Indonesia: A Firmer Hand

Compared with the swaggering Sukarno, whom he replaced last year as Indonesia’s top man, General Suharto is a cautious and colorless fellow—which is just what Indonesia needs. He rules Indonesia with such quiet modesty and attention to detail that his advisers have been constantly prodding him to make more speeches and exert more power. Last week Suharto showed that he can act as forcefully, if not as flamboyantly, as Sukarno. In what he mildly called “a redressing,” he announced his first big Cabinet shakeup, a move that consolidated his own power and clearly reflected his confident control of the country.

To end interservice squabbling in the military, which in recent months has even led to armed clashes between units, he stripped the four armed forces chiefs of their ministerial rank and put them under his direct control. In response to talk of corruption, bungling and disloyalty, he replaced several suspect ministers with competent technicians loyal to him. He retained the Sultan of Jogjakarta as economics chief and Adam Malik as Foreign Minister, but dissolved the old inner Cabinet, so that all ministers must now report directly to him. He kept for himself the posts of Acting President and Defense Minister, and he obviously does not consider the jobs temporary: he announced that the general elections scheduled for next July will probably not be held before 1970.

Encouraging Atmosphere. Indonesia’s main problems are economic, and in that area Suharto has begun to make a major impact. He has assembled the best men available to doctor the economy and given them freedom to act. They have managed to cut inflation, for example, from 600% in 1965 to 60% this year. Suharto is particularly anxious to open the way for more private foreign investment, as well as to create a climate that will encourage other nations to grant loans. Japan’s Premier Eisaku Sato, the highest ranking official visitor to Djakarta since Sukarno’s downfall, found the atmosphere there so encouraging last week that Japan may provide a third of Indonesia’s goal of $600 million in foreign credits for next year.

The economic problem is complicated by Indonesian antagonism toward the country’s 3,000,000 Chinese, who control some 70% of the country’s businesses. After the Peking-inspired attempt to grab Indonesia by coup, the Indonesian public turned on the Chinese in their midst in a bitter pogrom, thus further upsetting the country’s frail economy. Outside big cities and district capitals, Chinese may no longer own businesses. Chinese schools have been closed, Chinese organizations ordered disbanded and Chinese papers banned except for two run by the government. “There are too many of them,” says Foreign Minister Malik, “so it is impossible to repatriate them.” Instead, Suharto has set up a special bureau to deal with the problem, hopes eventually to gain the loyalty of the Chinese.

Pressured by anti-Communist rioting by students, who have attacked the Chinese in Djakarta, Suharto’s government is threatening to suspend relations with China. But it has not yet made the move, and neither side really wants to go that far (Indonesia has also kept up its relations with Hanoi). Premier Sato last week urged Suharto to hang on to the present arrangement, which, even if it produces only an exchange of angry notes, at least keeps open the lines of communication.