One possible explanation is the internal migration policy of the Suharto regime otherwise known as transmigration which had previously occurred under Sukarno and which even goes back to Dutch colonial rule; yet was apparently very much expanded in Suharto's New Order era (so called to differentiate from the 'old order' of Sukarno). Transmigration in its most basic outline was a population policy whereby people from Java were encouraged to move to the so called 'outer islands' of Indonesia in which it is said by some commentators was a Jakarta policy to 'Javanese' Indonesia. For those who made the move to islands such as Sumatra and Borneo palm oil was facilitated as an economic way for them to gain an income. Thus at first look it could be said such an internal colonial impulse goes hand-in-hand with palm oil expansion. What is also of interest is palm oil was also encouraged throughout Indonesia as the cooking oil of first choice to help to nationally manufacture a sustained demand for this agricultural cash crop. It should be said the palm fruit from which the oil is extracted is not a local plant but was originally introduced to Indonesia from West Africa by Europeans when the archipelago as the Dutch East Indies was directly governed by the Dutch - being the case from the start of the nineteenth century and for the first few decades of the twentieth century until the Japanese invaded in early 1942. Indonesians would fight for their independence from the Dutch after WWII ended in 1945 and was achieved in 1949. Sukarno would be the new President of the new nation Indonesia until Suharto overthrew him in 1965 who as a dictator stayed in power until 1998. Indonesian in this initial post-war period also has to be seen against the backdrop of the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union in which both superpowers globally sought after or welcomed the strategic alliance of other nations to them. It is said that under Sukarno Indonesia did not formally align itself with either superpower - being part of a non-alignment movement - and it was only after Suharto became leader - at the human cost of at least 500,000 lives in ensuing massacres of those of the Indonesian Left - that Indonesia would become an ally of the United States. What this has to do with palm oil is that the World Bank - which had actually been spurned by Sukarno - was now willing to loan funds to Indonesia when an equally willing Suharto held out his hand to the United States. Palm oil was to become a ubiquitous agricultural product that with World Bank aid would help Suharto to economically enable his political goals which would not only cement his power but those who supported him which, in turn, would accentuate oligarcharcal internal corruption that was socially detrimental to the interests of many local populations (by the way, such heightened political/economic graft has been a lasting negative legacy from the Suharto period). Palm oil thus would serve a dual political purpose - one nationalist; the other: economic - for the 'Javanese President' Suharto.   

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