Ibnu Sutowo
Ibnu Sutowo Ibnu Muhari was an Indonesian army officer, Cabinet Minister and former head of the Indonesian oil and gas producer Pertamina. Ibnu was born near the Yogyakarta Sultan's palace on 23 September 1914. His father had been a regency head near the city of Semarang in Central Java. His privileged background at the time of the colonial Dutch East Indies allowed him to attend a superior Dutch school and then medical school in Surabaya. Upon graduation, Ibnu was assigned to a colony of Javanese transmigrants in Belitung in South Sumatra. During the Japanese occupation in World War II, Ibnu, like many indigenous Indonesians filling in for imprisoned Europeans, assumed many local administrative powers. By the time of Japan's surrender, he was a leader in irregular forces backing the Indonesian Republic in its fight for independence. In 1945, Ibnu was appointed a combined staff and medical officer of the republican army fighting the Dutch for the Palembang regions oil fields ...