Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie (born June 25, 1936), more commonly known simply as Rudy Habibie or B J Habibie, was the third President of Indonesia, holding office from 1998 to 1999.
He was born in Pare-Pare (South Sulawesi), and studied at the Bandung Institute of Technology. 1955-1965 he studied aerospace engineering at the RWTH Aachen, Germany, receiving diploma in 1960 and doctorate in 1965. He then worked for Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm in Hamburg.
From 1978 to 1998 he was minister of technology and research in the Suharto government of Indonesia, and also became vice president in March 1998. His tenure as minister of technology was best remembered for the founding of the national aerospace company Dirgantara, which headquarters is located in Bandung. He pushed for a leapfrog strategy of development, which he hoped would bypass the foundational low-skill technology stages to turn Indonesia into an industrialized nation. Despite national and international opposition to this plan -- preferring investments in agriculture instead -- he once famously announced that,
I have some figures which compare the cost of one kilo of airplane compared to one kilo of rice. One kilo of airplane costs thirty thousand US dollars and one kilo of rice is seven cents. And if you want to pay for your one kilo of high-tech products with a kilo of rice, I don't think we have enough.
His enthusiastic speech often made headlines, although in retrospect this strategy didn't produce the desired results. In a very ironic twist, Dirgantara itself has been forced to introduce layoffs after layoffs in recent years, and previous sales of commuter airplanes to other countries were paid not in currency but in commodities such as rice.
When Suharto was forced to retire by protests two months later, Habibie became president. Unpopular with the military, he further alienated many factions in the government by allowing East Timor to hold a referendum for independence, which resulted in East Timor's independence and its succeeding turmoil. He also proposed many other unpopular initiatives, such as banning Indonesians from studying abroad, despite himself having been educated abroad, and his son enrolled in a university abroad during this announcement. Towards the end of his presidency, he tried to ally himself to the Muslim factions, but declined to stand again after the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) voted not to accept his accountability speech in October 1999.
External link
- Previous home page: This is his home page while he was the State Minister of Research and Technology of Indonesia (this is the archived version, because page doesn't exist anymore) http://web.archive.org/web/*/habibie.ristek.go.id/
Last updated: 04-25-2005 03:06:01