indonesia: second greatest crime of the century [by ...indonesia seems to be right back where it was...

Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of the Century [by Deirdre Griswold]

http://www.workers.org/indonesia/index.html[2/1/2011 4:24:03 PM]

Indonesia 1965The Second Greatest Crime of theCentury

By Deirdre Griswold

Introduction

(Chapter 1)The Bloodbath

(Chapter 2)1958: The First CIA Attempt

(Chapter 3)350 Years of Colonialism

(Chapter 4)U.S. Corporations Arrive for the Feast

(Chapter 5)The "Left" Critics after the Fact

(Chapter 6)The Question of State Power

CHAPTERS Index Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 Search

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Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: Introduction

http://www.workers.org/indonesia/intro.html[2/1/2011 4:24:10 PM]

IntroductionBefore October 1965, Indonesia had the largest leftmovement outside the socialist countries, while thegovernment of President Sukarno pursued a militantlyanti-imperialist foreign policy.

This book tells of the massacres following the October 1,1965, military takeover that decimated the Indonesian left.It focuses on the role of Washington in providing essentialclandestine support for the right-wing generals in thatbloodbath.

This book was first published in 1970. It is being reprintedin 1998 as a new generation has emerged in Indonesia.This new generation has no illusions about the generalsand the state they represent. Nor can it be seduced by thekind of "development" promised under the "New Order"which is now in crisis. There are many, many murdersand shattered lives to avenge. And it is young -- and withyouth comes new hope.













Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of the Century: The Bloodbath

http://www.workers.org/indonesia/chap1.html[2/1/2011 4:24:19 PM]

The BloodbathBetween October 1, 1965, and April or May of thefollowing year, the right-wing military regime of GeneralsNasution and Suharto seized power and consolidated itsstrength in Indonesia. In that scant seven months as manyas a million people were slaughtered. The rising toll ofvictims appeared occasionally in the press here, recordedwith little more passion than a sports score.

Some accounts of the appalling massacres did in time findtheir way into the papers of London and New York. Theirtone was fatalistic, implying that the unbelievable carnagedescribed was the product of a bloodlust and disregard forhuman life inconceivable to "civilized" Westerners. Therewas no sense of urgency about these reports, as thoughnothing could be done to stem the gory tide.

No member of Parliament or Congress rose to condemnthe butchery. No relief or rescue agencies attempted tointervene on behalf of the political prisoners. Only a fewisolated voices in the West tried to raise an outcry in theface of such awful silence.

Over four years later [in 1970], several hundred thousandpolitical prisoners still rot in jail. There have beenrepeated purges of the armed forces and the civil service.The fascist military regime is debating whether or not tocarry out mass executions, claiming it no longer canafford to feed the mass of prisoners.

American capital is moving into Indonesia once again toexplore offshore areas for oil, reactivate existing wells,and mine copper in West Irian. Properties nationalizedunder President Sukarno have been returned to their U.S.and European former owners.

Indonesia seems to be right back where it was beforeWorld War II, before the rising nationalist movementswept out the Dutch and the 3,000 separate islands of theNetherlands East Indies united in the new and militantRepublic of Indonesia. How did it happen? And whatreally happened?

There is a standard phrase that appears in all the Westernnews accounts. It is "the attempted Communist coup." Themassacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians wasjustified, so this official account goes, as a reaction to anattempted coup by the Communists on September 30,when six right-wing army generals were killed.

THE STRANGE "ATTEMPTED COMMUNIST COUP"

The dictionary defines the words "coup d'etat" as thesudden, forceful overthrow of the government; literally itmeans a blow against the state. Since the events ofSeptember-October 1965, every person who was amember of the Cabinet on the night of September 30 hasbeen accused of participating in the coup; three weresentenced to death and all arrested. Foreign MinisterSubandrio is probably dead. Former President Sukarnohimself has been placed under house arrest forinterrogation about his part in the alleged coup attempt.

These facts in and of themselves invalidate the"Communist coup" story, since a government can hardlybe accused of plotting its own overthrow.

To this it must be added that Indonesia had the largest






Communist party outside of the socialist countries. Itsmembership was over three million, and there wereestimated to be between 15 and 20 million activesupporters. Yet there was no call to action, no strikes ormassive popular demonstrations at the time of the coup,or even in the bloody months of massacre that followed.Only a person most gullible and ignorant of Indonesianpolitics could be made to believe that this mass party waspreparing to seize power without using its popularresources.

No one denies the fact that individual members of theIndonesian Communist Party (PKI) did participate in theSeptember 30th Movement, which was not a coup attemptbut an effort to block the right-wing generals. However,the party itself seems if anything to have been unpreparedfor the task of taking state power, and had a history ofleaning on President Sukarno in its bouts with thereactionaries.

The story of a Communist coup has persisted in theWestern press up to the present time only because there isso much ignorance about Asia in general and becauseanti-Communism is used to justify and minimize massmurder.

However, it is not ignorance on the part of the mass mediathat dictates their handling of the events of October 1965.It can only be a deliberate policy to bury the truth. Therewas a coup d'etat that took place. It was organized andcarried out by a clique of right-wing generals with theclosest collaboration of high U.S. officials. And theAmerican press had all this information readily availableto it but did not choose to let the American people knowwhat was taking place.

SEPTEMBER 30TH MOVEMENT VS. THE COUNCIL OFGENERALS

The September 30th Movement, which did indeedassassinate six right-wing generals before it was quicklycrushed on the morning of October 1, 1965, was headedby Lieutenant Colonel Untung, a trusted member ofSukarno's palace guard. He had the support of AirMarshal Omar Dhani, Commandant of the Indonesian AirForce. But the Movement was not an attempt tooverthrow the government, all of whose members werelater accused of being part of the "attempted coup." It wasan attempt to save that government.

The Indonesian military ever since independence has beencomposed of contradictory elements. Untung, Dhani andothers like them were strongly nationalist and anti-imperialist. But there were many other officers who owedtheir existence to a feudal origin and collaboration withthe foreign exploiters. General Haris Nasution, one of theArmy chiefs who helped crush the September 30thMovement and is today a member of Indonesia's rulingtriumvirate, has a long history of open treason against theRepublic. In 1952, he attempted a coup d'etat but failed.This did not prevent him from becoming Army Chief ofStaff in the years that followed and by the late 1950s hehad created his own political party.

Nasution, Suharto and other officers, many of whom hadbeen trained in the U.S., formed a secret "Council ofGenerals." On September 21, 1965, they met in Djakartawith the entire armed forces chiefs of staff. At this secretmeeting, which was tape-recorded by agents of ForeignMinister Subandrio, a plan was drawn up to overthrow the



government on October 5, Armed Forces Day, when allthe crack regiments under their command would beassembled in the capital.

When Sukarno learned of this plot, he called in Untung.The September 30th Movement was hastily formed topreempt the move by the Council of Generals. It washoped that by destroying the leaders of the Council, thecoup would be thwarted.

The right-wing generals had intended to justify theirtakeover with Sukarno's "ill health," the pretext being thatshould anything happen to the President, the countrywould fall into the hands of the Communists. However,their intended move could only have had the sympathy ofa small minority of the population, and they were nodoubt anxious about what the response of the millions ofprogressive Inonesians would be.

The failure of Untung's movement gave the generals anexcuse to openly begin a massive hunt of left-wingers,and they found the people and their organizationsconfused and unsure about what was happening.

Having crushed the September 30th Movement, theCouncil of Generals went on to implement their coupplan, setting up a new government controlled by themilitary and physically wiping out the opposition.

The Western press dwelt mournfully on the death of thesix generals, but it was many months before the extent ofthe slaughter that followed was reported anywhere. It waseven longer before the story of what happened onSeptember 30 finally made it into the New York Times,even if only by the back door.

THE TESTIMONY OF GENERAL SUPARDJO

On March 1, 1967, the Times reported on the trial ofBrigadier General Supardjo, an officer charged with beingin on the "coup attempt" of September 30. In histestimony, Supardjo denied that he had participated in theMovement, remarking wryly that it was poorly organized.However, he made it clear that he was not playing alongwith his captors.

According to the defendant's (former ArmyBrigadier General Supardjo) testimony,Indonesian political history since September30, 1965, has been completely distorted. Theattempted coup that night, he said, was not aCommunist plot and it certainly was notaimed at ousting the legal government.Instead, he has repeatedly told his fiveuniformed judges that the "September 30thMovement" came into being to forestall acoup by the "Council of Generals".... Mr.Supardjo noted with irony that in theaftermath of the coup the "Council ofGenerals got what it aimed for." After all, headded, "the ministers of the legal governmentare now in jail" -- three of them, includingformer Foreign Minister Subandrio, havealready been sentenced to death -- and, hesaid, only Mr. Sukarno is left. (New YorkTimes, March 1, 1967]

General Supardjo could have had no selfish motive forthis testimony. Indeed, it brought him a death sentence.



While the Council of Generals has not been mentionedelsewhere in the Establishment press other than in thesedirect quotes from General Supardjo's testimony, itsexistence was widely recognized. On July 4, 1966, theIndonesian Ambassador to Cuba, Mr. A.M. Hanafi,announced his resignation. In a statement explaining whyhe was leaving the post, he talked of the right-wingmilitary group that had taken over in his country:

Since the outbreak of this 30th of SeptemberMovement affair, the development of eventshas brought to light the existence of a"Council of Generals," a gang of the mostreactionary high-ranking Army officers,whose ringleader is Gen. A. H. Nasution.Everything that is happening in Indonesianow was carefully plotted by this Council,working hand in glove with the CIA, and waswhat Col. Untung and the other patrioticofficers tried to avert with their 30th ofSeptember Movement. Opposition to thisCouncil has now become the order of the dayfor every Indonesian patriot.

THE SILENT SLAUGHTER

October, November, and half of December passed beforeany story of the mass slaughter taking place in Indonesiabroke in the American press. That was in Time magazine.It was another month before the New York Times reportedit.

Was this because the U.S. press didn't have the storyearlier? That is inconceivable. An event of earth-shakingimportance had taken place with the right-wing coup.Even a cub reporter would understand how significantsuch a political turn was for the fortunes of the U.S. inAsia. The Viet Nam War was going on just across theSouth China Sea. Hundreds of reporters were stationedthere from every major news agency.

Did the new regime exclude foreign reporters? If so, therewas never a word about it printed in any newspaper. Itcan only be assumed that the U.S. press, as well asWashington, were intimately aware of the reign of terror,but were keeping mum.

When, after three months, the awful toll was finallybrought out, it was with an air of a fait accompli.Hundreds of thousands had already been killed. It was toolate to stop it.

Time magazine, which usually judges the virtue ofgovernments by the number of communist scalps danglingfrom their belts, nevertheless objectively reported onDecember 17, 1965, that:

Communists, red sympathizers and theirfamilies are being massacred by thethousands. Backlands army units are reportedto have executed thousands of Communistsafter interrogation in remote jails. Armedwith wide-bladed knives called "parangs,"Moslem bands crept at night into the homesof Communists, killing entire families andburying the bodies in shallow graves. Themurder campaign became so brazen in partsof rural East Java, that Moslem bands placedthe heads of victims on poles and paradedthem through villages. The killings have been



on such a scale that the disposal of thecorpses has created a serious sanitationproblem in East Java and Northern Sumatrawhere the humid air bears the reek ofdecaying flesh. Travelers from these areas tellof small rivers and streams that have beenliterally clogged with bodies. Rivertransportation has at places been seriouslyimpeded.

Spotty accounts appeared now and again in the monthsthat followed. Again, their tone was fatalistic. There wasno indignation or sense of urgency. Instead, the mountingdead were portrayed almost as victims of destiny, thedoomed figures of a Greek tragedy.

The Guardian of Britain on April 7, 1966, carried thisaccount from Djakarta by Nicholas Turner:

Estimates of the total number of Indonesianskilled in political massacres after theattempted coup of September 30 are beingrevised as fuller information comes in fromouter regions. One Western ambassadorconsiders 300,000 to be a conservativeestimate, and other compilations run farhigher.

A traveller who knows the island of Baliwell, and speaks the language . . . describesmass executions and the annihilation ofvillage after village in some areas. A consularofficial in Surabaja accepts a figure of200,000 for Bali, which has a population oftwo million.

Estimates of the dead in Sumatra also rangearound 200,000, and a similar figure for Javais generally regarded as on the low side.When the death tolls for other islands such asBorneo and Sulawesi are added, the total maywell be upwards of 600,000. Just how manyof these are Communists is another question.

It appears certain that the great majority ofthe dead were innocent victims of politicalhysteria....

In some areas, Communist suspects were shotor poisoned, but usually the Moslem youthbeheaded its victims with the parang. . . . Theheads were often impaled on fences andgateposts . . . .

Rivers in many parts of the country wereclogged with corpses for weeks. A Europeanresident of Surabaja describes finding bodieswashed up by the river on to his back garden.

Carnage on such a scale can scarcely be imagined, andthe first effect after reading of such events is to feelstunned, incapable of comprehension. But after the firstshock wears off and the awful truth sinks in, it isnecessary to ask some questions. How was it possible?More people died in these few months than in thebombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the end of1965, more Indonesians had been killed than the numberof Vietnamese fallen after 15 years of war.

Were these merely the victims of some local vengeance,



as the papers tried to imply? James Reston of the Timesfound it significant in one of his columns that the term"run amok" is of Malay origin. How convenient for Mr.Reston are the anti-Asian prejudices and chauvinism ofWestern society! How easy it is for the newspapers toexplain away a million deaths in Indonesia, where, asevery good American schoolchild knows, "life is cheap."

All the lies that allowed the comfortable Christians ofHolland and England to believe they were morally rightin robbing Indonesia for three centuries are now invokedby Mr. Reston and the editors of other great Americannewspapers to explain away the massacres.

Mr. Reston's "insights" into the Indonesian characternotwithstanding, the real explanation of the massacres liesnot in bloodlust or hysteria, or in people wildly "runningamok." As in all cases of genocide throughout the world,there was organization, planning, efficiency and anarmedforce responsible for the executions.

ARMY CARRIES OUT A "SPONTANEOUS" MASSACRE

In one of the few isolated instances of press coveragegiven the slaughter in Indonesia, the New York TimesMay 8, 1966, Sunday Magazine ran an article by Seth S.King, its Southeast Asia correspondent. King quotes aschoolteacher in a village near Jogjakarta:

My students went right out with the army.They pointed out P.K.I. members. The armyshot them on the spot along with their wholefamily: women, children. It was horrible....

Indonesia is made up of 3,000 separate islands, strung outfor 3,000 miles along the equator. Yet the massacres werecoordinated, and as the earlier quote from the ManchesterGuardian showed, almost evenly spread across all thegreater islands of the archipelago.

No mass hysteria could leap hundreds of miles, across theintervening seas, to strike on island after island. Only astrong central power could have directed the executions.

It was Nasution and Suharto's army that systematicallywent from village to village, rooted out the peasantleaders, the communists and nationalists, the workers whohad led seizures of Dutch and American property orfeudal plantations. They hauled before the firing squadthousands of teachers, infected with ideas of "liberation."They didn't bother with trials, lawyers or laws them-selves. It was the ultimate pacification program that U.S.experts in Viet Nam had dreamed of and this time itworked.

