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President Achmed Soekarno

Male 1901 - 1970  (69 years)    Has 2 ancestors and 8 descendants in this family tree.

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  • Name Achmed Soekarno 
    Prefix President 
    Birth 6 Jun 1901  Surabaya, Jawa Timur Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Death 21 Jun 1970 
    Burial Blitar, Jawa, Indonesia Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Association Prof. Charles Prosper Wolff Schoemaker (Relationship: bevriend) 
    Person ID I410079  Geneagraphie
    Links To This person is also Sukarno at Wikipedia 
    Last Modified 21 Feb 2007 

    Father Raden Sukemi Sosrodihardjo   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Mother Ida Nyoman Rai   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F149625  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Siti Utari   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Marriage 1921 
    Divorce 1923 
    Family ID F163096  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 6 Dec 2002 

    Family 2 Ingit Garnisih   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Marriage Aft 1923 
    Divorce 1943 
    Children 
     1. Taufan Soekarnoputra   d. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F163097  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 6 Dec 2002 

    Family 3 Fatmawati   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Marriage 1944 
    Children 
     1. Guntur Soekarnoputra
     2. Living
     3. Rahmawati Soekarnoputri
    +4. Raden Ayu Sukmawati Soekarnoputri
     5. Guruh Soekarnoputra
    Family ID F149624  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 5 Dec 2002 

    Family 4 Naoko Nemoko   d. Yes, date unknown 
    Family ID F163098  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 6 Dec 2002 

  • Event Map Click to hide
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 6 Jun 1901 - Surabaya, Jawa Timur Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Photos Photos (Log in)Photos (Log in)

  • Notes 
    • During his childhood, Sukarno spent a great deal of time with his grandparents in the village of Tulungagung

      1927 Founds movement for independence from the Dutch

      1945 After Japanese surrender, declares independence and is elected President

      1963 Names himself President for Life

      1965 Overthrown by military takeover and later replaced by Suharto

      1970 Dies in Jakarta after two years of house arrest



      son of a minor Javanese aristocrat and his Balinese wife. Talented in both athletics and academics, he became one of the few Indonesians admitted to Dutch-language schools; it was when his father sent him to Surabaya to attend one such secondary school that he met and boarded with the country's preeminent nationalist, Tjokroaminoto. Through him Sukarno would be inducted into the freedom struggle. With his captivating oratorical skills, however, the younger man would go on to outshine his mentor.

      In 1929, two years after helping found the organization that would become the Partai Nasional Indonesia, Sukarno was put on trial by the Dutch. His self-defense, which lasted two days, was a rhetorical masterpiece, and when he was released in 1931 huge crowds turned out to greet their new hero. In years to come Sukarno would use that gift to instill in Indonesians a sense of themselves as a unified people--not Javanese and Balinese and Acehnese and Sumatrans. He put his career, even his life, on the line for the unity and peace of his nation. This is his great heritage, even if today the country is threatened with disintegration as a result of Suharto's policies.

      But history has not been kind to Sukarno. These days many in the West remember the glamorous revolutionary as a debauch and a demagogue--the man who told Western countries to go to hell with their aid and pulled Indonesia out of the United Nations. Yet when he and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed independence in 1945, many Western politicians and intellectuals saw Sukarno as a new light shining among the backward countries. Their admiration faded only after a new Satan was found roaming the world: communism.

      Sukarno called this the "century of the awakening of the colored peoples," as they threw off the shackles of Western colonialism. He played a leading role in the process, initiating the historic Asia-Africa Conference at Bandung in 1955, after which the Non-Aligned Movement spread to Latin America. Sukarno also called this the "century of intervention," a time when the great powers could interfere at will in the affairs of smaller countries. Often, this intervention was the work of the intelligence community--a power within a power, a state within a state, entrusted with the task of eliminating communism from the face of the earth. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, the strategy was to back military governments as bulwarks against the Red Menace. Repressive regimes like Mobutu's in Africa or Suharto's in Asia received the West's blessing as long as the repression was carried out in the name of democracy and the suppression of communism.

      In this climate, Sukarno was no longer seen as another Thomas Jefferson, but instead as someone who might allow communism to expand its influence. The campaign against him began from the slander that he had been a Japanese collaborator during the war. This was followed by the accusation that, in his final years in power, he had become a dictator.

      Are these accusations true? Was Sukarno a Japanese collaborator? Even when he was in a Dutch jail in the 1930s, Sukarno wrote to the colonial administration suggesting, in vain, that the Dutch cooperate with Indonesian nationalists to guard against Japanese fascism. Instead, when Japan invaded Indonesia, the Dutch surrendered the country and its people, including Sukarno in his prison.

      That he then cooperated with the occupiers is undisputed. But he did so with the backing of fellow nationalist leader Hatta, and he used his influence to the advantage of his country. As he himself admitted, Sukarno did recruit thousands of manual laborers for the Japanese Army, most of whom perished during the war. Yet he also used the Japanese radio network to nurture a sense of nationalism throughout the archipelago. What honest observer can fault Sukarno for taking the opportunity to awaken the consciousness of the people to the struggle for freedom? Under the noses of the occupiers, he used his oratorical skills to arouse people who had been asleep for centuries and to prepare them to fight for independence when the moment arrived. It was thus that the world witnessed the heroism of Indonesian youth when they fought the Allied armies that landed in Surabaya to retake Indonesia for the Dutch on Nov. 10, 1945.

      Was Sukarno a dictator? He did not have the character of a dictator. He was motivated and inspired by the ideas of the West, especially democracy, the French Revolution and the Enlightenment.

      And what about Guided Democracy, the executive-dominated electoral system he instituted in 1959? Sukarno was President for two decades, but he wielded real power only in the last six years of his rule--the period of Guided Democracy. Why did he create such a system? Perhaps because of his commitment to democracy. By this point, Indonesia had no fewer than 60 political parties and faced the prospect of a new government every few months. Sukarno reorganized the 60 parties into 11--all of which retained their independence. It was a political necessity, he said.

      Sukarno's critics called it a dictatorship. Yet six years later, when he was removed following a shadowy coup (allegedly a communist uprising gone wrong), he was replaced by a true dictatorship--that of Suharto. Sukarno died in 1970, a man whose dreams of a free and peaceful Indonesia had been hijacked by a violent and stifling military rule.

      Lately, Sukarno's reputation has begun to be re-examined. Suharto was ousted in 1998, after three decades in power; earlier this year, Sukarno's daughter Megawati triumphed in the first truly free general election in 44 years. It was, in a way, Bung Karno's triumphant political comeback.

      Yet the next months will be crucial for Indonesia. It is time to realize that continuing to rely on military power to "stabilize" the country will only be counter-productive. The solutions to almost all of Indonesia's current ethnic and separatist conflicts--in Aceh, Ambon, Irian Jaya, East Timor--as well as its economic crisis and general political instability all depend on soldiers being just that: soldiers. Indonesia needs no more soldier-politicians. It needs someone who can unite the people, as a charismatic young independence leader did a half-century ago.
    • Timeline of Indonesian History



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