Indonesia: Emergency Time

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Ever so politely, yet ever so firmly, Lieut. General Suharto, 45, the new strongman of Indonesia, was stripping President Sukarno of his last vestiges of power. It had to be done politely because that is the way things are done in Indonesian politics, and because Suharto still needs Sukarno as a figure head. But it had to be done firmly be cause the generals were now determined once and for all to oust Sukarno's strongest ally, crafty Foreign Minister Subandrio, and the rest of the pro-Communist Ministers, from the 96-man Cabinet. So day after day, the delicate minuet continued as Suharto alternated between public assurances that Sukarno was still top man and private pressure on him to give in to the army's demands.

The pressure was being applied at the Bogor summer palace, 40 miles south of Djakarta, where Sukarno, Subandrio and some 20 of the suspect Ministers were kept tightly penned in by the tanks and armored cars of the green-bereted Siliwangi Division and the tough R.P.K.A.D. paracommandos (comparable to the U.S. Special Forces). As the generals patiently shuttled back and forth to Bogor, Sukarno held them off with his celebrated command of mus-jawarah, the cerebral Javanese equivalent of blarney.

Gug, Gug, Gug. Out of range of his voice, however, were Djakarta's rampaging student hordes, whose loathing of Subandrio makes the generals look like his fans by comparison. Growing restive, the students hit the streets in swarms, from aging undergraduates of 26 and 27 to ten-and twelve-year-old girls, storming through pro-Communist ministries and homes, singing savage, and frequently bawdy, songs. "There is a little Peking dog called Subandrio, and he barks, gug, gug, gug," ran one of the tamer refrains. The demonstrators finally threatened to attack Sukarno's gleaming white Merdeka Palace in Djakarta, where Subandrio and some of the other Ministers had been trans ferred. There they would cut off the Ministers' heads and impale them on the spiked walls outside the palace.

Even for Indonesia, things were getting a bit out of hand. The generals decided that the time for tact was past. Machine-gun-toting troops crossed the lush lawn of the Merdeka to arrest Su bandrio and 14 leftist Ministers, reportedly flung them into the grimy guardhouse at Djakarta garrison headquarters. Then Suharto announced over the Djakarta radio, which he had also seized, that he had done it "in the name of President Sukarno," to prevent the Ministers "from becoming the victims of the Indonesian people, who are becoming restless and uncontrolled."

To be on the safe side, Suharto also ordered extra troops into Djakarta's sun-baked streets, briefly closed its airport and cable office, disconnected telephone links with the outside world. Djakarta operators responded to queries with a singsong "Circuit not operating, emergency time." Only the students continued to enjoy their customary freedom from military interference. Sukarno's third wife, beautiful Japanese Ratna Sari Dewi, 26, left her luxurious mansion for another house after students raided it and dumped garbage into her swimming pool.