Soedjatmoko

Soedjatmoko (born Soedjatmoko Mangoendiningrat; 10 January 1922 – 21 December 1989), more colloquially referred to as Bung Koko, was an Indonesian intellectual, diplomat, and politician.

He was born into a noble father and mother in Sawahlunto, West Sumatra.

After finishing his primary education, he went to Batavia (modern day Jakarta) to study medicine; in the city's slums, he saw much poverty, which became an academic interest later in life.

Soedjatmoko was born on 10 January 1922 in Sawahlunto, West Sumatra, with the name Soedjatmoko Mangoendiningrat.

He was the eldest son of Saleh Mangoendiningrat, a Javanese physician of noble descent from Madiun, and Isnadikin, a Javanese housewife from Ponorogo; the couple had three other children, as well as two adopted children.

Soedjatmoko's younger brother, Nugroho Wisnumurti, went on to work at the United Nations.

His younger sister Miriam Budiardjo was the first woman to be an Indonesian diplomat, and became a co-founder and Dean of the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Indonesia.

When he was two years old, he and his family moved to the Netherlands after his father received a five-year scholarship.

After returning to Indonesia, Soedjatmoko continued his studies at a Europeesche Lagere School (ELS) in Manado, North Sulawesi.

Soedjatmoko later attended a Hogere Burgerschool in Surabaya, where he graduated in 1940.

The school introduced him to Latin and Greek, and one of his teachers introduced him to European art; he later recalled that this introduction had allowed him to see Europeans as more than colonists.

He then continued to medical school in Batavia (modern day Jakarta).

Upon seeing the slums of Jakarta, he was drawn to the issue of poverty, a subject with would later become an academic interest of his.

After being expelled from medical school by the Japanese in 1943 for his political activities, Soedjatmoko moved to Surakarta and practiced medicine with his father.

However, during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, in 1943, he was expelled from the city due to his relationship with Sutan Sjahrir – who had married Soedjatmoko's sister Siti Wahyunah – and participation in protests against the occupation.

After his expulsion, Soedjatmoko moved to Surakarta and studied Western history and political literature, which led to him developing an interest in socialism.

Some figures which affected him besides Karl Marx were Ortega y Gasset and Jan Romein.

While in Surakarta he also worked at his father's hospital.

After Indonesia proclaimed its independence, Soedjatmoko was asked to become Deputy Head of the Foreign Press Department in the Ministry of Information.

In 1946, at the request of Prime Minister Sjahrir, he and two friends established a Dutch-language weekly, Het Inzicht (Inside), as a counter to the Dutch-sponsored Het Uίtzicht (Outlook).

The next year, they launched a socialist-oriented journal, Siasat (Tactics), which was published weekly.

During this period Soedjatmoko dropped the name Mangoendiningrat, as it reminded him of the feudal aspects of Indonesian culture.

In 1947, after Indonesia proclaimed its independence, Soedjatmoko and two other youths were deployed to Lake Success, New York, to represent Indonesia at the United Nations (UN).

They helped secure international recognition of the country's sovereignty.

In 1947, Sjahrir sent Soedjatmoko to New York as a member of the Indonesian Republic's "observer" delegation to the United Nations (UN).

The delegation travelled to the United States via the Philippines after a two-month stay in Singapore; while in the Philippines, President Manuel Roxas guaranteed support of the nascent nation's case at the United Nations.

Soedjatmoko stayed in Lake Success, New York, the temporary location of the UN, and participated in debates over international recognition of the new country.

Towards the end of his stay in New York, Soedjatmoko enrolled at Harvard's Littauer Center; as, at the time, he was still part of the UN delegation, he commuted between New York and Boston for seven months.

After his work at the UN, Soedjatmoko attempted to study at Harvard's Littauer Center for Public Administration (now the John F. Kennedy School of Government); however, he was forced to resign due to pressure from other work, including serving as Indonesia's first chargé d'affaires in London for three months as well as establishing the political desk at the Embassy of Indonesia in Washington, D.C. By 1952 he had returned to Indonesia, where he became involved in the socialist press and joined the Socialist Party of Indonesia.

He was elected as a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Indonesia in 1955, serving until 1959; he married Ratmini Gandasubrata in 1957.

However, as President Sukarno's government became more authoritarian Soedjatmoko began to criticise the government.

To avoid censorship, he spent two years as a guest lecturer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and another three in self-imposed unemployment in Indonesia.

After Sukarno was replaced by Suharto, Soedjatmoko returned to public service.

In 1966 he was sent as one of Indonesia's representatives at the UN, and in 1968 he became Indonesia's ambassador to the US; during this time he received several honorary doctoral degrees.

He also advised foreign minister Adam Malik.

After returning to Indonesia in 1971, Soedjatmoko held a position in several think tanks.

After the Malari incident in January 1974, Soedjatmoko was held for interrogation for two and a half weeks and accused of masterminding the event.

Although eventually released, he could not leave Indonesia for two and a half years.

In 1978 Soedjatmoko received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, and in 1980 he was chosen as rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.

Two years after returning from Japan, Soedjatmoko died of cardiac arrest while teaching in Yogyakarta.