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Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president of Indonesia on September 20, 2004. In a landslide second round election, he defeated the incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri as the country's sixth president. A military commander and politician, Yudhoyono was born on September 9, 1949, in Pacitan, East Java. He graduated from the Indonesian Military Academy in 1973, and two years later he participated in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Along with other Indonesian officers involved in the occupation of East Timor, Yudhoyono was accused of war crimes, but he was never charged with a particular act.
In the 1980s, Yudhoyono received a masters degree in business administration from Webster University in Missouri, and he is currently working on his PhD in agricultural economics. He is married, and the father of two sons.
Indonesia's Chief Military Observer in Bosnia in 1995-96, Yudhoyono later held territorial commands in Jakarta and in southern Sumatra. He was appointed Chief of the Armed Forces Social and Political Affairs Staff (Kassospol Abri) in 1997. In 2000, Yudhoyono was appointed Minister for Security and Political Affairs in Abdurrahman Wahid's cabinet. One of his key tasks was to separate the army from the political bodies in Indonesia. In 2001, when Wahid, who was facing impeachment, asked Yudhoyono to declare a state of emergency in Indonesia, Yudhoyono refused and was dismissed from his position. The new president at that time, Sukarnoputri, reappointed Yudhoyono. After the October 2002 Bali bombing, he oversaw the mission to search for and arrest those responsible, and gained a reputation both in Indonesia and abroad as one of the few Indonesian politicians serious about the war on terrorism. In March 2004, he resigned, reportedly after a falling-out with Megawati and her husband.
Last updated: March 24, 2009.
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