[PEN-L:9545] INDONESIA 1965

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

"Armed with wide-bladed knives called parangs, Moslem bands crept at night
into the homes of communists, killing entire families. ... Travelers ...
tell of small rivers and streams that have been literally clogged with
bodies. River transportation has at places been seriously impeded."

Time magazine, December 1965


"Nearly 100 Communists, or suspected Communists, were herded into the
town's botanical garden and mowed down with a machine gun ... the head that
had belonged to the school principal, a P.K.I. [Communist Party] member,
was stuck on a pole and paraded among his former pupils, convened in
special assembly."

New York Times, May 1966

Estimates of the total number of Indonesians murdered over a period of
several years following an aborted coup range from 500,000 to one million.

In the early morning hours of 1 October 1965, a small force of junior
military officers abducted and killed six generals and seized several key
points in the capital city of Jakarta. then went on the air to announce
that their action was being taken to forestall a coup by a "Generals'
Council" scheduled for Army Day, the fifth of October. The putsch, they
said, had been sponsored by the CIA and was aimed at capturing power from
President Sukarno. By the end of the day, however, the rebel officers in
Jakarta had been crushed by the army under the direction of General
Suharto, although some supportive army groups in other cities held out for
a day or two longer.

Suharto--a man who had served both the Dutch colonialists and the Japanese
invaders--and his colleagues charged that the large and influential PKI was
behind the officers' "coup attempt", and that behind the party stood
Communist China. The triumphant armed forces moved in to grab the reins of
government, curb Sukarno's authority (before long he was reduced to little
more than a figurehead), and carry out a bloodbath to eliminate once and
for all the PKI with whom Sukarno had obliged them to share national power
for many years. Here at last was the situation which could legitimate these
long-desired actions.

Anti-Communist organizations and individuals, particularly Muslims, were
encouraged to join in the slaying of anyone suspected of being a PKI
sympathizer. Indonesians of Chinese descent as well fell victim to crazed
zealots. The Indonesian people were stirred up in part by the display of
photographs on television and in the press of the badly decomposed bodies
of the slain generals. The men, the public was told, had been castrated and
their eyes gouged out by Communist women. (The army later made the mistake
of allowing official medical autopsies to be included as evidence in some
of the trials; and the extremely detailed reports of the injuries suffered
mentioned only bullet wounds and some bruises, no eye gougings or castration.)

What ensued was called by the New York Times "one of the most savage mass
slaughters of modern political history." Violence, wrote Life magazine,
"tinged not only with fanaticism but with blood-lust and something like
witchcraft."

Twenty-five years later, American diplomats disclosed that they had
systematically compiled comprehensive lists of "Communist" operatives, from
top echelons down to village cadres, and turned over as many as 5,000 names
to the Indonesian army, which hunted those persons down and killed them.
The Americans would then check off the names of those who had been killed
or captured. Robert Martens, a former member of the US Embassy's political
section in Jakarta, stated in 1990: "It really was a big help to the army.
They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on
my hands, but that's not all bad. There's a time when you have to strike
hard at a decisive moment."

"I know we had a lot more information [about the PKI] than the Indonesians
themselves," said Marshall Green, US Ambassador to Indonesia at the time of
the coup. Martens "told me on a number of occasions that ... the government
did not have very good information on the Communist setup, and he gave me
the impression that this information was superior to anything they had."

"No one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being
butchered," said Howard Federspiel, who in 1965 was the Indonesia expert at
the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "No one was
getting very worked up about it."

Although the former deputy CIA station chief in Indonesia, Joseph Lazarsky,
and former diplomat Edward Masters, who was Martens' boss, confirmed that
CIA agents contributed in drawing up the death lists, the CIA in Langley
categorically denied any involvement.

The massacre put a horrific end to the well-organized PKI national
organization But it did not put to rest the basic questions underlying the
events of 1965, to wit:

Was there in actual fact a Generals' Council aiming to take over the
government within a matter of days? A semi-official account of the whole
affair published in Indonesia in 1968 denied the existence of the Council.
However, a study written and published by the CIA the same year confirmed
that there was indeed a Generals' Council but that its purpose was only to
devise a way to protect itself from a purported plan of Sukarno to crush
the army.

What was the nature and extent, if any, of PKI involvement in the alleged
coup attempt? Did some members of the party know of the junior officers'
plans in advance and simply lend moral support, or did they take a more
active role? The semi-official account stated that the PKI's aim was not to
seize political power for itself but to "prevent the army from eliminating
the Party after Sukarno's death." (Sukarno had suffered a kidney attack in
August, although he quickly recovered. His part in the affair also remains
largely a mystery.) The CIA study comes to a similar conclusion: "It now
seems clear that the Indonesian coup was not a move to overthrow Sukarno
and/or the established government of Indonesia. Essentially, it was a purge
of the Army leadership."

