Indonesian History :The Sukarno Era

                                    

                                                 The Independence Movement

The Independence Movement is almost synonomous with the political leader Sukarno. The Su in his name and many other Indonesian names is an honorific. More properly his name should have been written Su Karno. When he or others chose to use other honorifics such as Bung (brother) or Batak (father) his name became Bung Karno or Batak Karno. During his time his picture became one of the most familiar in the world.

Sukarno was born June 6, 1901 in Surabaja, Java of Javanese and Balinese parents. His father was a Javanese school teacher and his mother Balinese. He thus represented a mixture of the Islamic Javanese and Hindu Balinese Malay subcultures. He went to a secondary school in which most of the students were Dutch. He thus not only got a good education but became imbued with a fierce desire for Indonesian independence. In 1927 he received a degree in civil engineering from the Bandung Technical Institute and became an architect. But by this time he found his true calling was as an orator and politician. He found he could profoundly move crowds with his oratory.
In 1928 he helped found the Partei Nasional Indonesia (PNI), the Indonesian Nationalist Party. It had previously been known as the Perserikatan Nasional Indonesia, the Union of Indonesian Nationalists. There were a number of other nationalistic parties formed at that time and later, but PNI was the most effective in promoting a mass following.
Soon Sukarno came to the attention of the Dutch authorities and he was arrested in 1931 and sent into exile to the island of Flores. He remainded under the control of the Dutch authorities until he was released by the Japanese after they invaded Indonesia in 1942.
There were other political organizations formed even earlier than the PNI, most notably the Perserikatan Komunis Indonesia (PKI), the United Indonesian Communists. This organization had formed in 1920 from moderate socialist and and revolutionary Marxists. Later the moderate socialists withdrew from the PKI. In 1926 and 1927 the PKI sponsored some sporatic revolts in a few places but they were all put down in a few days time. The effect of these revolts was to establish the PKI as a radical party willing to take direct action.

                                  The Japanese Invasion 

The Japanese occupation forces gave Sukarno a role in maintaining their local acceptance. The Japanese invasion was looked upon as a fulfillment of a remarkable ancient prophesy.Sukarno cooperated with the Japanese trying to get what assistance he could for the future independence of Indonesia. He even promoted the formation of voluntary work brigades, called romusha, to help the Japanese war effort. When it much later became known that the Japanese military treated these Indonesian volunteers as slaves Sukarno suffered a loss of face.

As World War II neared its end Sukarno secured from the Japanese Army arms and training for Indonesians. The Japanese saw this as a source of military aid in repelling the expected Allied invasion. Sukarno saw it as the arming and training of an Indonesian army to resist the return of the Dutch to Indonesia.
After the surrender of the Japanese Government on August 15, 1945 Sukarno and Muhammad Hatta declared the independence of Indonesia on August 17th. It is notable that Sukarno and the other nationalists insisted that the new nation would include all the territories conquered by the Dutch, even those that had no cultural affiliation with the Javanese or other Malay peoples. This meant that Sukarno was not opposed to imperialism per se but only opposed to the Javanese being the victim of it.

                                 The Battles for Independence

British troops came to Indonesia to take the surrender of the Japanese military. The British released the Dutch troops that had been imprisoned by the Japanese and those Dutch troops and other Dutch troops which arrived fought the Indonesian army. With air support the Dutch quickly gained control of the major cities and their environs but the Indonesian guerilla troops maintained control of the countryside under leaders such a Nasution.
There was a notable incident in the war. In Madium a People's Republic of Indonesia was declared by the left-wing socialists and communists. It had Soviet support but was not well organized. This uprising was crushed by the Siliwangi Division under Nasution. This crushing of a communist movement was taken by Americans to be evidence that Sukarno and his supporters were not communists.
The independence movement could not retake the cities from the Dutch forces and the Dutch forces could not control the countryside. The stalemate ended when the American Government under Harry Truman threatened to cut off Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands if the Dutch did not get out of Indonesia. In 1949 the Dutch withdrew and the Indonesian Republic was free to function.

