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Article: Indonesia's shame.(Commentary)(Op-Ed)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- February 21, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Acheh, a province in northern Sumatra, may hold a world record for conducting the longest war for independence from an occupying government, in this case, Indonesia. The struggle of Acheh has been going on for more than a century, first against the Netherlands, the original colonizer, and then when the Dutch were ousted in 1949, a struggle against Javanese imperialism, as Hasan M. Tiro, the self-exiled Achenese rebel leader describes it.
In 1951, the Achenese proclaimed an independent republic and thereby became the target first of the pro-communist Soekarno government and then of the recently ousted Suharto regime whose corruption is both ritualistically ...