How was it that a reactionary group of generals dared toembark on such a grisly course, one that could only earnthem the undying hatred of millions? These corruptmilitary men, powerful as they may have been, basedtheir internal support on a thin crust of Indonesian societycomposed of feudal reactionaries, merchants tied toWestern commerce and a portion of the civil servants.But the great mass of the people were their enemies,struggling to end once and for all the landed aristocracyand to break the bonds to the West that had exploitedthem for over three hundred years

How then could the Council of Generals have expected towin against such a large and organized adversary? Whatgave them the courage to put aside their own personal



deals and manipulations in order to launch a full-scalepolitical offensive against the Sukarno government andthe Indonesian people?

"WASHINGTON CAREFUL NOT TO CLAIM CREDIT FOR IT"

We could easily venture a guess, but it is not necessary.The answer has already been given, and by no less anauthority than the New York Times.

In a more scientific frame of mind than was evident in hispreviously quoted remarks, James Reston spoke quitecandidly about the coup and the massacres on June 19,1966:

One of the most persistent complaints amongofficials in Washington is that our politicaltroubles in Vietnam are not balancedadequately by reports in the press of the morehopeful political developments elsewhere inAsia.

The savage transformation of Indonesia froma pro-Chinese policy under Sukarno to adefiantly anti-Communist policy underGeneral Suharto is, of course, the mostimportant of these developments. Washingtonis careful not to claim any credit for thischange in the sixth most populous and one ofthe richest nations in the world, but this doesnot mean that Washington had nothing to dowith it.

There was a great deal more contact betweenthe anti-communist forces in that country andat least one very high official in Washingtonbefore and during the Indonesian massacrethan is generally realized. General Suharto'sforces, at times severely short of food andmunitions, have been getting aid from herethrough various third countries, and it isdoubtful if the coup would ever have beenattempted without the American show ofstrength in Vietnam or been sustained withoutthe clandestine aid it has received indirectlyfrom here.

This column of Reston's was entitled "A Gleam of Lightin Asia." In the low-key tone that has characterizedsimilar admissions about the U.S. role in Indonesia'sbrutal return to a semi-colonial status, the massacres arebrushed aside as a deplorable but necessary means toobtaining Washington's end.

The air of glee about the right-wing victory is even lessrestrained in other reports. Max Frankel, long an observerof the Washington scene, captured the mood ofexhilaration in the nation's capital in a Times article onMarch 12, 1966, entitled "Elated U.S. Officials Looking toNew Aid to Jakarta's Economy."

The Johnson Administration found it difficulttoday to hide its delight with the news fromIndonesia, pointing to the political demise ofPresident Sukarno and the Communists. Aftera long period of patient diplomacy, designedto help the army triumph over theCommunists, officials were elated to findtheir expectations being realized.



Both Reston and Frankel are very cautious when it comesto spelling out the details of how the U.S. helped putNasution and Suharto in power. Overthrowinggovernments is not anything that can be openly braggedof, especially when the result is a genocidal bloodbath ofthe opposition. Yet there should be enough in thesereporters' remarks alone to bring the U.S. government upon charges before any reputable world body. (However,instead of launching an investigation of the coup andgenocide carried out in Indonesia, the United Nationsunder U.S. pressure readmitted Indonesia to membershipwithout debate.)

One of the methods which the U.S. used to ensure thesuccess of the coup was reported by Bertrand Russell inhis introduction toThe Silent Slaughter.

During October 1965 two representatives ofthe Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, closeassociates of mine, were in Djakarta on mybehalf attending a conference. In Djakartafew had any doubt about what was takingplace around them. The United States SeventhFleet was in Javanese waters. The largest basein the area, feverishly constructed by theUnited States but a few months earlier on thesouthernmost point of the southernmostisland of the Philippines, was ordered "onalert." General Nasution had a mission inWashington. The United States was directlyinvolved in the day to day events.

It is doubtful whether the full story of the CIAinvolvement in Indonesia will ever be told in even one-quarter the detail leaked about U.S.-backed coup d'etats inother countries. The crime was so horrible that even thehalf-hearted supporters of imperialism would be turnedaway if they knew the truth about U.S. complicity.William Worthy, one of the speakers at the Public Inqueston Indonesia, told how Sukarno himself indicted the CIAa few months before the bloody coup.

One of the several, and I emphasize several,Achilles' heels of the CIA is its assumptionthat everyone, everywhere, especially if notAnglo-Saxon, is for sale. As Eric Norden toldyou, the United States in 1963 tried to bribethe Sukarno government with a huge offer ofAmerican economic aid if only he wouldabandon his policy of confrontation withMalaysia. In other words, the taxpayers of theUnited States were to pay out of their hidesin order to save this obviously contrived newnation of Malaysia, which the Times ofLondon itself admitted was first formulated inthe British Colonial Office. Sukarno also toldhis people last spring that a direct offer tobribe him personally had been made byAmerican agents.

But the CIA did not stop at merely trying to bribeSukarno, the President of the Indonesian Republic. Theyalso approached the right-wing generals (where they hadnot alreadycreated them with U.S. training and support)and worked out their takeover plot with them.

According to Suara Pemuda Indonesia, in an early 1966article, this had been going on for several years and wasfar advanced by 1965:



The U.S. imperialists highly appreciate theright-wing military figure of Nasution andcall him the "strongest" and a "courageousfigure." To strengthen the position of theright-wing military clique, the U.S.imperialists had given "aid" which up to 1963amounted to 60.9 million U.S. dollars. Beforethe end of 1960, the United States hadequipped 43 battalions of the army. Everyyear the United States trained officers of theright-wing military clique. Between 1956 and1959 more than 200 high-ranking officerswere trained in the United States, while low-ranking officers are trained by the hundredsevery year. Once the head of the Agency forInternational Development in America saidthat U.S. aid, of course, was not intended tosupport Sukarno and that the U.S. had traineda great number of officers and ordinarypeople who would form a unit to makeIndonesia a free country. By a free country,he meant a country like Taiwan, thePhilippines, Thailand and other Americansatellites.

The cooperation as well as the aid of theUnited States have greatly strengthened theposition of the right-wing military clique inIndonesia. Finally in the middle of last yearthe U.S. imperialists suggested that the right-wing military clique take over state power.For this purpose the U.S. imperialistsprovided many facilities, among others a fundof 225 billion Indonesian rupiahs.Cooperation between the imperialists and theCouncil of Generals is channeled through theCIA....

The Council of Generals is an organization ofthe right-wing military clique within theIndonesian Army, which was founded toseize power from the hands of the legalIndonesian government. The founding of thisCouncil of Generals was directly supportedand planned together with the U.S.intelligence service, the CIA. Its membersconsist of 40 right-wing generals, amongwhom the important figures are GeneralNasution, General A. Sukendro, GeneralSuharto and the right-wing generals whowere killed on October 1 last year. Theywere: General A. Yani, General Suparman,General M.T. Harjono, General Suprapto,General Sutojo and General Pandjaitan.

Although the Council of Generals has justbeen founded, the right-wing military cliquewithin the army has existed for a long time.The founding of the Council of Generals wasmerely an inauguration of the power of theright-wing clique within the Army.

This was hardly a mere piece of speculation on the part ofSuara Pemuda. It was common knowledge in politicalcircles in Indonesia as well, of course, as in the veryhighest circles in the United States. Max Frankel of theNew York Times wrote on March 13, 1966, that "TheUnited States continued to retain excellent contacts withthe top military leaders, even after Mr. Sukarno had



renounced American aid (in December 1964] and hadbegun to move against American information libraries,the Peace Corps, and news correspondents."

And on February 12, 1965, eight months before thecounter-revolution began, the New York Times put itseditorial finger on what it considered the turning point inU.S. determination to overthrow Sukarno. It said at thattime:

When President Sukarno threatened theFederation of Malaysia, he placed himselffirmly in the path of U.S. and British effortsto contain Communist China. Washington hasleft active defense of Malaysia to the BritishCommonwealth nations and seeks to retainsome influence in Indonesia primarily in thehope of some day helping her army againstthe expected Communist bid for power.

The plan could hardly have been spelled out more clearly,although of course the news of it was played down andother newspapers in the United States didn't make evenback-page stories of this sensational item. The story notonly revealed the plan for "helping her army" but coollyrevealed that the U.S. used Britain as a mere pawn for itscampaign to "contain Communist China"!

The importance of Malaysia should be kept in mind, too,when reading in later parts of this pamphlet how intenselyboth nationalists and Communists felt about defeating thepuppet state of Malaysia, which was the external threat tothe independence of Indonesia, just as the right-winggenerals were the internal threat.

Finally, with reference to the CIA, it should be even moreclearly understood now than in 1965-66 just howuniversal its activities are and how axiomatic it must havebeen for it to concern itself so deeply with Indonesia. Therevelations a year and a half ago about the CIA'spenetration into the U.S. student movement, about whole"foundations" being conduits for CIA money and wholebook publishing companies being started by the agencyshould have convinced any skeptic that the well-basedcharges against the CIA in the case of Indonesia wereabsolutely true and that the U.S. did not merely "aid" thefascist generals, but used them to reintroduce U.S. bigbusiness and U.S. imperialism, generally, into Indonesia.










Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: 1958: The First CIA Attempt


1958: The First CIAAttemptIn spite of occasional flashes of truth in the press, the realU.S. involvement in the 1965 coup is one of the best-keptsecrets in Washington. Official statements on the coupand its aftermath are practically nonexistent. Somewhatmore is known of the 1958 attempt to overthrow theSukarno government in which the CIA was involved.

In their authoritative book about the CIA entitledTheInvisible Government, Washington correspondentsThomas Ross and David Wise related how the U.S.supplied a right-wing rebel force in Indonesia with armsand a small air force of B-26 bombers in an attempt tooverthrow Sukarno. The attempt failed, but not before oneof the American pilots, Allen Lawrence Pope, wascaptured by loyalist forces.

Ross and Wise explain:

Three weeks before Pope was shot down,Dwight D. Eisenhower had emphaticallydenied charges that the United States wassupporting the rebellion against PresidentSukarno.

"Our policy," he said at a press conference onApril 30, "is one of careful neutrality andproper deportment all the way through so asnot to be taking sides where it is none of ourbusiness.

"Now on the other hand, every rebellion that Ihave ever heard of has its soldiers offortune...." But Pope was no freebootingsoldier of fortune. He was flying for the CIA,which was secretly supporting the rebels whowere trying to overthrow Sukarno. [p. 137]

This cool revelation was never contradicted byEisenhower or anyone else. All the authors omitted tomention was the all too obvious fact that the CIA is thearm of the United States government itself.

After the Administration changed hands and PresidentKennedy had arranged for Pope's exchange and invitedSukarno to Washington, the new President was somewhatmore candid than the old on the subject of the U.S. try atcounter-revolution in 1958.

During the visit Kennedy commented to oneof his aides: "No wonder Sukarno doesn't likeus very much. He has to sit down with thepeople who tried to overthrow him. " [p. 145]

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in his authoritative biography ofPresident Kennedy matter-of-factly confirms this story ina chapter analyzing Sukarno:

His deep mistrust of the white West wasunderstandably compounded in the case ofthe United States by his knowledge that in1958 the CIA had participated in an effort tooverthrow him. [A Thousand Days, p. 532]

Wise and Ross also pointed out some of Washington'sreasons for being favorable to the right-wing generals:






And many in the CIA and the StateDepartment saw merit in supporting thesedissident elements. Even if Sukarno were notoverthrown, they argued, it might be possiblefor Sumatra, Indonesia's big oil producer, tosecede, thereby protecting private Americanand Dutch holdings. At the very least, thepressures of rebellion might loosen Sukarno'sties with the Communists and force him tomove to the Right. At best, the Army, headedby General Abdul Haris Nasution, an anti-Communist, might come over to the rebelsand force wholesale changes to the liking ofthe United States. [The Invisible Government,p. 139]

That attempted coup failed. But seven yearsand nearly a million lives later these"changes" were effected.

A series of articles written by a Times team of journalistsresearching the activities of the CIA has confirmed theWise-Ross story of the 1958 CIA intervention intoIndonesia's internal affairs.

In Indonesia in the same year [1958], againstthe advice of American diplomats, the CIAwas authorized to fly supplies from Taiwanand the Philippines to aid army officersrebelling against President Sukarno inSumatra and Java. An American pilot wasshot down on a bombing mission and wasreleased only at the insistent urging of theKennedy Administration in 1962. Mr.Sukarno, naturally enough, drew the obviousconclusions.... [New York Times, April 25,1966]

CIA "PRINCIPAL ARM OF U.S. POLICY"

There has been no slacking off of CIA activity inIndonesia since 1958. On the contrary, there is everyindication that the influence of this agency deepened inright-wing circles as the position of the Indonesiangovernment moved to the left. In the same articles whichthe Times researchers so carefully prepared, the followingremarkable statement appears:

In Southeast Asia over the last decade, theCIA has been so active that the agency insome countries has been the principal arm ofAmerican policy. It is said, for instance, tohave been so successful at infiltrating the topof the Indonesian government and army thatthe United States was reluctant to disrupt CIAcovering operations by withdrawing aid andinformation programs in 1964 and 1965.[New York Times, April 27, 1966]

If the intelligence agency of another country hadinfiltrated the U.S. government and armed forces to theirhighest level, and if such infiltration were followed by acoup favorable to that foreign power and consolidated bya bloodbath of monumental proportions, there should belittle doubt in people' minds about what had happened.

The thread of continued U.S. infiltration, subversion andeconomic sabotage in Indonesia after the 1958 attemptedcoup can be picked up only in small pieces. But enoughhas been made public to get the drift of what Washington



was attempting to do. Control over the army was the keyfactor in undermining the Sukarno regime, and everyeffort was bent in this direction.

Senator Eugene J. McCarthy in the July 9, 1966, issueofSaturday Review discussed the effects that the U.S."military assistance" program has on foreign policy. Hewrote:

Supplying arms opens the way to influenceon the military and also on the politicalpolicies of the recipient countries. Experiencehas demonstrated that when an arms deal isconcluded, the military hardware is only thefirst step. Almost invariably, a trainingmission is needed and the recipient countrybecomes dependent on the supplier for spareparts and other ordnance.

. . . Indonesia, where military elements appearto have taken de facto control of thegovernment in the wake of recent turmoil,received, in addition to Soviet militaryassistance, nearly $64,000,000 in military-grant aid from the United States between1959 and 1965.

When Sukarno told the U.S. "To hell with your aid!" itwas an attempt to break loose from this armoredstranglehold.

Even with the information revealed by Ross and Wise,however, the general public hasn't the least idea howdeeply the U.S. was involved in the 1958 attempt tooverthrow the Sukarno government. But in the case ofthesuccessful coup of 1965, not even the gossips ofWashington knew what really happened. So much was atstake for U.S. big business and for the world politics ofU.S. imperialism that few indeed were the slips of"security" on the Indonesian question.

McNAMARA THOUGHT IT PAID DIVIDENDS

Probably no one knows better than former Secretary ofDefense McNamara what importance Indonesia has inWashington's Asian strategy. While he is known to have athousand answers ready and a volume of statistics at handon other vital subjects, he was suspiciously tight-lipped onthis. In the 1967 Fulbright Committee hearings on theU.S. Foreign Assistance Program, McNamara testified atlength on the results of U.S. military aid programs inmany countries throughout the world. Yet he wasstrangely uninformative on the results of such "assistance"to Indonesia, despite the unofficial leaks from "informedsources" greeting the military coup with glee. ButMcNamara was too modest to take credit for it.

