http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/nunesindonesia.html
NOTE: Joe Nunes is a writer in Toronto who posted this and five other essays on a Mailing List several years ago. I have not been able to contact him since. To my knowledge this essay is not copywrighted or on the WWW elsewhere -- GF.
Joe Nunes
The reversal of the Communist tide in the great country of Indonesia [was] an event that will probably rank along with the Vietnam war as perhaps the most historic turning point in Asia this decade.
-- U. Alexis Johnson, U.S. Under Secretary of State, 1966
In 1965, the Indonesian government, led by Suharto, massacred over 500,000 members of the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party). The U.S. encouraged the Indonesians to conduct the massacre and provided both diplomatic and material support throughout the killings.
The exact number of dead will never be known. A U.S. State Department estimate in 1966 placed the figure at 300,000 killed to that point. Official Indonesian data released in the mid 1970s placed the number of deaths between 450,000 and 500,000 [Kolko88]. On October, 1976, Admiral Sudomo, the head of the Indonesian state security system, told a Dutch interviewer that more than 500,000 had been killed. Amnesty International quoted one source which placed the number at 700,000 and another which estimated that ``many more than one million'' had died. [ChomskyHerman79].
As Gabriel Kolko concluded:
The ``final solution'' to the Communist problem in Indonesia was certainly one of the most barbaric acts of inhumanity in a century that has seen a great deal of it; it surely ranks as a war crime of the same type as those the Nazis perpetrated. No single American act in the period after 1945 was as bloodthirsty as its role in Indonesia, for it tried to initiate the massacre, and it did everything in its power to encourage Suharto, including equipping its killers, to see that the physical liquidation of the PKI was carried through to its culmination [Kolko88].
The U.S. was intimately connected with the military leadership of Indonesia. Roger Hillsman, who worked for both the CIA and the State Department, commented on how, by 1963:
... one-third of the Indonesian general staff had had some sort of training from 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 [Hillsman67; Blum86].
These bonds were used by the U.S. to encourage the massacre and support it as it progressed.
By 1965, the PKI was growing in strength. The CIA predicted that the longer Achmed Sukarno, Indonesia`s leader, stayed in power the better were the PKI's chances for an eventual electoral victory [Kolko88]. This was a state of affairs which the United States wanted to avoid at all costs.
On September 30, a secret committee made up of the Indonesian military elite, dubbed the Generals' Council, met to discuss political issues relating to Sukarno. A group of pro-Sukarno officers became convinced that the Generals' Council was planning to overthrow the government on October 5, Armed Forces day. Consequently, they formed the September 30 Movement with the goal of keeping Sukarno in power.
This was the opportunity that the U.S. and the Indonesian military was looking for. Immediately, rumours were started that the September 30 Movement had allied itself with the PKI in order to plot a coup.
The U.S. government did not actually believed this. On October 3, the U.S. embassy secretely admitted that the PKI had no wish to be involved in a takeover attempt because it was already in an excellent political position [Kolko88]. The myth of a Communist coup, however, was too good an excuse to pass up.
On October 3, 1965, the U.S. embassy thought that the crucial issue in Indonesia was whether the army would ``have courage to go forward against [the] PKI'' [Kolko88]All quotations are from official U.S. documents. It informed the Indonesian military of the American desire to have the PKI destroyed.
The U.S. government was not to be disappointed. On October 5, the CIA reported that the army had decided to ``implement plans to crush [the] PKI'' [Kolko88]. The Indonesian army was fully in control of the country and had the support of the Muslim population. The embassy cabled Washington that the army could now move against the PKI: ``it's now or never'' [Kolko88].
Three days later, the first reports of attacks on PKI offices came in. Ambassador Green cabled Washington, on October 14, that
We do think [the] Army will go on trying, possibly not always as directly as we would like to see ... Their success or failure is going to determine our own in Indonesia for some time to come [Kolko88].
By this point, the embassy and the Indonesian officers were discussing their mutual needs and plans. There is no doubt that the U.S. wished the army to act decisively [Kolko88].
Reports of killings constantly arrived at the embassy. Its experts correctly concluded that the PKI was not likely to resist:
Since the PKI had neither the arms nor the will to resist, the tide of destruction began to rise by late October as mainly Muslim and right-wing youth, with aid from the army, began systematically to sweep the cities and countryside. Into their hands fell peasants who had asked for lower rents and alienated their landlords, those who were apolitical and denounced by enemies settling grudges, PKI members and those vaguely linked to it, religious elements the Muslims disliked -- all suffered the same fate [Kolko88].
Washington received all the information that the embassy had on the army's support for the massacre. Green told Secretary of State Rusk, on October 28, that the attack was going at full force. Rusk cabled back the next day that the ``campaign against PKI'' must continue because the military ``are [the] only force capable of creating order in Indonesia.'' He added that the U.S. would help with a ``major military campaign against the PKI'' [Kolko88].
A week later, Green cabled Rusk that the Army was helping Muslim youths in Java take care of the PKI, and was assuming the task directly in other areas. He said that the American embassy had
... made it clear that Embassy and USG [U.S. Government] generally sympathetic with and admiring of what army doing [Kolko88].
Several days later, Green reported that the army was attacking the PKI ``ruthlessly'' and ``wholesale killings'' were occurring [Kolko88].
In early November, Green noted that the Indonesian generals had approached the U.S. for equipment ``to arm Moslem and nationalist youths in central Java for use against the PKI.'' Most were using knives and other primitive weapons. Communication gear and small arms would expedite the killing [Kolko88].
Since ``elimination of these elements'' was a precondition of better relations, the U.S. promised covert aid -- dubbed ``medicines'', to prevent embarrassing revelations. According to the CIA, the ``destruction'' of the PKI was at stake. As Green put it, the U.S. would continue to provide ``carefully placed assistance which will help the army cope with the PKI'' [Kolko88].
On December 4, as they both were clamoring for more killings, Green informed Rusk that between 100,000 and 200,000 people had been murdered in northern Sumatra and central and eastern Java alone and the destruction was continuing [Kolko88].
American support continued throughout the massacre. In fact, the U.S. government was more interested in the extermination campaign than the Indonesian military. The Indonesians understood this and tried to use it to their advantage. After a meeting with the generals, Ambassador Green cabled Washington:
Bluntest remark was question of how much is it worth to U.S. that PKI be smashed and trend reversed, thereby swaying big part of SEA [South East Asia] from communism [Kolko88].
The American government viewed the mass-slaughter of Indonesian communists as a wonderful victory.
In 1966, Secretary of Defence McNamara was speaking before a Senate Committee:
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 the military aid was for. Is it secret anymore?
McNamara: I think, in retrospect, that the aid was justified.
Senator Sparkman: You think it paid dividends?
McNamara: I do, sir [Blum86].
A staff report prepared for the subcommittee on national security and scientific developments of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and dated February 16, 1971, stated that:
At the time of the attempted Communist coup and military counter-coup 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 ... [May78].
Speaking in October, 1966, U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Undersecretary of State, lso thought that the U.S. had cause to celebrate:
The reversal of the Communist tide in the great country of Indonesia [was] an event that will probably rank along with the Vietnam war as perhaps the most historic turning point in Asia this decade [Kolko88].
[Blum86]
William Blum, The CIA: A Forgotten History, Zed Books Ltd., 1986.
[ChomskyHerman79]
Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights: Volume 1 --
The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Black Rose Books, 1979.
[Hilsman67]
Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation, Doubleday, 1967.
[Kolko88]
Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1980,
Pantheon Books, 1988.
[May78]
Brian May, The Indonesian Tragedy, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978.
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