                                 The Reign of Sukarno 1949-1965

Although Sukarno was adept at language and rhetoric he was a miserable failure at economic policy. He had complete disdain for economics as ignoble "bean counting." Even worse he did not find or allow anyone else to properly treat economic and financial matters. While it was probably true that he was not literally a communist this is not because he saw anything wrong with communism. For him any systematic ideology would interfer with his governing by whim. He spent the limited funds Indonesia had for public monuments and buildings and for private luxuries for himself and his four wives. The problem was that Indonesia needed to repair its infrastructure devastated by a decade of war and rebellion. There was a great need for spare parts for equipment. Indonesia was not meeting its food needs and shortages were becoming serious. The Government was printing money and inflation began to surge into the hyperinflation range.
Sukarno did not concern himself with these economic problems. He instead devoted his time to political posturing. He played games in international politics flirting in turn with the Soviets, the Chinese and West. He verbally abused the West because he found this brought responses, not only from the West but also from the Soviets and Chinese. This balancing of opposition forces extended to internal politics. His avowed movement was called Nasakom, which stood for nationalism, religion and communism. He maintained close relations with the PKI, the Indonesian Communist Party which was under the leadership of D.N. Aidit.

Compiled by Adinda Ajisaka

Noah's Ark has been found.Guess where?

                                          
Seriously,I'm often amazed at our lack of knowledge about history. Ordinary people are hungry for this information, yet the organizations responsible to disseminate these facts seem to have an agenda to keep us in the dark. This is especially true when it comes to our ancient human history.

 I won't hold you in suspense with this article: The Ark of Noah has been found. It's real. I'll describe the evidence in some detail and end with the historical and religious implications.
 In 1959, Turkish army captain Llhan Durupinar discovered an unusual shape while examining aerial photographs of his country. The smooth shape, larger than a football field, stood out from the rough and rocky terrain at an altitude of 6,300 feet near the Turkish border with Iran.
This mountainous land was originally part of the Kingdom of Armenia, a country that is thousands of years old and often considered the "first Christian nation", until the Turks took it over at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Capt. Durupinar was familiar with the biblical accounts of the Ark and its association with Mount Ararat in Turkey, but he was reluctant to jump to any conclusions. The region was very remote, yet it was inhabited with small villages. No previous reports of an object this odd had been made before. So he forwarded the photographic negative to a famous aerial photography expert named Dr. Brandenburger, at Ohio State University.
Brandenburger was responsible for discovering the Cuban missile bases during the Kennedy era from reconnaissance photos, and after carefully studying the photo, he concluded: "I have no doubt at all, that this object is a ship. In my entire career, I have never seen an object like this on a stereo photo."
In 1960 the picture [above] was published in LIFE magazine under the heading of Noahs Ark? That same year a group of Americans accompanied Capt. Durupinar to the site for a day and a half. They were expecting to find artifacts on the surface or something that would be unquestionably related to a ship of some kind. They did some digging in the area but found nothing conclusive and announced to the anxiously waiting world that it appeared to be a natural formation.

 The human eye needs to see reflected light to recognize an object. To visualize what remains below the earth, scientists use microwaves which can penetrate the ground and bounce back when they hit something solid. This technique is commonly used to locate oil and other minerals. Called Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), the apparatus is made from an antenna that transmits, then listens to receive the "echo" and prints the result on a piece of paper. The delay and strength of this echo tell the geologists how solid and at what depth the objects are under the earth.
Most of the global media turned away from the find and it became a non-story.
In 1977 Ron Wyatt visited the site. Obtaining official permission, Ron and others conducted more thorough research over a period of several years. They used metal detection surveys, subsurface radar scans, and chemical analysis -- real science -- and their findings were startling. The evidence was undeniable. This was the Ark of Noah.
 Artifacts retrieved from the Ark 
Using the GPR, Ron Wyatt discovered an open cavity on the starboard side. He used an improvised drill to make core sample inside this cavity and retrieved several very interesting objects. Below you can see the artifacts which were sent for laboratory analysis. On the left is the bore hole, followed by what turned out to be petrified animal dung, then a petrified antler and lastly a piece of cat hair.