Not as discreet was Senator Sparkman of Alabama, whoperhaps needed assurance that all this aid was worth it. Inbanker's language he questioned Secretary McNamara:

SEN. SPARKMAN. I want to go back to . . .our continuing military aid to Indonesia. At atime when Indonesia was kicking up prettybadly -- when we were getting a lot ofcriticism for continuing military aid -- at thattime we could not say what that military aidwas for. Is it secret any more?

SECY. McNAMARA.I think in retrospect,



that the aid was well-justified. SEN.SPARKMAN.You think it paid dividends?

SECY. McNAMARA. I do sir.

[Foreign Assistance Hearings, p. 693]

BUNDY HAD HOPES

In the prolonged period between the abortive coup attemptof 1958 when the CIA pilot was shot down and thesuccessful military takeover in 1965, even top-rankingmembers of Congress were kept in the dark about theprogress of U.S. subversion and infiltration.

One such Congressman was Clement Zablocki, Chairmanof the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the FarEast. The extent of the secrecy shrouding relationsbetween the U.S. and key persons in the Indonesianmilitary and government can be judged by the fact thatZablocki, a Congressional "watchdog" over the U.S.interests in Asia, did not know in the summer of 1965, afew short months before the coup, why the Administrationwanted to increase military aid to Indonesia.

Rep. Zablocki's committee was worried that increasedmilitary aid to Indonesia, which was being urged by theState Department after Johnson sent Ellsworth Bunker ona special mission to Djakarta in March, would be used toimplement President Sukarno's outspokenly anti-imperialist policies. Called to testify before the committeein closed-door hearings was Assistant Secretary of Statefor Far Eastern Affairs, William Bundy. What's thepurpose of this aid, the committee wanted to know. Won'tit be used in the campaign against Malaysia? "I want topoint out," replied Bundy carefully, "that this equipment isbeing sold to the Indonesian army and not the Indonesiangovernment." "What's the difference?" demanded Rep.William Broomfield. "It will be used against Malaysia.""We hope not," said Bundy. "When Sukarno leaves thescene, the military will probably take over. We want tokeep the door open."

Broomfield continued to press the point, asking what"proof" the State Department had that the army leaderswould be friendly to the United States. "We have hopes,"was Bundy's reply. (Allen-Scott report -- Hall Syndicate,July 15, 1965]

Bundy's reticence to allay the fears of his less-informedcolleagues seems to be the policy of top-levelAdministration personnel when questioned aboutIndonesia. As James Reston pointed out "Washington isbeing careful not to claim any credit" for the coup "butthis does not mean that Washington had nothing to dowith it." [New York Times, June 19, 1966] And formerSecretary of Defense McNamara, who could have adoptedan I-told-you-so attitude when reminded in the spring of1966 by Senator Sparkman of earlier criticism of themilitary aid program, modestly limited his comment to "Ithink, in retrospect that the aid was well-justified."

By now, Zablocki must surely be convinced that it wasn'tout of some idealistic urge or altruism that Washingtontightened its connections with the Indonesian military.Since the takeover led by Generals Nasution and Suharto,Indonesia has moved into the American orbit. Final proofof this was the visit of the new Indonesian ForeignMinister, Adam Malik, to then President Johnson in



September of 1966. And on that trip, Malik also droppedin on Zablocki and personally reassured him that the newgovernment was "friendly" to the United States.

HUMPHREY HAD AN OLD AND DEAR FRIEND

Malik's visit to the U.S. in September 1966 was the firstby an Indonesian official of the "New Order." ColumnistMarianne Means of the World Journal Tribune, after anexclusive interview with Malik wrote of his "friendship"with Hubert Humphrey. [WJT, Sept. 28, 1966]

Minneapolis -- A private plane carryingIndonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik andthree aides glided unobtrusively into Wold-Chamberlain airport here at 10 a.m. lastSunday on a mission of internationalsignificance.

Malik, the top civilian in the government ofGen. Suharto, which seized power lastOctober from pro-Communist PresidentSukarno, was hurrying to a privaterendezvous with Vice President Humphrey inhis elegant Sheraton-Ritz suite.

Protocol was ignored, for Malik had a veryspecial motive for the conference and theVice President was forced to wedge themeeting into a crammed campaign schedule.

Malik, who is visiting this country to arrangeIndonesia's reentry into the United Nations,later indicated in a private interview thereason for the journey -- the Vice Presidenthad played a heretofore secret, but important,role in encouraging the democratic forces inIndonesia.

Humphrey, then Senate Whip and a memberof the Foreign Relations Committee, metMalik in 1963 at the ceremonial signing ofthe limited test ban treaty in Moscow. Themen began to exchange messages, directlyand through emissaries.

Humphrey conferred with President Kennedy,who authorized him to continue his unofficialpersonal contacts with the Indonesians and tourge them not to lose faith....

Thus the stage was set for their first face-to-face meeting in three years. During their talk,Malik assured the Vice President thatIndonesia will use its efforts, slowly at firstbut inevitably, toward reducing CommunistChinese influence in Southeast Asia. Maliksaid one of the first steps envisioned is thedevelopment of a regional alliance with othernon-Communist nations, such as Thailand,the Philippines and Malaysia. Malik alsostressed to the Vice President that U.S.resistance to Communist aggression in SouthVietnam had given heart to the leaders of theIndonesia revolt.

As he left the suite, Malik paused on thedoorsill: "Goodbye, my old and dear friend,"he said softly.



This remarkable article tells us a good deal. First, that ahigh-ranking member of the U.S. government engaged fortwo years in subversion against the Republic of Indonesia,encouraging members of the military who were opposedto their country's policies. That when these elementsfinally seized power, with the "encouragement" of themightiest nation on earth, and massacred up to a millionpeople, the "friendship" between these two great"democrats" ripened. And that part of the payoff for thedeal was a reversal of Indonesia's foreign policy to one ofsupport for U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia.

Humphrey had an opportunity to pay Malik, and theruling generals, a return visit in November of 1967.Whatever promises and mutual congratulations weremade in his private talks with Malik and General Suhartoremain in the "confidential" category. One can only guess.But Humphrey's concern lest people get "the wrong idea"about what happened in Indonesia did make it into thepress. [New York Times. Nov. 5, 1967]

Vice President Humphrey opened his visit toIndonesia today by publicly denying reportsthat have aroused anti-American feelingamong Jakarta's leaders. It is not true, he said,that the United States action in Vietnamtouched off the overthrow of Indonesia'sleftist ruler, President Sukarno.

Speaking to about 200 Americans at theUnited States Embassy, Mr. Humphrey urgedthem to consider the effects of their wordsand actions. He said, "We do not want it toappear that what happened here was becausewe made it happen. That is not true." SomeIndonesians are reported to have takenumbrage over talk, apparently originating ingovernment sources in Washington, that theUnited States had a great deal to do with theoverthrow of President Sukarno because of itsVietnam action.

Mr. Humphrey took a cue from MarshallGreen, the United States Ambassador here,who has been quietly fighting that opinion.

Mr. Green portrays the United Statespresence in Southeast Asia not as havingdirectly set off the Sukarno overthrow, butrather as having provided a shield behindwhich anti-Communist forces here andelsewhere might effectively operate.

Various Communist and left-wing spokesmenhere attributed the Sukarno overthrow to theCentral Intelligence Agency. Last November,President Sukarno, still clinging to a morselof power, made a speech in which he referredto Ambassador Green 26 times as an agent ofthe CIA. ...

Humphrey may consider the effects ofhis words andactions more carefully than his employees. But he stillcan't hide what everyone in Indonesia seems to know: thatthe U.S. government had a big hand in creating thepresent regime.



Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: 350 Years of Colonialism


350 Years of ColonialismUntil the 1965 coup, Indonesia was one of the mostdynamic leftward-moving countries in the non-socialistworld. The Sukarno government took a number of boldsteps in foreign policy that shocked the Western capitalsand threatened to be infectious. Indonesia withdrew fromboth the UN and the Olympic games, declaring them to bedominated by imperialism, and started to set up rivalinternational bodies. At the very moment that the right-wing coup was taking place, a conference against foreignmilitary bases, which of course was aimed first andforemost at the U.S. with its 3,000 installations overseas,was in session in Djakarta.

These moves came at the urging and insistence of themasses, who were organized and highly class conscious.The PKI had three million members, and massorganizations that were influenced by the Communistsencompassed some 20 million persons. Again and again,in bold militant street actions, the people demonstratedtheir opposition to imperialism in front of the U.S.mission in Djakarta and other large cities. From thebeginning of 1965, workers in the oil and rubberproperties owned by U.S. corporations beganexpropriating these holdings and putting them underworkers' control.

The Indonesian people had every reason to fear foreigndomination. Like the Vietnamese, they saw in recent yearsthat the freedom they thought they had won fromEuropean colonialism was eroding away as U.S.businesses tightened their control on the economy and theAmerican military presence became more obvious.

The idea of enduring another siege of economicoppression was unbearable to them. For of all thecountries, outside of Africa, that had suffered fromcolonialism, Indonesia was without a doubt plundered themost ferociously. When the Indonesian masses finallywere able to declare their political independence, the richarchipelago was one of the most impoverished areas onearth.

ONE DOCTOR FOR EVERY 60,000 PEOPLE

Reba Lewis, author ofIndonesia: Troubled Paradise, tellshow when she and her husband, a doctor with the WorldHealth Organization, decided to move to Indonesia in1957 from his post in India, there was only one doctor forevery 60,000 people. In India, which was itself a land fullof beggars, struggling to emerge from the yoke ofcolonialism, there was at this time one doctor for every6,000 people.

InWestern Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaya, a Britisheconomic history by no means sympathetic to theIndonesian revolution or its national aspirations, authorsG.C. Allan and Audrey Donnithorne remark, "In 1940only 240 Indonesian students graduated from the highschools and only 37 from the colleges. In that year out ofover 3,000 higher civil servants there were only 221Indonesians, and even in the middle ranks a largernumber of posts were held by Europeans and Eurasians,who counted as Dutch."

By 1945, Mrs. Lewis tells us, 93 per cent of the peoplewere still illiterate. After 350 years of colonialdomination, there were only a hundred Indonesian






physicians; less than a hundred Indonesian engineers; andin a nation dependent upon the efficiency of its landproductivity, only ten Indonesian agricultural experts.

We have been told ad nauseam by the bourgeois press thatIndonesia's economy, crippled by inflation and barely ableto keep pace with the population growth, got that waybecause of Sukarno's extravagance in building sportspalaces, mass auditoriums, and playing host to variouscongresses of Afro-Asian peoples. But the figures justquoted on the heritage of colonialism, and the followinginformation, tell a different story.

DUTCH DEVELOPED VAST ESTATES

During the long period of colonial rule, the Indonesianeconomy fell more completely under the control of the --the Dutch, and for a brief period the British -- than almostany other territory. Unlike China and Japan, where theEuropean powers imposed their will mainly throughcommerce, the Indonesian economy was taken over andcompletely reorganized.

Vast estates were established by the Dutch East IndiaCompany, later to be held under the direct control of theDutch crown. What had begun as the spice trade underearly Portuguese merchants soon became a diversifiedsystem of agriculture. Many new crops in demand on theworld market were introduced into Indonesia. Coffee, tea,sugar, indigo and spices became major exports, butinstead of being produced by individual small farmers,they were cultivated on huge estates, mainly on Java.

Changing conditions in Europe deeply affectedIndonesia's development; indeed, the destiny of theIndonesian people was completely in the hands of themen making decisions in the European capitals. In periodsof crisis in Europe, the tempo of production in Indonesiadeclined sharply. Even in those days, when months oflong sea voyages separated areas on opposite sides of theearth, the thin line of Dutch and British trading vesselsplowing the waters between kept a stranglehold onIndonesian life.

When Britain occupied the Dutch settlements onIndonesia in 1811, and held them for five years under thegovernorship of Stamford Raffles, it was because Hollandhad moved into the French orbit during the NapoleonicWars.

In this brief period of British control, the Dutch crown'smonopoly over exploitation of Indonesia, which hadalready suffered a mortal blow with the demise of theDutch East India Company in 1800, was brought to adecisive end. Raffles, who in effect introduced an "OpenDoor" policy in Indonesia, made certain reforms under thename of "economic liberalism" which, in his own words,were a prescription "by the establishment of a free andunrestricted commercial intercourse to draw forth theirresources while we improve our own."

The Treaty of London, concluded between Britain andHolland in 1824, gave the former the Malayan Peninsulaand assured the continuation of Dutch rule over Indonesia.But the British lion already had his paw well into theopened door, and both powers from then on intensifiedtheir exploitation of the Indonesian people and land.

U.S. ENTRY BEGAN WITH STANDARD OIL



Perhaps this is the place to pause for a minute and take alook at America's historical interest in Indonesia.

The U.S. became involved in Indonesia, which was thenthe Netherlands East Indies, both economically andstrategically in the early 1900s. At the turn of the century,the Standard Oil Company tried to penetrate themonopoly on Indonesian oil held by Royal Dutch. RoyalDutch's Indonesian wells had enabled it to cut into someof Standard's Asian markets. In return, the U.S. giantstarted a price war against Royal Dutch that nearly put thecompany out of business.

The merger of Royal Dutch with Shell in 1907 savedthese Dutch and British concerns from going underfinancially, but they could not keep Standard out ofIndonesia much longer, and in 1912 Rockefeller waspermitted to form an Indonesian subsidiary, which beganmining oil in Central Java in 1914. It was to the greatadvantage of the powerful U.S. corporation that bothBritain and Holland were preoccupied in the war ragingacross the European continent at the time, and could nolonger afford to fight the incursions of their main rival.

World War I also provided the opportunity for the U.S. tomove into rubber production in Indonesia. Like oil, rubberhad been exclusively produced by Dutch and Britishconcerns, which had alternated as colonial powers in thispart of the world for some three hundred years. But thedecline of European capital, that became so dramaticallyapparent with the outbreak of the war, and the colossalrise of the new young industrial giant across the Atlantic,meant an end to their imperial monopolies once and forall.

By 1914, Goodyear Tire and Rubber had already openedestates in Sumatra, and the U.S. Rubber Company,through its subsidiary the Holland-Amerika Plantege Mij.,had acquired 80,000 acres of land suitable for rubberproduction. This move brought the largest rubber estatesin the world under a single ownership.

During the postwar period and then the Depression, theholdings of U.S. companies in Indonesia were expandedand consolidated.

By the 1930s U.S. imperialism had already developed aglobal appetite, and the coming bloody clash with Japanfor hegemony in the Pacific was in the making. TheSecond World War was to mark the end of the centuries-old European colonial regimes, especially in the Far East,but both Japan and the U.S. looked on a war in Asia asthe opportunity for opening up new empires.

A KEY PRIZE IN WORLD WAR II

Indonesia, with a population at the time of around 80million and natural resources ranked fifth in the world,was no small prize in the struggle. While both Japan andthe U.S. had their sights fixed primarily on China, thememorable battles fought in the South Pacific that provedso costly in American and Japanese lives show the greatstrategic and economic importance attached to this areaeven then.

