THE FALL OF SUKARNO

...United Nations, contrary to Sukarno's continued personal opposition to both policy changes...

...American and United Nations diplomacy induced a Dutch compromise involving first U.N., then Indonesian, administration of the disputed territory and a projected plebiscite, a settlement which made major military action unnecessary...

...Their failure to establish such a "fifth force" does not explain the Communists' seemingly ill-prepared resort to arms against the far more formidable military on the night of September 30-October 1, 1965...

...But that is what he is becoming...

...There was a popular outcry against Nasution's February demotion, and Suharto used the demonstrations to consolidate the soldiers' power through the formation of a new cabinet and establishment of a three-man presidium, effectively headed by himself, to rule the country...

...Sukarno's position was different, however...

...As far back as 1952 the army figured in a major political clash between President Sukarno and Sultan Hamengku Bu-wono of Djokjakarta, then Minister of Defense and today a member (together with General Suharto and Foreign Minister Adam Malik) of the three-man presidium that rules Indonesia...

...Probably more accurately, it is the old revolution "re-tooled," a favored phrase of the recent heyday of Sukarno's political partnership with the now outlawed and decimated Communists...

...How did Indonesia's policy change so very dramatically in but a single year...

...When a revolutionary council based in Western Sumatra raised the standard of revolt against the Sukarno government in 1958, claiming that Sukarno had exceeded his constitutional authority and was establishing Communism in the country, several prominent military figures were included in its ranks...

...The United States, among other democratic nations, had long sympathized with the Indonesian opponents of Sukarno's increasingly pro-Communist government...

...Sukarno's policy of "confrontation" clearly failed of its objective, the general dismemberment of Malaysia...

...Nasution was the single most important figure in the armed forces, and Sukarno was steadily losing the support of his country's soldiers...

...In fact, the Communists had been urging Sukarno to add a new dimension to Indonesia's already large armed forces for just this reason—a "fifth force" of volunteers, whom they would control...

...The change between August 1965 and August 1966 was, more than anything else, the long-delayed political victory of the soldiers over the Communists...

...The overwhelming preponderance of the armed forces leadership remained at least nominally loyal to the Djakarta government, however, and the rebellion was soon suppressed...

...As one Western embassy official in Djakarta put it, "There won't be peace in this country until the 'Bung' is gone or dead...

...Indonesia's problems and inventory of political experiences, skills, and attitudes were such that a mobilization regime was a vitual inevitability...

...But, fortunately, it has not recently intervened in Indonesian politics—in part because there was no way in which it could do so...

...The Communists had previously been inching towards triumph— partly by bluff and aided most importantly by Sukarno's patronage...

...In 1948 they raised the standard of revolt against the nationalists when the latter were fighting the Dutch and were promptly smacked down...

...They were not downtrodden, desperate men, men who would lay down their lives out of the hopelessness of their situation...

...Sukarno has struggled these last ten months to retain as much power as he possibly could—with mixed results...

...The circumstances of the power struggle in Indonesia contrasted sharply with the prevailing situations in other countries where the military also had grown in political importance through the years...

...It was only a matter of time until either the army or the Communists took over...

...If the Communists' attempted coup seems improvised in restrospect, the army's response seems even more so...

...Some say that the Communists surely knew their own strength, whatever they may have claimed publicly, and that they also should have appreciated the weaknesses of their membership...

...Although he opposed the 1958 revolt against Sukarno's leadership, Major General Abdul Haris Nasution soon came to be identified at home, abroad—and, importantly, by Sukarno —as the chief rival of the charismatic Indonesian president...

...Indonesia's Communists had long tried, with some success, to infiltrate the armed forces, but they above all others should have known the insufficient proportions of their penetration...

...Sukarno's purpose was quite clear in February, 1966, when he removed Nasution as defense minister (but failed to replace him with a pliable successor...

...Army officers sympathetic to the Sultan petitioned President Sukarno to dismiss the parliament...

...The soldiers, however, grew progressively weary of this seemingly futile, strength-sapping policy...

...Pakistani, Thai, Iraqi, Egyptian, and other civilian regimes had been toppled in part because they were no match for the stronger military...

...But it may be that the Communists did not miscalculate so much as take the initiative because they felt they had no choice...

...First, there probably never have been anywhere near three million Communists in Indonesia...

...The stage was said to be set for the takeover of the country by the Communists...

...He is a man who admits that he is in love with the romance of revolution...

...Can Sukarno come back...

