Transition to the New Order
's transition to the New Order in the mid-1960s ousted the country's first president, Sukarno, after 22 years in the position. One of the most tumultuous periods in the country's modern history, it was also the commencement of Suharto's 32-year presidency.
Described as the great dhalang, Sukarno drew power from balancing the opposing and increasingly antagonistic forces of the Army and the Indonesian Communist Party. By 1965, the PKI had extensively penetrated all levels of government and had gained influence at the expense of the army.
On 30 September 1965, six of the military's most senior officers were tortured and killed by the so-called 30 September Movement, a battalion of soldiers from the Tjakrabirawa Regiment. Within a few hours, Major General Suharto mobilised forces under his command and took control of Jakarta. Anti-communists, initially following the army's lead, went on a violent purge of communists throughout the country, which killed an estimated half a million people and led to the banning and dissolution of the PKI, which was officially blamed for the attempted coup and crisis.
The politically weakened Sukarno was forced to transfer key political and military powers to General Suharto, who had become head of the armed forces. In March 1967, the Indonesian parliament named General Suharto acting president. He was formally elected president one year later. Sukarno lived under house arrest until his death in 1970.
Background
The nationalist leader Sukarno had declared Indonesian independence in 1945 and was appointed president. After an internal national revolution and struggle against the former Dutch colonial government, Sukarno had managed to hold together the diverse country; however, his administration had not been able to provide a viable economic system to lift its citizens out of severe poverty. He stressed socialist policies domestically and an avidly anti-imperialist international policy, underpinned by an authoritarian style of rule dependent upon his charismatic personality. Pursuing an independent Indonesian foreign policy, Sukarno developed friendly ties with the Eastern Bloc and the People's Republic of China but courted friendly relations with the United States at the same time in his efforts to maximise Indonesian bargaining power in its foreign policy. Sukarno was also a pioneering figure in developing the Non-Aligned Movement by playing a lead role in hosting the Bandung Conference in 1955. In Indonesia's domestic politics, Sukarno also carefully balanced Indonesia's various political parties, including the PKI.From the late 1950s, political conflict and economic deterioration worsened. By the mid-1960s, the cash-strapped government had to scrap critical public sector subsidies, estimates put annual inflation at 500–1,000%, export revenues were shrinking, infrastructure crumbling, and factories were operating at minimal capacity with negligible investment. Severe poverty and hunger were widespread, and Sukarno led his country in a military confrontation with Malaysia while stepping up revolutionary and anti-western rhetoric.
Described as the great dhalang, President Sukarno's position came to depend on balancing the opposing and increasingly hostile forces of the army and the PKI. His anti-imperial ideology saw Indonesia increasingly dependent on the Soviet Union and China. By 1965, at the height of the Cold War, the PKI penetrated all levels of government extensively. With the support of Sukarno and the air force, the party gained increasing influence at the expense of the army, thus ensuring the army's enmity. By late 1965, the army was divided between a left-wing faction allied with the PKI and a right-wing faction that was being courted by the United States.
Military split
The same policies, however, won Sukarno few friends and many enemies in the Western world, especially including the United States and the United Kingdom, whose investors were increasingly angered by Sukarno's nationalisation of mineral, agricultural, and energy assets. In need of Indonesian allies in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, the United States cultivated a number of ties with officers of the military through exchanges and arms deals. That fostered a split in the military's ranks, with the United States and others backing a right-wing faction against a left-wing faction overlapping with the PKI.When Sukarno rejected food aid from United States Agency for International Development, thereby exacerbating famine conditions, the right wing of the military adopted a regional command structure through which it could smuggle staple commodities to win the loyalty of the rural population. In an attempt to curtail the increasing power of the right, the PKI and the left wing of the military formed several peasant and other mass organisations.
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation
In 1963, a policy of Konfrontasi against the newly-formed Federation of Malaysia was announced by the Sukarno regime. This further exacerbated the split between the left-wing and right-wing military factions, with the left-wing faction and the Communist Party taking part in guerrilla raids on the border with Malaysia, while the right-wing faction was mostly absent from the conflict.The Confrontation further encouraged the West to seek ways to topple Sukarno, who was viewed as a growing threat to Southeast Asian regional stability. The deepening of the armed conflict came close to all-out warfare by 1965, increased the widespread dissatisfaction with the Sukarno regime, and strengthened the hand of the right-wing generals whose forces were still close to the centre of power in Jakarta.
