Western Hypocrites & the 1965 Indonesian Right-Wing Massacres
Australia’s Role in the 1965-66 Communist Massacres in Indonesia
By Marlene Millott EXTRACTS
Fifty years ago, on September 30, one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century took place on Australia’s doorstep. Following an AIIA and ANU conference on these events, a young Australian reflects on Australia’s complicity.
An estimated half a million people affiliated with the Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party or PKI) were massacred by the Indonesian Army, with help from local religious and youth groups. These killings contributed to a reorientation in Indonesian politics, installing General Suharto as president and eliminating the once-strong PKI through violent purges and systematic imprisonment. Declassified documents have shown that the US and its allies played a significant role in these killings, as the US provided weapons, communications equipment and lists of known communists. As an ally of the US, the Australian Embassy and the Department of External Affairs acted in a way that made Australia an accomplice, by helping to create the conditions that allowed the massacres to take place.
In the years leading up to 1965, Sukarno favoured the PKI and it grew in strength, while his foreign policy became increasingly hostile towards the West. The Indonesian Army and the US and its allies watched these developments with suspicion, and formed secret relationships. From 1958-1965, the US secretly trained, funded and advised the Army to turn it into a ‘state within a state’ that would be ready to take over government if the opportunity arose.
On the night of the 30th of September 1965, the Commander of the Army Lt General Achmad Yani and five Generals were kidnapped by a group calling themselves the September 30th Movement. They were murdered and thrown down a well. The Army and the US embassy had been patiently waiting for an event like this. It declared the PKI responsible for masterminding a coup, seized almost all media outlets and spread the story of PKI treachery. General Suharto extracted a mandate from Sukarno to return order to the country, before setting out to destroy the Communist Party.
Across the archipelago, a campaign to eliminate the PKI saw the murder of an estimated 500,000 people. Victims were rounded up and detained for days, or months, before being executed. The Army was instrumental in the massacres, often accompanied by local militias. Those who weren’t killed were transferred to prison camps, with one million people held in detention facilities without trial, with terms varying from a few months to fourteen years.
Following the events of September 30th, Western nations solidified their support for the Indonesian Army, in an effort to remove the PKI from power and sideline Sukarno. The US and the UK, supported by other nations in the region including Australia, carried out clandestine operations which supported and encouraged the Army-led massacres of alleged PKI. Documents from the National Archives of Australia show that the Australian Embassy and the Department of External Affairs were closely aligned with the Indonesian Army, offered support for their activities in overthrowing Sukarno and eliminating the PKI, and used Radio Australia to broadcast Army propaganda in Indonesia that contributed to anti-Communist hysteria.
Cables show that the Australian Embassy was aware that Communists were being rounded up and killed from early October 1965. The Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Keith Shann, ‘personally witnessed’ around 250 prisoners being taken away by the Army, and noted that it was impossible to know the number of people killed and detained, but ‘it cannot be small’. In February 1966, J.M. Starey, the First Secretary at the Australian Embassy, visited Bali, Flores and Timor, and spoke to Australian students who had been in Lombok. He heard first-hand accounts of the killings by people who had participated in them, and in Flores even saw victims’ heads on spikes in some villages. Starey noted that the Army was in control of the proceedings. The Australian Embassy and Department of External Affairs made it clear they were satisfied with these events. In early October 1965, Ambassador Shann cabled the Department saying that it was ‘now or never’, and that he ‘devoutly’ hope[d]’ that ‘the Army [would] act firmly’ against the PKI. In mid-1966, Prime Minister Harold Holt expressed detached satisfaction with the pro-Western shift in Indonesian foreign and economic policy. He casually told the crowd at the Australian-American Association in New York ‘with 500,000 to one million Communist sympathisers knocked off, I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place’.
As the Indonesian Army murdered hundreds of thousands of alleged PKI, the Australian Embassy maintained ties with Indonesian Army generals, discussing anti-PKI activities and ways Australia could assist the Army in its transition to power. A cable from November 12th 1965 shows Ambassador Shann discussed the Army’s anti-Communist campaign and Australia’s military campaign in Borneo to defend the newly created Malaysia against Indonesian aggression with the Undersecretary from the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr A.Y. Helmi.
