Budiarto Shambazy — On April 12, 1963 rebels in
Brunei were involved in an armed contact with
British troops in North Kalimantan. The “rebels”
(the TNI or Indonesian National Defense Force,
Indonesian volunteers and Brunei opposition)
launched a subversive rebellion against the
sultanate that was considered a British puppet.

This was the first armed contact during the policy
of Konfrontasi(1) that had been going on since 1965.
The Konfrontasi campaign was trigged by a British
plan to maintain its colony by means of forming the
Malaysian Federation that consisted of Malaysia,
Borneo (Sabah and Serawak), Brunei and Singapore.

The agreement to establish the federation was signed
in November 1961 and independence was agreed to on
August 31, 1963. Jakarta opposed the plan and
Foreign Affairs Minister Subandrio announced the
policy of Konfrontasi on January 20, 1963.

Bung Karno (Brother Karno, Indonesia’s founding
President Sukarno) developed the doctrine of Nefos
(New Emerging Forces). After Bung Karno succeeded in
expelling the Dutch from West Irian his target
shifted to the British in Malaysia.

He suspected that the formation of the federation
would create an opening for the British domination
of South East Asia. Moreover London had already
formed a brigade, two battalions and airforce and
navy units totalling more than 60 thousand
personnel.

There was also the ANZUS military treaty (Australia,
New Zealand and the United States). If all of this
was still not enough, Britain also wanted to
establish a military base in Singapore.

It was the issue of the military base in Singapore
that infuriated Bung Karno. He had still not
forgotten how they had been “overrun” by the West
when they channeled funds and weapons for the
PRRI/Permesta rebellions in 1957-1958(2).

The PRRI/Permesta was a conspiracy that involved the
US, Britain and Australia using SEATO (Southeast
Asia Treaty Organisation) military facilities in the
Philippines and Thailand to overthrow Bung Karno.

Bung Karno was reluctant to escalate Konfrontasi
into a direct war with Britain because they were
certain to loose. He preferred to fan the flames of
a limited conflict while launching diplomatic
pressure against Malaysia.

This was the reason that he supported the rebellion
in Brunei. On the international stage, he endeavored
to take advantage of the tri-polar rivalry between
the US, the Soviet Union and China for the benefit
of the Konfrontasi campaign.

Malaysia officially became a federation in 1963 and
immediately received military support from Britain,
Australia and New Zealand. With his remaining
forces, Bung Karno continued to try to achieve a
consensus through the planned formation of
Maphilindo (Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia)
before his political position was hemmed in
domestically.

During the era of Guided Democracy (1959-1965)(3),
Bung Karno cleverly played off the balance of forces
between the two largest political forces, the
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the TNI for his
own benefit. Bung Karno understood that the PKI was
the largest communist party outside of China and the
Soviet Union and the TNI was the strongest and most
anti-PKI nationalist organisation.

There have been many studies conducted into Bung
Karno’s policy of Konfrontasi. However John
Subritzky’s book titled Confronting Sukarno (2000)
is more specific because it focuses on the diplomacy
of the US, British, Australian and New Zealand in
the face of the Konfrontasi between 1961-1965.

Indonesia was strategically located because it had
become the center of inter-continental sea traffic.
The Superpower countries as well countries in the
Asia Pacific had to concede that Indonesia was an
important country. Bung Karno was the founder of the
Non-Aligned Movement, its military was strong, it
had natural wealth and a population of 100 million
people.

US President John F Kennedy (1961-1963) wanted
Indonesia to remain “non-aligned” while putting
forward the idea of the New Pacific Community to
unite the Asia Pacific region. Kennedy as well as
his replacement, President Lyndon Johnson (1963-
1969), were both busy with the raging Vietnam War.

After US President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961)
failed to forcibly remove Bung Karno through the
PRRI/Permesta rebellions, the Kennedy as well as the
Johnson administration’s national interest was to
prevent Indonesia from falling into China’s embrace
and to get rid of the PKI. During his visit to
Indonesia in April 1963, Chinese President China Liu
Shaoqui (1959-1968) reaffirmed Beijing’s support for
Konfrontasi.

Britain was afraid of loosing access to its former
colonies and like Holland would no longer be able to
enjoy free spices from Indonesia. London bound
Malaysia with the “rope” of the Commonwealth and the
AMDA (Anglo-Malayan Defence Agreement).

Australia and New Zealand had for some time
considered Britain as a boss and were caught in the
dramatised trap of the “threat from Indonesia”.

The Konfrontasi campaign finished not long after
Bung Karno’s rule ended in 1966. In many ways Bung
Karno was correct because the world has not changed
much since the period of Konfrontasi.

There are always countries that want to sow disunity
and at the same time exploit Indonesia’s natural
wealth. What is the difference between SEATO or
military bases and the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund or Temasek(4).

Kennedy was prepared to close his eyes to
Konfrontasi as long as Bung Karno sold off
Indonesia’s oil and gas exploration rights. Bung
Karno countered by asking for an excessively high
share of revenue that was impossible to for Kennedy
to accept.

Do we actually know how much profit is being made by
ExxonMobil or British Petroleum in Indonesia? The
foreign debt during Bung Karno’s rule was a mere 2.5
billion dollars US, now (as of December 2006) it has
reached as much as 125 billion.

It is said that Bung Karno was the cause of the
economic collapse that made the lives of ordinary
Indonesians so difficult. But aren’t our lives even
more difficult now?

Bung Karno and the Old Order regime were supposed to
be dangerous. But wasn’t the New Order regime that
now no longer exists even more dangerous?

Sorry okay, I’m just asking. Who knows, perhaps you
won’t be deceived so easily in 2009.(5)

Notes:

1. Konfrontasi - The armed confrontation in the
early 1960s between Indonesia and Malaysia.

2. PRRI (Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia)
– Revolutionary Government of Indonesia. A grouping
of right-wing Generals supported by the US/CIA who
in the late 1950s organised rebellions in Sulawesi
and Sumatra against the Jakarta central government.
Permesta (Perjuangan Semesta) - Total Struggle.

3. Guided Democracy - A concept developed by
Indonesia’s founding President Sukarno in the late
1950s which instead of society being represented by
elected parties, parliament would be made up of
“functional groups” representing different sections
of society. Its stated purpose is to safeguard the
basic tenets of the Indonesian Revolution and
Sukarno’s Political Manifesto introduced in 1960

4. Temasek (Singapore) controls three of Indonesia’s
largest banks: Bank International Indonesia, Bank
Danamon and Bank Niaga. It also has virtual total
control of over Indonesia’s telecommunications
industry after its subsidiary company, SingTel
purchased the previously government-owned companies
PT Indosat PT Telkomsel.

5. The legislative and presidential elections will
be held in 2009.