Shortly after the war it became clear that the ChineseRevolution had irreversibly removed that Asian giantfrom the capitalist market. The U.S., no doubt feeling itsdefeat of Japan somewhat a Pyrrhic victory when themajor prize remained unattainable, was forced to shift its



attention elsewhere.

Southeast Asia, both as the gateway to the Indian Oceanand as an area rich in valuable materials, emerged as aprimary target in Washington's global strategy. U.S.support for the French counter-revolutionary war inIndochina began pouring in, until by the time of theFrench defeat at Dien Bien Phu, American dollars andsupplies were paying for 80 per cent of the war.

To students of the Viet Nam War, much of this is nowwell known. But what has been largely neglected is therole that Indonesia's riches played in shaping theEisenhower Administration's thinking in this crucialperiod.

It may be remembered that in his oft-quoted remarks tothe Governors' Conference in 1953, when Eisenhower wasexplaining to these business-minded politicians why itwas to the advantage of the U.S. to pay for the Frenchwar, it was the "rich empire of Indonesia" that lay at thecrux of the matter.

Now let us assume that we lose Indochina. IfIndochina goes, several things happen rightaway. The Malay peninsula, the last little bitof land hanging on down there, would bescarcely defensible. The tin and tungsten weso greatly value from that area would ceasecoming, but all India would be outflanked.

Burma would be in no position for defense....All of that position around there is veryominous to the United States, because finallyif we lost all that, how would the free worldhold the rich empire of Indonesia?

So you see, somewhere along the line, thismust be blocked and it must be blocked now,and that is what we are trying to do.

So when the U.S. votes $400 million to helpthat war [in Indochina], we are not voting agiveaway program. We are voting for thecheapest way that we can prevent theoccurrence of something that would be of amost terrible significance in the United Statesof America, our security, our power andability to get certain things we need from theriches of the Indonesian territory and fromSoutheast Asia.

AFTER THE WAR: U.S. DOMINANT IN ASIA

In the period before World War II, the major obstacle tofurther expansion of U.S. economic interests in Indonesiawas the tight control of the Dutch overlords. Americancorporations fought Dutch groups in international pricewars, etc. and most often the superior industrial andmarketing capability of firms like Standard Oil gave theU.S. the upper hand. But Wall Street was held back inany efforts to make a massive push into Asia at that timeby the fact that the area as a whole was still held tightlyby the European colonial powers -- although in growingcompetition with Japan.

After the war, the situation was entirely different. Theonce proud empires of Europe were licking their wounds,entirely dependent upon handouts from the U.S., whichhad emerged from the war unscathed. Revolutionary



resistance movements that had taken up arms against theAxis powers threatened the European "democracies," bothin the colonies and at home -- the ruling classes hadeverything they could do to prevent their own overthrow.It was no time to raise and equip an expeditionary force.

This is not to say that, even then, they didn't try. TheFrench sent troops to Indochina, the Dutch tried to forcethe Indonesian people to submit once again, and Britishsoldiers went into Malaya to crush the people's movement.But in every case, these imperialist powers were onlyshadows of their former selves, dependent for theirstability at home on the Marshall Plan, and relying on theU.S. to foot a growing amount of the military bill forthese foreign adventures.

Was Washington altruistically helping its allies regaintheir former possessions, or did it have something else inmind?

The course of the 20-year Viet Nam War should clear upall doubts on this score. As Eisenhower so candidlyadmitted, the U.S. took over a larger and larger share ofthe expenses of these counter-revolutionary wars becauseits own interests were at stake. It hoped to see Britain,France and Holland take on the brunt of smashing thenational liberation movements. Then, when both sideswere exhausted, the U.S. would move in and finish thejob -- administering over the withdrawal of theexpeditionary troops, as in Viet Nam, while laying thebasis for its own accession to the position of foreignoverlord.

THE INDONESIAN STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

That Washington underestimated the strength of theVietnamese popular forces is now well known. But whathappened in Indonesia in this postwar period?

With the defeat of the Japanese, power in Indonesia wasin the hands of the nationalist forces. On August 17, 1945,Sukarno proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia, claimingat last the independence that the people had fought solong for. From a revolutionary point of view, the Dutchhad never had any right to rule the people of Indonesia.But now, even from a legal point of view, the Dutch, bysurrendering to the Japanese in 1942, had in effectforfeited any claim to Indonesia. Great bitterness existedamong the Indonesians, who felt that the Dutch hadallowed the Japanese imperialists to take over without afight rather than arm the Indonesian people.

But the Dutch in 1945 were not so willing to give backIndonesia to its own people as they had been to make adeal with Japan. For four years, intermittent warfare waswaged as the Dutch made a last effort to reconquer theirformer colony.

When the Japanese surrendered, the Dutch had no troopsin Southeast Asia. They frantically ordered that Indonesiabe kept under Japanese command until the British couldget there. On the arrival of Lord Mountbatten, he alsoinstructed the Japanese not to hand over anyadministrative functions to the newly proclaimedRepublic, and soon the British were using Japanese troopsin combat against the Indonesian patriots.

This situation provoked widespread protest throughoutAsia, and even in Australia the dock workers refused toload any munitions that might be used against the



Indonesians.

In November 1946, the Dutch signed the LenggadjatiAgreement, recognizing the de facto authority of theRepublic over Java, Madura and Sumatra and agreeingthat Dutch and Allied troops should gradually beevacuated. It also stipulated that by January 1, 1949, aUnited States of Indonesia encompassing all the islands ofthe archipelago was to come into existence.

However, from the moment of signing this agreement, theDutch worked feverishly to destroy the Republic. Theystarted to set up puppet states under various feudal lords,at first on the outer islands but eventually in the territorythey had supposedly recognized as free. They alsocontinued a blockade of Java, and most important, beganto build up, rather than phase out, their troop strength.

By May 1947, there were 110,000 Dutch soldiersstationed within the Republic. At midnight on May 27th,they struck against the Indonesian armed forces. Whilethey used bombers, cannons and tanks against the ill-armed Indonesian troops, they called the defensivemeasures of these people fighting for independence"atrocities."

The Indonesians had expected an American occupationwhen the war was over, and believed so firmly in the U.S.as a "liberator" that they patterned their first statement offreedom after the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Towelcome the U.S. troops that never arrived, they hung outposters containing quotations from the Declaration ofIndependence and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Evenafter they saw that they would have to fight the combinedforces of the Dutch and British, who were using Japanesetroops, they still believed that U.S. intervention wouldhelp them gain their freedom. Sukarno made a radioappeal to the U.S. to be an arbiter in the fall of 1945, butthere was no answer from Washington.

Still hoping for help, a group of Indonesian women evenset out for the United States to appeal to the Daughters ofthe American Revolution, thinking these ladies wouldunderstand their revolution! But disillusionment was notlong in coming.

The U.S. strategy was to avoid a definite victory on eitherside, hoping to draw out the struggle until both Hollandand the Republican forces were worn out. When theDutch first moved to destroy the Republic and build backtheir own strength in Indonesia, the U.S. turned its backto any appeals for help from Sukarno. But later, as theDutch military position improved and it seemed that theyhad a chance of reinstituting colonial rule, the U.S. movedto work out a compromise. In January 1948, a newagreement between the Netherlands and the Republic wassigned on board the U.S.S. Renville. The RenvilleAgreement legitimized the recent conquests of the Dutch,who by now controlled half the sugar mills in Java, 75 percent of its rubber, 65 per cent of its coffee, 90 per cent ofthe tea and the rich oil fields of Sumatra.

This temporizing agreement, presided over by the U.S.,lasted less than a year. In the meantime, the Dutch strovefeverishly to set up more puppet states and continued theirmilitary build-up. But the movement for independencewas also growing, and by the end of the year the Dutchfelt compelled to make a do-or-die move.

In a lightning attack on December 19, Dutch paratroops



seized the Republican capital at Jogjakarta, capturingSukarno and other government leaders. It appeared theRepublic was doomed.

However, the real strength of the independence movementlay not in Jogjakarta but in the countless hamlets andtowns throughout the archipelago where armed guerrillashad been organized. The attack had completely exposedthe Dutch intention to restore their colonial stranglehold.Their puppet states lost any control over the masses, andthe net effect of the blitzkrieg was to weaken the overallDutch position even more. Within six months, the Dutchwere forced to restore the Republican government andenter into a series of negotiations which culminated infinal independence.

U.S. SUBVERSION BEGINS

The Dutch formally relinquished their colonial status atthe Round Table Conference at The Hague in 1949. Theydid not do so, however, without exacting some veryserious concessions from the Indonesian government,whose Prime Minister at the time was the reactionaryMohammed Hatta -- later to become an outright enemy ofSukarno and leader of the CIA-backed secessionistmovement in 1958.

Hatta agreed to the restoration of "broad avenues of[Dutch] economic power over Indonesia, such as rights,concessions and licenses for the operation of existing andnew enterprises and estates. Furthermore, the IndonesianGovernment was forced to take over the debts of theNetherlands East Indies Government, which amounted tomore than a billion dollars, and which, in effect, meantthat the Indonesians were paying for the Dutch militaryattack which had been launched against them."[Indonesia: Troubled Paradise, p. 95] In 1950, Indonesiafinally abrogated this deal and tried to make further stepstoward real sovereignty, although these outrageousconcessions to the Dutch had already helped to furtherweaken its terribly crippled economy.

It was at the Round Table Conference in 1949 that thefirst inkling could be seen of the role that the U.S. wouldlater play in Indonesia's politics. At the urging of the U.S.representative, Indonesia reluctantly agreed that the statusof Irian Barat, the huge western portion of the island ofNew Guinea, would be held in abeyance for the timebeing, to be settled by negotiations within a couple ofyears.

Irian Barat, or West Irian, was one of the territories heldby the Dutch for hundreds of years as part of theNetherlands East Indies. Although sparsely populated, itsspectacular scenery and huge area (largely unexploredeven to the present day) is suspected to contain vastresources of mineral wealth. The tremendous chain knownas the Owen Stanley Mountains, containing peaks of over15,000 feet rising within sight of the sea, is a geologicalformation that has already attracted the attention ofprospectors for several U.S. mining concerns, while otherU.S. firms are drilling for offshore oil.

The Dutch continued to maintain control over this part ofIndonesia until 1962, when Irian Barat was taken over bya United Nations administration. The U.S., first at TheHague in 1949 and again in the early sixties, "mediated"the dispute in a way calculated to weaken the Indonesiangovernment.



Theodore Sorensen, in his book,Kennedy, touches brieflybut revealingly on the U.S. role as mediator in thisconflict:

. . . A temporary success of sorts wasregistered in 1962 in the territory of WestNew Guinea, the subject of a bitter disputebe- tween the Netherlands and Indonesia. Toavoid a war which the Dutch had no desire tofight and which the Indonesians had everyintention of winning with massive Sovietbacking -- and to strengthen the position ofthe Indonesian moderates, the only hopeagainst an ultimate Communist takeover inthat country -- Kennedy made available thebrilliant diplomatic services of AmbassadorEllsworth Bunker as a UN mediator. [p. 580]

The word "moderates" can be changed to read "fascistbutchers," since the forces the U.S. hoped to bolster havenow revealed their true character. And the "brilliant"Ellsworth Bunker is now known to the world as the manwho presided over the U.S. occupation of the DominicanRepublic and, as Ambassador to South Viet Nam, ispresently making a last-ditch effort to prevent theVietnamese liberation forces from finally wresting theircountry out of the hands of foreign imperialists.

More light on the U.S. "mediation" of this question isshed in Arthur Schlesinger's biography of Kennedy, AThousand Days.

. . . The President regarded Indonesia, thiscountry of a hundred million people, so richin oil, tin and rubber, as one of the potentiallysignificant nations of Asia. He was anxious toslow up its drift toward the communist bloc;he knew that Sukarno was already turning toMoscow to get the military equipmentnecessary for invasion. And he was alsoanxious to strengthen the anti-communistforces, especially in the army.... He wastherefore immediately responsive whenRobert Komer proposed that the United Statestake the initiative in trying to settle the WestNew Guinea argument before it blew up intoa crisis. [p. 533]

CIA PRESIDED OVER WEST IRIAN TALKS

And who is Robert Komer? Just a leading CIA agent,who ran the notorious pacification program in Viet Nam.His recent appointment to be Ambassador to Turkeytouched off riotous demonstrations there, while theTurkish press dubbed him "Robert the Butcher."

Schlesinger also, in agreement with Sorensen, explainsthat Washington's motive for intervening was becausethey felt the Dutch could not win a war over West Irian."The only alternative to [settlement] was war, and thePresident was sure that the Dutch, having declined to fightover Java and Sumatra, would hardly go to war over thislast barren fragment of their Pacific empire."

In the spring of 1962, negotiations began in Middleburg,Virginia, between the Indonesians and the Dutch withEllsworth Bunker "sitting in." After five months of talks,an agreement was reached in which the UN would be aninterim administrator while sovereignty passed over(theoretically) from the Dutch to the Indonesians. Then



the question would finally be settled in a referendum to beheld in 1969 (20 years after The Hague Conference!).

But in 1969 the U.S. was no longer worried about IrianBarat becoming part of Indonesia, since the Djakartapuppets had made its rich mineral deposits and strategicpotential completely open for exploitation by Wall Streetand the Pentagon.

The U.S. part in the negotiations over New Guinea hadanother function in addition to preventing a possible line-up in which the U.S. would be forced to militarilyintervene on the side of the Dutch.

It also opened doors for other contacts with theIndonesian government, doors that had been closed since1958. As Schlesinger put it, "Kennedy now moved to takeadvantage of the improved atmosphere.... When privateAmerican oil contracts were up for renegotiation andSukarno threatened restrictive measures, Kennedy sent outWilson Wyatt . . . to conduct negotiations for newcontracts, a mission which Wyatt discharged with notabledispatch and success." [p. 535]

The amazing thing about this success for U.S. imperialistdiplomacy is that it occurred only a few years after thissame country -- the U.S. -- had been caught red-handedin an attempt to overthrow the Indonesian government.And yet Washington managed to become a key figure innegotiations that presumably had nothing to do with theU.S.! But this triumph of imperialist maneuvering andtrickery had much less to do with the "brilliance" ofEllsworth Bunker and others than it did with the hardfacts of life in Indonesia. Raped by the Dutch for 350years and then saddled with a robbers' "peace" by TheHague agreements, Indonesia needed foreign exchange sodesperately that its nationalist government, no matter howmuch it hated the imperialists, was still granting themeconomic concessions in 1962 and later.










Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: U.S. Corporations Arrive for the Feast


U.S. Corporations Arrive forthe FeastAfter twenty-five years of fighting the Japanese, theDutch and the U.S. colonialists, and after having begun aprogram of virtual expropriation of some of the foreignholdings of Indonesia's natural wealth, the country wasagain opened to outright colonial exploitation.

The 1965 coup and the subsequent slaughter of the anti-colonialists smoothed the way for many U.S. companiesto come back during 1966. But it was not until January1967 after the generals' clique was firmly consolidated,that the "foreign investments law" was passed. This lawopened the door legally, as well as politically andmilitarily, to the foreign plunderers. It specificallyguaranteed all U.S. investors against losses due to "war,revolution or insurrection."

This, of course, was what the coup was really all about.Stories about "natives running amok" and "religiousJavanese" being "shocked by Communist atheism" wereplanted in the cynical U.S. and world imperialist press tocover up what was simply a drive by the U.S. master-butchers to get their plantations, oil wells, banks andmines back -- with interest.