...In Burma the army, led by General Ne Win, had dumped popular Premier U Nu in 1962, but Nu had not been supported by any kind of force that even remotely balanced the strength of his country's soldiers...

...Will he try...

...A reconciliation with Malaysia is progressing, and it is likely that Indonesia will soon return to the RICHARD BUTWELL is director of the Patterson School of Diplomacy at the University of Kentucky...

...But why did Indonesia's soldiers wait so long to take over...

...The Fall of Sukarno by RICHARD BUTWELL TVThen Indonesia celebrated the * * twentieth anniversary of the proclamation of its independence on August 17 a year ago, President Sukarno was still its first—and only—chief executive...

...But Communists have made mistakes in Indonesia before—big ones...

...Equally important, many of Indonesia's Communists were already among the more privileged elements of their society—bureaucrats, students, intellectuals, and the like...

...In any event, the army opposed the proposal...

...The details of this jockeying for power may remain eternally shrouded...

...Practically every organized political force in the country, including some of the soldiers, an arch-conservative Moslem movement, and even the Communists, had sought to topple Sukarno by one means or another since 1945...

...That crisis could have been a planned coup by the army as such, or by one or another of the top soldiers...

...Sukarno was emotionally revolutionary, but he was not an effective leader...

...The leaders and supporters of the once seemingly strong Communist Party have been savagely massacred up and down the land—to the extent, perhaps, of as many as 400,000 dead...

...Sentiment was against the Sultan in the appointed legislature, where it was suggested that he be removed...

...When the Dutch reluctantly acquiesced in Indonesia's independence in 1949, ownership of West Irian (Western New Guinea) was left unsettled...

...The Indonesians failed to pressure the Dutch into relinquishing West Irian or to get the United Nations to endorse their position...

...A new chief of staff, appointed by Sukarno, confirmed these officers in the positions they had usurped...

...Nasution thus would take over the President's duties in the event of Sukarno's incapacitation or absence from the country...

...In 1955 the cabinet of Premier Ali Sastroamidjojo, who had just staged the successful Bandung Afro-Asian Conference, fell when a newly-named army chief of staff proved unacceptable to his deputy and various territorial commanders...

...Today, only a year later, the era of Sukarno's predominance is a thing of history...

...The soldiers successfully defied the prestige, power, authority, and combined efforts of President Sukarno and Prime Minister Ali...

...That Nasution was still a formidable figure politically, in his own right, was demonstrated in June when he was chosen Chairman of the Peoples Consultative Congress, the country's ranking governmental institution according to the constitution...

...The army—or at least some of its leaders—was to continue to try to tell Sukarno and the other civilian leaders what to do on various occasions in the years that followed...

...Even if he does not, he will remain a potential source of trouble for his country's new military rulers—which is why they will probably remove him as soon as they think they can with safety...

...Sultan Buwono sought to reduce the size of the country's armed forces and was opposed by guerrilla veterans of the war against the Dutch who feared dismissal because they were not professionals...

...Unquestionably Malaysia was hurt by Indonesia's action, but Indonesia was hurt even more, not the least economically...

...All had failed...

...Where were these others on the night of September 30-October 1 and subsequently...

...The army—or, more accurately, some of the top soldiers— may have decided that popular dissatisfaction with the policy of "confrontation" as well as rising prices and ever more scarce basic commodities had reached the point where the military would enjoy popular support if it supplanted Sukarno's pro-Communist government...

...In all likelihood, the military would have assumed ascendancy in Indonesia at a much earlier date, Sukarno's nationalist pre-eminence notwithstanding, if it had not been for its politically necessary preoccupation with the volatile West Irian question—which gave the Communists time to build their strength...

...When the legislature passed a resolution opposing Sultan Buwono, Djakarta witnessed the wildest political demonstration it was to experience until late 1965...

...In addition, at least forty-five members of the party's fifty-person central committee have been killed, as well as D. N. Aidit, the Communists' leader...

...His power, which had grown through the years, appeared unchallengeable...

...Political "confrontation" soon became military "confrontation," as Indonesians were dropped by parachute on the Malay Peninsula as well as infiltrated across the frontier of Indonesian Borneo into the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah...

...The Indonesian revolution was in effect sidetracked by the man who said he was in love with revolution, Sukarno...

...Elsewhere the military had taken over earlier—in Thailand, Burma, and Pakistan, for example—for basically the same reasons the soldiers have now come to power in Indonesia: civilian incompetence, political instability, economic mismanagement, internal disunity, and related causes...

