INDONESIA: The Army’s Middle Way

As the big and sprawling Republic of Indonesia—a nation of hundreds of islands and 80 million people—moves into its tenth year of independence, its existence remains precarious. Some 10,000 rebels still infest the outer islands. In Sumatra 14 rubber plantations have been put to the torch in a single month. The gold backing for the printing-press currency is down to 7.85%, although the legal minimum is supposed to be 20%. Factories and industrial plants are operating at scarcely 60% of capacity because foreign exchange is lacking for raw materials and spare parts.

Flying Dancers. Yet in some ways, though not out of the woods, Indonesia is out of its gravest danger. At his pleasant summer palace of Tjipanas, President Sukarno invited Djakarta’s diplomatic corps to a Saturday party, and dancers were flown all the way from Amboina Island for the occasion. Sukarno, who is still preaching “guided democracy” without ever denning it, rules Indonesia through two men: 1) his hand-picked Premier Djuanda Kartawidjaja, 2) his hand-picked army Chief of Staff, Lieut. General Abdul Haris Nasution, who surprised both the rebels and foreign observers by the speed and skill with which he drove the rebellious colonels into the jungle last spring.

Premier Djuanda, personally honest and capable, is reported on the verge of quitting his job in despair at Indonesia’s political inefficiency, graft and corruption. To General Nasution, this Augean mess appears as an opportunity. He is quietly moving the officers of his 200,000-man army into key positions. Lieut. Colonel Suprajogi has taken over the newly created Ministry of Economic Stabilization; Colonel Rudy Pirngadie has been assigned to the task of drawing up a new law for future mining and oil exploitation, a matter of vital interest to such firms as U.S. Stanvac and Royal Dutch Shell. In the nationalized Dutch Handelsbank, the new supervisory body consists of an army captain, a police officer and a bank official. When a labor representative from the Red-dominated SOBSI labor federation demanded a seat on the committee, the army officer ordered him from the office.

Silent Affability. Nasution sees the army’s role as one of protecting the state equally from right-wing revolts like that of the colonels in 1957, and from left-wing seizure by the Communists, who have the largest single party in the nation. Nasution has fought the Reds with a ban on demonstrations and strikes. Whenever Communists have threatened to fill the streets in anti-Western rampages, the presence of heavily armed troops has forced them to back off. Nasution is believed to be behind the Cabinet’s decision to postpone the national elections scheduled for 1959, with the object of giving the anti-Communist parties time to rally their forces against the Reds.

All this has led to speculation that Indonesia is about to become the seventh Eastern nation in recent months to have a general take power. But will he? In a speech to military cadets last month, Nasution said: “The army will take the middle way. Military leaders, as individuals, can participate actively by contributing their services . . . on the highest levels, as in the financial, economic and other fields. The army is a part of the community, and at the same time a part of the state, even an instrument of the state that could be employed by the state leadership to achieve the people’s ideals.”

Throughout this maneuvering, President Sukarno, a manipulator of impressive skill, has remained affable and, for him, remarkably silent. He neither interferes with Nasution’s moves nor publicly backs them, and therefore can take credit if things go well and avoid blame if they fail. As for 40-year-old General Nasution, an enigmatic soldier, he remains a man who has never, by word or gesture, shown sign of wishing to overthrow Sukarno. If the army’s “middle way” works, there would be no need to.