The coup did give them the bonus of political control overa tremendous section of the South Pacific and anotherwedge into Southeast Asia, and this was fundamental forthe long-range interest of U.S. imperialism as a whole.But U.S. big business, which so directly influencesWashington, is also noted for its pragmatism -- forkeeping its eye on the ball of immediate profit. And therewas plenty of profit to be made in Indonesia, once theSukarno government, the Communists and therevolutionary nationalists were defeated.

The familiar old robbers are now back at the feast.Unilever, the U.S. and British makers of Palmolive andLux, have two soap and edible fat plants in the islandsand drain off most of the palm oil to fatten their ownprofits. Uniroyal, another U.S. international giant(formerly United States Rubber), has a 54,000-acre rubberplantation and a latex plant in Java. Union Carbide, SingerSewing Machine and National Cash Register have gottentheir properties back.

But the U.S. penetration has redoubled since the coup andshows signs of being stepped up far higher in the light ofthe open door it has achieved by the coup. Now EasternAirlines has got in to share the profits with Garuda(Indonesian) Airlines; Mobil Oil has secured oilexploration rights for 450,000 acres on Sumatra as well aspurchase of the already existing Asamera Oil Company.Freeport Sulphur recently got a $75 million contract forexploiting West Irian copper. It paid a sum equal to about70 cents for each Indonesian for the privilege.

Freeport explored West Irian for copper in 1968 and fromits ore samples concluded there was about 4 per centcopper in the ore. This is almost 20 times as rich as oresnow found in Arizona and Utah, where the coppercompanies have been making profits for years. The copperdeposits in the West Irian area alone are estimated at over33 million tons. At 20 cents a pound (refined copper hasbeen selling from 50 to 70 cents a pound wholesale thisyear), the total value of this find would be equal to about






$1,000 for every man, woman and child in Indonesia.(The Indonesian per capita income is $82 a year.)

But copper is only a small part of the tremendous naturalwealth of the country. Indonesia is considered to be thefifth richest country in the world in natural resources. U.S.Steel expects to get 20,000 tons of nickel a year fromWest Irian and Wago Island, plus an unstated amount ofvaluable cobalt as a "by-product." International Nickelhopes to get an equal amount, and a Japanese companynow expects to find 50 million tons of the stuff. (Japaneseimperialism, which killed so many U.S. -- and Japanese --youths in 1941-45 shares the feast with U.S. imperialismwhich has practically invited its former enemy to the tablein order to keep it from challenging other U.S. interests.)

How do the Indonesian masses receive these companieswhen they enter or reenter the islands? Do the peoplewelcome them as benevolent "developers" of their land?

Not exactly.

Twenty years ago, the infamous Alfred Krupp, the mostpowerful financial backer of the Hitler regime, wasconvicted and condemned at Nuremberg for one of themost hated of all the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis --the use of concentration camp prisoners as slave laborersin the plants and mines belonging to the corporate backersof German fascism.

That was in 1947.

On February 19, 1967, at 6:30 p.m. an ominous replica ofthe grim World War II newsreels flashed briefly acrossthe television screen during a nationwide broadcast by theNational Broadcasting Company.

The narrator of the NBC Sunday documentary, referringto the picture on the screen, described a group of workersbent over in a field under the watchful eyes of armedsoldiers. The time was just previous to the broadcast. Theplace was Indonesia. The workers were prisoners of theU.S.-backed Indonesian Army and the rubber plantationon which they were working was recently returned to theGoodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

The narrator explained the scene:

Bad as things are in Indonesia, one positivefact is known. Indonesia has a fabulouspotential wealth in natural resources and theNew Order [the fascist regime headed by pro-U.S. General Suharto] wants it exploited. Sothey are returning the private propertiesexpropriated by Sukarno's regime. Goodyear'sSumatran rubber empire is an example. It wasseized [by the rubber workers] in retaliationfor U.S. aggression in Vietnam in 1965. Therubber workers union was Communist-run, soafter the coup many of them were killed orimprisoned. Some of the survivors, you seethem here, still work the rubber -- but thistime as prisoners, and at gunpoint.

As the commentator described the crime depicted on thescreen, the tone of condemnation associated withNuremberg was entirely missing. In its place was adefinite sense of grim triumph! The narration continued:

The New Order wants Goodyear back. They,



like dozens of other foreign capitalists, areanxious to return because the wealth is there -- not just rubber, but oil, tin, lumber, spices,almost everything.

The scene, as brief as it was ghastly, was sandwiched intoa vicious, hour-long anti-Communist propaganda filmworthy of Goebbels. NBC designed the film as anintroduction for the U.S. population to the "New Order" inIndonesia -- the CIA-inspired military usurpers who haveruled the country by terror since the coup of October 1,1965.

Although the film completely covered up the role of theU.S. in the Indonesian massacre of a million people,nevertheless the quick shot of slaves working on theGoodyear plantation at gunpoint was highly significant. Atone and the same time, it revealed the thoroughly fascistcharacter of the pro-U.S. regime in Djakarta, clearlyimplicated the prime mover behind the counter-revolution(the U.S. monopolies), and dramatized the fundamentalobjective of Washington's long standing policy inIndonesia (and all Asia) -- the enslavement of theoppressed for the benefit of U.S. big business.

In keeping with the general line of U.S. propaganda onIndonesian events, NBC tried to depict the bloody victoryof the reactionary officer corps as an unlooked-for giftwhich dropped unexpectedly into the lap of Washington.

The narrator deliberately omitted the fact that the soldiersholding the guns on the Goodyear plantation slaves wereunder orders from All-Sumatran Defense CommanderLieutenant-General Achmad Junus Mokoginta who wasgraduated from the United States Army Staff College atFort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Nor was it mentioned that Mokoginta is under thediscipline of the Indonesian High Command in Djakarta,which the U.S. spent $53 million to "train" from 1952 to1965. (The $53 million is a public figure. CIAdisbursements are classified.)

When it was baldly stated by U.S. news managers that the"New Order wants Goodyear back," this was very true.But what was concealed, for fear of uncoveringWashington's primary role in the massacre of a millionpeople, is that the Suharto regime is a hired creation of theU.S. government and "wants" only what it is paid to want.

POLITICAL PRISONERS "DYING LIKE FLIES"

Alex Campbell, managing editor of theNew Republic, gota glimpse of the New Order when he visited Indonesia inthe spring of 1969. Conditions hadn't changed much sincethe NBC documentary.

The government plans to send some 60,000(political prisoners) to forced labor on rubberplantations in Borneo. Perhaps 10,000 havealready gone there. They are said to be dyinglike flies. Meanwhile those still in the campsmay be slowly dying of starvation....

Many of those plantations are property of the U.S. RubberCompany and Goodyear.

All Indonesians have to carry identificationcards that contain information about race,religion and occupation. The cards of the



relatives of political detainees bear inaddition a warning that they are suspected ofhaving Communist sympathies. This usuallymeans that they are refused jobs, or that theysoon lose the jobs they have.... Thepunishment of the children is to be refusedadmission to schools.... Meanwhile, newsuspects continue to be arrested and put inprison or otherwise disposed of....

The authorities recently pounced on apoverty-stricken area in central Java,encircled it with troops and then carted offsome hundreds or perhaps thousands ofpersons who were charged with planninganother armed uprising....

Campbell also described the life style of one of thegenerals who became the head of Pertamina, the state oiland mining monopoly, after the coup.

The critics of General Sutowo say that a gooddeal of the oil money is already finding itsway into his own treasury. His daughter'scostly wedding was the talk of Djakarta inMarch. It continued for days, there werethousands of guests, and the general hadclosed-circuit television installed into hishuge home, as the only way by which hecould watch the entire proceedings. Thefather of the groom artlessly exclaimed, "I didnot realize my son was marrying a princess!"

General Sutowo is living the life of a racketeer who hasthe "protection" of even more powerful bandits -- the U.S.Seventh Fleet. He earned his payoff by opening Indonesiaup to U.S. oil companies. But his fabulous extravagance -- by Indonesian standards -- is peanuts compared with thefortunes being amassed by American oil speculators.

The Suharto regime has thrown open thousands of squaremiles of offshore oil fields to foreign exploitation.Atlantic Richfield, Phillips, Mobil Oil, Union Carbide,Tenneco and a Japanese and an Italian company all camein to work this bonanza.

A share of the Natomas Company, a U.S. companymining Indonesian oil, was listed on the New York StockExchange for $16 in 1968. By the summer of 1969, whenstock prices generally were slumping to new lows,Natomas had soared to $114.

Alcoa, the great U.S. aluminum monopoly (AluminumCorporation of America), the preserve of the fabulouslywealthy Mellons of Pittsburgh, is ransacking the wholeIndonesian archipelago for bauxite (aluminum ore) andintends to dig mines and build refineries as it has done inAfrica, Australia and America. So lush are the prospectsfor this lushest of companies that it expects to spend noless than $100 million in exploration and initialinstallations of equipment. And the resulting "investment"will be simply the means for transferring Indonesia'saluminum wealth into the coffers of Pittsburgh and WallStreet banks. "The agreement (between Alcoa and thepuppet generals) provides for one of the biggest singleinvestments in Indonesia outside of long term oiloperations," said the Associated Press in March, 1969.

With Chase Manhattan being the generals' "friend" inDjakarta and with Holiday Inns taking over Sukarno's



presidential palace, it is hardly surprising thatimperialism's most suave and presently successfulsalesman, Richard M. Nixon himself, sat down to dinnerwith his butcher-assistant General Suharto in July of 1969and applauded him amid the cheers and approval of theU.S. press.

"Indonesia is the great prize of American diplomacy inAsia," wrote New York Times reporter Max Frankel fromDjakarta right after the Nixon-Suharto dinner. And headded that during the bash, Nixon was "cheerfully rattlingoff statistics of Indonesia's economic potential, soaking upthe cheers of the crowd and offering tributes toindependence and democracy."

While no Times man could possibly have written thesewords without smiling to himself or drowning hiscynicism in liquor, he did nevertheless let slip one pieceof real information when he used the word "prize" inrelation to the 110 million-strong country. Since when is a"prize" -- a piece of booty -- independent? By his choiceof words, the Times man betrayed his utter contempt forNixon's puppet allies.

Yes. Indonesia is today a "democracy" where hundreds ofthousands of political prisoners face slow death, wherepower was seized by a handful of corrupt military menwho wiped out the mass organizations, executed or jailedevery member of Sukarno's cabinet, discarded theconstitution and keep the President under house arrest; itis an "independent" regime that is auctioning off itspeople and natural resources to the lords of internationalfinance.

Nixon considers Indonesia a model country now, andpoints to its violent anti-communist turn as a redeemingeffect of the U.S. war against Viet Nam. He is trying toconsole the banks and corporations that have "lost" VietNam with the prospect of Indonesia's untold wealth and110 million people who will work for starvation wages.

Nixon talked about Indonesia's "strategic geographicalsignificance and enormous if unrealized economicpotential." At one point he turned to General Suharto, whousurped the Presidency, and said, "The people of theUnited States wish to share with you in this adventure inprogress."

Actually, the Yankees have already begun arriving inDjakarta to nail down their "share" of the "prize." Thesejust plain folks are the representatives of Sinclair Oil,Freeport Sulphur, U.S. Rubber, Eastern Airlines, ChaseManhattan Bank and scores of other U.S. corporations thatthrive on the "independence and democracy" spawned byfascist butchery.

U.S. "aid" had of course been scaled down considerablyduring Sukarno's shift toward complete nationalization ofU.S. companies. And as we pointed out, Washingtonrestricted itself mostly to aiding the generals and theextreme right wing so as to get back into the country withits previous money-making machinery for Wall Street.

It can be said categorically that all U.S. aid to any countrywhatsoever is given with the aim of getting profits forU.S. big business in one way or another. Sometimes, it ismore sophisticated and indirect, as in the case ofYugoslavia and Rumania, where the benefits to U.S.capital are more diffused, less defined and not ofanimmediate monetary character. Marshall Plan aid was



of a dual character, that is, it helped keep Europe fromcommunism by keeping it on a kind of dole, and it alsogave enormous orders to U.S. industry to send goods toEurope.

By and large the "aid" is directly connected with theprocess of funneling back the wealth of the "aided"country to the treasuries of the United States capitalists.Thus a U.S.-built railroad to the middle of Africabecomes an instrument to bring the products of theinterior to the seashore. And a modern U.S.-builtmechanized dock at the shore becomes the means oftransferring those products to the holds of U.S. ships.

Railroads and docks are not in and of themselves a badthing. In fact they are essential to modern living. Theymake human labor far more productive. And everyunderdeveloped country wants to have its share of themand a lot of other machinery, too. But when some othercountry owns the plantations which send their goods tothe docks on the railroads, when that same foreign countryowns the mines which load their precious metals on therailroads, and the factories which pile their commoditieson the railroads, then the whole population of the hostcountry is only robbed that much more systematically andefficiently by the country which "aided" the colony withmodern machinery.

When Sukarno said to the U.S. Ambassador sometime in1965 -- before the coup -- "To hell with your aid!" hereally meant: "To hell with your attempts to make us yourcolony!" The U.S. reactionaries who are always preachingagainst sending "aid" to foreign countries, at the timerevealed the demagogic, lying character of their positionwhen they failed to make very much noise aboutSukarno's defiance or compliment him for beingindependent and self-reliant!

HOW U.S. "AID" WORKED

The former Ambassador of Indonesia to Cuba, A.M.Hanafi, wrote in a Letter to the American People, sent incare of YAWF and published in the Partisan, Vol. 3, No.2, a short explanation of how this "aid" from imperialismworked in the case of Indonesia:

Some time ago, as a member of theInternational Monetary Fund, Indonesia wasoffered credit under the Marshall Plan. Withthat credit we had to buy, directly orindirectly, a lot of American products.

This in itself was no great cause for regret,but what happened after we got thosemillions of dollars credit? There was a steadyand ever-increasing inflation which,cyclically, caused an even greater need formore credit, and so on, until an extremelyembarrassing situation was reached. The"textbook thinker" of the IndonesianGovernment agreed, following the advice ofthe administrators of the InternationalMonetary Fund, to invite Hjalmar Schacht,one of Hitler's top economists, to advise ushow to get out of our financial difficulties.This was done, over the protest of the massorganizations, and the black market fordollars soared to fantastic heights.

It was said that Government officials were



corrupt, but I think that Mr. Bill Palmer andcertain officials of the U.S. Embassy inDjakarta knew far better even than PresidentSukarno who among the Indonesians werecorruptible and who were not. And who, youmay ask, is Mr. Bill Palmer? As the Chief ofthe American Moving Picture Association inIndonesia (AMPAI), he used his ostensibleposition as a distributor of movies beingshown in theaters throughout the nation tocontrol millions upon millions of rupiahs indaily circulation. After some time we smelleda rat and suspected that he was one of theCIA's agents in Indonesia.

As a result, in 1965 the revolutionary youthand the police raided his mountain home inTjipajung, some 45 miles from Djakarta; theyfound CIA documents and other evidence thatPalmer was the head of a network ofcounterrevolutionaries. The AMPAI was thentaken over by the Government, theimportation of movies from the United Stateswas ordered stopped, and Bill Palmer wassent home. Adam Malik, then Minister ofTrade, however, managed to continue tobring in American movies. It should be statedthat our attempt to block these movies wasnot based on any anti-American feelings, butrather grew from our experience thateverything that emanated from the UnitedStates was being used as a basis forsubversive activity.

