegal.
> In northern Sumatra, military authorities illegally sell export licenses to Chinese merchants—and the licenses are not cheap.
Suharto, a military man himself, has repeatedly ordered an end to many of these practices. "All illegal collections, regardless of purpose, should be stopped," he said late in 1969. "Such collections may look profitable in the short term, but in the long term they undermine our national economy." Beyond demoralizing Indonesians who had hoped for a new order, the military's highhanded role has discouraged foreign investors.
Although more than 100 foreign firms have signed investment contracts since the beginning of 1967—including such U.S. firms as Alcoa, Freeport Sulphur, Goodyear Rubber and ITT—others have been frightened off.
Suharto has made some notable economic progress. Since 1967, he has succeeded in reducing the inflation rate from an appalling 650% a year to roughly 7%, a performance described as "highly remarkable" by Indonesia's major creditors when they met in Amsterdam last month to approve a $600 million loan. The price of rice, a basic indicator, has remained relatively steady, but corruption remains a serious obstacle. "Nothing has really changed," says an American with long experience in the country, "except that the army has it all now."
One reason is that the army has a virtual monopoly on the country's managerial and technological skills. Suharto is trying to encourage more civilian participation, but he is unlikely to get very far by 1971, when general elections are scheduled. As an Indonesian intellectual puts it: "General elections will mean the election of the generals."


TIME, July 29, 1970: GOODBYE TO BAPAK

IN death as in life, Sukarno was a problem. As Indonesia's deposed President last week succumbed at 69 after a long bout with kidney stones and high blood pressure, Djakarta's new leaders pondered the questions of how much to mourn him and how much to memorialize him. Indeed, many Indonesians were in a quandary over their bapak (father). Some felt that they should pay homage to him as the founding father who proclaimed Indonesia's independence in 1945 and spawned a sense of national identity. Others were prepared to damn him as the profligate who led his country to the brink of economic ruin and tried to hand it to the Communists in 1965.
In any case, Sukarno's heyday in the '50s and early '60s marked him as one of the most colorful figures of the century. He hobnobbed with Nehru and Nasser, lectured the West, won a mixed renown for nonalignment among developing nations and overalignment with well-developed women.
The son of a poor Javanese schoolteacher and a lovely Balinese dancer, young Sukarno was a standout from his childhood days near Surabaja; his desire to be the dominant figure in every gathering from tree climbing to stamp collecting, led to the nickname djago (rooster). Later, he earned a degree and turned to the budding independence movement. His ringing rhetoric so worried his country's Dutch rulers that they jailed him for two years and exiled him for another eight. He escaped early in World War II and collaborated with the Japanese in hopes of securing Indonesia's freedom. Finally, in August 1945, he seized on the Japanese defeat and Dutch weakness to declare independence. Thus began the long misrule of the man who once boasted of love for his country, his people, women and the arts, but added, "most of all, I love myself."
For two decades, Sukarno led his potentially rich country toward economic collapse while whimsically indulging his egotism and appetites. Women flocked around the East's premier playboy; at least six married him. He affected fancy uniforms and such titles as "Great Leader of the Revolution." Priceless objets d'art filled his sumptuous palaces. Skyscrapers and ornate monuments rose in otherwise seamy Djakarta—many of them later to stand starkly uncompleted for lack of funds.
Sukarno paid no heed to economic realities. He launched his Soviet-aided army on the wasteful konfrontasi against Malaysia, while pursuing a domestic course of high living and useless prestige. The result was $2.4 billion in foreign debts and the postwar world's worst inflation. The erstwhile "President for Life" viewed himself as a dedicated revolutionary and nationalist. But his flaming oratory and grandiose promises never produced a better life for his countrymen, nor any voice for them in his "guided democracy." Meaningless slogans and acronyms echoed in the void.
Sukarno's big movement on the world stage was the 1955 Bandung Conference of Nonaligned Nations, after which he moved with aplomb in Washington, Moscow or Peking. He spouted Lincoln as easily as Lenin. As Indonesia's national hero and one of the world's most durable politicians, Sukarno indeed seemed headed for lifelong rule. He was so revered, after all, that some countrymen drank his bottled bath water in hopes of inheriting a measure of his supposed supernatural powers. But Sukarno's suspected complicity in the 1965 Communist plot proved his political mortality. The ailing Bung (brother) was believed to favor a Communist succession after his death. Indonesia had become a virtual Peking satellite. The army quickly smashed the bungled coup attempt and touched off a bloodbath that took 400,000 lives. The powerful Partai Komunis Indonesia was practically wiped out, costing Sukarno his longtime counterbalance to the army. The generals, having crushed the coup, next removed Sukarno from power, replacing him with General Suharto. They moved slowly because of Sukarno's mass popularity; not until two years after their takeover did they abolish his titles and name Suharto president.
Lonely and pathetic, kept away from his sole remaining wife, Hartini, Sukarno spent his last two years under house arrest in the Djakarta villa he built for his fetching Japanese ex-wife, Ratna Sari Dewi, a 29-year-old former Tokyo nightclub hostess. Dewi, who now lives in Paris, was pregnant when she left Sukarno shortly before his ouster and has since been barred from re-entering Indonesia. However, when Sukarno called out her name on his deathbed, Dewi and her daughter were given permission to fly to Djakarta.
Sukarno wished to be buried among the rolling green hills of Java, with only these words on a plain stone marker: "Here lies Bung Karno, the mouthpiece of the Indonesian people." It is an eloquent but simple epitaph for a complex man who spent more time voicing his people's aspirations than in trying to achieve them.


