Proclamation of Indonesian Independence In the early morning of 17 August 1945, Sukarno returned to his house at Jalan Pegangsaan Timur No. 56, where Hatta joined him. Throughout the morning, impromptu leaflets printed by PETA and youth elements informed the population of the impending proclamation. Finally, at 10 am, Sukarno and Hatta stepped to the front porch, where Sukarno declared the
independence of the Republic of Indonesia in front of a crowd of 500 people. This most historic of buildings was later ordered to be demolished by Sukarno himself, without any apparent reason. On the following day, 18 August, the PPKI declared the basic governmental structure of the new Republic of Indonesia: •
Electing Sukarno and Hatta as president and vice-president, respectively. • Putting into effect the 1945 Indonesian
constitution, which by this time excluded any reference to Islamic law. • Establishing a
Central Indonesian National Committee (, KNIP) to assist the president before an election of a parliament. Sukarno's vision for the 1945 Indonesian
constitution comprised the
Pancasila (
five principles). Sukarno's political philosophy was mainly a fusion of elements of
Marxism, nationalism and Islam. This is reflected in a proposition of his version of Pancasila he proposed to the BPUPK in a speech on 1 June 1945. The Indonesian parliament, founded on the basis of this original (and subsequently revised) constitution, proved all but ungovernable. This was due to irreconcilable differences between various social, political, religious and ethnic factions.
Revolution and Bersiap In the days following the proclamation, the news of Indonesian independence was spread by radio, newspaper, leaflets, and word of mouth despite attempts by the Japanese soldiers to suppress the news. On 19 September, Sukarno addressed a crowd of one million people at the Ikada Field of Jakarta (now part of
Merdeka Square) to commemorate one month of independence, indicating the strong level of popular support for the new Republic, at least on Java and Sumatra. In these two islands, the Sukarno government quickly established governmental control while the remaining Japanese mostly retreated to their barracks awaiting the arrival of Allied forces. This period was marked by constant attacks by armed groups on anyone who was perceived to oppose Indonesian independence. The most serious cases were the Social Revolutions in
Aceh and
North Sumatera, where large numbers of Acehnese and Malay aristocrats were killed, and the "Three Regions Affair" in the northwestern coast of
Central Java. These bloody incidents continued until late 1945 to early 1946, and began to peter out as republican authorities began to exert and consolidate control. Sukarno's government initially postponed the formation of a national army, for fear of antagonizing the Allied occupation forces and their doubt over whether they would have been able to form an adequate military apparatus to maintain control of seized territory. The members of various
militia groups formed during Japanese occupation such as the disbanded PETA and
Heiho, at that time were encouraged to join the BKR - (The People's Security Organization), itself a subordinate of the "War Victims Assistance Organization". It was only in October 1945 that the BKR was reformed into the TKR – (
People's Security Army) in response to the increasing Allied and Dutch presence in Indonesia. The TKR armed themselves mostly by attacking Japanese troops and confiscating their weapons. Due to the sudden transfer of Java and Sumatra from General
Douglas MacArthur's American-controlled Southwest Pacific Command to
Lord Louis Mountbatten's British-controlled Southeast Asian Command, the first Allied soldiers (1st Battalion of Seaforth Highlanders) did not arrive in Jakarta until late September 1945. British forces began to occupy major Indonesian cities in October 1945. The commander of the British 23rd Division, Lieutenant General Sir
Philip Christison, set up command in the former governor-general's palace in Jakarta. Christison stated that he intended to free all Allied prisoners-of-war and to allow the return of Indonesia to its pre-war status, as a colony of the Netherlands. The republican government were willing to cooperate with the release and repatriation of Allied civilians and military POWs, setting up the Committee for the Repatriation of Japanese and Allied Prisoners of War and Internees (, POPDA) for this purpose. POPDA, in cooperation with the British, repatriated more than 70,000 Japanese and Allied POWs and internees by the end of 1946. However, due to the relative weakness of the military of the Republic of Indonesia, Sukarno sought independence by gaining international recognition for his new country rather than engage in battle with British and Dutch military forces. Sutan Sjahrir opening the first plenary session of the
Central Indonesian National Committee (KNIP), 16 October 1945 Sukarno was aware that his history as a Japanese
