Indonesian history - The truth behind the 30th September Movement

[ponyexpress]

http://indosurflife.com/2013/02/large-waves-uncover-mass-grave-in-balis-eastern-shore/

Fascinating video of the mass killings, including the interviews with the murderers.

[Hombre de Maiz]

Yes, a rather common theme in the history of military takeovers and dictatorship. The military and the dictator fashion themselves as the only redeemers of the sins of the past and cast themselves as the unwitting and unwilling saviours. Yes, it's a common, repeated script among dictators and dictatorships.

[Abook looty]

Ok lets separate the macro vs micro perspective here....

By Macro I mean, if we see Indonesia in terms of the government and their political stances. Policies, economic, etc etc..
By Micro I mean, whats going on in the real field

Did you googled the latest keyword" anwar congo- act of killings ".
This guy slaughtered PKI peope while danced cha cha cha. Also stated, he wander around medan and stabbed random chinese,in some Pride tones. Perhaps the real inspiration of Marvel's , " The Punisher" was him. Other stories, My mother used to witness, Kali Waru ( Waru river, kureksari, surabaya) as a pile of dead bodies floating like every 2-3 hours. When the bodies block the flow, a truck came in and took the bodies away like garbages and fled somewhere. The river itself was red-blooded in color. Every 2-3 days, there were always random guys crucified jesus style (with nails) and bleed to death...

Those are the micro perspective level....

Soekarno, Soeharto, CIA, or Mao Zedong or Lenin Stalin, or I dont know who else its on the lists, indirectly responsible for these massacres

A victim? Siapa suruh? By the late fifties, with the end of the PRRI/Permesta affair, the U.S. had ceased to overthrow Sukarno. Rather than build on the windfall of stability, abroad and internally, what did Sukarno do? He went on his Konfrontasi charade. Siapa suruh? Painting Indonesia as the victim hides the uncomfortable truth that the mid-1960s pogroms and the ushering of the New Order were primarily the making of Indonesians.[/QUPOA victim? Siapa suruh? By the late fifties, with the end of the PRRI/Permesta affair, the U.S. had ceased to overthrow Sukarno. Rather than build on the windfall of stability, abroad and internally, what did Sukarno do? He went on his Konfrontasi charade. Siapa suruh? Painting Indonesia as the victim hides the uncomfortable truth that the mid-1960s pogroms and the ushering of the New Order were primarily the making of Indonesians.

The one above is macro level, definition...
Soekarno characteristic was always confrontational. He had pride pride pride with no calculation whatsoever. LOL. Listen to his speeches and tones...
Lets put aside CIA and KGB factor in this, Tempo magazine released an article about PKI not so long ago, stated the role of SBY's father in law, General Sarwo Edhie role, in '65s. The articles mentioned, or having tendency to accuse the way I read it, that Anti PKI-sentiment , Frictions between PKI and Islamics side, were worsened by the issue of The fifth army issue ( Angkatan kelima) and the kidnapping of the 7 Generals...

Gen. Ahmad Yani, one of the 7 kidnapped General,were reported to have a very close emotional connection with General Sarwo Edhie ( who was at that moment, RPKAD/KOPASSUS level highest commander). Article reported, SOeharto intel added information to Sarwo Edhie side, intensively, to convinced Sarwo Edhie that PKI was behind all of these and massive erradications were needed to save the Republic. Mrs Ani Yudhoyono, Gen Sarwo's daughter testified', the night before her daddy went to ordered field massacres, she saw her dad kneeled down in front of Gen Ahmad yani, crying 'more like a baby than a soldier'...

Soeharto borrowed Sarwo hands to clean up PKI...

Remember, thats only one other side of 65's perspective

[Hombre de Maiz]

A victim? Siapa suruh? By the late fifties, with the end of the PRRI/Permesta affair, the U.S. had ceased efforts to unseat Sukarno. Rather than build on the windfall of stability, abroad and internally, what did Sukarno do? He went on his Konfrontasi charade. Siapa suruh? Painting Indonesia as the victim hides the uncomfortable truth that the mid-1960s pogroms and the ushering of the New Order were primarily the making of Indonesians.

On a separate though related note, I think the UK had equal or greater motive than the U.S. to defenestrate Sukarno.

[Abook looty]

Ok, I'm omitting the highly in depth discussion here.

It is true though, Greater version of story is highly subjective. Just read an article at "Jawa Pos" today about one of the PKI executioners on '65 who went crazy nowaday....on another newspaper, it tells a story about PKI's enemy executioner pre '65.... Those two had difference perspectives obviously....here comes another site, the largest indonesian sites-Kaskus-, someone brought an article up and some members responded variously, either as personal experienced as the one being labeled "PKI", or those who had relatives who were victims or witnesses....

Surprise surprise...
I still dont know who's to blame now, who'se the right or the bad guys here...
Its still a humanitarian crime though...

One thing for sure, Indonesia was surely a victim of the two sides during cold war era....

[Hombre de Maiz]

No, but he was responsible for bringing the country to the edge of a very dark abyss. Yet to this day, for some Sukarno still walks on water. Megawati has ridden along on the fame of her father, and has done quite well for it. Richard Nixon visited Sukarno's Indonesia, and reportedly he noted that nowhere else had he witsnessed such a sharp contrast between the squalid poverty and humility of the people and the luxurious decadence and "corrosive vanity" of their leader.

