Thursday, March 11, 2010

11 March 1966

11 March, is a very important date for Indonesia, because on this date forty years ago the late President Soekarno handed over power to Minister of the Army Leutnant General Soeharto.

According to the official version during the Soeharto era that ended on 20 May 1998, Soekarno hand over power by signing a letter dated 11 March 1966 prepared by Soeharto's staff, giving the following instructions  to Soeharto :

1)  To act for and on behalf of President Soekarno in taking whatever necessary to ensure the security, peace and stability of the government and the revolution, and to ensure the safety and authority of Soekarno and his doctrine;
2)  To Coordinate implementation of this instruction with the other Commanders in the Armed Forces;
3)  To report everything related to the above mentioned authorities and responsibilities;
From that day, the above mentioned power transition letter was popularly names as Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret a.k.a SUPER SEMAR.

Considering that according to the 1945 Constitution, such transition of power can only be conducted by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), in 1967, a plenary session of a Temporary MPR (MPRS) was held to appoint Soeharto as Acting President, and then Permanent President on 11 March 1968.
For details, please click here and here.

The very strange thing was that that the original letter has seemingly vanished into the thin air, especially after Soeharto and the three Army Brigadier Generals who brought the letter to Soekarno in Bogor Palace at that time i.e. Muhammad Yusuf, Amir Mahmud and Basoeki Rahmat have all passed away.

Nevertheless, for the sake of Indonesia's historical truthness I hope that there will be an open investigation on what really happened to the original letter.

Image :  Courtesy of Detik.

8 comments:

ALRIS said...

Saya berkunjung ke blog Pak H. Nizam. Semoga jadi silaturahmi. Salam sukses.
ALRIS

Unknown said...

Alris,
Terima kasih Pak, saya pasti berkunjung balik. Salam sejahtera.

Edwin's Personal Blog said...

Supersemar, it was so glorious year by year for the past regime. But now, everybody seems to have forgotten about it. Time rolls, and Supersemar has lost its magnitude as in the past time..

Unknown said...

Edwin,
Although Super Semar is a thing of the past but its so mysterious and so many dead victims.

Unknown said...

Times certainly change, and it is very good that relations between Australia and indonesia hve improved considerably. I would hope they improve with my little country of New zealand too.

Regards,

Peter

Unknown said...

@Peter,
I think you must have commented on the previous post about our president visiting Australia.
Yes I am also happy.
Our relationship with New Zealand is always okay.

Unknown said...

Interesting and colourful history and of course full of mystery and intrigues.

Unknown said...

Umihoney,
History should always be based on facts no matter how terrible it is.