I have learned, too, from my own experience,exactly what U.S. credit means. I learned thiswhile serving as Minister for People'sMobilization for Development, from 1957 to1959. The United States offered us $350million in credit -- in installments, and withmany strings attached, some explicit andothers implicit. Among other things, theUnited States demanded that three CabinetMinisters be replaced -- Minister ofInformation Sudibjo, Minister of Veterans'Affairs Chaerul Saleh, and I. PresidentSukarno asked me to resign "in the interestsof the nation," and I told him yes, I wouldgladly be an ordinary citizen again if thecredit of $350 million were dependent on myexit from the Cabinet. I was willing to resign,I said, even without any political reasons, butit might be difficult to explain my resignationto the people, because everyone knew that thedecisions I had made as Minister hadbenefitted the country.

But I had had enough, and I didn't want to beinvolved in any more political compromises.(As an aside, it may interest you to know thatwhen President Sukarno formed his newCabinet it was even more opposed to U.S.intervention than the old one had been, andincluded two top Communist leaders, Aiditand Njoto.) But why did the United Statesgive such importance to our resignations? Wethree were strongly opposed to a new law onmining investments which was detrimental toIndonesia's best interests but favored those of



the United States.

So I think, dear friends, it is veryunderstandable that, after we had uncoveredmany instances of U.S. subversive activitiesin Indonesia in the economic and politicalspheres, President Sukarno took a firm standand told the United States where it could gowith its aid. Unfortunately, Sukarno has hadto pay for his courage, and with the counter-revolutionary coup d'etat that was effected byNasution and Suharto and their fascists theidea of military junta which was firstenvisioned by the counter-revolutionarytraitors of PRRI/PERMESTA was realized.










Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: The "Left" Critics After the Fact


The "Left" Critics after theFactWhile the slaughter of Communists, nationalists andprogressives of all sorts has been going on in Indonesia,what has been the reaction of the anti-imperialist forces inthe rest of the world? Has the response of fraternal partiesand movements been by any standards commensuratewith the enormity of the crime committed against theIndonesian people?

In the United States, where all the major tendencies in theinternational working class movement are represented, theonly demonstrations and rallies organized to protest themassacres have been those carried out by Youth AgainstWar & Fascism (YAWF). Our organization demonstratedat the Indonesian Consulate first to expose the masskillings and again to demand the release of the politicalprisoners. In both these acts of protest, the role of U.S.imperialism in the bloody affair was emphasized.

Again, YAWF was the only voice of protest -- if onlyfrom the visitors' gallery -- when Indonesia wasreadmitted to the United Nations without debate. Whatwould have been a routine item on the agenda was turnedinto a moment of intense struggle as guards rushed toeject demonstrators with accusing banners: "U.S. PuppetsSlaughter One Million Indonesians!" In all the Westerncountries where parties do exist reflecting the differenttendencies in the communist movement, it has beenimpossible for this writer to learn of any similar actionstaken in solidarity with the Indonesian Communists, whohave now been under the gun for over four years.

There has however been some space devoted to thequestion of Indonesia in the journals of quite a few of theparties in question. The monthlyPolitical Affairs which issympathetic to the positions taken by the U.S. CommunistParty ran a series of articles entitled "Lessons from theSetback in Indonesia" in March-April-May of 1968. Theseries is introduced as a document issued by a tendencycalling itself "The Marxist-Leninist Group of theIndonesian Communist Party."

The theses of this document and quite clearly those of theeditors of Political Affairs as well, are that the September30th Movement was "of a purely adventuristic nature,"that it "failed to secure active support by the Party andworking people and, therefore, stood aloof fromprogressive revolutionary doctrines" and that "a certainParty ... was responsible for turning the IndonesianRevolution into a gaming table for its political gambles."

REVISIONISTS STILL TALK OF PEACEFUL ROAD FORINDONESIA

While criticizing the PKI for being both adventuristic andconciliatory and asking "how it could have happened" thata small group of leaders "got themselves involved in theSeptember 30th Movement" when the Party was notprepared for armed struggle, the document sums up the"path ahead" without calling for the introduction of armedstruggle against the fascist regime. Rather, it identifies the"right path" as the program adopted by the Fifth Congressof the PKI, which as elaborated in another section of thissame document predicted that "A people's democracy inIndonesia can be attained by peaceful means."






This point is hammered home throughout the document,and the question of the future political development of thePKI is tied to the "struggle for peace and peacefulcoexistence." The authors foresee mobilizing "the broadpopular masses to form a peaceful front againstimperialism."

Given this general ideological outlook, it should not thenbe too puzzling to note that nowhere in this quite lengthydocument is there mention of the role of U.S. imperialismin the massacres. In spite of the present state of terror andmilitary dictatorship in Indonesia and the war beingfought just across the South China Sea in Viet Nam, thistendency clings to a program of "peaceful coexistence"and finds more evidence of Chinese responsibility for thedefeat than U.S.

Another article, with the same essential shortcomings, thisone written by a Soviet theorist named V. Viktorov,appeared December 1968 inInternational Affairs,published in Moscow. Entitled "Indonesia's Hour ofTrial," it contains many important facts and figures onIndonesia's political and economic transformation sincethe coup. While reviewing the return of Dutch , publishedin Moscow. Entitled "Indonesia's Hour of Trial," itcontains many important facts and figures on Indonesia'spolitical and economic transformation since the coup.While reviewing the return of Dutch corporations,Indonesia's reentry into the International Monetary Fund,and the rule of the "Tokyo Club" of creditors whorescheduled Indonesia's debts in return for more favorableinvestment conditions, the article only vaguely mentionsother "imperialists" who have recaptured Indonesia'smineral resources. The U.S., the largest imperialist powerto benefit economically from the coup, remains nameless.

PLP, CP IGNORE U.S. ROLE IN COUP

The quarterlyWorld Revolution, which is published by theU.S. Progressive Labor Party, ran in its January-March1969 issue two documents issued by the CentralCommittee of the PKI. Both expound a new programadopted late in 1967. They are a very definite departurefrom the program of the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh PartyCongresses, ratified in 1954 and then revised in 1959 and1962. These two documents strongly criticize the earlierstands of the PKI and solidarize the new PKI CentralCommittee with the Chinese Communist Party and itsinternational line.

An introduction to these two documents was prepared bythe editors of World Revolution. Their round-up on howthe fascists were able to seize power criticizes the Aiditleadership, just about all of whom are now dead, forfollowing a "Moscow line," stating that although the PKIbegan opposing Soviet revisionism in 1962, it stillmaintained "a domestic revisionist program." In theopinion of PLP, it was the policy currently advocated bythe "Moscow-liners ... that was responsible for the murderof over 500,000 Indonesian communists and radicals bythe Suharto-Nasution fascists." Reliance upon Sukarno, a"nationalist image," and wavering on whether or not tosupport the September 30th Movement led to the decisivedefeat for the party and the masses. But the Soviet Union,according to this position, must be considered largelyaccountable because "Before, during and after the massslaughter of communists by Nasution-Suharto the Sovietswere the main source of supply for the fascist army. TheSoviets even today provide this army withall(our



emphasis) its equipment and spare parts, ammunition, fueland instructors and advisors although this army has noone to fight but communist revolutionaries."

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this "round-up"of Indonesia's recent history is that it also nowherementions U.S. imperialism. In fact, in claiming that theSoviet Union completely sustains the fascist militarymachine, PL's analysis obliterates the role of U.S. militaryadvisers, equipment and training in the coup itself --something that even bourgeois sources acknowledge tohave been the critical factor in the takeover.

The two Indonesian documents accompanying thisintroduction do not have the same failing. Rather, the newprogram of the PKI emphasizes many times the status ofIndonesia today as a "new-type colony of U.S.imperialism." It traces the replacement of Dutch capital byU.S. firms and points out how Indonesia is strategicallyimportant to the U.S. for their general military objectivesin Southeast Asia.

NEITHER HAS MOBILIZED PROTEST

In both the positions of PL and the revisionist CPdescribed here, the overriding emphasis on the culpabilityof political opponents for the dreadful defeat of theIndonesian Communists, to the point of almost totallyignoring the role of the major imperialist power, doesrelieve the urgency to act in this country in protest againstthe murders. Whether or not this is the underlying cause,the fact is that the parties in the West that lay claim to theclosest fraternal ties to the PKI have done nothing to raisea storm of protest and outrage at what has been one of themost monstrous crimes of modern times. Whatever blamethe Indonesian masses may finally attach to the policies oftheir leaders, these Western critics of the PKI leadership,by not offering true international solidarity throughstruggle, have done nothing to deserve respect for theirpositions, be they right or wrong theoretically.

While not a major tendency in the world movement, theposition of the Socialist Workers Party should perhaps bementioned here. It too has published a critique of the PKI,purportedly written by a former member of the Indonesianparty. However, this criticism is nowhere supplementedby any attempt to rouse support for the struggles of theIndonesian people against the fascist butchers, nor by acondemnation of their own ruling class which through theCIA and other agencies played the decisive role in thecoup. The colossal and immensely tragic defeat for 100million people struggling against imperialist dominationbecomes reduced in the pages of The Militant to afactional issue -- an opportunity to say "I told you so" toopponent political tendencies.

Could those who offered all this criticism of the course ofthe PKI without lifting a finger in the PKI's defense andwithout once even reproaching the CIA or trying toarouse the U.S. public against the massacre, really havedone any better than the PKI? It is almost ludicrous evento ask the question.

A more pressing and apropos question is this: Can suchparties, no matter how well they phrase their theoreticalpositions or how many members or subscriptions theyhave, succeed in the United States where the PKI failed inIndonesia? Without revolutionary theory there can be norevolutionary practice. But without ordinary class strugglepractice, much less revolutionary practice, the most



revolutionary theory is just a lot of words.

YAWF has not written any weighty critique of the Aiditleadership. We have organized demonstrations and ralliesprotesting the massacres and have published a number ofdocuments and articles primarily focused, as is thispamphlet, on the U.S. role in these events. Does this meanwe have no opinion on the policies followed by the PKI oron the position of Sukarno and other bourgeois nationalistleaders? Does it mean that we feel the Chinese and Sovietparties had no influence on the line of the IndonesianCommunists?

No, this is not the case at all. Certainly, in a disaster theproportions of this one, only fatalists will ignore what rolesubjective factors played in the defeat. Imperialism is notall-powerful, as the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese isconfirming each day, and if a strong and seeminglydynamic progressive movement can suddenly be almostwiped out, then the reasons for its weakness must befound.










Indonesia: Second Greatest Crime of Century: The Question of State Power


The Question of StatePowerEven those parties which are in favor of armed revolutionand have repudiated the idea of peaceful conquest ofpower in their programs do not necessarily succeed intaking power, even under the best of circumstances.

The Communist Party of Germany was programmaticallyin favor of armed revolution in 1933 and it could musternearly six million votes in the early part of that year. Butit went down to defeat at the hands of the fascists in thesame year, suffering physical extermination of tens ofthousands of cadres. Outside of heroic but sporadicpockets of resistance, the German CP did not and couldnot (because of previous errors and a previouslydetermined course) mount a general uprising to check oroverthrow the fascists.

Under the much better circumstances of the revolutionarysituation in Russia of 1917 and the paralysis of theRussian bourgeoisie, there was a crisis in the CentralCommittee of Lenin's own Bolshevik Party over thequestion of whether to launch the November 7insurrection. Lenin's line only prevailed in the committeebecause of theprevioustraining and preparation of theparty, both in theoretical understanding and practicalstruggle. Even then, some of Lenin's closest collaboratorsopposed the "tactic" of insurrection.

The objective conditions in Indonesia resembled both theRussia of 1917 and the Germany of 1933 in somerespects. And they were also different, because Indonesiais a colonial country where revolutionary nationalismagainst Dutch and U.S. imperialism has played atremendous role in both the country's and the PKI'shistory.

The PKI was the biggest Communist Party in the worldoutside of the socialist countries -- just as the German CPwas the biggest before Hitler's victory over it.

Unlike the case in either Germany or old Russia, theIndonesian Party had the ear of the head of state, andoccupied key positions in the government apparatus.Furthermore, the head of state, although not a Communist,showed every sign of collaborating with the Communiststo the end -- and in his fashion, apparently did so. Heemployed some opportunist slogans, but defiedimperialism on some occasions even more than mostleaders of the socialist world have done. He condemnedand split from the imperialist-dominated UN; he calledupon the masses to expropriate the holdings ofimperialism in Indonesia; he was willing to go along withthe PKI toward a more and more anti-imperialistIndonesia. The logic of his course suggested that he wouldhave to adopt communism at some point whether hewanted to do so or not. The fascist generals must havebelieved this, too, since they made sure to take away allhis power and only spared his life for fear of arousing themasses against themselves.

What went wrong? And why was this tremendouslypowerful movement composed of both the PKI and theleft nationalists unable to prevent the terrible massacre ofits forces and its friends?

The Indonesian Communists themselves, both inside and






outside the country, have been discussing practicallynothing else but the question of the PKI's strategy andtactics -- unless it be the question (for those still inside thecountry) of how to physically escape the executioner, andeven this question is often subordinated to the need ofdeveloping a better instrument of revolution.

THE EXTRAORDINARY TESTIMONY OF A DOOMED PKILEADER

One of the grimmest and yet most poignant of the self-criticisms was made by Sudisman, one of the five topleaders of the PKI. He told his own hangman's court in1967 (hoping his speech would be heard by his comrades-- as it finally was) that the PKI had made serious errors.

(Sudisman took over the top leadership personally afterAidit and Njoto were murdered, and he attempted tofollow a more leftist course.)

Truly, the PKI is the product of its era, bornwith the era itself. The revival of the PKI willnot depend on the five of us [i.e., himself,D.N. Aidit, M.H. Lukman, Njoto andSakirman]; we have failed in our labors. Inone form or another, still with manyhardships, the PKI will find a way to comeforth again, with even greater vigor than inour time.

And certainly, failure will act as our teacher.The laws of war have taught us that we mustfight, fight, and fight again. And if we failonce, the struggle should be taken up again,until conclusive victory is won.

Victory will be to those who are not afraid toface difficulties and who have the courage tocontinue fighting. And, to obtain victory wemust have the patience to wait a long time, avery long time.

The judge has spoken of the PKI as if it werean "invisible man," which I take to mean thatthe PKI is nowhere and at the same time,everywhere. And in reality, the Mahmillub inessence has recognized the fact that faithcannot be completely shackled.

And according to the law of the people, thepeople's faith will lead them to final victory.This confirms the popular refrain which says:the world keeps on spinning.

I am convinced that although the PKI isproscribed, history in the long run will freethe PKI, and Marxism-Leninism will reign inthe heart of every Communist. In his oralbriefing, the judge called the PKI"poisonous." Yes, he was right. The PKI ispoisonous when it comes to killing thebacteria of the bloodsuckers of the people, theoppressors and exploiters, but at the sametime, it is also a powerful restorative,animating the people.