[ponyexpress]

It's been nearly a decade since I last read M.C. Ricklef's general survey, but a sentence at the end of the chapter covering this episode stays with me. Ricklefs ends that chapter by noting that on that date the conflicting forces underlying Guided Democracy came crashing down, taking down with it the regime of extravagant hypocrisy and corruption built by Sukarno.

The Year of Living Dangerously often feels like the love story of two expats set against the background of 1965. At the end, however, Mel Gibson's photographer commits suicide in protest, after having seen that Sukarno gave not a rat's ass about the people, and was only concerned about accumulating power, teenage virgins and feeding his already enormous ego. Here we had the Father of the Nation who less than two decades after fighting the Dutch was ready to pimp out the country to the Communists and the Chinese.

I haven't read Ricklef in ages too. I agree that Sukarno's political ambition cost him a disastrous economic situation and his charisma failed to unite all the conflicting forces. However, the killings of alleged and supporters of the Indonesian communist party and left-leaning activists should not be seen as his punishment for all mistakes he's made.

[ponyexpress]

Are there any books you folks recommend that can best describe this historic event? A book that is not too academic nor too novel like.

John Roosa's Pretext for Mass Murder is easy to read and very insightful. His is perhaps one of the great sources on the subject.
Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia is rather dense. It might be because of his background in political science.
Robert Cribb, The Indonesian Killings of 1965 is a compilation of writings on the event. An apt general survey, I must say.
Geoffrey Robinson, The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Views in Bali, has a good account on the killings in Bali.

[wombat]

Are there any books you folks recommend that can best describe this historic event? A book that is not too academic nor too novel like.

[Hombre de Maiz]

It's been nearly a decade since I last read M.C. Ricklef's general survey, but a sentence at the end of the chapter covering this episode stays with me. Ricklefs ends that chapter by noting that on that date the conflicting forces underlying Guided Democracy came crashing down, taking down with it the regime of extravagant hypocrisy and corruption built by Sukarno.

The Year of Living Dangerously often feels like the love story of two expats set against the background of 1965. At the end, however, Mel Gibson's photographer commits suicide in protest, after having seen that Sukarno gave not a rat's ass about the people, and was only concerned about accumulating power, teenage virgins and feeding his already enormous ego. Here we had the Father of the Nation who less than two decades after fighting the Dutch was ready to pimp out the country to the Communists and the Chinese.

[ponyexpress]

The political backdrop of the cold war gave the perpetrators cover, but what happened was an internal affair with the army destroying all vestiges of its left-wing rivals, in fact all of its rivals and potential rivals.

That's pretty much John Roosa's reappraisal of the event; a coup is a pretext to wipe out left-leaning supporters and Soekarnoists. Later on, they turned on Islam.

[ponyexpress]

What do you make, Pony, of these suggestions that these events, while bad, were not as bad as those of the colonial order because they were Indonesian-on-Indonesian rather than European-on-Indonesian?

A comparative question such as this might not be helpful, I reckon. I can however understand if this suggestion is widely used to justify any repression committed by the state. This issue brings us to the important point on nationalism in Indonesia. As nationalism in Indonesia is dogged by anti-colonial sentiment, it unfortunately leads to an inward looking attitude. They despise anything foreign and continuously employ the 'othering process' as a means to beef up their nationalism.

[Hombre de Maiz]

What do you make, Pony, of these suggestions that these events, while bad, were not as bad as those of the colonial order because they were Indonesian-on-Indonesian rather than European-on-Indonesian?

[ponyexpress]

The obsession with the 'real story' is in fact impeding any genuine effort to comprehend the event from a different perspective based on the ultimate value of humanity. In other words, this obsession can easily deny any alternative narrative of the event.

Particularly striking is that the demonisation of communism during the New Order was so effective in that people are not willing to acknowledge what survivors had been through. Yes, the party did some mistakes in the past, but the summary executions of more than 500.000 people were a disproportionate reaction. Some Islamic groups such as DI/TII did a mistake as well but people acknowledge all survivors of Priok. Arguably, the Indonesian military during the Suharto killed more people than the Indonesian Communist Party ever did, yet people might be more willing to forgive them. On the other hand, a former communist member will have no sympathy from society at all.

[Hombre de Maiz]

Perspective is the issue here....
We still dont know how the actual real story is....

The principal reason why the real story, that is, the full story is unknown to this day is that the Indonesian government has sought to repress, bury and distort information around it. Another reason is that an entire regime was built upon and legitimated on the myths created from this episode. Yet another reason is that the official story of laying the blame squarely and fully at the feet of godless communists dovetails quite neatly with societal prejudices and religious intolerance against atheism. It doesn't help any that most Indonesians are in ignorance or denial about the whole thing.

That a good half a million Indonesians were slaughtered, with the acquiescence if not the tacit approval of the state, is relatively well established and beyond question. You can also determine who was the effective head of state and who were in charge of the security forces during those crucial years of 1965-1967. That we do not know everything does not mean that we do not know quite a lot. This discourse of "we don't know the real story" is part and parcel of the greater discourse of distortion, denial and supression that have characterized these unfortunate events since day one.