...Soldier dissatisfaction with Sukarno and the way he directed Indonesia's government had a long history...

...Sukarno probably erred in identifying Nasution as the sole threat to his rule and ignoring, relatively speaking, newcomer General Suharto who had assumed leadership of the anti-Communist forces on October 1, 1965, when six other generals were brutally slain and Nasution incapacitated in the abortive Communist coup that began on the night of September 30...

...Confirmation in June by the Peoples Provisional Congress of the broad powers previously exercised by General Suharto as a result of their delegation by President Sukarno left no doubt that the latter's authority had been almost wholly eclipsed...

...Just a year ago he successfully urged the Nationalist Party to purge its central organization of all of its moderate leaders, leaving the party in the control of the pro-Communist faction...

...But it's a new revolution here now...

...But 400,000 Communists—even if all the slain actually were Communists, which is doubtful—are not upwards of three million Communists and sympathizers...

...The crowds supported the Sultan and were quieted only by Sukarno's oratorical charm...

...The military's efforts to demote Sukarno to a consitutional, even figurehead President met, not surprisingly, with that crafty nationalist's opposition...

...Once a nationalist who proclaimed democratic goals for his country, Sukarno had become increasingly pro-Communist in his domestic political orientation as well as in his foreign policy...

...West Irian having been so gained, Sukarno next turned to the task of "confronting" the newly established state of Malaysia, which was launched in September, 1963...

...The Communists continued to support the policy, partly because Malaysia was anti-Communist and partly because it appeared to benefit them internally...

...The process of downgrading Sukarno reached its climax in July when the People's Consultative Congress, Indonesia's highest policy-making body, stripped him of his title of "President for Life...

...The Communists, on the other hand, may have acted—and failed—because they miscalculated their strength...

...The soldiers ultimately did so—because they were stronger...

...He had remained as President, but others today make the decisions that count, decisions to make peace with Malaysia, return to the United Nations, and bid for renewed aid from the United States...

...Indonesia's Communist Party claimed from two to three million card-carrying members and to embrace even more supporters in terms of members of af-iliated groups...

...Many have suggested accordingly that the Communists anticipated some sudden, unexpected crisis and responded the way they did out of desperation...

...Since the abortive coup of last fall at least 400,000 Indonesian Communists, or alleged Communists, are reported to have been slaughtered by fanatic anti-Communist elements, mostly Moslems...

...Sukarno's government was a far cry from such a revolutionary force...

...Possibly most important of all, the army's was an Indonesian victory...

...The estimate was the Communists' own figure, and they had every reason to overstate their strength...

...Sukarno was backed by his country's Communists, who were not only relatively more numerous than the Communists in those states in which the military had taken over in recent years but were also allied with the regime in power...

...At any rate, Chinese influence has declined sharply since General Suharto took over...

...There is evidence, on the other hand, that the Chinese Communists gave various kinds of aid to their Indonesian counterparts in the days before the ill-fated 1965 coup attempt— some even say that they encouraged that event...

...The lesson for the United States in the Indonesian affair may well be that internal determinants are the really crucial factor in the political development of a so-called "emerging state," a lesson which Vietnam may also teach Americans in a grimmer way...

...I have not sacrificed fifty years of my life to be a mahara-jah," Sukarno has said...

...How did it all happen...

...The soldiers were divided in 1952, however, and subordinate officers removed pro-Buwono territorial commanders in South Sumatra, East Java, and East Indonesia...

...He may try, but if he does he will most assuredly fail and thus hasten the end of a long political career...

...He wrote "Southeast Asia Today and Tomorrow" and is co-author (with Amry Vandenbosch) of the forthcoming book, "The Changing Face of Southeast Asia...

...Sukarno is still Indonesia's President, but he is not its ruler...

...The significant fact is that the army and the Communists finally clashed, and the soldiers won—but not completely...

...Soldiers now wield the power that once was Sukarno's...

...If this is so, however, why has the army moved so comparatively slowly since last fall...

...Sukarno may have feared that this force would be used against himself...

...To begin with, it really did not happen overnight...

...In the late 1950s, as a result, Indonesia prepared to seize West Irian by force, the issue by this time having achieved such unparalleled national attention as a consequence of its exploitation by Sukarno that the military was forced to devote its full energies to the impending campaign...

...An uprising against the Dutch in the mid-1920s similarly misfired...

...It had been building up for a long time...