Indonesia: Three Series of Massacres
excerpted from the book
State Terrorism and the United
States
From Counterinsurgency to the
War on Terrorism
by Frederick H. Gareau
Clarity Press, 2004, paper
p145
American administrations dating from that of Eisenhower were obsessed
with the neutralization of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
Their moral code was in accord with that recommended by General
Doolittle. "There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto acceptable
norms do not apply." By the fall of 1957, the Eisenhower
administration decided to back the rebellion of the colonels and
civilians in Sumatra and Sulawesi. The insurrection was aimed
at toppling the Sukarno government, which was friendly to the
PKI and dependent upon its support. The rebel colonels made anti-communism
their main issue. Washington provided money, arms, munitions,
training in communications, and finally air support to this failed
attempt to overthrow the Sukarno regime.' The United States Seventh
Fleet, with marines aboard, was sent to the area. Of course, President
Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles denied involvement.
p148
The massacres that followed the attempted coup of October 1965
presented Washington with the much desired opportunity of witnessing
the physical destruction of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
Two days after the coup of October 1, U.S. Ambassador Marshall
Green, in a communication to Secretary of State Rusk, defined
the problem as whether the army had the "courage to go forward
against PKI." The ambassador repeated this statement, and
this elicited no disagreement form the State Department. Two days
afterward, the army started the killing. Green then expressed
concern that the army under Suharto would not stand up to President
Sukarno. He was not to be disappointed. On the same day, reports
of the killings were sent to Washington. These reports continued
as the tide of destruction continued to mount through October.
Mainly rightwing youth and Muslim groups, with aid from the army,
began systematic sweeps in the cities and the countryside. They
killed indiscriminately--communists, peasants who had alienated
their landlords, apolitical persons denounced by their neighbors,
religious elements the Muslims did not like, and others. The attempt
to kill all communists resembled genocide in that it was intended
to eliminate an entire group.
p148
Over the next several months the army itself, or Muslim or nationalist
groups encouraged by the army, killed hundreds of thousands of
communists, their sympathizers, and those thought to be, or accused
of being, their sympathizers. An estimated 300,000 to 400,000
were killed during a few months ...
p148
The U.S. Embassy received reports of the army's support for the
massacres, and was relieved to hear that the army had resisted
Sukarno's efforts to stop the slaughter. On October 28 Green told
Rusk the cleanup would go on. The next day Rusk cabled back affirming
that the campaign against the PKI must continue and that the military
was the "only force capable of creating order in Indonesia"
which it had to continue to do "with or without Sukarno."
Bluntly put, the Secretary of State under President Johnson expressed
his approval of the practice of state terrorism by the Indonesian
army.
p149
In his study of American foreign policy [Gabriel] Kolko concludes
in effect that Washington was an accessory to the state terrorism
in Indonesia. His exact words are the following:
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 action 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 his killers, to see that the physical
liquidation of the PKI was carried through to its culmination...
p150
The euphoria experienced by the Johnson administration at achieving
the mortal wounding of the PKI can be fully appreciated in light
of the ethics and the activities of previous administrations,
reaching back to that of Eisenhower. This brand of ethics was
completely compatible with serving as the accomplice to state
terrorism. In the instant case, the Indonesian army and its allies
unleashed an organized campaign that killed the bulk of the Indonesian
Communist Party and its sympathizers and sought to terrorize the
remaining party members and sympathizers. This was state terrorism
with shades of genocide. The PKI was in no position to defend
itself, much less to launch a terror campaign of its own. So what
happened in Indonesia at this time was state terrorism, not private
terrorism. Washington served as an accomplice by providing arms
and encouragement before and during the slaughter.
p150
The October 1 coup d'etat and its aftermath drastically changed
the political landscape. The crushing of the communist party and
its allies led to the assumption of power in 1966 by Suharto,
the head of the army. President Sukarno was eased out of office
in 1967, and the New Order was formally proclaimed the following
year. Beginning in 1966 and extending for at least five years
the United States and its closest allies met to refinance Indonesia's
debt and to grant economic aid. This was a period during which
the slaughter of the communists continued. President Nixon visited
Djakarta in July 1969. He exclaimed that under Suharto's leadership
the Indonesian government had become truly democratic. This endorsement
helped to legitimize and buttress Suharto's political position.
The year after this, in May 1970, Suharto visited Washington.
These visits did underline the friendship that existed between
the two regimes, but the Indonesian dictator took the occasion
of his visit to affirm the existence of differences of outlook
between Washington and Djakarta with regard to various world problems.
After Nixon's visit in 1969 United States' aid increased. After
the ceasefire in Vietnam four years later, Washington supplied
more airplanes and ships. The United States became effectively
the sole supplier of military equipment to Indonesia. By 1976
this type aid rose to over $40 million annually.
Dr. Kingsbury, the executive officer of
the Monash Asia Institute, compared the Indonesian politics of
the time to a Javanese shadow-puppet play. Fortunately, he also
compared it to the more familiar Mafia movie which he admitted
might be more appropriate. He made the latter comparison this
way:
Stand-over tactics and corruption, protection
rackets, violence, pride, the location of power in the person
of the boss, rigged ballots, and the chicanery of naked power
all feature in a good Mafia movie, and they are not alien concepts
in Indonesian politics either. The main difference between the
two, perhaps, is that the Mafia do not work on the scale on which
the Indonesian government operates.
