Sukarno

Biography

Sukarno was born in Surabaya in 1901, the son of a Javanese schoolteacher and a Balinese mother. He studied civil engineering at the technical college in Bandung, graduating in 1926, and worked for a time as an architect. In 1927 he founded the Indonesian National Party and became its leader; the Dutch colonial authorities jailed him after a 1930 trial and later exiled him to Flores and Bengkulu.

Freed by the Japanese in 1942, he worked with the occupation in exchange for a platform for nationalism, and in June 1945 he set out the five principles of Pancasila. On 17 August 1945 he and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesia's independence, and he became its first president. The Netherlands accepted independence in 1949 after four years of fighting and negotiation.

Frustrated by unstable parliamentary politics and regional revolts, Sukarno declared martial law in 1957 and in 1959 restored the 1945 constitution, ruling under what he called Guided Democracy while balancing the army against the Communist Party. Abroad he hosted the 1955 Bandung Conference and pursued confrontations with the Netherlands over West New Guinea and with Malaysia.

After the 30 September Movement of 1965, General Suharto took control. Sukarno signed over authority to him in March 1966, was removed from office in 1967, and lived under house arrest until his death in 1970.