British Sebagai Caretaker di Indonesia 1945-1946 (British As `Caretaker’ In Indonesia 1945-1946)

Abstract

The British occupation of Indonesia is an interesting topic for discussion. This is due to the fact that this superpower never colonized Indonesia. Instead, Indonesia was colonized by Dutch. Britain was chosen as the caretaker during the 1945-1946 transition periods after Second World War (WW2) by virtue of the fact that they were more moderate nation in comparison with Dutch. Besides that, Dutch did not have a good reputation as it had lost badly at the hand of the Allied powers in Europe during WW2. Britain’s readiness to assume the responsibility was attributable to their need to strengthen power after suffering severe losses at the hand of the Japanese during WW2 in Southeast Asia. As well as the afore-mentioned, Britain’s willingness was also due to the fact that Dutch had been a major British ally in Southeast Asia since 1824. This was a partial manifestation of the British-Dutch close alliance as Lords of the East and as an ideology of partnership in the context of Britain’s alliance with other Western allies in Southeast Asia. It also related with the great agenda in Britain’s foreign policy, however, was the continuity or survival of western powers over Southeast Asia. This article discusses the implementation of Britain’s policies in Indonesia in an effort to ensure that the objective of western powers and Britain itself were achieved. In comparison, Britain’s policies were more diplomatic compared to Dutch’s rather militaristic approach. This caused Indonesian revolutionary’s compliance to accept Britain’s presence rather than Dutch. British occupation took less than two years but it had great effects on Indonesia’s history of independence. Furthermore, Britain was involved in the series of independence talks between Dutch and Indonesia, leading to the Round Table Conference on 27 December 1949. This essay makes use of the historiographic approach and the primary sources used are British records obtained from the British National Archive, Kew, London. Secondary sources such as books have also been referred to.