The machetes arrived around the same time that military anticommunist propaganda campaigns, nationally coordinated, arrived in Bali. One rumor declared that Gerwani women had plans to sell their bodies in order to buy weapons for a communist revolt, and to castrate the soldiers they seduced. Propaganda teams toured rural areas, spreading stories like this, driving home the message that the people must “be on the side of the G30S or stand behind the government in crushing the G30S. There is no such thing as a neutral position.”27
