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The Dutch got around to Sukarno in 1929, and after a four-month trial, sentenced him to four years in prison. But they had also given him a nationwide forum: in an impassioned courtroom speech. Sukarno denounced the "vile evils of colonialism" and promised Indonesians that he would serve them as the instrument of "historic necessity." On his release in 1931, Sukarno was greeted by applauding crowds, flowers, gifts. He asked for only ten patriotic youths aflame with love for Indonesia, and "with them I shall shake the earth." The Dutch, already in the long shadows of a dying empire, promptly exiled him to Flores in the Outer Islands, where with thousands of other political detainees he continued his revolutionary education, reading insatiably in Dutch, English, French and Indonesian and drawing new conclusions from an odd compost of Lenin, Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, Otto Bauer, Abraham Lincoln. He took time out-to divorce his wealthy widow and marry a young and beautiful Javanese girl named Fatmawati. He had no doubts about the future. "I entered prison a leader and I shall emerge a leader," he said.
The Collaborator. He emerged in 1942 when the Japanese landed on Indonesian soil. Sukarno, released from prison in Sumatra, quickly made his way to Djakarta, where he met with the two other top revolutionary leaders, Hatta and the Socialist. Sjahrir.
Both Sukarno and Hatta believed that the Axis would win; Sjahrir was convinced the Allies would win. It was therefore easy to apportion the jobs for the next phase of their struggle for independence: Sjahrir would head the underground resistance against the Japanese occupiers, Sukarno and Hatta would collaborate with them. The Dutch administrators and businessmen were herded into Japanese concentration camps, and native bureaucrats, who had never been allowed above the lower rungs of government, took charge under the guidance of Japanese officers. Sukarno was at last in his element, free to roam the country and make countless broadcasts. "America we shall iron out, England we shall destroy," he cried. He urged Indonesians to enlist in defense forces recruited and armed by the Japanese; he helped supply his Japanese masters with romushas, or slave laborers, most of whom were never heard of again.
The surrender of Japan came so suddenly that it was six weeks before the British could get together enough forces to land on Java. In that time, Sukarno got a government in operation. It was creaky, inefficient, poorly administered and defended by a ragtag military force armed with everything from Japanese machine guns to bamboo spears, but it was a going concern.
For four years the Dutch tried vainly to re-establish themselves in Indonesia. They tried it with two major military campaigns, which only proved that they could seize any city they wanted but they could not control the countryside. At one time (1948) Dutch paratroops captured President Sukarno and every member of his Cabinet except Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, who was in Sumatra and continued the fight. In 1949, worn down by Indonesian resistance and world opinion, the Dutch gave up. All of their old island possessions except West New Guinea became the Republic of Indonesia. Sukarno and his fellow revolutionaries had won independence.