collaborator and his leadership in the Japanese-approved during the occupation would make the Western countries distrustful of him. To help gain international recognition as well as to accommodate domestic demands for representation, Sukarno "allowed" the formation of a parliamentary system of government, whereby a
prime minister controlled day-to-day affairs of the government, while Sukarno as president remained as a figurehead. The prime minister and his cabinet would be responsible to the
Central Indonesian National Committee instead of the president. On 14 November 1945, Sukarno appointed
Sutan Sjahrir, a European-educated politician who was never involved with the Japanese occupation authorities, as his first prime minister. In late 1945, Dutch administrators who led the Dutch East Indies government-in-exile and soldiers who had fought the Japanese began to return under the name of Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA), with the protection of the British. They were led by
Hubertus Johannes van Mook, a colonial administrator who had evacuated to
Brisbane, Australia. Dutch soldiers who had been POWs under the Japanese were released and rearmed. Shooting between these Dutch soldiers and police supporting the new republican government soon developed. This soon escalated to armed conflict between the newly constituted republican forces aided by a myriad of pro-independence fighters and the Dutch and British forces. On 10 November, a full-scale
battle broke out in Surabaya between the 49th Infantry Brigade of the
British Indian Army and Indonesian nationalist militias. The British-Indian force were supported by air and naval forces. Some 300 Indian soldiers were killed (including their commander Brigadier
Aubertin Walter Sothern Mallaby), as were thousands of nationalist militiamen and other Indonesians. Shootouts broke out with alarming regularity in Jakarta, including an attempted assassination of Prime Minister
Sjahrir by Dutch gunmen. To avoid this menace, Sukarno and the majority of his government left for the safety of Yogyakarta on 4 January 1946. There, the republican government received protection and full support from Sultan
Hamengkubuwono IX. Yogyakarta would remain as the Republic's capital until the end of the war in 1949. Sjahrir remained in Jakarta to conduct negotiations with the British. The initial series of battles in late 1945 and early 1946 left the British in control of major port cities on Java and Sumatra. During the Japanese occupation, the Outer Islands (excluding Java and Sumatra) were occupied by the Japanese Navy (
Kaigun), who did not allow for political mobilisation of the islanders. Consequently, there was little republican activity in these islands post-proclamation. Australian and Dutch forces were able to quickly take control of these islands without much fighting by the end of 1945 (excluding the resistance of
I Gusti Ngurah Rai in Bali, the insurgency in
South Sulawesi, and fighting in Hulu Sungai area of
South Kalimantan). Meanwhile, the hinterland areas of Java and Sumatera remained under republican control. Eager to pull its soldiers out of Indonesia, the British allowed for large-scale infusion of Dutch forces into the country throughout 1946. By November 1946, all British soldiers had been withdrawn from Indonesia. They were replaced with more than 150,000 Dutch soldiers. The British sent Lord
Archibald Clark Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel and
Miles Lampson, 1st Baron Killearn to bring the Dutch and Indonesians to the negotiating table. The result of these negotiations was the
Linggadjati Agreement signed in November 1946, where the Dutch acknowledged
de facto republican sovereignty over Java, Sumatera, and Madura. In exchange, the republicans were willing to discuss a future Commonwealth-like
United Kingdom of Netherlands and Indonesia.
Linggadjati Agreement and Operation Product Linggadjati Agreement , March 1947 Sukarno's decision to negotiate with the Dutch was met with strong opposition by various Indonesian factions.
Tan Malaka, a
communist politician, organized these groups into a united front called the
Persatoean Perdjoangan (PP). PP offered a "Minimum Program" which called for complete independence, nationalisation of all foreign properties, and rejection of all negotiations until all foreign troops are withdrawn. These programmes received widespread popular support, including from armed forces commander General
Sudirman. On 4 July 1946, military units linked with PP kidnapped Prime Minister Sjahrir who was visiting Yogyakarta. Sjahrir was leading the negotiation with the Dutch. Sukarno, after successfully influencing Sudirman, managed to secure the release of Sjahrir and the arrest of Tan Malaka and other PP leaders. Disapproval of Linggadjati terms within the KNIP led Sukarno to issue a decree doubling KNIP membership by including many pro-agreement appointed members. As a consequence, KNIP ratified the Linggadjati Agreement in March 1947.