The New Order became even more centralized
around one man than in the predecessor regime. The "boss"
was the head of the army. The elimination of the PKI and the "retirement"
of Sukarno were the last steps in the army's rise to power. With
their elimination, "the army's domination of government was
unchallenged."
Sukarno had permitted a modicum of civil
liberties, and allowed political parties to operate more freely.
He co-opted many of his political opponents. Suharto put them
in jail. Although the massacres of late 1965 eliminated much of
the leadership of the PKI, the army's security and intelligence
network continued to search out and capture the remnants of the
party's activists. Arrests continued for years. The estimate is
that 200,000 were held as prisoners in the last three months of
1965. It should be emphasized that this government repression
and terror was not in response to the violence of the PKI and
its sympathizers. They offered virtually no resistance.
p151
Suharto himself was incredibly rich, as were his family and close
business associates. He was located among the super rich. In 1989
the CIA estimated his wealth to be as much as twenty billion dollars.
Others put it between thirteen and sixteen billions. His family
was worth about the same amount. The army participated in this
system of "crony capitalism" as well. It is said that
old soldiers in Indonesia neither die nor do they fade away.
p152
An unannounced three-pronged attack against Dili, the capital
of East Timor, took place on the morning of December 7, 1975.
Indonesian ships bombarded the city, a maneuver followed by the
landing of seaborne troops and the dropping of paratroops in and
behind the outskirts of the city. This was an Indonesian mini-version
of Pearl Harbor, 34 years later and not as successful.
p152
The invasion took place one day after Secretary of State Kissinger
and 'S President Ford had visited Djakarta, suggesting official
American acquiescence in, if not approval of the invasion."
The above quotation is from Robert _Pringle, a U.S. Foreign Service
political officer who was stationed in the United -States embassy
in Jakarta from 1970-1974. Allan Nairn of The New Yorker magazine
had an opportunity to quiz both Ford and Kissinger about the visit.
His first encounter was with Ford in 1991. His question was whether
Ford had authorized the Indonesian invasion. Ford replied, "very
honestly, I can't remember exactly that detail .1126 He went on
to say that Timor was a "lower echelon priority" on
the U.S.-Suharto agenda. More central was the fact that the "
Indonesians were anxious for greater military help and assistance".
Ford recalled that "we were very sympathetic to their request."
Nairn used the occasion to question the former Secretary of State
when he was promoting his book on diplomacy in New York in 1995.
In answer to a question posed by Nairn's friend during a question
and answer period, Kissinger replied "Timor was never discussed
with us when we were in Indonesia .1127 Kissinger next modified
his statement. After saying that no one asked "our opinion"
about the matter, he added: "It was literally told to us
as we were leaving. When the Indonesians informed us, we neither
said 'yes' or 'no'. We were literally at the airport, so that
was our connection with it." Nairn claimed that he was carrying
documents with him that showed that the question of Timor was
discussed at the December 6 meeting and that the United States
had given a green light to the invasion. Nairn then challenged
Kissinger, asking him if he would facilitate the declassification
of the meeting's minutes and support the convening of a United
Nations war crimes tribunal on East Timor and abide by its verdict
with respect to his own conduct. Kissinger editorialized by way
of reply. "This sort of comment is one of the reasons why
the conduct of foreign policy is becoming nearly impossible under
these conditions."
p154
The strategy of the Indonesian army was classical counterinsurgency
doctrine: to cut off the guerrillas from the supporting civilian
population and to destroy their food supply. Many Timorese villages
were destroyed, and thousands of Timorese suspected of helping
the guerrillas were killed. Beginning in 1977, the Indonesian
army inaugurated an "encirclement" policy that resulted
in the uprooting of much of the population and moving them into
designated hamlets. In 1979 the U.S. Agency for International
Development estimated that half of the population had been moved
to these hamlets. Many of those uprooted were resettled in agriculturally
poor areas. Food production plummeted, and famine spread. As the
army advanced against Fretilin, civilians were pressed into service
to be used as human shields. This tactic, called "a fence
of legs," forced the guerrillas to choose between holding
fire and thus giving the army an enormous advantage, or shooting
the civilians.
Catholic clergy, Timorese refugees, and
foreign aid workers estimate that more than 100,000 Timorese died
in military actions or from starvation and illness in the period
1976-1980. Some estimates run as high as 230,000 out of a pre-invasion
population of some 650,000. Although Jakarta disputes the number
of Timorese that have died, Mario Carrascalao [the Jakarta-appointed
governor of the territory] describes the estimate of 100,000 dead
as 'credible.'
p161
Amnesty International found that Washington approved of the 1975
invasion and after that it provided more than one billion in weaponry
and millions more in aid and training. The evidence provided here
leads to the conclusion ... that Washington was an accessory to
state terrorism before, during, and after the fact.
State
Terrorism and the United States
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