Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was the second President of Indonesia, having held the office for 31 years from 1967 following Sukarno's removal until his resignation in 1998.
Suharto was born in a small village, Kemusuk, in the Godean area near Yogyakarta, during the Dutch colonial era.Soeharto, as related to G. Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H. (1989), Soeharto: Pikiran, ucapan dan tindakan saya: otobiographi (Soeharto: My thoughts, words and deeds: an autobiography), PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, Jakarta. . He grew up in humble circumstances.See the details in Chapter 2, 'Akar saya dari desa' (My village roots), in Soeharto, op. cit. His Javanese Muslim parents divorced not long after his birth, and he was passed between foster parents for much of his childhood. During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Suharto served in Japanese-organised Indonesian security forces. Indonesia's independence struggle saw him joining the newly formed Indonesian army. Suharto rose to the rank of major general following Indonesian independence.
Early life
Suharto was born on 8 June 1921 during the Dutch East Indies era, in a plaited bamboo walled house in the hamlet of Kemusuk, a part of the larger village of Godean. The village is west of Yogyakarta, the cultural heartland of the Javanese. Born to ethnic Javanese parents of peasant class, he was the only child of his father's second marriage. His father, Kertosudiro had two children from his previous marriage, and was a village irrigation official. His mother Sukirah, a local woman, was distantly related to Sultan Hamengkubuwono V by his first concubine.Tempo (Jakarta), 11 November 1974.
Five weeks after Suharto's birth, his mother suffered a nervous breakdown and he was placed in the care of his paternal great-aunt, Kromodirjo. Kertosudiro and Sukirah divorced early in Suharto's life and both later remarried. At the age of three, Suharto was returned to his mother who had remarried a local farmer whom Suharto helped in the rice paddies. In 1929, Suharto's father took him to live with his sister who was married to an agricultural supervisor, Prawirowihardjo, in the town of Wuryantoro in a poor and low-yield farming area near Wonogiri. Over the following two years, he was taken back to his mother in Kemusuk by his stepfather and then back again to Wuryantoro by his father.
Prawirowihardjo took to raising the boy as his own, which provided Suharto a father-figure and a stable home in Wuryantoro. In 1931, he moved to town of Wonogiri to attend the primary school (schakelschool), living first with Prawirohardjo's son Sulardi, and later with his father's relative Hardjowijono. While living with Hardjowijono, Suharto became acquainted with Darjatmo, a dukun ("guru") of Javanese mystical arts and faith healing. The experience deeply affected him and later, as president, Suharto surrounded himself with powerful symbolic language. Difficulties in paying the fees for his education in Wonogiri resulted in another move back with his father in Kemusuk, where he continued studying at a lower-fee, Schakel Muhammadiyah (middle school) in the city of Yogyakarta until 1938.
Like many Javanese, Suharto had only one name.Haskin, Colin, "Suharto dead at 86", The Globe and Mail, 27 January 2008 In religious contexts in recent years he has sometimes been called "Haji" or "el-Haj Mohammed Suharto" but these names were not part of his formal name or generally used. The spelling "Suharto" reflects modern Indonesian spelling although the general approach in Indonesia is to rely on the spelling preferred by the person concerned. At the time of his birth, the standard transcription was "Soeharto" and he preferred the original spelling. The international English-language press generally uses the spelling 'Suharto' while the Indonesian government and media use 'Soeharto'.
Suharto's upbringing contrasts with that of leading Indonesian nationalists such as Sukarno in that he is believed to have had little interest in anti-colonialism, or political concerns beyond his immediate surroundings. Unlike Sukarno and his circle, Suharto had little to no contact with European colonizers. Consequently, he did not learn to speak Dutch or other European languages in his youth. He learned to speak Dutch after his induction into the Dutch military in 1940.
Military career
World War II and Japanese occupation Suharto finished middle school at the age of 18 and took a clerical job at a bank in Wuryantaro. He was forced to resign after a bicycle mishap tore his only working clothes. Following a spell of unemployment, he joined the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) in June 1940, and undertook basic training in Gombong near Yogyakarta. With the Netherlands under German occupation and the Japanese pressing for access to Indonesian oil supplies, the Dutch had opened up the KNIL to large intakes of previously excluded Javanese. Suharto was assigned to Battalion XIII at Rampal, graduated from short training at KNIL Kaderschool in Gombong to become sergeant, and was posted to KNIL reserve battalion in Cisarua.
Following the Dutch surrender to the invading Japanese forces in March 1942, Suharto abandoned his KNIL uniform and went back to Wurjantoro. After months of unemployment, he then became one of thousands of Indonesians who took the opportunity to join Japanese-organised security forces by joining the Yogyakarta police force. In October 1943, Suharto was transferred from the police force to the newly formed Japanese-sponsored militia, the Pembela Tanah Air (PETA; Defenders of the Fatherland) in which Indonesians served as officers. In his training to serve at the rank of shodancho (platoon commander) he encountered a localised version of the Japanese bushido, or "way of the warrior", used to indoctrinate troops. This training encouraged an anti-Dutch and pro-nationalist thought, although toward the aims of the Imperial Japanese militarists. The encounter with a nationalistic and militarist ideology is believed to have profoundly influenced Suharto's own way of thinking.
