Indonesia mending rift of 20 yrs with China

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 29

Indonesia mending rift of 20 yrs with China

By Barbara Crossette, “New York Times” through NZPA Jakarta Indonesia took two significant steps recently towards narrowing 20-year rifts that have separated the nation under President Suharto from the stormy Sukarno era. President Suharto has

opened Jakarta’s new international airport and named it the Sukarno-Hatta Airport. President Sukarno and Mohammed Hatta, his vicepresident until the two split over President Sukarno’s concept of “guided democracy,” proclaimed Indonesian independence from the Dutch in 1945.

Also, in Singapore, Indonesian and Chinese trade officials signed an agreement to re-establish direct commerce betkeen the two countries for the first time in 18 years. The era of President Sukarno, Indonesia’s leading political figure for almost half a century, beginning in the 1920 s when he emerged as a nationalist fighter against colonial rule, ended after an attempted coup in 1965.

The planners and motives of the foiled coup have never been definitively determined. The Government under General Suharto, who gradually eased President Sukarno out of office after the crisis and took full power in 1967, has held China responsible for backing the Indonesian Communist Party, which is believed to have been involved in the unsuccessful coup. The present Indonesian leadership has also suggested that President Sukarno, who had been moving closer to the Communists in his last years in power, may have been a

party to the intended military takeover.

After the attempted coup was put down by General Suharto and others loyal to him, thousands of Communist suspects were sought out and killed throughout the country. Many people with Communist links are still imprisoned or denied political rights.

One such person was recently executed after exhausting all appeals. Several others are still under death sentences.

For nearly two decades, publications in Chinese have been banned from Indonesia, with the exception of a small newspaper.

All Chinese characters are inked out of foreign Sublications circulating in le country. Although there have been no official attempts in Indonesia to obliterate the memory of Sukarno, whom most Indonesians consider the nation’s founder, his place in history has not been embellished in the last two decades. Indonesia has been strongly anti-Communist and anti-Chinese under Suharto.

Many people who challenged Sukarno, including some who were arrested as a result, are now in positions of influence.

But, diplomats say, with the country politically making progress ' in economic development,

Suharto, who has a reputation as a strong believer in consensus and non-con-frontation, may feel more confident about restoring to Sukarno a larger place in national history. At the ceremonies, President Suharto said the naming of the new airport for the two independence leaders was “a token of our people’s gratefulness for their tireless struggle and their extraordinary services to our nation.” The achievements of Sukarno were also publicly praised in April, when Indonesia commemorated the thirtieth anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference held in Bandung in 1955. The conference, which led later to the founding of the non-aligned movement, was intended to give both Sukarno and Indonesia, the largest nation in South-East Asia, a bigger world role. It was also at Bandung this year that the first public step was taken toward a better relationship with China, with which Jakarta broke all diplomatic and trade links in 1967.

Peking, which has been working to improve its relations with all of the SouthEast Asian nations, sent its Foreign Minister, Wu Xueqian, to the Bandung commemoration, where he chatted amiably if briefly with President Suharto. For Indonesians, the moment marked turning point.