What was the role, if any, of the CIA? Was the coup attempt instigated by
an agent provocateur who spread the story of the Generals' Council and its
imminent putsch? (The killing, or even the abduction, of the six generals
probably could not have been foreseen--three of them were actually slain
resisting abduction.) Was PKI participation induced to provide the excuse
for its destruction? There are, in fact, indications of an agent
provocateur in the unfolding drama, one Kamarusaman bin Ahmed Mubaidah,
known as "Sjam". According to the later testimony of some of the arrested
officers, it was Sjam who pushed the idea of the hostile Generals' Council
and for the need to counteract it. At the trials and CIA Study, the attempt
is made to establish that, in so doing, Sjam was acting on of PKI leader
Aidit. Presentation of this premise may explain why the CIA took the step
of publishing such a book; i.e., to assign responsibility for the coup
attempt to so as to "justify" the horror which followed.

But Sjam could just as easily have been acting for the CIA and/or the
generals in the He apparently was a trusted aide of Aidit and could have
induced the PKI into the plot instead of the other way around. Sjam had a
politically checkered and mysterious background, and his testimony at one
of the trials, in which he appeared as a defendant, was aimed at
establishing Aidit as the sole director of the coup attempt.

The CIA, in its intimate involvement in Indonesian political affairs since
at least the mid-50s (see Indonesia, 1957-58 chapter), had undoubtedly
infiltrated the PKI at various levels, and the military even more so, and
was thus in a good position to disseminate disinformation and plant the
ideas for certain actions, whether through Sjam or others.

The desire of the US government to be rid of Sukarno--a leader of the
non-aligned and anti-imperialist movements of the Third World, and a
protector of the PKI--did not diminish with the failure of the
Agency-backed military uprising in 1958. Amongst the various reports of the
early 1960s indicating a continuing interest in this end, a CIA memorandum
1962 is strikingly to the point. The author of the memo, whose name is
deleted, was on the impressions he had received from conversations with
"Western diplomats" concerning a recent meeting between President Kennedy
and British Prime Minister Macmillan. The two leaders agreed, said the
memo, to attempt to isolate Sukarno in Asia and Africa. Further, "They
agreed to liquidate President Sukarno, depending upon the situation and
available opportunities. (It is not clear to me [the CIA officer] whether
murder or overthrow is intended by the word liquidate.)"

Whatever was intended, Sukarno was now, for all practical purposes,
eliminated as an international thorn in the flesh. Of even greater
significance, the PKI, which had been the Communist Party in the world
outside the Soviet bloc and China, had been decimated, its tattered
remnants driven underground. It could not have worked out better for the
States and the new military junta if it had been planned.

If the generals had been planning their own coup as alleged, the evidence
is compelling that the United States was intimately involved before, during
and after the events of 30 September/1 October. One aspect of this evidence
is the closeness of the relationship en the American and Indonesian
military establishments which the United States had cultivating for many
years. President Kennedy, his former aide Arthur Schlesinger has written
was "anxious to strengthen the anti-communist forces, especially the army,
in order make sure that, if anything happened to Sukarno, the powerful
Indonesian Communist would not inherit the country."

Roger Hilsman, whose career spanned the CIA and the State Department, has
noted that by 1963 ...

"one-third of the Indonesian general staff had had some sort of training
from the Americans and almost half of the officer corps. As a result of
both the civic action project and the training program, the American and
Indonesian military had come to know each other rather well. Bonds of
personal respect and even affection existed."

This observation is reinforced by reports of the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs:

"At the time of the attempted Communist coup and military counter-coup
[sic] of October 1965, more than 1,200 Indonesian officers including senior
military figures, had been trained in the United States. As a result of
this experience, numerous friendships and contacts existed between the
Indonesian and American military establishments, particularly between
members of the two armies. In the post-coup period, when the political
situation was still unsettled, the United States, using these existing
channels of communication, was able to provide the anti-Communist forces
with moral and token material support.

"When the average MAP [Military Assistance Program] trainee returns home he
may well have some American acquaintances and a fair appreciation of the
United States. This impact may provide some valuable future opportunity for
communication as occurred in Indonesia during and immediately after the
attempted Communist-backed coup of October 1965."

The CIA, wrote the New York Times, was said "to have been so successful at
infiltrating the top of the Indonesian government and army that the United
States was reluctant to disrupt CIA covering operations by withdrawing aid
and information programs in 1964 and 1965. What was presented officially in
Washington as toleration of President Sukarno's insults and provocations
was in much larger measure a desire to keep the CIA fronts in business as
long as possible."