TIME, Aug.31, 1970: ATTACK ON CORRUPTION

Five years ago, Indonesian students joined forces with the army in an effective coalition, which eventually overthrew the country's founder and longtime President Sukarno, largely on charges of corruption and mismanagement. Now Indonesia's students are once again on the march against corruption. This time the target is their former military allies.
For weeks the students, along with the liberal intelligentsia, have been staging protest demonstrations against widespread corruption among the ruling military elite, and the press has ranted against the dishonesty of many ranking officials. Foreign companies have complained that they were forced to make payoffs in order to get permission to do business in Indonesia. Foreign investors, who are not eager to commit their money to a country where they feel corruption is holding back true economic progress, reported their objections to President Suharto, a general who is a scrupulously honest man. He listened and evidently agreed.
Last week, in an address to Parliament on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the country's independence, President Suharto pledged an all-out attack on corruption in high places. "The fight against corruption is under my direct leadership," he declared. He endorsed recommendations prohibiting government officials from accepting commissions from Indonesian and foreign businessmen. He ordered high of ficials to report their total incomes, including profits from extracurricular activities. He has also ordered the attorney general to streamline an anticorruption task force, and he submitted to Parliament a new bill that would render those who accept kickbacks and payoffs liable to fines and imprisonment.
Suharto faces a tough battle against corruption, for Indonesia, like most Asian countries, finds graft and payoffs an almost necessary way of life. Loyalties belong first to family and friends, with the country running a poor second. The military commander who is most deeply involved in Indonesia's economics is Lieut. General Ibnu Sutowo. He bosses the state-owned oil company, Pertamina, which supervises operations of the 41 foreign oil companies that annually pump some 290 million barrels of petroleum from Indonesia's rich fields.
Already Suharto's anticorruption commission has closeted itself for hours with Sutowo, digging into his use of Pertamina funds to expand his own influence and wealth. "I am convinced I have done nothing wrong," insisted General Sutowo in an interview with TIME Correspondent Louis Kraar. "Everybody is talking about corruption, and if you asked them what they mean, they don't know."
He readily admits, however, that he uses some $500,000 a year of Pertamina's funds in a one-man aid program. In recent ventures, Sutowo has donated television stations, mosques, airports, dormitories and hotels to army posts and towns throughout Indonesia. "I am an army man, and I am helping everybody a lot," says Sutowo. Though his official salary is only $200 a month, Sutowo explains that his wealth is not based merely on that income. He says frankly: "I'm very big in tobacco exports, drugstores, a textile factory, rubber estates and interests in six or seven companies. I do them in my spare time."
For example, when he recently learned that a contractor in Singapore needed rocks, Sutowo got government permission to have them shipped from an Indonesian quarry. Though he invested not a cent of his own money, Sutowo collects 50% of the profits. "I just arranged it," he says.
On a recent trip to New York, Sutowo broached over lunch the idea of an Indonesian restaurant in New York to several American oil company executives. Before the meal had ended, he had pledges of $25,000 from each of the Americans. Sutowo has already acquired property on Manhattan's East Side. Another of his pet plans is a foundation, to be called Pertamina International, which he plans to use to raise funds for Indonesian cultural and educational projects in the U.S. "We expect donations to come from Americans—people who are friendly to Indonesia." And who might they be? "Oil companies," Sutowo answers promptly. But he insists that his latest projects are private undertakings and have nothing to do with Pertamina. "But, of course," he concedes, "Pertamina and Sutowo are very difficult to separate from each other."


