Portal:Indonesia/BOTW/19, 2007

Sutan Sjahrir (5 March 1909 &mdash; 9 April 1966) was the first prime minister of Indonesia, following a career as a key Indonesian nationalist leader in the 1930s and 1940s.

Sjahrir was born in 1909 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra; his father was an advisor to the Sultan of Deli. He studied in Medan and Bandung, and then moved to Leiden, The Netherlands to study law around 1929. In Holland he gained an appreciation for socialist principles, and was a part of several labor unions as he worked to support himself.

He returned to Indonesia in 1931 and helped set up the Indonesian National Party (PNI), and became a close associate of future vice president Mohammad Hatta. He was imprisoned by the Dutch for nationalist activities in November 1934. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia he had little public role, apparently sick with tuberculosis.

He was appointed Prime Minister by President Sukarno in November 1945 and served until June 1947. Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1948. The party was banned by President Sukarno in 1960. Sjahrir was jailed in the early 1960s, and died in exile in Zürich, Switzerland in 1966. (Read more...)