Who is sukarno

To achieve these goals, Sukarno united three groups whose philosophies were respectively nationalism nasionalisme , religion agama , and communism komunisme into an ideological front to which he gave the acronym Nasakom.

This union was not successful, however, because the first two groups became unhappy at the extraordinarily rapid rise of the PKI and at Sukarno's strong praise of this party. The army and the PKI had been enemies from the earliest days of the republic, and with the abortive coup on Oct. Thousands of people were killed in the purge that followed. The army, under Gen. Suharto, assisted in the pogrom and supported the Indonesian students in their move to bring down Sukarno.

Under this pressure Sukarno, on March 11, , transferred his presidential powers to Gen. Suharto, who was reluctant to remove Sukarno completely from the scene.

The latter refused to go along with the new developments, and a year later he was deposed and placed under house confinement in Bogor, where he remained, a physically ill man, until a few days before his death in a Djakarta hospital on June 21, , of complications from kidney trouble and high blood pressure.

Sukarno was not accorded a place in the Heroes' Cemetery in Djakarta but was buried beside his mother in Blitar, East Java. Sukarno's significance in the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia is tremendous.

His devotion to his principles, first enunciated in , was unswerving. A brilliant orator, a charismatic leader, and an idealist, he achieved his original goal but failed as a "man of facts" and readily admitted that he was not an economist. The most readable and accessible of the biographies, and the shortest. An Autobiography as Told to Cindy Adams. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, Invaluable autobiographical account by Sukarno.

Filled with a combination of anecdotes about childhood, first-person accounts of the dramatic political events he was part of, and modest score settling especially with Sutan Sjahrir, the Indonesian socialist politician and nationalist leader during the revolution , it remains very readable.

The core narrative ends in , with the achievement of merdeka , although four concluding chapters cover material from independence. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here. Not a member? Sign up for My OBO. Already a member? Publications Pages Publications Pages.

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You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Sukarno, Achmad —70 in World Encyclopedia Length: words. Sukarno, Achmad b. All rights reserved. New elections in did nothing to improve stability in the country, however. Parliament was divided among all the various squabbling factions and Sukarno feared the entire edifice would collapse.

Sukarno felt he needed more authority and that Western-style democracy would never function well in volatile Indonesia. Despite protests from Vice President Hatta, in he put forth his plan for "guided democracy," under which Sukarno, as president, would lead the population to a consensus on national issues.

In December , Hatta resigned in opposition to this blatant power grab—a shock to citizens around the country. That month and into March , military commanders in Sumatra and Sulawesi ousted the Republican local governments and took power. They demanded that Hatta be reinstated and communist influence over politics end.

Sukarno responded by installing Djuanda Kartawidjaja as vice president, who agreed with him on "guided democracy," and declaring martial law on March 14, Amid growing tensions, Sukarno went to a school function in Central Jakarta on November 30, A member of the Darul Islam group tried to assassinate him there with a grenade. Sukarno was unharmed, but six school children died. Sukarno tightened his grip on Indonesia, expelling 40, Dutch citizens and nationalizing all of their property, as well as that of Dutch-owned corporations such as the Royal Dutch Shell oil company.

He also instituted rules against ethnic-Chinese ownership of rural land and businesses, forcing many thousands of Chinese to move to the cities and , to return to China. To quell military opposition in the outlying islands, Sukarno engaged in all-out air and sea invasions of Sumatra and Sulawesi. The rebel governments had all surrendered by the beginning of , and the last guerrilla troops surrendered in August On July 5, , Sukarno issued a presidential decree voiding the current Constitution and reinstating the Constitution, which gave the president significantly broader powers.

He dissolved parliament in March and created a new Parliament, for which he directly appointed half of the members. The military arrested and jailed members of the opposition Islamist and socialist parties and shut down a newspaper that had criticized Sukarno.

The president also began to add more communists to the government so that he wouldn't be solely reliant on the military for support. In response to these moves toward autocracy, Sukarno faced more than one assassination attempt. On March 9, , an Indonesian Air Force officer strafed the presidential palace with the machine gun on his MiG, trying unsuccessfully to kill Sukarno.

Islamists later shot at the president during Eid al-Adha prayers in , but again Sukarno was unhurt. In , Sukarno's hand-picked Parliament appointed him president for life. As a dictator, he made his own speeches and writings mandatory subjects for all Indonesian students, and all mass media in the country was required to report only on his ideology and actions.

To top his cult of personality, Sukarno renamed the highest mountain in the country "Puntjak Sukarno," or Sukarno Peak, in his own honor. The military resented the rapid growth of communism and began to seek an alliance with Islamist leaders, who also disliked the pro-atheism communists. Sensing that the military was growing disillusioned, Sukarno rescinded martial law in to curb the Army's power.

In April , the conflict between the military and communists increased when Sukarno supported communist leader Aidit's call to arm the Indonesian peasantry. At the break of day on October 1, , the pro-communist " 30 September Movement " captured and killed six senior Army generals.

The movement claimed that it acted to protect President Sukarno from an impending Army coup. It announced the dissolution of parliament and the creation of a "Revolutionary Council. Major General Suharto of the strategic reserve command took control of the Army on October 2, having been promoted to the rank of army chief by a reluctant Sukarno, and quickly overcame the communist coup.

Suharto and his Islamist allies then led a purge of communists and leftists in Indonesia, killing at least , people nationwide and imprisoning 1. Sukarno sought to maintain his hold on power by appealing to the people over the radio in January Massive student demonstrations broke out, and one student was shot dead and made a martyr by the Army in February. On March 11, , Sukarno signed a Presidential Order known as the Supersemar that effectively handed control of the country over to General Suharto.

Some sources claim he signed the order at gunpoint.