Suharto and His Generals

Suharto and His Generals
Author: David Jenkins
Publisher: Equinox Publishing
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2010
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 6028397490

In writing this monograph I have been guided by two separate but interrelated goals. The first has been to provide an historical-descriptive record of the "challenge" posed to President Suharto within the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia (ABRI) during the period 1975-82 and the debate that developed over ABRI's role in society. Although this debate sprawled across the whole canvas of military involvement in society, it can be said to have focused essentially on two key issues. The first, which was debated with considerable vigor during the period 1977-80, involved ABRI's relations with other social-political groups in society, and in particular the political parties. The center of this debate was the "contradiction" between ABRI's claim to be above all groups in society and the reality of its continuing support for Golkar, the political grouping which held a majority of the seats in the DPR (Parliament). Due largely to the intervention of the president, this debate was resolved in favor of the status quo and by 1980 it appeared unlikely that there would be any substantial changes during the remainder of the Suharto presidency. The second issue, which became of increasing importance after 1980, centered on the appointment of military officers to nonmilitary functions. There were in the mid-1970s more than 20,000 military men serving in a kekaryaan (nonmilitary, or "functional") capacity, as ministers, ambassadors, parliamentarians, senior executives in government corporations, bankers, senior civil servants, university rectors, provincial governors, subdistrict heads, and even village headmen. Answerable to the chief of staff for functional affairs (Kaskar), they acted as "reinforcing rods" to ensure that the bureaucracy was responsive to the commands of those at the top-a role that was not unlike that of the Communist Party in many Communist states. In the view of the critics, ABRI's heavy involvement in kekaryaan activities, although understandable in terms of recent Indonesian history, was excessive and needed to be scaled back. On this front, some government concessions seemed possible, if only because the armed forces were short of manpower. Even so, any cutback in the kekaryaan ABRI was likely to be both slow and from the bottom up, with the commanding heights of the system remaining firmly in the hands of the military leaders.

Pretext for Mass Murder

Pretext for Mass Murder
Author: John Roosa
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2006-08-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780299220303

In the early morning hours of October 1, 1965, a group calling itself the September 30th Movement kidnapped and executed six generals of the Indonesian army, including its highest commander. The group claimed that it was attempting to preempt a coup, but it was quickly defeated as the senior surviving general, Haji Mohammad Suharto, drove the movement’s partisans out of Jakarta. Riding the crest of mass violence, Suharto blamed the Communist Party of Indonesia for masterminding the movement and used the emergency as a pretext for gradually eroding President Sukarno’s powers and installing himself as a ruler. Imprisoning and killing hundreds of thousands of alleged communists over the next year, Suharto remade the events of October 1, 1965 into the central event of modern Indonesian history and the cornerstone of his thirty-two-year dictatorship. Despite its importance as a trigger for one of the twentieth century’s worst cases of mass violence, the September 30th Movement has remained shrouded in uncertainty. Who actually masterminded it? What did they hope to achieve? Why did they fail so miserably? And what was the movement’s connection to international Cold War politics? In Pretext for Mass Murder, John Roosa draws on a wealth of new primary source material to suggest a solution to the mystery behind the movement and the enabling myth of Suharto’s repressive regime. His book is a remarkable feat of historical investigation. Finalist, Social Sciences Book Award, the International Convention of Asian Scholars

Young Soeharto

Young Soeharto
Author: David Jenkins
Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute
Total Pages: 548
Release: 2021-05-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9814881015

When a reluctant President Sukarno gave Lt Gen Soeharto full executive authority in March 1966, Indonesia was a deeply divided nation, fractured along ideological, class, religious and ethnic lines. Soeharto took a country in chaos, the largest in Southeast Asia, and transformed it into one of the “Asian miracle” economies—only to leave it back on the brink of ruin when he was forced from office thirty-two years later. Drawing on his astonishing range of interviews with leading Indonesian generals, former Imperial Japanese Army officers and men who served in the Dutch colonial army, as well as years of patient research in Dutch, Japanese, British, Indonesian and US archives, David Jenkins brings vividly to life the story of how a socially reticent but exceptionally determined young man from rural Java began his rise to power—an ascent which would be capped by thirty years (1968–98) as President of Indonesia, the fourth most populous nation on earth. Soeharto was one of Asia’s most brutal, most durable, most avaricious and most successful dictators. In the course of examining those aspects of his character, this book provides an accessible, highly readable introduction to the complex, but dramatic and utterly absorbing, social, political, religious, economic and military factors that have shaped, and which continue to shape, Indonesia.

The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia

The Politics of Post-Suharto Indonesia
Author: Adam Schwarz
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations
Total Pages: 136
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780876092477

This book responds to the critical need of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars for current research on Indonesia.