Written by Dan Eden

Indonesia evacuates tourists after volcano eruption

                           

Indonesian authorities have evacuated some 1,100 tourists after a volcano erupted at one of the country's most popular hiking destinations.

Mount Barujari on Lombok island erupted, shooting ash 2,000m (6,500 ft) into the air.
Officials are still searching for several hundred tourists who remain missing, according to the country's disaster agency.
There have been no reports of injuries caused by the eruption.
Nearly 400 foreign and local tourists have been registered since Sunday to climb the mountain, according to the Disaster Mitigation Agency's spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
The mountaineers were recorded to have left from Sembalun monitoring post, about 11km (7 miles) from the volcano's crater.
Flights were also interrupted for several hours at the nearby Lombok International Airport and the Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali.
The 3,726-metre (12,224ft) high volcano sits within the Mount Rinjani caldera.
Rinjani is among 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia - an archipelago prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes as it sits on the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

Edo Election:PDP Cries out

                                    

 The People's Democratic Party(pdp) has rejected the results of the Edo state governorship elections which are currently being announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The PDP expressed its view on the polls during a press conference held on Thursday, September 29.

“It was too early to pass comment yesterday (Wednesday) without reports from agents. We have since received reports from party agents across 192 wards and all polling units in Edo State. The results being announced by INEC are not true reflection of the election,” Edo PDP Chairman, Dan Orbih said according to The Nation.

“INEC started the process of announcing results in the election at their headquarters in Benin. They suspended the announcement at some point and promised to continue this morning.

“We took time to look at results from our agents and independent observers. From the results, PDP clearly won the APC in all the local government areas of the state with a minimum of 30,000 votes. But, we have compared them with INEC’s figures and observed there is a wide difference between the figures from party agents and independent observers with INEC’s.

“The result by INEC has confirmed our statement less 48 hours to the election that the Edo State Governor was telling his party members and leaders that they have written the results of the election. Everything the PDP said is playing out.

“INEC disregarded results from various polling units. Decided to announce the one they wrote before election was held. While we continue to study this results still coming in from riverine areas, we are going to reject the result currently announced by INEC officials.

“Even areas we won, they have removed most of the votes with claims that card readers did not function in those areas. I wonder what the incident forms are meant for. They were supposed to address such problems. But in this instance, it is convenient for INEC to cancel all the results in areas we won.

“INEC should take full responsibility for malfunctioning card readers. What they are doing at the INEC is in line with what we said before election. All INEC officials are working in collaboration with Edo State Government who has taken pains to go into INEC office for no cause," he added.

The results so far announced by INEC show that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is leading in the polls. However, no official winner has been announced.

Source: PULSE NIGERIA

BREAKING:US Congress rejects Obama 9/11 bill

                                  
The US Congress has rejected President Barack Obama’s veto of legislation allowing relatives of the victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, the first veto override of his eight-year presidency.
The House of Representatives voted 348-76 against the veto, just hours after the Senate rejected it 97-1, meaning the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act” will become law.
The vote was a blow to Obama and to Saudi Arabia, one of the United States’ longest-standing allies in the Arab world.

Tom Mboya: The man Kenya has forgotten

                                    
Some 47 years after he became the second high-profile politician to be assassinated in post-independent Kenya, Tom Mboya’s name appears to be slowly fading away.

On the anniversary of his death, there was hardly any national memorial or lectures in his honour – perhaps confirming Mr Mboya’s biographer David Goldsworthy's fear, and which is the title of his book: The Man Kenya wanted to Forget.