Helmi requested Australian and British troops restrict all patrols and activities in Borneo, so the Indonesian Army could deal with the Communists. Shann reassured Helmi that the Army was ‘completely safe in using their forces for whatever purposes they saw fit’, knowing those forces would be used to attack PKI members and allies.
The biggest role Australia played in the 1965-66 massacres of the PKI was through broadcasting and supporting Indonesian Army propaganda. In the weeks that followed the attempted coup, the Indonesian Army seized control of virtually all of Indonesia’s media, and began an aggressive and pervasive anti-PKI campaign which spread disinformation aimed at discrediting and dehumanising the communists.
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Australia’s actions as an accomplice to these killings should not be exaggerated. The massacres of the PKI took place against the backdrop of years of tension and hatred between the Army and the PKI, in a complex internal political environment that would have seen the killings take place regardless of any role Australia might have played. Fifty years later, those who committed the atrocities have never been brought to justice. Denial of the killings is rife. Where it is acknowledged, the perpetrators are admired as heroes who saved the nation from a Communist menace. As activist groups across Indonesia struggle to cut through the propaganda and spread the truth about the massacres of the PKI, it is important that Australia’s role in these events is understood.
Marlene Millott is a Research Assistant at Monash University. She was a recipient of the Euan Crone Asian Awareness Scholarship in 2014. This article is based on the thesis completed for her Masters in Journalism and International Relations. This article can be republished with attribution under a Creative Commons Licence.
Published October 2, 2015
http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australian_outlook/australias-role-in-the-1965-66-communist-massacres-in-indonesia/
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EXTRACTS
"Fifty years ago, the Indonesian army, led by Gen. Suharto, used an alleged coup attempt by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as a pretext to mount a savage right-wing seizure of power.
Starting on October 1, 1965, at least 500,000 people were murdered and millions were imprisoned without trial in appalling conditions for up to 20 years. Many were subjected to torture--including rape and other sexual violence--forced labor and exile."
...
United States, the UK and Australia
charged with conspiracy for role
in facilitating commission of these crimes
...
"established that the state of Indonesia during the relevant period through its military and police arms committed and encouraged the commission of these grave human rights violations on a systematic and widespread basis."
"done for political purposes: to annihilate the PKI and those alleged to be its members or sympathizers, as well as a much broader number of people including [former President] Sukarno loyalists, trade unionists and teachers."
"design was also to prop up a dictatorial violent regime"
"It cannot be doubted that these acts, evaluated separately and cumulatively, constitute crimes against humanity, both in International Law and judged by the values and the legal framework of the new reformist era ..."
"The tribunal called on the Indonesian government to implement the recommendations (to take action to find justice and provide reparations for the 1965 crimes against humanity) made by both its own Commission for Violence against Women in 2007, and Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) in 2012 after hearing representatives of both bodies; and for Indonesia's President Joko Widodo to deliver on his electoral promise to act."
http://socialistworker.org/2015/12/10/indonesias-massacres-on-trial
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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/10/government-brushes-hague-tribunal-1965-massacre.html
Government brushes off Hague tribunal on 1965 massacre
thejakartapost.com, Jakarta | National
Tue, November 10 2015, 12:31 PM
The government has refused to acknowledge the International People's Tribunal 1965, being held in The Hague, the Netherlands, saying that Indonesia works on its own justice system.
Attorney General HM Prasetyo refused to accept the mass killings of 1965 and 1966 being brought before a tribunal overseas.
"We solve our own issues. There is no need for other parties to be involved in this," he told kompas.com.
He said the government was making continued efforts to resolve past human rights violations, however, there had faced difficulties in finding evidence and witnesses to testify.
Questioning sessions and early investigations conducted by the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) could not yet be brought to the full investigation stage he said.
