Revolusi

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a homemade cotton flag was raised, announcing the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after the Second World War. Four million civilians had died during the wartime occupation by the Japanese that ousted the Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as the Allied troops of Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'Revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations convinced the Netherlands to cede all sovereignty to Indonesia, finally ending 350 years of colonial rule.