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During Konfrontasi, Suharto had made sure that troops along the border with Malaysia were understaffed and underequipped,
Everything Suharto did in October suggests that he was executing an anticommunist counterattack plan that had been developed in advance, not simply reacting to events.
which for some reason had not been targeted or neutralized by the September 30th Movement, even though it sat directly across from Independence Square, which they occupied that morning.
a full day after the coup had failed and the offices were reportedly occupied by the military.
“were in a position where [they] can categorically deny this involvement of CIA operations in the Indonesia situation.”
Helms said yes.62
It’s unclear whether, as was the case with Howard Jones seven years previously, information was being kept from the new ambassador.
but that Suharto knew it was all false in early October.
just like the Brazilians erected a monument at
Red Beach in Rio de Janeiro celebrating their fallen heroes.
The Army still screens it.
The story spread by Suharto hits on some of the darkest fears and prejudices held by Indonesians, and indeed men in general—around the world. A surprise night raid on your home. Slow torture with blades. The inversion of gender roles, the literal assault on strong men’s reproductive organs carried out by demonic, sexually depraved communist women. It’s the stuff of a well-written, reactionary horror film, and few people believe Suharto came up with it himself.
and then both Washington-aligned anticommunist military dictatorships celebrated the anniversary of those rebellions in very much the same way for decades.
“Though we lack access to many of the classified US and British materials, it is highly likely that a key element of US and British covert operations in this period involved the creation of ‘black’ propaganda inside Indonesia,”
an absurdly fanatical and exaggerated version of global right-wing ideology.
and there were still a whole lot of people in the country who were communists, or broadly tolerant of communists. Over the next six months, the Army took care of both problems.
In deference to the manner that these two very different types of voices can now speak to us, what follows is a selected timeline of these months.
Around the archipelago, local chapters of the Indonesian Communist Party participated in the festivities as they always would, proudly waving their hammer-and-sickle flags alongside the military celebrations.
Green outlined the situation in Indonesia:
(this priority effort is perhaps most needed immediate assistance we can give army if we can find way to do it without identifying it as solely or largely US effort).
“The Army now has the opportunity to move against Communist Party if it moves quickly,” he wrote. “It’s now or never.”
until the anticommunist propaganda started arriving after October 1.4
“The PKI are kafir [infidels],” he announced, according to eyewitness reports. “I will destroy them down to their roots! If in the village you find members of the PKI but do not kill them, it will be you who we punish!”
“Crush the PKI!” “Crush the PKI!” “Crush the PKI!”
It is believed the mass murder started that day, on the island of Sumatra.
The phrase used by Djuarsa, “down to the roots,” had already been used once before, at midnight on October 1, by Mokoginta, another commander in Sumatra who had studied at Leavenworth. These words would become a constant, public refrain of the mass murder program.
Internally, however, the Indonesian Army had a different name. It called this Operasi Penumpasan—Operation Annihilation.
Green concluded: “Army has nevertheless been working hard at destroying PKI and I, for one, have increasing respect for its determination and organization in carrying out this crucial assignment.”
She wasn’t.
She was Gerwani, in the minds of the police, which meant that she was not a human being, and not a woman, but a sexually depraved murderer. An enemy of Indonesia and Islam. A witch. These men were in charge of her now.
“are so far a striking vindication of U.S. policy towards that nation in recent years.”
As far as we know, this was at least the third time in history that US officials had supplied lists of communists and alleged communists to allies, so that they could round them up and kill them. The first was in Guatemala in 1954, the second was in Iraq in 1963, and now, on a much larger scale, was Indonesia 1965.
“I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad.”
Frank Wisner found one of his sons’ shotguns while staying at the family farm, and used it to kill himself.17
Move forward undaunted Defend what is right Forward, together, Of course, we win Move forward, move forward All together, all together
They never came back.
There were so many bodies piling up that they were blocking rivers, and unleashing a horrible stench across
the country.
Historians who study violence in Asia believe this was the first time forced “disappearances” had been used.
he wanted the word to sound like Panzer, Hitler’s famous tanks. He also said he had been studying Mein Kampf, starting in 1964, in order to learn how to deal with the Communists.
“forced by their intransigence to terminate breathing of these nine GERWANI witches.”
Miscellanous [sic]: Beginning what we believe will be major fad, Bandung renamed part of its main street “General Yani Boulevard” yesterday. It’s good he has an easily pronounceable name.
The Armed Forces found, arrested, and executed D. N. Aidit, the leader of the Indonesian Communist Party in Boyolali, Central Java, on the morning of November 22.
“impossible to believe that Aidit made such a statement”
“was obviously being disseminated as part of an anti-Communist ‘black propaganda’ operation.”
Like the movement of the sun, only precisely in reverse.
The machetes arrived around the same time that military anticommunist propaganda campaigns, nationally coordinated, arrived in Bali.
They walked four kilometers to the site where someone told them they could find his remains. They found a field of bodies.
There were just “too many skulls, too many skeletons.”
In total, at least 5 percent of the population of Bali was killed—that is, eighty thousand people, probably the highest proportion in the country.29
