A Brief Overview  

On September 28, 1950 Indonesia was admitted as the 60th Member State of the United Nations. The vote for admission, which was unanimous, took place five years after Indonesia’s Proclamation of Independence in 1945, the same year that the United Nations was established.  Over the length of those five years the United Nations consistently supported Indonesia’s cause to become a free, independent and self-governing country. Given that support, many hailed Indonesia as truly a child of the United Nations.

Likewise Indonesia’s support for the purposes and principles of the United Nations was also firm.  On its admission to the Organization, the Indonesian Ambassador, Lambertus N. Palar addressed the General Assembly and thanked his country’s staunch friends for championing his county’s cause.  He pledged that Indonesia would assume all the obligations and responsibilities entailed in that membership. He also committed his Government to the goal of realizing the ideals of the United Nations as embodied in the Charter.

This resolve was manifested in Indonesia’s active participation in the major issues of the time including, among others, the struggles against colonialism, apartheid and the eradication of the dehumanizing scourge of poverty. The pursuit of these goals and principles also largely echoed Indonesia’s foreign policy which was enunciated by Vice President, Mohommed Hatta at a session of the Central National Commission on September 2nd 1948.  The core of these policies represented an independent and active position or, in the word’s of the Vice President, “Mendayung di antara Dua Karang”, translated as rowing between two reefs, 
In carrying out its commitments to the United Nations over the past half century, Indonesia has adhered to its active and independent foreign policy and has greatly contributed towards bringing those goals and objectives to fruition.  In doing so, Indonesia took a leading role in initiating and launching of the Bandung Conference of Asian-African States.  At that time, Indonesia’s Prime Minister, Ali Sastroamidjojo, successfully persuaded the Asian States to broaden their perspective to include Africa in a wider group of developing country solidarity. The Bandung Conference, which became a precursor of the Non-Aligned Movement, set an independent course and put such issues as peaceful co-existence, and anti-colonialism on the global agenda and gave a new voice to over half the world’s people emerging from colonialism.

The success of the Conference was subsequently reflected in two General Assembly resolutions on peaceful co-existence and decolonization which reflected much of the wording forged at the Conference.  Over the following years, Indonesia focused its attention on a number of core issues such as the struggle for economic and social development, the creation of more just and equitable world, the North-South Dialogue, Peace and Security, the Law of the Sea and sustainable development.

Indonesia briefly withdrew from the United Nation when the Organization condemned its confrontation policy with Malaysia and when the latter was formally accepted into that body in November 1962. Two years later, in 1964, the confrontation with Malaysia was ended and Indonesia rejoined the United Nations.

Though Indonesia maintained a relatively low profile throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it did not shrink from a leadership role in the pursuit of multilateral cooperation, particularly in the 1990s. It became President of the Non-Aligned movement in 1992 and hosted the Tenth Conference of the Heads of State or Government in Jakarta in September that year.u It also took on the role of Non-Permanent member of the Security Council during 1995 and 1996. In addition Indonesia became Chairman of the Group of 77 in 1998 and president of the ECOSOC in the Millennium year and, more recently, Indonesia became Chairman of the Ministerial Prep-Com in Bali in the lead-up to the WSSD in Johannesburg in August 2002.

A number of the Permanent Representatives went on to play significant and important leadership roles at national and international levels.  These included, becoming government ministers including foreign minister. Indeed Prime Minister Ali Sastroamidjojo, who was the driving force behind the Bandung Conference, became the Premanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 1957 to 1960. Ambassador Ali Alatas, Indonesia’s Permanent Representative from 1982 to 1988 became Indonesia’s Foreign Minister from 1988 to 1999.