Collapse of Guided Democracy
30 September Movement
On the night of 30 September – 1 October 1965, six senior army generals were kidnapped and executed in Jakarta by a battalion of soldiers from the Tjakrabirawa Regiment in an "attempted coup". The right faction among the top generals was wiped out, including the powerful Chief of Staff of the Army, Ahmad Yani, but the Minister of Defence, Abdul Haris Nasution, escaped. Around 2,000 troops from coup groups occupied three sides of Merdeka Square, and commanded the Presidential Palace, radio station, and telecommunications centre, but did not occupy the east side, site of Kostrad headquarters. Calling themselves the "30 September Movement", the group announced on radio around 7am that they were trying to stop a military coup backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency that was planned to remove Sukarno from power.They claimed to have arrested several generals belonging to a conspiracy, the "Council of Generals", that had plotted a military coup against the government of President Sukarno. They further alleged that this coup was to take place on Armed Forces Day with the backing of the CIA and that the council would then install themselves as a military junta. Furthermore, the soldiers proclaimed the establishment of a "Revolutionary Council" consisting of various well-known military officers and civilian leaders that would be the highest authority in Indonesia. Additionally, they declared President Sukarno's Dwikora Cabinet as invalid.
According to one chief conspirator, Lt. Col. Latief, the Palace Guards had not attempted to kill or capture Major General Suharto, commander of Kostrad, because he was considered a Sukarno loyalist. Suharto, along with the surviving General Nasution, made the counter-allegation that the G30S was a rebellious movement that sought to replace President Sukarno's government with a Communist government under the PKI, whose leaders were cabinet ministers without portfolio. Upon hearing of the radio announcement, Suharto and Nasution began consolidating their forces, successfully gaining the loyalty of Jakarta Garrison Commander Maj. Gen. Umar Wirahadikusumah and Colonel Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, the commander of army special forces RPKAD.
During the evening of 1 October, RPKAD soldiers recaptured RRI and Telecommunications Building without any resistance as the rebel soldiers had retreated to Halim Air Force Base. RPKAD forces proceeded to attack Halim Perdanakusumah AF Base on the morning of 2 October but was stopped by the rebel soldiers in a fierce gunbattle in which several fatalities were inflicted on both sides. A direct order from President Sukarno managed to secure the surrender of the rebel soldiers by noon, after which Suhartoist forces occupied the base. On 4 October, the generals' bodies were discovered at Halim, and on 5 October a large public funeral was held.
Internal military power-struggle
The killing of the generals saw influence in the Army fall to those more willing to stand up to Sukarno and the Army's enemies on the left. After the assassinations of those generals, the highest-ranking officer in the Indonesian military, and third-highest in the overall chain-of-command, was the Defense Minister and Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution, a member of the right-wing camp. On 2 October, Suharto accepted Sukarno's order for him to take control of the army, but on the condition that Suharto personally have authority to restore order and security. The 1 November formation of Kopkamtib, formalised this authority and Suharto was appointed its first commanding general. However, on 5 October Sukarno moved to appoint Maj. Gen. Pranoto Reksosamudro, considered a Sukarno loyalist, to the office of Chief of Staff of the Army to fill the vacancy caused by Yani's death.After the promotion, The New York Times reported that an unnamed Western "diplomatic report" alleged that Pranoto was a former member of the PKI. Pranoto's alleged communism, as well as his timely promotion, led them to promote the view that the PKI and Sukarno conspired to assassinate the generals to consolidate their grip on power.
In the aftermath of the assassinations, however, Suharto and his KOSTRAD units were closest to Jakarta. By default, Suharto became the field general in charge of the prosecution of the G30S. Later, at the insistence of Gen. Nasution, Pranoto was relieved of his post, and Suharto was in his stead appointed the new Chief-of-Staff of the Army effective on 14 October 1965.