Special and Solid Footing

US envoy Joseph Donovan ends his assignment in Indonesia on a positive note.

- Taufik Darusman

A journey through seven decades of RI-US relations may be akin to a political roller coaster ride replete with unexpected twists and turns. In the late 1940s the US threw its weight behind Indonesia’s independence drive and demanded Dutch colonial power to withdraw from the archipelago. In the mid-1950s, however, the Eisenhower administration perceived the country’s first president, Sukarno, as pro-communist. It then decided to support a separatist movement, called Permesta, to remove the Indonesian leader, and dispatched B-26 bombers and pilots to link up with the rebels in eastern Indonesia.

One of the bombers and the pilot, Allen Pope, was shot down in May 1958 and captured on a small island west of Ambon by the Indonesian Navy. The court found Pope guilty and sentenced him to death for killing 17 members of Indonesia’s armed forces and six civilians. In 1962 President John Kennedy asked his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to pay a goodwill visit to Indonesia and pleaded with Sukarno for Pope’s release. In a magnanimous gesture, Sukarno allowed Pope to leave Indonesia in a discreet manner in July of the same year.

In the same period President Kennedy had become wary of the strong influence of the then Soviet Union in Indonesia and intervened in the West Irian (now called Papua) dispute between Indonesia and the Netherlands. Kennedy exerted pressure on the Dutch in a move that led to Indonesia eventually taking control of West Irian in 1969.