{"id":4684,"date":"2021-01-04T08:59:36","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T08:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145811"},"modified":"2021-01-04T08:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T08:59:36","slug":"indonesia-was-a-model-for-anticommunist-massacres-and-the-us-was-complicit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/04\/indonesia-was-a-model-for-anticommunist-massacres-and-the-us-was-complicit\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia was a Model for Anticommunist Massacres and the US Was Complicit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A selection of propaganda leaflets blaming the Indonesian Communist Party for the 30 September (1965) movement that appeared in late 1965. Photograph Source: Davidelit \u2013 CC BY 3.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

U.S. imperialism was on a roll in the mid-20th<\/sup> century as Cold War problems were emerging. These included U.S. \u2013 Soviet conflict, nuclear-war fears, the Korean and Vietnam wars, domestic anticommunism, and Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Having thrown of Dutch colonial rule, that country led by President Sukarno was in the vanguard of nations striving to steer clear of both the U. S. and socialist camps. The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), with three million members, had become the world\u2019s third largest such party. It participated in elections, was represented in the legislature, and had ties with labor unions and social and cultural organizations.<\/p>\n

In a plot of obscure origin, six Indonesian Army generals were murdered on September 30, 1965. Blame fell on the PKI and soon soldiers, paramilitaries, and thugs were killing or disappearing members of the PKI and its affiliates. Army General Suharto assumed dictatorial powers which he retained until 1998. President Sukarno was sidelined. Deaths approached one million; a million more people ended up in concentration camps. Torture was rampant.<\/p>\n

In his book The Jakarta Method<\/a>,<\/em> journalist Vincent Bevins reports the U. S. government as having supplied equipment and <\/a>funding to the Indonesian Army and inserting CIA operatives. The latter provided the killers with lists of real and imagined Communists. U. S. officials conditioned U.S. military support on protection of U. S. oil installations and elimination of the PKI.<\/p>\n

The PKI was destroyed and communism banned. Bevins claims the U.S. government worried more about the PKI than about Vietnamese Communists, also that the pain of U.S. defeat in Vietnam would be eased due to eradication of the PKI.<\/p>\n

Reporting on events in Indonesia, U.S. National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy, quoted in the book, spoke of \u201ca striking vindication of U.S. policy toward that nation.\u201d New York Times columnist James Reston celebrated events there as \u201cA Gleam of Light in Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jakarta Method<\/em> surveys \u201cUS-backed anticommunist extermination programs [that] carried out mass murder in at least 22 countries.\u201d Bevins reports on killings in Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and especially in Latin America, beginning with Guatemala in 1954. There, a regime imposed by a CIA-imposed coup murdered at least 2000 suspected Communists.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s propensity to rabid anticommunism set the stage for a military coup in 1964. The U.S. government was on the scene already. The military dictatorship replacing President Jo\u00e3o Goulart lasted until 1985. Brazil \u201cwould soon play a crucial role in flipping other countries into the Western camp,\u201d according to Bevins.<\/p>\n

The Brazil coup provided a blueprint for the coming disaster in Indonesia. The catastrophes in both countries were models for mass killings that would follow. U. S. involvement was a factor in all of them, although the various assaults gained plenty of inspiration and resources from local sources. Leftist insurgencies active in a few of the countries served as pretexts.<\/p>\n

With U.S. help, military dictatorships taking power in Argentina (1976) and Chile (1973) launched the regional killing-machine Operation Condor. Some 75,000 people were murdered in El Salvador. Guatemala\u2019s CIA-assisted military killed 200,000 mostly indigenous people between1978 and 1983. The book offers specifics on U.S. involvement in Chile, Nicaragua, and Brazil, but not in other Latin American countries.<\/p>\n

In many places, to whisper \u201cJakarta\u201d or scrawl the word on public surfaces served as a warning, reports Bevins. Setting the tone, El Salvador\u2019s General Roberto D\u2019Aubuisson declared, \u201cYou can be a Communist \u2026 even if you don\u2019t personally believe you are a Communist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Close relationships between U.S. military officers and counterparts in Indonesia and Latin America furthered U. S. military interventions. The U.S. Army\u2019s School of the Americas promoted such interpersonal ties, according to the protest group School of the Americas Watch. The training provided many Indonesian military officers at the Leavenworth, Kansas Army base undoubtedly enhanced their trust too in U.S. military personnel at work in their own country.<\/p>\n

Bevins notes that Indonesia \u201clikely fell off the proverbial map because of the events of 1965-1966.\u201d Indeed, \u201cfaraway countries that are stable and reliably pro-American do not make headlines.\u201d Colombia, another country notable for humanitarian disaster, a brutal civil war, and U.S. intervention likewise receives little U. S. media attention.<\/p>\n

Journalist Bevins served long stints in Brazil and Indonesia. Developing personal connections with survivors of the various blood-baths, he tracked them down throughout the world. What he learned contributes to the authenticity and immediacy of his story. His fact-filled narrative flows on the strength of clear language and commentary along the way.<\/p>\n

Bevins declares that \u201cthe creation of a monstrous international network of extermination \u2026 played a fundamental role in building the world we all live in today \u2026[V]iolent anticommunism still exists in Brazil, Indonesia and many other countries. The Cold War created a world of regimes that see any social reform as a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sheds new light on the nature of the Cold War. For Bevins, \u201cWhat happened in Brazil in 1964 and Indonesia in 1965 may have been the most important victories of the Cold War for the side that ultimately won.\u201d He points out that his \u201cstory of the Cold War [isn\u2019t] focused primarily on white people in the United States and Europe,\u201d or in the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

The Jakarta Method<\/em> surveys a string of separate armed conflicts inspired by anticommunism. They took place within different countries. Armed agents of the top layers of each of these societies were attacking fellow citizens who were, or thought to be, seeking justice and empowerment. In essence, the book deals with class conflict in these countries.<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s agenda wasn\u2019t about a Cold War fought with words and posturing between some nations governed by Communist parties and others that were powerful and anticommunist. That Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Bloc of nations in 1991. The other one, not really a cold war, is quiescent now, but it continues.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A selection of propaganda leaflets blaming the Indonesian Communist Party for the 30 September (1965) movement that appeared in late 1965. Photograph Source: Davidelit \u2013 CC BY 3.0\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,266,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4685,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4684\/revisions\/4685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}