For me, everything has two or more sides.For example, the human body cannot growwithout phosphorous. Phosphorous, after all isa poison that kills bacteria and promotes bone



growth. I understand that failure in battle isbrought about by the errors one commits. Theerrors of the PKI, accumulated over a longperiod of time, were the reasons for thefailure of the 30th of September Movement.

These errors included subjectivism inideology -- that is, our considering a thingfrom only one point of view and not in itstotality, so that reality was viewed not as awhole, but as something glimpsed infragments.

As a result the PKI was unprepared when theParty became larger; it was careless of thedanger of imperialism, which, together withthe country's reactionary forces, was justwaiting for the opportunity to attack.

In such a situation it was necessary to have acertain knowledge of Marxism-Leninism inorder to calculate, concretely andscientifically, the correlation of forces and therelative strengths of the PKI and its enemies.Moreover, in order to organize a campaign,revolutionary skills are needed, plus courageto determine, a priori, the correct line tofollow and the right moment for its adoption.

The 30th of September Movement did notfulfill these requirements, and thus broughtabout its own failure.

Moreover, the campaign was totally isolatedfrom the masses, although, in keeping withthe announcements of the RevolutionaryJunta, the objectives of the 30th of SeptemberMovement were correct.

In addition to subjectivism in the leadership,the PKI was also infested with modernrevisionism. This resulted in the adoption of abourgeois attitude after positions in stateorganizations were obtained.

These weaknesses led to a compromise withthe bourgeoisie in the theoretical field.

In organization, the PKI did not applyadequate methods for solving thecontradictions within the Party throughcriticism and self-criticism. Without criticismand self-criticism we became tolerant andcriticism from the bottom was not developed.These errors committed by the PKI in thefields of ideology, in politics and organizationhave been mentioned in the self-criticalreport of the Central Committee of the PKI,now in the hands of the military regime.

The failure of the 30th of SeptemberMovement has led the PKI to criticize its ownerrors, to make a self-criticism.

I am certain that sooner or later, the newgeneration of PKI members will learn thegood lesson of self-criticism. This newgeneration will make the PKI a trueCommunist Party on Marxist-Leninist linesand will choose a correct and revolutionary



agrarian program, free from all types ofeconomism and modern revisionism. Such aParty will be able to solve the basic problemsof the Indonesian people....

If I die, it does not mean that the IndonesianCommunist Party must also die. Far from it.Although the PKI has been dismembered andripped to shreds, I am convinced that this isonly temporary and that in the course ofhistory, the PKI will return.

Quoted in Tri-Continental,No. 7, 1968

Sudisman, facing a certain death sentence, showed bythese admirable remarks (which were only a small part ofhis final speech to the court) that he was all too wellaware that the PKI had erred. But he proudly refused tosay that the September 30th Movement was itself in error.On the contrary, the error, he explained, was in itsfailure.He himself took full responsibility for it before hisenemies as well as before his friends and the judgment ofhistory.

SUDISMAN OPENED QUESTION OF A THOROUGH REVIEW OFTACTICS

But Sudisman does not give any specific recipe for takingpower or any precise explanation of what the Party didwrong after September 30. He was speaking under themost difficult of circumstances, and it was not at allnecessary for him to spell out his criticisms in detail inorder to open the way for a thorough review of tactics bythose who are serious about revolution. Furthermore, evenif he were not speaking in the shadow of the hangman'snoose, his comments as an Indonesian Communist leaderhave far more value for the Indonesian and worldrevolution than the theoretical lucubrations of many non-Indonesian radicals both revisionist and "revolutionary,"whose real motive in criticism is purely factional and fullof hatred.

In other parts of his speech Sudisman mentions that nearlyall the members of the September 30th Movement were"individuals who happened to be members of the PKI,"although he takes personal responsibility in the fascistcourt for the leadership of the event and challenges thecourt to punish him alone.

The importance of this almost quixotic gesture is that itdoes underline the fact that "all actions were executed byindividuals who happened to be members of the PKI" --something that was apparently common knowledge inIndonesia, or Sudisman would never have revealed it.

This fact must be kept firmly an mind throughout thefollowing pages, because some of the documents caneasily give the impression that Untung and the wholeSeptember 30th Movement were just militant nationalistsand that the PKI completely ignored the fascist dangerand repudiated the September 30th Movement in everyway. Some of the documents of the PKI itself give theimpression that the Party was completely blind to thedanger of the fascist generals' coup.

This was not the case, really. But due to the whole policyof the PKI, including the period in which it workedclosely with the Chinese CP leadership, it was unpreparedto cope with the fascist coup. In this sense, it resembled



the CP of Germany at the time of Hitler's 1933 victory.There were many Communists like Sudisman, includingmany in the leadership, who were deeply revolutionaryand deeply determined to fight for the Communist victory.But the point at which to fight and the methods ofpreparing the fight are not easy to arrive at, even for themost experienced and devoted leadership.

DID PKI FAIL TO RECOGNIZE THE DANGER OF THE RIGHT-WING?

The following account by Eric Norden gives one slant onthis problem. Norden is a radical journalist who is veryconversant with Indonesian affairs and believed that"Sukarno's course, in spite of his erratic personality, wasessentially the best one for Indonesia." He gave thefollowing blow-by-blow account of the events aroundSeptember 30. He explained about the reactionarygenerals' meeting, which Sukarno and Subandrio secretlytape-recorded, and how the generals had planned at themeeting to overthrow Sukarno and replace him and thentell the masses that it was done on the grounds ofSukarno's ill health. Then Norden said (at the June 1966public inquest):

Sukarno was deeply alarmed by therevelations in this tape recording, and hecalled in one of his most trusted aides, a mannamed Lt. Col. Untung. Untung was thecommandant of the palace guard, whose dutyit was to protect Sukarno. He was a non-political man, with no affiliations left or right,but intensely devoted to Sukarno, whom heviewed as the founder of the nation. Untungdecided that action would have to be takenquickly, because the September 21st meetingof the reactionary generals revealed that thearmed forces commanders intended to stagetheir coup d'etat against Sukarno on October8, which was Armed Forces Day. At that timeall the top military units would be in Djakartafor a massive military parade, and it wasgenerally assumed that this would be theirbest time to move.

Untung went to a number of pro-Sukarnopolitical leaders for aid, including Aidit[leader of ] the Communist Party. Aidit flatlyrefused to believe him. He couldn't conceiveof the generals taking such a risky ploy as anopen move against Sukarno, and refused togive any assistance. However, one militaryman who was loyal to Sukarno was AirMarshal Omar Dhani, who was theCommandant of the Indonesian Air Force.Untung and Dhani together, using smallcontingents of hand-picked men they knewwere loyal to Sukarno, staged a preventivecoup against the generals the night ofSeptember 10, 1965. Units loyal to Untungand Dhani took over the radio station andseveral other strategic points in Djakarta.

It was announced over the radio that a newrevolutionary council had been formed,including cabinet ministers such asSubandrio, the purpose of which was todefend the President against what they called"a council of generals formulated by the



CIA." It should be noted that the CIA'sinvolvement with this Council of Generalswas stressed repeatedly in the broadcast. Sixof the top army generals involved in theconspiracy were murdered by units loyal toDhani and Untung. However, one of the topgenerals, Abdul Haris Nasution, one of theleading movers in the anti-Sukarnomovement, escaped with a flesh wound andmanaged to flee to the outskirts of Djakarta.There he was joined by General Suharto, oneof his allies, who was in command of thecrack Siliwangi Division. With this elitedivision in his hands, he was able to moveinto Djakarta. After a fierce fire fight, thepro-Sukarno troops were driven from theradio station and Suharto took over the city,reasserting effective control.

Sukarno, during all this, had gone to theHalim Air Force Base on the outside of thecity to await word of the coup. When hefound out that it had been a failure, he fled tothe summer palace at Bogor.

Could it be true that the top leader of one of the world'sbiggest Communist parties was so naive as to disbelievethe possibility of a fascist coup by generals who were sowell known to be "aided" by the United States and whofairly openly (in politically sophisticated circles) opposedSukarno? Aidit couldn't have been suspicious of Untungto any great degree, although he may have feared aprovocation. And recalling Sudisman's words, we mustrepeat that "individual members of the PKI" were themain participants in Untung's action. But according toNorden, Aidit "couldn't conceive of the generals takingsuch a risky ploy as an open move against Sukarno."Norden, of course, did not know what went on in Aidit'smind, but in one sense at least he might have been rightin his estimate. That is, Aidit may have been lulled tooverconfidence not because he failed to understand theintentions of the generals, but because he had far toomuch faith in his own previous policy.

OR DID IT RELY TOO HEAVILY ON SUKARNO?

In August 1917 in Russia, the extreme right-winggenerals -- led by General Kornilov -- took the "riskyploy of an open move" against the still tremendouslypopular Kerensky. They were anxious to destroy thegrowing revolutionary movement and they were willingto destroy Kerensky to get to it. Kornilov led an armedcounter-revolution. The Bolsheviks summoned the massesto "defend the revolution" against Kornilov. (And theyoverthrew Kerensky two months after they had"defended" him.)

Actually, it was a far less "risky ploy" for Suharto and thereactionary generals than Kornilov's move was. TheBolsheviks were, on the whole, armed. They had wholeregiments which were openly Bolshevik, where theofficers were paralyzed. The key workers on railroads andin telegraph stations, etc., were constantly alerted by theBolsheviks against the reactionary generals. True,according to some authorities, the total membership of theBolsheviks was only 40,000 in the month of July, just onemonth before Kornilov's attack (whereas the PKI had inthe neighborhood of three million). But the Bolshevikshad made every possible use of the revolutionary situation



and paid constant attention to the problem of how theywere going to be able to seize power.

Now Aidit was familiar with this history. Why didn't hesee the imminent danger from the Indonesian generals'clique? Why was he so sure that the generals would notmove? The more surely that Indonesia was moving in theCommunist direction Aidit thought it was, the more surelythe fascist generals would at some point move against theCommunists. But Aidit was not prepared for the move.Much of Aidit's previous policy was based on utilizingSukarno's tremendous popularity and helping to build upthat popularity with both Communist and non-Communistmasses. So much of his policy was based on the idea thatSukarno, although a left bourgeois nationalist, could moveright on to communism leading the non-Communistmasses with him.

While this concept is theoretically wrong, there is noeternal absolutely unbreakable law in social relations.And it did seem that Indonesian practice could make thetheory wrong in this particular instance. Sukarno certainlyshowed many signs of wanting to do this and at the endnever crossed over to the side of the fascist generals.

He might very well have played a valuable figureheadrole for the Communist revolution in spite of and becauseof the fact that he had his origins in the bourgeoisnationalist movement.

THE STATE WAS BOURGEOIS

But Aidit and the PKI forgot or neglected one tremendousfactor -- the state itself.

Whatever Sukarno's role, the state was still bourgeois --still a capitalist state. The "armed bodies of men," theessence of the state, were under pro-capitalistcommanders. There were PKI members in the governmentapparatus. But there was no rival state power in the formof a congress of soviets, a workers' army, mass workerdefense guards, etc., or anything to seriously rival thecapitalist-controlled army and seriously oppose it in ashowdown. The three million-member PKI could beimmobilized if it depended upon purely parliamentarymeans when the generals resorted to open force.

Aidit couldn't believe the generals would dare to opposeSukarno, because he was thinking of Sukarno's matchlessoratory; he was thinking in purely propagandistic terms,in terms of popularity, winning votes and so on -- ratherthan in terms of force and ruthless showdown, as thegenerals were thinking.

It is true, of course, that such a show of force may comeonly once in a generation and all the rest of the time itseems to be a question of maneuver, publicity, persuasionand so on. But the truth is that revolutionary parties aretrained to be ready for the supreme moment not only bylearning about such moments in history books, but also byconstantly engaging in open struggle on lower levels withthe bosses, with the police, with the reactionarydetachments of the army, etc. They must be educated instruggle and in the spirit of distrust and hatred for thebourgeoisie. When a party becomes as powerful as thePKI was, it must also understand that capitalism --andworld capitalism (in this case, the U.S.) -- is planningday and night to destroy it.

The fact that Aidit and most of the leadership seemed not



to understand this does not necessarily mean that theywere secretly revisionists who were influenced byMoscow rather than Peking. To the contrary, they hadbeen working with the Chinese CP for several years.

In the summer of 1965, it is true, Chou En-lai, while on atrip to Indonesia, publicly called for the arming of themasses. Both Aidit and Sukarno by that time seem to havebeen in favor of it too. But the idea came too late, as itdid in the case of Mossadegh in Iran, Nkrumah in Ghana,and Arbenz in Guatemala. (There is evidence that it wasproposed as early as January or February of 1965, butlittle was really done about it.) The idea came late, andeven then, the conviction was not strong enough to urgethe masses daily and hourly to get their own arms -- bydisarming the police, recruiting bands of soldiers, gettingarms from friendly soldiers who steal them from the armysupply depots, etc. This can be done whenever thesituation is anywhere near as revolutionary as it was inIndonesia. But of course it requires not just courage,resolution, etc., which the Indonesian leadership of coursehad, but a certain approach to the state, a strong andunshakable conviction that only the Communists canreally solve the question of social justice and must leadthe masses to smash the old state and create a new one.

Actually, both Aidit, the PKI leadership and the left wingof the Nationalist Party had been urgingSukarnoto forma people's militia all during the spring of 1965. And onAugust 17 (Indonesia's Independence Day) Sukarnoannounced that a militia of several million was to beformed. He covered up -- and really softened -- itspotentially revolutionary character by saying that it was tobe used in the national fight against Malaysia. But theannouncement must have alarmed the generals' clique,nevertheless. And coming as late as it did and promotedso awkwardly, it may have forced the generals to maketheir counter-revolution that much earlier. In defense ofthe PKI it should be added that Communists wouldcertainly have been in the leadership of most of thismilitia if it ever had really gotten started. So they nowassumed they were going to be in a position to protecttheir flanks --in case the generals tried to move againstthem. Why should it occur to them to start training bandsof 20 or 30 militia men when they would soon commandmillions? And besides they felt that the Army would sidewith them against the generals.

RANK AND FILE OF ARMY WAS PROGRESSIVE

The NLF armed themselves from 1960 to 1964 by firstpracticing with wooden sticks, attacking their enemieswith their bare hands, often sacrificing five guerrillas tocapture one gun in Viet Nam. Of course, the atmospherein Indonesia was such that the army seemed to be a pro-revolutionary army, and the real polarization did not occuruntil after September 30, and by then the time was very,very short. This is only another way of saying that everycountry has its own peculiarities of development. But thePKI leadership took the view that the Indonesianpeculiarities made afundamental difference so far as theCommunist strategy was concerned.

There was a strong tendency not to rock the boat, tocontinue on the previous course, which was to depend onSukarno's ability to swing the whole army (with the helpof the PKI of course) over to the defense of the newexpropriations and the continued course to socialism.There was good ground for the PKI to have illusions on



this score, because the Party was well aware that the rankand file of the army was made up so largely of eitherCommunists, Communist sympathizers or revolutionarynationalists who would be at least neutral to Communism-- if the Communists took a clear hold on the helm of thestate, and especially if they did this in company with theever-popular Sukarno, who did not represent the nationalbourgeoisie in the eyes of the masses, but the revolutionagainst imperialism.

