Crucial historic milestones
Crucial historic milestones
I would like to comment on the legal and political identity of Indonesia, as conceived by the New Delhi Conference on Indonesia of Jan. 20-22, 1949. In The Jakarta Post editions of April 12 and 13, 1995, the role and repercussions of this identity were eloquently discussed in the articles of Prof. Jai Singh Yadav. In response to those articles, it is noteworthy that under the science of law, with particular reference to International Law and Constitutional Law, the "Indonesia" conceived of at that time differs remarkably from the nation as it prevails today.
Three resolutions were adopted on Jan. 22, 1949, by the Conference, and Resolution I in paragraph A (2), (3) and (7) obviously referred to the republic that was conceived under the Linggarjati (March 25, 1947) and Renville agreements (Jan. 17- Jan. 19, 1948) between the Republic of Indonesia and the Netherlands.
It must be noted that the territorial extent of the Republic of Indonesia, under the Linggarjati and Renville agreements, was substantially circumscribed on the one hand, whereas on the other hand, the Republic of Indonesia was to be incorporated into a contemplated federal state structure.
The legal and political identity of Indonesia under paragraph A (7) of Resolution I of the New Delhi Conference was envisaged as that of a federal state. The same federal structure was conceived under the UN Security Council Resolution of Jan. 28, 1949.
Having in view the forthcoming commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Republic of Indonesia's independence, it seems worthwhile to take a retrospective view of the vital factors instrumental in effectuating the shift from the federal state system (Jan. 1, 1950 to Aug. 15, 1950) to the present unitary state system stipulated under the 1945 Constitution.
Within the process of returning to the unitary state system, the vital factors that must be noted as historic milestones were the change of the Constitution of the federal state into the Provisional Constitution of RI of 1950, by means of Act No. 7 of Aug. 15, 1950, and the Presidential decree of July 5, 1959, which dissolved the Constitutional Assembly and effectuated the return to the 1945 Constitution. This took place after the constituent assembly failed in its cumbersome dilatory toil to enact a new constitution.
Among the vital factors, which played a historic role in effecting the track-clearing accommodation between the Dutch government and the republican government were the Roem-Van Roijen Statements of May 7, 1949. The accommodation came about through the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution of Jan. 28, 1949, paving the way toward creating a federal State, to which the Netherlands was to transfer sovereignty. The statements loomed large due to their unique legal implications in that the official or full-fledged constitutional republican government at that time was not yet restored to Yogyakarta. The cabinet members, along with the president and the vice president, were still under detention in Bangka by the Dutch authorities at that time.
If Anak Agung Gde Agung could accomplish writing a dissertation on the Renville Agreement, I believe that the legal scholars of the younger generation in the nation's universities should have the opportunity to write dissertations on the legal and political aspects, status, role, and legal impact of the Roem-Van Roijen Statements. These essentially constituted an agreement despite the term "statement" that was applied as the result of traditional legalistic overcautiousness on the part of Dutch jurists.
Finally, the vital factor materialized in the agreement between RI and the Netherlands, relating to the transfer of West Irian to RI, signed in the United Nations Headquarters in New York on Aug. 15, 1962, must not be ignored. The latter episode, according to the Dutch historian Dr. C. Smit, marked an irrevocable termination of the decolonization process in Indonesia.
To Indonesia, this marked the final consummation of the independence proclaimed on Aug. 17, 1945.
SAM SUHAEDI
Jakarta