Indonesia is a large island country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, ruling over 14,000 islands from Sumatra to West Papua. Indonesia has 34 provinces and borders Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia on the islands of Papua, Timor, and Borneo, and it has a diverse population of 255,461,700 people.
History[]
The location of Indonesia
Indonesia declared independence from the Netherlands on 17 August 1945, having been a part of the Dutch East Indies before then. They fought a war of independence against the Dutch authorities for several years before gaining their freedom; Indonesia took over all of the former Dutch East Indies, including the major islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and West Papua. Indonesia was a diverse country upon its independence, ruling over a population of 255,461,700 people by 2015. 87.2% of these people were Muslim, 6.9% Protestant, 2.9% Catholic, 1.6% Hindu, .72% Buddhist, .05% Confucian, and .5% others (including pre-Islamic beliefs). There were 300 distinct ethnic groups in Indonesia and 742 distinct languages and dialects as well, with 42% being Javanese, 15.5% Sundanese, 3.58% Batak, 3.22% Sulawesians, 3.03% Madurese, 2.88% Betawi, 2.73% Minangkabau, 2.69% Buginese, 2.27% Malays, 2.16% South Sumatrans, 1.97% Bantenese, 1.77% East Nusa Tenggarans, 1.74% Banjarese, 1.73% Acehnese, 1.67% Balinese, 1.34% Sasak, 1.27% Dayak, 1.2% Chinese, 1.14% Papuans, 1.13% Makassarese, .93% Sumatrans, .93% Moluccans, 1.74% Borneans, .79% Cirebonese, and some other ethnic groups.
Indonesia's founding father was Sukarno, and he was a nationalist leader; during World War II, he had collaborated with Japan in exchange for their assistance in spreading Indonesian nationalist ideas. In 1957, Sukarno declared "Guided democracy", an autocracy that succeeded in ending instability and uprisings in the country. However, in the early 1960s he moved more towards the left, giving support to the Communist Party of Indonesia and angering the military and Islamists. In 1965-1967, General Suharto led a purge of the communists of the country, killing 500,000 people; he seized power for himself in 1967. Suharto became the leader of a right-wing dictatorship in Indonesia, and he became an ally of the United States during the Cold War. The Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation of 1963-1966 saw the United Kingdom and US-backed Indonesia fight the Soviet Union and China-backed Malaysia over Malaysian Borneo on the north of the island, resulting in Suharto replacing Sukarno as commander-in-chief and the recognition of Malaysia as a state.
However, in 1975 Indonesia begann to have external troubles. They invaded the country of East Timor shortly after it gained independence from Portugal, claiming that they wanted to get rid of imperialism in the region. The island was occupied until 1999 by Indonesia. In addition, since 1969 the region of West Papua fought for independence from Indonesia, as the Free Papua Movment either wanted to break free of Indonesia or to form a confederation with neighboring Papua New Guinea. Indonesia also fought against the Free Aceh Movement in Aceh, Sumatra, a war against terrorism that would later expand to the government fighting Islamist groups like Jemaah Islamiyah in the 2000s. However, most of these conflicts were resolved; in 1999, Indonesia gave East Timor independence after a United Nations referendum; the Free Papua Movement insurgency became a low-scale insurgency with few deaths; the Acehnese made peace in 2005 following a horrible tsunami, hoping to end the suffering in the region. However, Indonesia still faced Islamic terrorism, hitting them in the 2002 Bali bombings, 2016 Jakarta attacks, and many other atrocities focused on Western tourists and the government.