Timeline of The Indonesian National Revolution - 1946

1946

• February: The Republican capital is moved to Yogyakarta following Dutch occupation of Jakarta.
• February: Communist Party members clash with Republican army units.
• March: In east Sumatra, Bataks led by leftists attack the Malay, Simalungun Batak and Karo Batak rajas. Arrest and robbery leads to slaughter and hundreds of eastern Sumatran aristocrats die, including poet Amir Hamzah.
• April: Leaders of eastern Sumatran 'social revolution' are arrested or go into hiding but rajas authority is irrevocably weakened.
• April: 300 people are killed in Tapanuli (North Sumatra) in fighting between Toba Bataks and Karo Bataks, an ethnic conflict influenced by the Christianity among the Toba and Islam among the Karo.
• 27 June: Opposition forces feel that '100 percent independence' is betrayed by a speech made by Hatta in Yogyakarta that reveals the limited nature of the government’s negotiating position. Prime Minister Sjahrir is subsequently arrested by local army units hoping to reduce Republic leadership. Sukarno declares martial law and demands Sjahrir’s release.
• 30 June: In a radio address, Sukarno declares that Sjahrir’s arrest has endangered the unity of the nation which shakes the confidence of the opposition; Sjahrir is released that night.
• 3 July: A Republican army delegation is sent to Yogyakarta to demand Sukarno sack the Cabinet and put Sudirman in charge of security affairs. The delegation, however, is arrested along with about one hundred opposition figures including Yamin.
• July: At a Dutch-organised conference at Maliano (southern Sulawesi), thirty-nine Indonesian representatives of the rajas, Christians and several ethnic groups of Kalimantan and eastern Indonesia support the idea of a federal state and some form of continuing Dutch connection. The Dutch are surprised at the Indonesian request for some genuine autonomy. States of Kalimantan and for East Indonesia planned.
• October: Following negotiations from the previous year, ceasefires in Java and Sumatra are agreed upon by the Dutch and the Republic.
• 12 November: The 'Linggajati Agreement' sees the Netherlands recognise the Republic as the 'de facto' authority in Java, Madura and Sumatra, and both sides agreeing to cooperate to establish a federal 'United States of Indonesia' by 1 January 1949; the Republic would be one of the states, the Dutch monarch would be the symbolic head of a Dutch-Indonesian union of sovereign states. The agreement does not last; compromises accepted by both parties provoke bitter political backlashes from both within the Republic and the Netherlands.
• November: The Dutch federalist structure in Sulawesi is threatened by Republican youths returning from Java where they had received military training.
• December: The Dutch respond to Republican pemuda threat in southern Sulawesi with troops led by Captain Raymond 'Turk' Westerling that use arbitrary terror techniques. These techniques are emulated by other anti-Republican forces. Over three months at least 3,000 Indonesians are thought to have been killed, and Republican youth forces are decimated.
• December: A state of East Indonesia is created at a conference in Denpasar Bali. It is called Negara Indonesia Timur ('State of East Indonesia'). Republican ideals are still influential; 'Indonesia Raya' is adopted as the national anthem, which is also used by the Republic, and a pro-Republic Bugis is almost elected President. Sjahrir protests at the unilateral creation of the state is ineffectual. All of Kalimantan cannot be incorporated as state as the south and east coasts are too pro-Republican.
• December: In order to improve chances of KNIP-ratification of the 'Linggatjati Agreement', the KNIP is increased from 200 to 514 members by packing it with pro-government figures from the Left Wing.