Operation Product On 21 July 1947, the Linggadjati Agreement was broken by the Dutch, who launched
Operatie Product, a massive military invasion into republican-held territories. Although the newly reconstituted
TNI was unable to offer significant military resistance, the blatant violation by the Dutch of an internationally brokered agreement outraged world opinion. International pressure forced the Dutch to halt their invasion force in August 1947. Sjahrir, who had been replaced as prime minister by
Amir Sjarifuddin, flew to
New York City to appeal the Indonesian case in front of the
United Nations. The UN Security Council issued a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and appointed a Good Offices Committee (GOC) to oversee the ceasefire. The GOC, based in Jakarta, consisted of delegations from Australia (led by
Richard Kirby, chosen by Indonesia), Belgium (led by
Paul van Zeeland, chosen by the Netherlands), and the United States (led by
Frank Porter Graham, neutral). The republic was now under firm Dutch military stranglehold, with the Dutch military occupying
West Java, and the northern coast of Central Java and
East Java, along with the key productive areas of Sumatra. Additionally, the Dutch navy blockaded republican areas from supplies of vital food, medicine, and weapons. As a consequence, Prime Minister Amir Sjarifuddin had little choice but to sign the
Renville Agreement on 17 January 1948, which acknowledged Dutch control over areas taken during Operatie Product, while the republicans pledged to withdraw all forces that remained on the other side of the ceasefire line ("Van Mook Line"). Meanwhile, the Dutch begin to organize
puppet states in the areas under their occupation, to counter republican influence utilising ethnic diversity of Indonesia.
Renville agreement and Madiun affair The signing of the highly disadvantageous Renville Agreement caused even greater instability within the republican political structure. In Dutch-occupied West Java,
Darul Islam guerrillas under
Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosuwirjo maintained their anti-Dutch resistance and repealed any loyalty to the Republic; they caused a bloody insurgency in West Java and other areas in the first decades of independence. Prime Minister Sjarifuddin, who signed the agreement, was forced to resign in January 1948 and was replaced by Hatta. Hatta's cabinet's policy of rationalising the armed forces by demobilising large numbers of armed groups that proliferated the republican areas also caused severe disaffection. Leftist political elements, led by resurgent Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) under
Musso took advantage of public disaffections by launching a rebellion in
Madiun, East Java, on 18 September 1948. Bloody fighting continued during late-September until the end of October 1948, when the last communist bands were defeated, and Musso shot dead. The communists had overestimated their potential to oppose the strong appeal of Sukarno amongst the population.
Operation Kraai and exile Invasion and exile in Dutch custody,
Parapat 1949. On 19 December 1948, to take advantage of the republic's weak position following the communist rebellion, the Dutch launched
Operation Kraai, a second military invasion designed to crush the Republic once and for all. The invasion was initiated with an airborne assault on the republican capital Yogyakarta. Sukarno ordered the armed forces under Sudirman to launch a guerrilla campaign in the countryside, while he and other key leaders such as Hatta and Sjahrir allowed themselves to be taken prisoner by the Dutch. To ensure continuity of government, Sukarno sent a telegram to Sjarifuddin, providing him with the mandate to lead an Emergency Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PDRI), based on the unoccupied hinterlands of West Sumatra, a position he kept until Sukarno was released in June 1949. The Dutch sent Sukarno and other captured republican leaders to captivity in Parapat, in Dutch-occupied part of North Sumatra and later to the island of
Bangka.
Aftermath The second Dutch invasion caused even more international outrage. The United States, impressed by Indonesia's ability to defeat the 1948 communist challenge without outside help, threatened to cut off
Marshall Aid funds to the Netherlands if military operations in Indonesia continued. TNI did not disintegrate and continued to wage guerrilla resistance against the Dutch, most notably the assault on Dutch-held Yogyakarta led by Lieutenant Colonel
Suharto on 1 March 1949. Consequently, the Dutch were forced to sign the
Roem–Van Roijen Agreement on 7 May 1949. According to this treaty, the Dutch released the republican leadership and returned the area surrounding Yogyakarta to republican control in June 1949. This was followed by the
Dutch-Indonesian Round Table Conference held in
The Hague which led to the complete transfer of
sovereignty by the Queen
Juliana of the Netherlands to Indonesia, on 27 December 1949. On that day, Sukarno flew from Yogyakarta to Jakarta, making a triumphant speech at the steps of the governor-general's palace, immediately renamed the
Merdeka Palace ("Independence Palace"). ==President of the United States of Indonesia==