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Subandrio, 89, Indonesian Independence Advocate Jailed for 30 Years,
Dies
New York Times
By WOLFGANG SAXON
Published: September 14, 2004
Subandrio, who was a major voice for Indonesian independence while he was President Sukarno's foreign minister
but then spent 30 years in prison after being condemned to die by a military tribunal in 1966, died on July 3 at
his home in South Jakarta. He was 89.
His death was reported by Antara, the Indonesian national news agency
Dr. Subandrio, who like many Indonesians used only one name, was a surgeon who became a diplomat, serving as Sukarno's
foreign minister, first deputy prime minister, intelligence chief and heir apparent from 1960 to 1966. He had previously
served as Sukarno's representative in London and ambassador to the Soviet Union.
In his heyday Dr. Subandrio enjoyed seemingly unfettered authority. He followed Sukarno's policy of strong nationalism,
friendly relations with mainland China and leadership within the so-called nonaligned movement.
As Sukarno struggled to keep together the vast Indonesian archipelago inherited from the Dutch colonialists, Dr.
Subandrio was the articulate chief spokesman for Sukarno's "guided democracy."
But ethnic strife embroiled the 3,000 islands of the chain. Amid rising political chaos, Sukarno's rule became
increasingly dictatorial and plagued by corruption. A failed coup by some army elements in 1965 implicated the
Indonesian Communist Party and resulted in the mass slaughter and imprisonment of party members and sympathizers,
along with ethnic Chinese.
Sukarno was forced to surrender executive powers in 1966 to commanders under the chief of staff, Gen. Suharto,
who effectively replaced him as the country's ruler early in 1967. Sukarno died under house arrest in 1970.
Dr. Subandrio was jailed in March 1966 and was accused of plotting with
the Communists. A military tribunal found him guilty of crimes against the state and sentenced him to die.
Pleas from President Lyndon B. Johnson and Queen Elizabeth II, among others, were said to have led the authorities
to spare his life. In 1982, President Suharto directed the Justice Ministry to convert his sentence to life in
prison, and he was freed in 1995.
According to Antara, he is survived by his second wife, Sri Kusdyantinah,
and two sons. His first wife, also a doctor, is reported to have died while he was incarcerated.
His involvement, if any, in the Communist plot was never determined; he always denied any involvement with it.
The Communist Party of Indonesia, then the largest outside China and the Soviet Union, never recovered after the
coup, which left an estimated 300,000 or more dead and 100,000 imprisoned.
Subandrio was born in East Java on Sept. 15, 1914. He was by birth a Raden, denoting Javanese aristocracy, but
he dropped the title early on. Three other influences helped shape his life: Dutch colonialism and the nationalist
youth movement it sparked; the Japanese occupation, during which he graduated as a surgeon from Medical College
in Jakarta in 1941 and worked with the anti-Japanese underground; and the four-year postwar Indonesian struggle
against the Dutch, which made him into a public figure.
Indonesia's precarious position between the Soviet East and the American West during the cold war demanded great
diplomatic skill from someone like Dr. Subandrio, who seldom resorted to "no comment." Smooth to a fault,
he believed in an active and independent foreign policy for his country. Insisting on Jakarta's neutrality, he
welcomed aid, economic as well as military, from East and West, as long as it came without strings.
His achievements in that respect once prompted a foreign diplomat to describe him as "one of the greatest
flying trapeze artists of his time."
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