Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

"Good for business"

The series of articles on the massacre of Indonesia's Communists in 1965 
that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald last week was 
extraordinary on several counts. The articles were given remarkable 
prominence and space, given how critical they were of both the US and 
Australian Governments of the time.

The articles make chilling reading. The Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), 
third largest in the world, was wiped out.

Although accused of planning and even attempting an "armed coup", it is 
clear that the PKI in fact was largely unarmed and in no way contemplating 
military action.

Its members were unable to offer "meaningful resistance" to the wave of 
terror unleashed against them by the Army under Generals Nasution and 
Suharto.

The articles are allegedly based on "a collection of former `Top Secret' 
and `Secret' US records on the massacres ... recently gathered by 
Washington researcher John Kelly for a documentary project". When the 
documentary project "lapsed", the records "were handed to the 
Herald".

Whatever their source, they show clearly the involvement of the US Embassy 
in the unfolding events. US Ambassador Marshall Green actively supported 
the army-organised orgy of killing: consulting with leaders of anti-
Communist Muslim death squads, arranging for the US Information Agency to 
beam anti-PKI propaganda over the radio and orchestrating an international 
media barrage to push the Indonesian Army's cover story of a "Communist 
coup".

Green rejoiced in the slaughter of Communist leaders, the forced closing of 
the Communist university (and the banning of "leftist" student 
organisations), and the sacking of PKI bookstores.

He was impressed by the Muslim groups' use of lying propaganda, describing 
their slogan that banning of the PKI means cheaper rice (!) as "most 
promising".

The Suharto-Nasution clique were of a like mind with the US about the 
necessity to undermine the prestige of China in Indonesia.

The generals sought the aid of the US to "alert the Indonesian people to 
the dangers of association with Communist China" using the techniques of 
psychological warfare" which the US was no doubt only too happy to supply.

The US Embassy cables quoted also point to the US covertly supplying 
weapons to the Indonesian Army for the arming of the "civilian anti-
communist groups" (Muslim death squads) that at one stage were killing "50-
100 PKI members every night" in Central Java alone.

Under Sukarno, Indonesia had become a leading force in the non-aligned 
movement, a major impediment to US efforts to "roll back Communism" and to 
isolate China, in particular.

It is inconceivable that the US Government would just sit back and wait 
hopefully for something to happen in Indonesia to change that situation.

US diplomats and CIA agents would have been working flatout to bring that 
change about and no body in the world is more proactive than the State 
Department and the CIA.

To prevent Sarawak and North Borneo eventually becoming part of "left-
leaning" Indonesia, they had been brought in 1963 into a federation with 
newly independent but staunchly anti-Communist Malaya, to be called 
Malaysia.

Indonesia objected, and in 1965 US allies Britain and Australia joined in 
sending troops to Borneo. (Australia was as concerned as the US about 
"rolling back" Communism: in April that same year it had committed the 
first Australian troops to Vietnam.)

At the same time, the policies and practices of US oil companies in 
Indonesia, as in other parts of the developing world, were causing concern 
in Jakarta.

The country's huge and much needed oil wealth was going to enrich Caltex 
rather than the people of Indonesia.

Sukarno went so far as to threaten to break diplomatic relations with the 
US and to nationalise US oil assets.

Perbum, the Communist-led oil workers' union, was very active in defending 
the rights and conditions of Caltex's Indonesian employees.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Subandrio, claimed Western diplomats were 
conspiring with senior Indonesia army officers to kill or otherwise 
eliminate Sukarno.

All of which was of course just a fortuitous coincidence as far as the US 
Government was concerned. When the coup finally came, no one was more 
surprised than the US Government and its intelligence services. Sure they 
were.

Of course, any documents showing US involvement in actually initiating the 
coup and the following massacre would be too sensitive to "declassify". But 
what the Herald has is pretty revealing, just the same.

For instance, in late October, a US diplomat reported from Riau province in 
Sumatra: "Army has raided PKI leaders' houses and informed Caltex 
management it plans on Oct 29 to arrest key leaders of communist oil 
workers' union Perbum, which forms core of PKI structure that province".

A declassified Australian Embassy report tells how the Army dealt with 
worker unrest. The Army would assemble the workforce of the factory or mine 
"and ask them whether they wish to continue work as usual. Those who 
decline are asked again and, unless they change their mind, summarily 
shot." (Now we know where Reith gets his ideas from!)

The US and Australian Governments eagerly supported what the Herald 
calls "one of the worst bloodbaths of the 20th century" because it was 
basically "good for business".