BM Diah dies of heart failure, buried as hero

JAKARTA (JP): Burhanuddin Muhammad Diah, whose illustrious career included stints as journalist, cabinet minister, ambassador and hotelier, was buried at Kalibata Hero's Cemetery yesterday.

B.M. Diah, as he was better known, died of heart failure at a Jakarta hospital in the early hours of yesterday. He was 79.

In a testament to his popularity and respect, President Soeharto and Vice President Try Sutrisno and many other statesmen as well as fellow journalists were among those who paid their last respects at his residence yesterday morning.

A planned meeting between the military chief spokesman and chief editors had to be rescheduled as virtually all of the editors went to B.M. Diah's house yesterday morning.

Minister of Information Harmoko, who in his younger days worked as a cub reporter for B.M. Diah in the 1960s, led the burial ceremony at the Hero's Cemetery.

In earlier interviews, B.M. Diah, the founder and proprietor of the Merdeka daily newspaper, said that it had been his teenage ambition to become a journalist. And this continued to be the profession he loved and returned to after stints in the government, and later in his family's hotel business.

His writings earned him various ambassadorial posts from President Sukarno between 1959 and 1968 with assignments in Czechoslovakia, Britain and Thailand. He was the first journalist entrusted with the task of representing Indonesia abroad.

After Soeharto came to power in 1967, he was given the job of minister of information in 1968. He retired from public office a year later to start the hotel business with the Hyatt Aryaduta.

But it was in journalism that B.M. Diah, born in Kotaraja, Aceh, on April 7, 1917, really made his name.

His legacy in the profession include his initiative to draft the 1966 Press Act, which was renewed twice, in 1967 and 1982. He chaired the Association of Indonesian Journalists in 1971 and was executive of the Press Council, the industry's watchdog, for a period of 15 years.

While studying at the Middelbaar Nationale Handel Collegium in Bandung, he asked his teacher, Douwes Dekker -- better known by his Indonesian name of Setiabudi -- when a person could become a leading journalist. Setiabudi answered: "At 40."

He started his career at the Sinar Deli daily in Medan in 1938 and became editor of the Asia Raya daily in 1945.

He and a group of friends founded Merdeka on Oct.1, 1945, the first daily set up after Indonesia proclaimed independence that August. Two years later, the newspaper became his when the other main co-founder, Rosihan Anwar, left after a row. Since that day, Merdeka was his personal political vehicle.

In 1942, he married Herawati, who had then just returned from studying at the Barnard College of Columbia University in the U.S. The couple founded the English-language Indonesian Observer daily in the 50's.

He was considered a staunch nationalist, some would say he was a "ultra-nationalist", a reputation he earned with the scathing editorials he wrote for Merdeka.

The icing on his journalistic cake came in 1987, when be became the first Asian journalist to be granted an interview with then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

B.M. Diah is survived by his two wives, Herawati Diah and Julia Manaf, and five children. (31/emb)