Suharto

Suharto
Author: R. E. Elson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2001-11-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521773263

Publisher Description

Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group

Liem Sioe Liong's Salim Group
Author: Richard Borsuk
Publisher: Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2014-11-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9814519901

After Suharto gained power in Indonesia in the mid-1960s, he stayed as the country's president for more than three decades, helped by the powerful military, hefty foreign aid and support from a coterie of cronies. A pivotal business backer for his New Order government was Liem Sioe Liong, a migrant from China, who arrived in Java in 1938. A combination of the Suharto connection, serendipity and personal charm propelled him to become the wealthiest tycoon in Southeast Asia. This is the story of how Liem built the Salim Group, a conglomerate that in its heyday controlled Indonesia's largest non-state bank, the country's dominant cement producer and flour mill, as well as the world's biggest maker of instant noodles. The book features exclusive input from Liem, who died in 2012, and his youngest son, Anthony Salim. It traces the founder's life and the group's symbiosis with Suharto, his generals and family. After the tumultuous 1997-98 Asian financial crisis sparked Suharto's fall and a backlash against the strongman's cronies, Anthony staved off the crushing of the debt-laden group. Told in a journalistic style, the story of the Salim Group provides insights into Suharto's New Order. For business executives, students and anyone with an interest in Southeast Asia's largest economy, the volume makes a valuable contribution towards understanding the country's modern history.

The Politics of Military Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia

The Politics of Military Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia
Author: Marcus Mietzner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 104
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN:

This study discusses the process of military reform in Indonesia after the fall of Suharto?s New Order regime in 1998. The extent of Indonesia?s progress in this area has been the subject of heated debate, both in Indonesia and in Western capitals. Human rights organizations and critical academics, on the one hand, have argued that the reforms implemented so far have been largely superficial, and that Indonesia?s armed forces remain a highly problematic institution. Foreign proponents of military assistance to Indonesia, on the other hand, have asserted that the military has undergone radical change, as evidenced by its complete extraction from political institutions. This study evaluates the state of military reform eight years after the end of authoritarian rule, pointing to both significant achievements and serious shortcomings. Although the armed forces in the new democratic polity no longer function as the backbone of a powerful centralist regime and have lost many of their previous privileges, the military has been able to protect its core institutional interests by successfully fending off demands to reform the territorial command structure. As the military?s primary source of political influence and off-budget revenue, the persistence of the territorial system has ensured that the Indonesian armed forces have not been fully subordinated to democratic civilian control. This ambiguous transition outcome so far poses difficult challenges to domestic and foreign policymakers, who have to find ways of effectively engaging with the military to drive the reform process forward.This is the twenty-third publication in Policy Studies, a peer-reviewed East-West Center Washington series that presents scholarly analysis of key contemporary domestic and international political, economic, and strategic issues affecting Asia in a policy relevant manner.

Soeharto's New Order and Its Legacy

Soeharto's New Order and Its Legacy
Author: Edward Aspinall
Publisher: ANU E Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2010-08-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1921666471

Indonesia's President Soeharto led one of the most durable and effective authoritarian regimes of the second half of the twentieth century. Yet his rule ended in ignominy, and much of the turbulence and corruption of the subsequent years was blamed on his legacy. More than a decade after Soeharto's resignation, Indonesia is a consolidating democracy and the time has come to reconsider the place of his regime in modern Indonesian history, and its lasting impact. This book begins this task by bringing together a collection of leading experts on Indonesia to examine Soeharto and his legacy from diverse perspectives. In presenting their analyses, these authors pay tribute to Harold Crouch, an Australian political scientist who remains one of the greatest chroniclers of the Soeharto regime and its aftermath.

The Jakarta Method

The Jakarta Method
Author: Vincent Bevins
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2020-05-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541724011

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020 BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States. In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful. In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.

Opposing Suharto

Opposing Suharto
Author: Edward Aspinall
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2005
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0804748446

Opposing Suharto presents an account of democratization in the world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia. It describes how opposition groups challenged the long-time ruler, President Suharto, and his military-based regime, forcing him to resign in 1998. The book’s main purpose is to explain how ordinary people can bring about political change in a repressive authoritarian regime. It does this by telling the story of an array of dissident groups, nongovernmental organizations, student activists, and political party workers as they tried to expand democratic space in the last decade of Suharto’s rule. This book is an important study not only for readers interested in contemporary Indonesia and political change in Asia, but also for all those interested in democratization processes elsewhere in the world. Unlike most other books on Indonesia, and unlike many books on democratization, it provides an account from the perspective of those who were struggling to bring about change.