Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, or Netherlands East Indies, (Dutch: Nederlands Indië) was the name of the colonies colonised by the Dutch East India Company anf which came under administration of the Netherlands during the ninteenth century (see Indonesia).
Starting in the early 1600s, the Dutch East India Company had grown to become the dominant power in the archipelago. After the company was liquidated in 1799, and after a British interregnum during the Napoleonic Wars, the Dutch government took over administration until the independence of Indonesia in 1949 following the Indonesian National Revolution.
During the 1920's Sukarno had actively encouraged the Japanese Empire to declare war upon the western powers of the Pacific, and was serving the second of two sentences for sedition when on January 11, 1942 Japan declared war on the Netherlands and invaded the Dutch East Indies. During the Pacific war Sukarno organised the supply of aviation fuel required for the Pacific War, volunteer work brigades, a national self defence army (Peta), a Vanguard Corps (Barisan Pelopor), was decorated by the Emperor in 1943 and in March 1943 was appointed by Japan to head a independence committee for Java and Sumatra. Proclaiming himself leader of an independent East Indies in 1945, Sukarno had the military forces to eliminate the opposition independence movements and to thwart the Netherlands attempts to reclaim the islands. In March 1949 the Dutch Foreign Minister Stikker was informed the United States were considering economic sanctions if the Netherlands continued refusing to comply with Security Council directives. These wars were euphemistically called "police actions" in an eventually unsuccessful attempt to bypass UN restrictions.
The Dutch retained sovereignty over Dutch New Guinea, the west side of the island of New Guinea and took urgent steps to prepare it for independence; some five thousand teachers were flown to Dutch New Guinea; though Papuan workers were comparable to western workers in skills and duties, the Dutch put an emphesia upon political, business, and civic skills. The first Papuan naval cadets graduated in 1955 and the first Papuan army brigade become operational in 1956; elections were held across Dutch New Guinea in 1959 and an elected Papuan Council official took office on 5th April 1961 to prepare for full indpendence by the end of that decade. The Dutch endorsed the Papuan Council's selection of a new national name ('West Papua'), antheme, and the Morning Star as the new national flag for Dutch New Guinea upon 1st December 1961. As with the Moluccas (called Maluku by Indonesia) and East Timor, Indonesia invaded two weeks later on the 18th December 1961 to prevent any further independence efforts by the Papuan people.
The capital of the Dutch East Indies was Batavia, now known as Jakarta.