TIME, Nov.9, 1970: DUKUNS, BOMOHS AND GURUS

Before Indonesia's President Suharto departed on a foreign tour this fall, he paused for a special ceremony. One of Indonesia's dukuns (soothsayers) had predicted a possible disaster for the country in late 1970, and sacrificial rites were duly scheduled. Several water buffalo were rounded up and slaughtered. The head of one was buried on the eastern tip of Java, and the head of another on the western edge. With Indonesia's most populous island thus bracketed, Suharto embarked on his journey. So far, no disaster.
Most Asian leaders are sophisticated, well-educated men who seek advice from the sort of people that U.S. Presidents or British Prime Ministers rely upon—Congressmen and Cabinet Ministers, academicians and old friends, and of course wives. Asian leaders often go one step beyond, into the metaphysical, consulting astrologers, mediums, soothsayers and gurus.
In nations whose people cling to revered traditions, the leaders can hardly afford to do otherwise. Calling in a dukun or a bomoh (medium) does, after all, please the masses. But in quite a few cases, it also gives a leader a feeling of added insurance.
Indonesia's Suharto is a shrewd pragmatist, but he is also a man who grew up amid the Muslim, Hindu and animist influences of central Java. He frequently plans strategy with military men on the golf course, listens to his impressive array of American-trained economists, and keeps abreast of current trends via tape-recorded textbooks.
Suharto also relies on his spiritual advisers. Since his youth, he has consulted an influential mystical teacher, Raden Mas Darjatmo, who serves as a combination dukun, kebatinan (medium) and guru. Suharto often seeks out his old dukun when he visits his home village of Wonogiri.
Following the abortive Communist coup attempt in 1965, Suharto ruled out a swift move against then-President Sukarno on the advice of a dukun. Instead, he whittled away at Sukarno's power; eventually Sukarno faded away as a political force. On the advice of another dukun, Suharto recently avoided a hard-line approach to student dissidents and sat down for a series of discussions with them until tempers cooled.
In Thailand, precise times for major events are determined by the royal astrologer. Twenty years ago, a Buddhist monk told Thai Prime Minister Thanom Kittikachorn that he would serve as Premier three times; he is currently in his third term. Thus when a family astrologer recommended a shift in living quarters to avoid inauspicious influences, Thanom and his family forthwith vacated the official residence for nearly a year.
Members of the Thai military elite conceal the exact time of their birth to prevent enemies from learning their weak spots by having accurate horoscopes cast. King Bhumibol Adulyadej is a thoroughly modern monarch, yet he does not set out on journeys without consulting an astrologer about the most auspicious departure time.
In Malaysia, to make sure that rain does not dampen outdoor ceremonies, a bomoh is often designated to ward off showers. Government employees buy "holy water" from a medium to bring them job promotions. Malaysian Minister of Works Tun V.T. Sambanthan regularly consults Hindu priests to determine the best days to open new facilities. Cambodian Premier Lon Nol is said to have summoned a monk named Mam Prum Moni. Says a member of the National Assembly: "He is the most important man for General Lon Nol."
On the other end of the spiritual scale are Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos: Lee shuns the metaphysical altogether, while Marcos relies little on astrologers or mediums. It is likely that they will be the exceptions for a long time to come.
In a sense, the leaders are pursuing the same reasoning as the 17th century French Philosopher Pascal did in his "wager" on God. It can hardly hurt to call in an otherworldly adviser—and it just might help.

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