Word: sukarno
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...country cannot be considered outside the context of the Indonesian political situation. In late 1965, there occurred an armed uprising which the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) supported but in which the extent of their role is still highly unclear. That uprising was directed not against the rule of the Sukarno government, whose reaction to the event was ambiguous, but against a group of high military officials and their supporters. General Suharto immediately instigated a coup (or counter-coup) and seized control of the country. Sukarno himself became a mere figurehead and was dislodged from office...
...representatives, under the auspices of the Ford Foundation, had functioned briefly in Indonesia during the Sukarno period, but they worked in an academic training program alongside economists who disagreed with Sukarno and many of whom later ascended to key posts under Suharto's rule. The Harvard agency was then far from the helm of government policy-making and, if not directly antagonistic to Sukarno, did not occupy a position of influence or provide the government with support as it did under the succeeding leadership. The DAS withdrew from Indonesia in early 1965 as a result of intensified crisis conditions...
Economically, the government has reversed Sukarno's policy of isolationism and re-integrated his country with the extensive cash-and-trade nexus of the West. The government has become increasingly dependent on massive inputs of American aid, and has encouraged an immense flow of foreign investment, which is thus far concentrating on oil, timber, and minerals. All of these actions have incidentally benefited the American corporate community, many of whose members have eagerly flocked to the area...
...might be wrong to glorify the late Sukarno regime and assume that the new government is the root of all evil in present-day Indonesia. Sukarno, too, imprisoned political enemies, though his attitude toward dissent never approached the intolerance or brutality of the present leadership. And Sukarno's economic policies were disjointed, self-centered, and in many areas non-existent. The new regime has succeeded in completely stopping an 800 per cent annual inflation and in formulating a centralized, functioning economic structure. Several Indonesian students at Harvard have said that they feel their country is now better off materially than...
...that either Suharto or international capital has the best interests of the Indonesian populace at heart, or that another, perhaps socialist, form of economy might not better serve the needs of most people living in that country. It seems unlikely, too, on the basis of past conduct, that the Sukarno regime will countenance any change in policy besides any which it itself desires...