Mr Mboya, a minister for Economic Planning and Development, was only 38 when he was shot along Nairobi’s Moi Avenue (then Government Road) as he stepped out of a chemist, triggering a national uproar.

While fingers were pointed to Jomo Kenyatta’s inner circle wary of Mr Mboya’s rise within the succession matrix, the political link has remained elusive and none of the insiders was questioned or arrested.

Instead, the blame fell on a Bulgaria-trained activist Nahashon Njenga, the man later found guilty of pulling the trigger of the Smith-Wesson revolver.

Njenga, a graduate of High Military School V. Levsky in Bulgaria, had hidden the gun and ammunition in his Ofafa Jericho house inside a box. He had trained as a sapper.

It was during this search that Njenga is alleged to have attempted to bribe one of the police officers involved in the search saying: “Mundu witu tiga guthii muno (Our man, don’t go very far…)". And he stated: “If it is five thousand or ten thousand you want I will give you…”

The investigation led by Joginder Singh Sokhi took a new turn when he asked him: “Why pick on me, why not the big man?”

Neither Mr Njenga nor Mr Sokhi told the court who the “big man” was.

Born on August 15, 1931, Mr Mboya would have turned 85 next month.

Although he had trained as a sanitary inspector in Kabete, having grown in William McMillan’s sisal farm in Oldonyo Sabuk, he rose quickly as a labour leader and in 1962, aged 31, he was already Kenya’s minister for Labour.

Mr Mboya viciously fought politicians allied to Oginga Odinga, whom he had accused during pre-independence years of financing Kenya Office in Cairo – a socialist outfit funded by the Egyptian government and which was calling for Kenyatta’s release.

OFFICE'S AIM

Mr Mboya thought that the aim of the Kenya Office in Cairo was to undermine him and James Gichuru – the Kanu leader.

At one point, the lobby group wrote to Kenyatta and without naming names, they told him that “certain leading personalities” in Kanu had made a pact with the Colonial Secretary to keep him in jail.

But it was Mr Odinga who became the strongest voice for the release of Kenyatta without conditions.

For his part, Mr Mboya had decided to woo Walter Odede, the father of his fiancée, Pamela, to Kanu in his bid to water down Mr Odinga’s influence among the Luo.

At the national level, he was instrumental in organising the 1966 Limuru Conference that downgraded Mr Odinga’s position within Kanu (he was Kanu’s vice-president) forcing him to quit and form his own Kenya People’s Union.

It was also Mr Mboya who helped stop Mr Odinga’s Lumumba Institute – funded by Eastern Europe countries – by raising the matter in Parliament and asking the government to take it over.

The institute’s aim was to train Kanu leaders but Mr Mboya argued in Parliament that it was a scheme to undermine elected leaders.

As a minister he was the chief government spokesman, one of the main architects of African socialism and was one of the most eloquent pro-government politician.

By endearing to Kenyatta, he became a marked man by the inner circle. To his credit, It was Mr Mboya who helped design the Kenyan flag and was in the planning committee for Kenya’s independence. More than anyone else, the British and US government had more faith in him than any other personality in the Kenyatta government.

His critics always thought he was the Central Intelligence Agency man in the region while the communists had no time for him.

Compiled by JOHN KAMAU

Hilarious: Picture Of The Week

France in History:Fall of the Bastille

                                  
On July 14, 1789, an angry crowd marched on the Bastille, a medieval fortress in east Paris that was mostly housing political prisoners. To many people in France, it was considered as a symbol of the much hated Louis’ regime. Angry, unemployed and hungry Parisians saw it as a place to vent their frustrations. The commander of the Bastille, Marquis de Launay and his troops resisted for a few hours before they surrendered to the mob. After learning about the fall of the Bastille, King Louis XVI withdrew the royal troops from the French capital and recalled finance minister Jacques Necker whom he dismissed just three days earlier. However, he could no longer reverse the Revolution, while the National Assembly (from July 9 formally called the National Constituent Assembly) became de facto the French government.

Compiled by Alicio Avellino