Finally, we have the testimony of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
before a Senate Committee in 1966:

Senator Sparkman: At a time when Indonesia was kicking up pretty
badly--when we were getting a lot of criticism for continuing military
aid--at that time we could not say what that military aid was for. Is it
secret any more?

McNamara:	I think in retrospect, that the aid was well justified.

Sparkman:	You think it paid dividends?

McNamara:	I do, sir.

There are other statements which may be pertinent to the question of
American involvement. Former US Ambassador Marshall Green, speaking in
Australia in 1973 where he was then ambassador, is reported as saying: "In
1965 I remember, Indonesia was poised at the razor's edge. I remember
people arguing from here that Indonesia wouldn't go communist Bit when
Sukarno announced in his August 17 speech that Indonesia would have a
communist government within a year [?] then I was almost certain. ... What
we did we had to do. and you'd better be glad we did because if we hadn't
Asia would be a different place today."

James Reston, writing in the New York Times in 1966:

"Washington is being careful not to claim any credit for this change [from
Sukarno to Suharto], but this does not mean that Washington had nothing to
do with it. There was a great deal more contact between the anti-Communist
forces in that country and at least one very high official in Washington
before and during the Indonesian massacre than is generally realized.
General Suharto's forces, at times severely short of food and munitions,
have been getting aid from here through various third countries, and it is
doubtful if the [Suharto] coup would ever have been attempted without the
American show of strength in Vietnam or been sustained without the
clandestine aid it has received indirectly from here."

Neville Maxwell, Senior Research Officer, Institute of Commonwealth
Studies, Oxford University:

"A few years ago I was researching in Pakistan into the diplomatic
background of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan conflict, and in foreign ministry
papers to which I had been given access came across a the then foreign
minister, Mr Bhutto, from one of his ambassadors in Europe (I believe
Rahim, in Paris) reporting a conversation with a Dutch intelligence officer
with NATO. According to my note of, that letter, the officer had remarked
to the Pakistani diplomat that was 'ready to fall into the Western lap like
a rotten apple'. Western intelligence agencies, he said, would organize a
'premature communist coup ... [which would be] foredoomed to fail,
providing a legitimate and welcome opportunity to the army to crush the
communists and make Soekarno a prisoner of the army's goodwill'. The
ambassador's report was dated 1964."

It should be remembered that Indonesia had been a colony of the
Netherlands, and the had some special links to the country.

The record of the "New Order" imposed by General Suharto upon the people of
for almost three decades has been remarkable. The government administers
the nation on the level of Chicago gangsters of the 1930s running a
protection racket. Political prisoners overflow the jails. Torture is
routine. Death squads roam at will, killing not only 'subversives' but
'suspected criminals" by the thousands. "An army officer [in the province
of Acehi] fires a single shot in the air, at which point all young males
must run to a central square before the soldier fires a second shot. Then,
anyone arriving late--or not a home--is shot on the spot."

(The above is Chapter 31 of William Blum's "Killing Hope". Blum had a
promising career in the State Department, but was radicalized by the war in
Vietnam and became a critic of American imperialism. In his Introduction to
the new edition, he writes, "At the close of the Second World War, when the
victorious Allies discovered the German concentration camps, in some cases
German citizens from nearby towns were brought to the camp to come
face-to-face with the institution, the piles of corpses, and the
still-living skeletal people; some of the respectable burghers were even
forced to bury the dead. What might be the effect upon the American psyche
if the true-believers and deny-ers were compelled to witness the
consequences of the past half-century of US foreign policy close up? What
if all the nice, clean-cut, wholesome American boys who dropped an infinite
tonnage of bombs, on a dozen different countries, on people they knew
nothing about-- characters in a video game--had to come down to earth and
look upon and smell the burning flesh?

"Our leaders understand how this works. They make it a point to keep our
American eyes away from our foreign victims as much as possible, even on
television. Before our boys were sent to Somalia, they were given
psychological briefings from military psychiatrists to prepare them for the
sights of starvation and misery. Our leaders are men not entirely
insensitive. And it is because the American people see and hear their
leaders expressing the right concern at the right time, with just the right
catch in their throats to convey 'I care!', they see them laughing and
telling jokes, see them with their families, hear them speak of God and
love, of peace and law, of democracy and freedom--it is because of such
things that the idea that our government has done to the world's huddled
masses what it did to the Seminoles has so difficult a time penetrating the
American consciousness. It's like America has an evil twin."


Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)