THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world with 17,508 islands which consists of five major islands (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan /Southern part of Borneo, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya /Western of New Guinea) and about 30 smaller islands serving as home to the majority of the population. Approximately 300 ethnic groups live on these islands, speaking an estimated 503 different languages and dialects.
The archipelago is located in South East Asia Region, stretching out along the equator for over 3,200 miles on a crossroads between two oceans, the Pacific and the Indian, and bridges two continents, Asia and Australia, spans distance roughly equivalent to that between San Francisco, CA and Boston,MA. The Indonesian sea area is about 7.9 million sq. km (including an exclusive economic zone) and constitutes 81% of the total area of the country, four times greater than its land area, which is about 1.9 million sq. km. The land area is generally covered by thick tropical rainforest, where fertile soils are continuing sly replenished by volcanic eruptions like those on the island of Java. The country is predominantly mountainous with some 400 volcanoes, of which 100 are active.

HISTORY  Marco Polo, who came in 1292 to Indonesia was the first European to visit this Archipelago. In 1511, after having conquered Malacca on the Malay Peninsula, the Portuguese, in search of spices, entered Indonesia for the first time. The Portuguese and the Spaniards had later scored a strong grip on the eastern part of Indonesia, the Moluccas. In 1602 the Dutch started colonizing the archipelago and since then Indonesia was under Dutch rule for almost 350 years. When the Second World War broke out in Europe, which was extended to the Pacific War, the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies as of March 1942 after the surrender of the Dutch colonial army following the fall of Hongkong, Manila and Singapore. On the first of April 1945, American landed in Okinawa and further on 6th and 9th August 1945 the Allies dropped atomic bombs at two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whereupon the Japanese surrendered to the Allies on August 14th, 1945. This provided the opportunity for the Indonesian people to proclaim their independence on August 17th, 1945, through their national leaders Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta, 3 days after the total surrender of the Japanese to the Allies.

FOREIGN POLICY Since its inception, the Republic of Indonesia has striven to maintain an *active and independent* foreign policy. It espouses a non-aligned position by pursuing constructive, responsible relations with all nations. The policy is independent because Indonesia does not side with world powers. As a matter of principle, doing so would be incompatible with the country*s national philosophy and identity as implied in Pancasila. The foreign policy is active to the extent that Indonesia does not maintain a passive or reactive stand on international issues but seeks active participation in their settlement. In other words, Indonesia*s independent and active policy is not a neutral policy, but it is one that does not align Indonesia with the super powers nor does it bind the country to any military pact. Essentially, it is a policy designed to serve the national interest while simultaneously allowing Indonesia to cooperate with other nations to abolish colonialism and imperialism in all their forms and manifestations for the sake of world peace and social justice. This explains why Indonesia was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).