Juwono sudarsono biography of barack obama

In the crumbling living rooms of middle-class Jakarta, men and women who once knew Barack Obama have claimed him as their own, a neighborhood boy made good. Obama has a fan, too, in Indonesia's minister of defense, Juwono Sudarsono, the first civilian to be appointed to the post.

Educated at Berkeley and the London School of Economics, Sudarsono is a soft-spoken intellectual who has held posts under every Indonesian president since Suharto. Last Friday, the day after he met with U.S. Navy Adm. Timothy J.

Keating, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Sudarsono talked with NEWSWEEK'S Erika Kinetz about what an Obama presidency might mean for the world at large, and for the warming military relations between Indonesia and the United States, which ended congressional restrictions on military funding to Jakarta in 2005.

Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How do you think an Obama presidency would affect U.S.-Indonesia relations?
Juwono Sudarsono: Symbolically it would be very, very important f