Search for 'Supersemar' original text still on: Akbar<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): The government has rescinded its stance on the
\nmissing March 11, 1966, document known as the Supersemar in which
\nfounding president Sukarno handed over power to then Army
\nminister Maj. Gen. Soeharto.<\/p>\n
Minister\/State Secretary Akbar Tandjung said on Tuesday the
\ngovernment was still searching for the original document. Only a
\nday earlier, Akbar said in Bandarlampung that the government no
\nlonger considered the existence of the letter of order an issue,
\nand that it would not dwell on the matter any further.<\/p>\n
The government has a copy of the letter which in effect was
\nthe transfer of power from Sukarno to Soeharto, who subsequently
\nbecame the country's second president, to restore order and
\nsecurity in then chaotic Jakarta following the aborted communist
\ncoup on Sept. 30 the previous year.<\/p>\n
Akbar, speaking to journalists after installing new National
\nArchives chief Mukhlis Paeny -- who replaced Noerhadi Magetsari
\n-- said: \"We will keep looking for it.\"<\/p>\n
He said the government would ask personalities who were close
\nto the creation of the historic letter, which many political
\nscientists and historians have long believed to be the groundwork
\nfor Soeharto's New Order regime, about its current whereabouts.<\/p>\n
Akbar said they would include Gen. (ret) M. Jusuf and former
\npresident Soeharto. Jusuf, then an Army brigadier general, is the
\nsole survivor of three generals sent by Soeharto to receive the
\nSupersemar letter from Sukarno at the Bogor presidential palace
\nin West Java.<\/p>\n
The other two generals were the late Amir Machmud, then a
\nbrigadier general who was also the Jakarta military commander,
\nand the late Basuki Rachmat, then an Army major general.<\/p>\n
The three generals, like Soeharto, were Sukarno's ministers.
\nSoeharto was also the chief of the Army strategic reserves
\ncommand, known then as RPKAD.<\/p>\n
It is not clear when the original document went missing, but
\nsome people have called the transfer of power based on the
\ndocument a bloodless coup.<\/p>\n
Mukhlis said the National Archives would study the
\n\"authenticity\" of the copy which it obtained six years ago from
\nthe Army information office.<\/p>\n
Historians have said it is important that the original text be
\nrecovered as it should shed light on whether Soeharto really
\ncarried out all of Sukarno's instructions.<\/p>\n
The question of what prompted Sukarno to issue the order or
\nunder what circumstances he gave it, have recently resurfaced
\nafter similar debates in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
Last week, a former security guard at the Bogor Presidential
\nPalace claimed Sukarno signed the prepared text at gunpoint of
\nformer Army deputy chief of staff Gen. (ret) M. Panggabean.<\/p>\n
Panggabean fiercely denied the allegation of Second Lt. (ret)
\nSoekardjo Wilardjito, who currently lives in Yogyakarta. He
\ncalled Soekardjo a liar.<\/p>\n
Panggabean said he was resting at the Army headquarters in
\nJakarta at that time.<\/p>\n
However, Soekardjo's lawyers at the Yogyakarta Legal Aid
\nInstitute defended their client's testimony, claiming they had
\n\"evidence and other witnesses\" to verify the charges.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Budi Hartono said the institute had also contacted
\nSukarno's family regarding the matter. \"We hope Sukarno's family
\nhas kept documents relating to the Supersemar,\" he said on
\nTuesday.<\/p>\n
Coup<\/p>\n
Another source said Tuesday that the document was just a small
\npart of a bigger scenario played out by the then superpowers
\n(USA, UK and the Soviet Union) who despised Sukarno's ideas to
\nunite new independent countries against them in the United
\nNations.<\/p>\n
The 67-year-old former minister of Sukarno said the Army was
\njust an operative in the bigger scenario. \"Yes, it was a coup by
\nthe Army, but it was done in a very covered way,\" he said, asking
\nfor anonymity.<\/p>\n
\"How could it be arranged, that the generals were all at their
\nrespective houses (when they were kidnapped and later killed)? It
\ncould not have been the communists that set this all up,\" he
\nargued, referring to six generals killed during the coup on Sept.
\n30, 1965 blamed on the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party.<\/p>\n
He said it was Soeharto and his cohorts, in a conspiracy with
\nthe three above powers, that toppled Sukarno.<\/p>\n
Sukarno had to go since he had introduced the New Emerging
\nForces, as the union of the new independent countries were called
\nby Sukarno, and the idea to cut the \"colonialism lifeline\" by
\npromoting the countries' \"self-reliance\" policy, he said.<\/p>\n
Regarding the Supersemar, the source said Sukarno annulled it
\nthrough his \"letter of order\" dated March 13, 1966 but this was
\nignored by Soeharto.<\/p>\n
\"This again shows Soeharto's naughtiness,\" he said.
\n(23\/44\/aan\/prb)<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/search-for-supersemar-original-text-still-on-akbar-1447893297",
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