Suharto was posted at a PETA coastal defence battalion at Wates, south of Yogyakarta, until he was admitted for training for company commander (chudancho) in Bogor from April to August 1944. As company commander, he conducted training for new PETA recruits in Surakarta, Jakarta, and Madiun. The Japanese surrender and Proclamation of Indonesian Independence in August 1945 occurred when Suharto was posted at remote Brebeg area (on the slopes of Mount Wilis) to train new NCOs to replace those executed by the Japanese in the aftermath of failed PETA rebellion of February 1945 in Blitar, led by Supriyadi.
Indonesian National Revolution Two days after the Japanese surrender in the Pacific, independence leaders Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesian independence, and were appointed president and vice-President respectively of the new Republic. Suharto disbanded his regiment in accordance with orders from the Japanese command and returned to Yogyakarta. As republican groups rose to assert Indonesian independence, Suharto helped to establish a fighting unit together with a former PETA colleague, Umar Slamet. This unit was amalgamated into the newly formed Indonesian armed forces (Tentara Keamanan Rakjat / TKR) which was established on 5 October 1945. His leadership skills in leading several attacks against Japanese soldiers in Yogyakarta area to seize their weapons led to Suharto's promotion to major. He was given command of newly formed Battalion X of Regiment I, which was in turn part of Division IX led by Colonel Sudarsono. By October 1945, this division has secured full control of Yogyakarta area by forcing the surrender of remaining Japanese soldiers.
The arrival of the Allies, under a mandate to return the situation to the status quo ante bellum, quickly led to clashes between Indonesian republicans and Allied forces, namely returning Dutch and assisting British forces. Suharto led his Battalion X when it was sent northwards to repel the British advance towards Yogyakarta from British-occupied port of Semarang. In a series of battles at Magelang and Ambarawa lasting from late-October to December 1945, Republican forces forced the British regroup at the confines of Semarang. Suharto's battle performance attracted attention of Sudirman, the Republican armed forces commander, who promoted him to lead newly formed Regiment III of Division IX (2,250 men) with rank of lieutenant-colonel on early 1946. In May 1946, Suharto's umbrella Division IX was amalgamated into new Division III under leadership of newly promoted Major-General Sudarsono. On 17 May 1946, the British handed-over control of Semarang to the Dutch T ("Tijger") Brigade. Suharto participated in a battle at Kendal where Division III successfully halted a southward advance by the Dutch brigade. As evidence of Suharto's increasing stature, in June 1946 Lieutenant-Colonel Sunarto Kusumodirdjo invited him to draft the working guidelines for the Battle Leadership Headquarters (MPP), a body created to organise and unify the command structure of the Indonesian nationalist forces.
The transfer of Republican capital from Jakarta to Yogyakarta in January 1946 exposed the armed units there to civilian political intrigue, most notably the "3 July Affair". Sukarno government's decision to commence negotiations with the Dutch caused much opposition from various Indonesian factions, which coalesced into a group called PP (Persatoean Perdjoangan) led by communist politician Tan Malaka. PP's opposition to negotiation with the Dutch received sympathy from many sections of the armed forces, including its commander Sudirman and Suharto's direct superior Major-General Sudarsono. On 27 June 1946, Sudarsono ordered the kidnapping of Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir who was leading the negotiations with the Dutch. When Sukarno issued order for Sudarsono's arrest, the plot leader took refuge in Suharto's regimental headquarters at the outskirts of Yogyakarta, bringing the kidnapped Sjahrir with him. Suharto, while providing protection to his superior Sudarsono, was also secretly in contact with Sudirman to find-out whether the commander decided to support Sudarsono's kidnapping plot. When Sudirman indicated that Sukarno has convinced him not to support Sudarsono, Suharto helped loyal government forces to arrest Sudarsono and release the kidnapped Sjahrir on 3 July 1946, hence protecting himself from the subsequent purge of Division III in the aftermath of the affair.
The 3 July Affair led to further restructuring of Division III. By August 1946, Suharto was head of Yogyakarta-based 22nd Regiment, one of the six regiments of Division III (now named the "Diponegoro Division") which is responsible for the Central Java area. According to Dutch intelligence reports, by mid-1947, Suharto's regiment consisted of four battalions who were regularly rotated northwards to the frontlines surrounding Semarang to help contain the Dutch forces there. Dutch intelligence reported that Suharto was assisting smuggling syndicates in the transport of opium through the territory he controlled with the help of Chinese-Indonesian merchant Liem Sioe Liong to be bartered with weapons, clothes, food, and other supplies.
On 21 July 1947, the Dutch launched Operatie Product, a military invasion into Republican-held areas. In Central Java, the Dutch T-Brigade pushed the Republican forces from Semarang to Magelang before a United Nations-brokered ceasefire was announced on 4 August. Suharto led his troops in the defence against this assault, and later was regularly rotated as frontline commander responsible for guarding the ceasefire line (Van Mook Line) north of Yogyakarta.