"The government is trying to resolve the violations through reconciliation, but there are so many things to discuss and prepare," Prasetyo said.
State Secretary Pratikno said the government was working to prepare a systematic solution for the human rights violations.
"President [Joko Widodo] directed us to [work] based on our own justice system," he said.
The international tribunal, initiated by human rights activists, is being held from Nov. 10 to 13, marking the 50th anniversary of the massacre of up to 1 million considered members or supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan also questioned the people's tribunal, claiming it was unjust.
"Who do they want to try? How can they make a decision about our [case]?" he said.
Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, the general coordinator of the International People's Tribunal 1965 earlier announced that there would be seven judges, six international prosecutors and 16 witnesses taking part in the tribunal.
She urged the government to apologize as the first step toward recognizing the crimes committed by a past government, and also take into account the recommendations resulting from the tribunal. (rin)(+)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/10/government-brushes-hague-tribunal-1965-massacre.htm
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http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/international-court-revisits-indonesias-1965-mass-killings/
And even if the tribunal has no legal standing in Indonesia, the prosecutors are confident that it can lead to political victories in the future.
The tribunal also tackled the “complicity” of the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia in the commission of the mass crimes in 1965. A witness alleged that these governments “provided radio-communication equipment in order to facilitate communication between the troops and delivered small arms and money. They also provided lists of alleged PKI members to the Indonesian authorities.”
As expected, the Indonesian government dismissed the international tribunal as a farce. It reminded the participants that Indonesia is a sovereign nation with a functioning legal system. It also insisted that President Jokowi will not apologize for the actions of the army in 1965. Some hardliners even branded the Indonesian participants as traitors and communists.
http://thediplomat.com/2015/11/international-court-revisits-indonesias-1965-mass-killings/
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BOOK
The New Rulers of the World
by John Pilger
"Pilger tackles the injustices and double standards inherent in the politics of globalization and exposes the terrible truth behind the power and wealth of states and corporations
John Pilger is one of the world’s renowned investigative journalists and documentary filmmakers. In this classic book, with an updated introduction, he reveals the secrets and illusions of modern imperialism. Beginning with Indonesia, he shows how General Suharto’s bloody seizure of power in the 1960s was part of a western design to impose a “global economy” on Asia. A million Indonesians died as the price for being the World Bank’s “model pupil.” "
source
http://www.versobooks.com/books/2153-the-new-rulers-of-the-world
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COMMENT
The West is responsible for facilitating murder and atrocity on a MASSIVE SCALE, yet no Westerner has been held accountable for facilitating the 'knocking off' 500,000 to a million 'communist sympathisers', in the noble endeavour to save the world from the 'horrors' freedom from economic exploitation.
It is astounding that the above writer absolves Australia of responsibility on the following basis:
"Australia’s actions as an accomplice to these killings should not be exaggerated. The massacres of the PKI took place against the backdrop of years of tension and hatred between the Army and the PKI, in a complex internal political environment that would have seen the killings take place regardless of any role Australia might have played." [source - above]
The 'backdrop of years of tension', 'hatred' and 'complex internal political environment' could just as readily apply to the Balkans or to World War II Europe or, really, any other contest.
It looks like the attitudes, the course of action taken, and the standards applied depend entirely on who performed the deeds in question, and what is in it for the champions of global capitalism.
While Radovan Karadzic has been convicted in some US war criminal sponsored kangaroo court, knocking off half a million to a million pesky Indonesian commies happens to be just fine -- even something to be proud of, by the look of things.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking when you consider the enormity of what the West has supported here -- and this is just ONE example of murder, torture and suffering on a massive scale, in a LONG SERIES of wilful evil-doing, right around the globe, committed by those that would have us believe they are the 'righteous' among nations -- this glorious 'international community,' as they refer to their vicious, destructive coterie.
And these are the shining examples of humanity that would have us believe the Third Reich 'Nazis', and not they, are the epitome of 'evil' that was righteously conquered for the good of the entire world that our noble WWII heroes have ... *cough* ... lovingly liberated.
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EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 