The PKI's illusions about the nature of the army are mostclearly -- and tragically -- expressed in a statement madeimmediatelyafterthe September 30th Movement. In aneditorial appearing in the Oct. 2, 1965, edition of HarianRakjat, the national newspaper of the PKI, there appearedthe following statement, most probably written on Oct. 1,when it still appeared that the September 30th Movementwas successful, although it was known that the reactionarypolitician-general Nasution and the extremely powerfulGeneral Suharto were still alive and actively workingagainst the PKI, moving their troops furiously to counterthe actions of the September 30th Movement.

The Harian Rakjat editorial follows:

It has happened that on the 30th of Septembermeasures were taken to safeguard PresidentSukarno and the Republic of Indonesia froma coup by a so-called Council of Generals.According to what has been announced bythe September 30th Movement, which isheaded by Lt. Col. Untung of a Tjakrabirawa(palace guard) battalion, action taken topreserve President Sukarno and the Republicof Indonesia from the coup by the Council ofGenerals is patriotic and revolutionary.

Whatever the justification that may have beenused by the Council of Generals in itsattempt, the staging of a coup is acondemnable and counterrevolutionary act.

We the People fully comprehend what Lt.Col. Untung has asserted in carrying out hispatriotic movement.

But however the case may be,this is aninternal Army affair. On the other hand, wethe People, who are conscious of the policyand duties of the revolution, are convinced ofthe correctness of the action taken by theSeptember 30th Movement to preserve therevolution and the People.

The sympathy and support of the People issurely on the side of the September 30thMovement. We call on the People to intensifytheir vigilance and be prepared to confront alleventualities. [Our emphasis.]

From the last sentence it is clear that the Party leaderswere very uneasy about the situation. Eric Norden may bequite correct in saying that Aidit couldn't believe thatSuharto and the generals really intended to try a coup. ByOctober 1, the PKI leadership seems convinced. But it ismoving far too slowly.

The Party correctly identified itself with the September30th Movement, but having done so, it was time tosummon the masses to arms. But the Party's call was only



to "intensify their vigilance." At such a time, such a callmight easily spread alarm or indecision rather thanvigilance.

Even worse, by saying in the same statement in which itidentified itself with the September 30th Movement, thatthe action was "an internal Army affair," the Party tendedto half repudiate the action and close its eyes to theconsequences.

But again, this mistake flowed from a previous falsepolicy and a previous misunderstanding. The false policywas one of expecting Sukarno to be able to outweigh allthe possible actions of the generals, and assuming thatSukarno himself would be loyal to his own program andbe able to carry it out against the will of his generals. Themisunderstanding was about the class character of theIndonesian state and the class character of the Army.

WHAT DETERMINES THE CLASS CHARACTER OF AN ARMY?

The class character of any army is determined in the longrun by the class it serves, and in the short run by the classcharacter of its high command and not at all by the classcomposition of its rank and file, which is always made upof the poor -- of workers, farmers, farm laborers, etc. Andthe generals of the Indonesian Army were for the mostpart reactionary servants of Indonesian and international(i.e., imperialist) capital. Untung, their main opponentwithin the Army, it must be noted, was only a lieutenantcolonel, with direct command over less than a thousandmen.

(In Untung's first statement to the country, announcedover the national radio on the morning of October 1, is thefollowing revolutionary statement: "The Army is not forgenerals, but it is the possession of all soldiers of theArmy who are loyal to the ideals of the revolution ofAugust, 1945." On the afternoon of the same day a decreewas read which abolished the rank of general altogether.)

Many "left" critics have misused Mao's correctobservation, claiming that the PKI did not understand that"political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Itwould be more correct to say the PKI did understand this,but failed to understand the class character of the gunsthey thought were theirs (in the national army).

Sukarno was the Supreme Commander of the Army and"Great Leader of the Revolution" -- in name, of course.But merely because the Supreme Commander, aloneamong top officers, moves left, the army does not becomea revolutionary proletarian army.

If the almost invincible Napoleon were to have sold out tothe feudal kings of Europe at the height of the victories ofthe French revolutionary army, he could not have therebyturned the army into an instrument of feudalism.

Or more to the point, if General Eisenhower had decidedto become a Communist in Europe in 1945 (as SenatorJoseph McCarthy implied he did) this would not havealtered the class character of the U.S. Army or materiallychanged the history of the post-World War II years.Eisenhower would simply have been assassinated by hisbrother officers or removed by arrest and punished bylegal means, depending upon how stable the situation inthe rest of the army was.

Sukarno was removed under cover of protecting him. And



his influence was destroyed under cover of praising him.He did not even have the military clique ties to the armythat a top general would have. He was far more isolatedfrom the generals than a person like Eisenhower wouldhave been in the example given.

PKI PERSISTED IN MISCALCULATING ARMY

The misunderstanding of the PKI about the nature of theIndonesian Army went so deep that the Second DeputyChairman of the PKI was able to say, two months afterthe counter-revolution began, that it was a unique armyand that no counter-force was really necessary against it.

During an interview with the Tokyo Evening News onDecember 2, 1965, Deputy Chairman Njoto made thefollowing remarks:

Question: How can your party set up yourown army? Lenin and Mao Tse-tung havemaintained that the establishment of the armyof the Communist Party is an indispensablecondition of revolution.

Njoto: The PKI always regards theIndonesian Army as being not the same asarmies in the imperialist countries or as inIndia now, seen both from the history of itsformation as well as from the tasks of beingagainst imperialism and feudalism, and alsoseen from the composition of its soldiers,who mostly come from the peasant andworker class. That there still exist in thenational army anti-people elements is thesame thing as in the republic as a whole....

Question: How about the relations betweenyour own army and the present professionalarmy?

Njoto: The PKI has never had its own army.This is why there is no connection in any waybetween this thing that never existed and thenational army.

Actually there had been some success in creating thepopular national militia during 1965 although it apparentlydid not get very far. Njoto repudiates the whole idea of aCommunist-led militia. At best he is being elusive with areporter at the wrong moment on the wrong question. Atworst he is repudiating the whole idea of any armedopposition to the bourgeois-controlled army.

It is quite possible that Njoto was not wholly candid in theextremely difficult situation that had developed. Perhapshe felt he had to conceal whatever elements of armedopposition the PKI was able to summon up at the lastminute. But his statements generally have the ring ofconviction and fit in with the previous mistaken positionof the PKI in this matter.

Tremendous events were now going on. Millions ofpeople were listening in. They needed an immediatetactical program, no matter how euphemistically orcarefully phrased it might be. They needed a clearexplanation of who was friend and who was foe. Njotowas not obligated to give correct answers to the Japanesepress. But he also failed to give them to the Indonesianmasses. He himself was to pay with his own life for thisfailure.



SOME ELEMENTS OF PARTY WANTED TO FIGHT

In the middle of the crisis that began with September 30,there were more forthright elements than the topleadership in the PKI, elements who, although intheoretical agreement with Aidit and the CentralCommittee, felt in their bones that this was the time tofight and fight hard -- rather than merely be "vigilant"and relegate the whole struggle to "an internal matter ofthe Army."

This is indicated in the statement of the East JavaCommunist Youth Organization which was issued onOctober 1, 1965. It appears in Pemuda Rakjat, the youthorganization's paper. The following is based on theIndonesian text given in Berita Yudha October 7, 1965(the statement was also read on the local radio severaltimes).

Statement supporting the "September 30thMovement"-- No. 1 56/v/PBD/65

In connection with the occurrence of aSeptember 30th Movement under theleadership of Lt. Col. Untung to safeguard theIndonesian Revolution and Bung Karno, andin relation to the revolutionary situationwhich has enraged the counterrevolutionariesinto forming a so-called "Council ofGenerals" to carry out a coup d'etat (against)the Government of the Republic of Indonesia,in the name of the 750,000 members of thePeople's Youth for the whole of East Java, wedeclare our fullest support for, and standbehind the September 30th Movement informing Indonesian Revolution Councilsdown to the regions.

We instruct all Organization LeadershipBodies as well as the entire membership ofthe East Java People's Youth to sharpen theirvigilance, heighten their support for YouthUnity on the basis of the Nasakom axis andcarry out the Five Charms of the Revolution,in order to continue to crush Americanimperialism. "Malaysia," village devils, citydevils, modern revisionism and other internalcounter-revolutionary elements.

Surabaja, October 1, 1965Leadership of the Major Region

(East Java) People's Youth(signed) Tjap S. Gijo

Regardless of its references to the nationalist, Sukarno-coined slogans, this was obviously an appeal to createsoviets throughout the country. That is, it was an attemptto establish a "dual power" -- a rival political power to thegovernment, which when armed, would be also a rivalstate. This was exactly what the situation called for andwith a group of 750,000 (in East Java alone) calling for it,there it little doubt that it would be successful -- if the PKIleadership did not oppose it. (But they did!)

The PKI had three million members and influenced about20 million more through trade unions, mass organizations,etc. This would correspond to 40 million in the UnitedStates (close to the highest vote ever received by a U.S.Presidential candidate). Had the PKI leadership fully



supported its own "individual PKI members" in theSeptember 30th Movement and its East Java YouthMovement, it would have opened the road to victoryinstead of defeat. It would have set the masses on the roadtoward political power.

It would not have even been necessary to make an openbreak with Sukarno to do this, although Sukarno himselfmight have repudiated the councils that were "defending"him, especially if Suharto forced him at pain of his life todo so. But the PKI leadership turned once again todepending upon its alliance with Sukarno to magicallyovercome the fascist drive of the generals. It was theprisoner of its own previous political course in this.

"AN INTERNAL ARMY PROBLEM"

The Jogjakarta Regional Committee of the PKI wasquoted in the Jogjakarta daily, Ariwarti Waspada, onOctober 5 as saying: "The September 30th, 1965 Affair isan internal Army problem, and therefore the Party has nopart in it."

This was an outright repudiation of September 30th. Itwas a considerable step away from the position ofOctober 1, and must have been taken because Suharto hadnow crushed the September 30th Movement in the army.(He had not yet moved against the PKI.) The statementcould have been due to fear or panic, rather than policy.But it was a published statement, nevertheless, and had itsinevitable effect on the masses.

On October 8 and 9 the statement of the Political Bureauof the Central Committee of the PKI (issued on October5] was printed in the same paper, and it said:

The Indonesian Communist Party supportsthe Message of President Sukarno, SupremeCommander of the Armed Forces of theRepublic of Indonesia, on settling theproblem of the September 30th Movement.[Sukarno said in the Message that he had"reassumed" leadership of the state and of theArmy and appointed Suharto as practicalcommander of the troops.]

Having carefully studied the Message ofPresident Sukarno, Supreme Commander ofthe Armed Forces of the Republic ofIndonesia and Great Leader of theRevolution, the Political Bureau of theCentral Committee of the IndonesianCommunist Party states that it fully supportsthis Message, and calls on all Committees ofthe PKI, all members and sympathizers of thePKI and all revolutionary mass organizationsled by the PKI cadres to help carry out theMessage of President Sukarno, SupremeCommander of the Armed Forces of theRepublic of Indonesia and Great Leader ofthe Revolution.

With regard to the September 30thMovement, the Central Committee of the PKIconsiders it to be an internal problem of theArmy and the PKI does not involve itself init.

With regard to the names of members of thePKI included in the list of the Indonesian



Revolution Council, it can be stated, as aconsequence of questions put to the membersconcerned, that these members were neitherinformed beforehand nor asked for theirpermission.

The Central Committee of the PKI calls onthe whole People to continue to heightentheir vigilance, to continue to strengthen theNational United Front, the Nasakom axis, andthe Nasakom Spirit in putting into practicethe Five Charms of the Revolution, incarrying out Djwikora to crush the jointBritish-U.S. Project "Malaysia," and tocontinue the anti-Nekolom struggle ingeneral.

Djakarta, October 5. 1965Political Bureau,

Central Comittee of the PKI

This all too clear statement repudiated not only theSeptember 30th armed actions, but also directed that the"revolutionary councils" (which were the beginnings ofreal soviets, political, if not military dual power, potentialstate power for the masses) be disbanded, by saying thatno PKI member had "permission" to take part in them.

(General Suharto had by now gained full control of theArmy.)

HOPED TO CAPTURE STATE PEACEFULLY THROUGHMANEUVER

Now such a position, such a repudiation, might somehowbe forced on a party in order to avoid an immediaterepression. But the Indonesian Communist Party was stilltremendously powerful. It was not a question of hidingitself. The Party had the very core of the masses behind it.The maneuver of going from semi-repudiation to fullrepudiation of the September 30th Movement, if amaneuver it was, could only have been designed to furtherthe strategy of working with Sukarno to "capture" thestate, so to speak, and shift it more or less peacefully ontothe road of socialist construction.

It was the false premise of this strategy -- the premise thatthe state was "different" and the Indonesian Army "notthe same" -- that played such a tragic role in the defeat ofthe PKI.

It was because of this false premise that the basic policyof the Indonesian Communist Party, when it should havebeen one of actively preparing revolution andinsurrection, was one of delay, one of expecting the Armyto be faithful to Sukarno and Sukarno to be faithful to therevolution -- and faithful in such a way that only a truecommunist possibly could be. In the actual event, thereactionary generals merely spoke in the name ofSukarno, ruled in the name of Sukarno and -- with apistol at Sukarno's head -- took full power in the name ofSukarno. And then they murdered the revolution in theirown name and brought their imperialist bosses back toexploit that part of the Indonesian people who remainedalive.

Why was it possible for the reactionary pro-imperialists touse Sukarno's name as effectively as the Communists haddone in a previous period and thus mollify the masses andconfuse the Communists at the same time? It was not



because Sukarno had sold out -- although it is significantthat he did not defy the reaction and insist on continuingthe previous anti-imperialist course. It was becauseSukarno had straddled between classes, between thebourgeoisie and the proletariat. He had defied theimperialists, it is true. He had defied them so thoroughlythat they decided to get rid of him. But he was originallybased in a radical bourgeois movement and he neverbroke with the Indonesian bourgeoisie. The Indonesianbourgeoisie correctly felt it could still utilize Sukarno as acover for its own comeback -- finally even against hisown will -- as long as he did not really become aCommunist.

"NASAKOM" COULDN'T WORK IN CONTEXT OF IMPERIALISM

This should have been made clear by one of Sukarno'sown slogans, a slogan that the PKI supportedwholeheartedly: Nasakom, which means "nationalism,religion and communism." This was an opportunisticcombination of terms that was supposed to describe thecharacter of the Indonesian state. The PKI thought itwould work. And if no pro-imperialists were operatingunder the cover of the "nationalist" wing of the state,perhaps it could have worked. That is only another way ofsaying that if the capitalists would not fight to keep theirprivileges, there could really be a peaceful road tosocialism. To get rid of those pro-imperialists whoshouted for "Nasakom," an armed showdown would havebeen necessary.

After the event many of the PKI's international friendstold them that they (the PKI) had been totally wrong torely on Sukarno, who was a bourgeois leader, and thatsupporting Sukarno was the same as supporting thebourgeoisie. This ice-in-the-wintertime advice camerather late, as did the advice to take up arms againstSuharto and Co.

But none of these critics seems to have made this pointvery strongly in advance of the event. The reason, ofcourse, was that the prospects were so glittering and untilthe last moment the strategy seemed so workable andSukarno so agreeable.

A strong comradely criticism from powerful friends alongthe above line before September 30 might well haveprepared the leadership politically to brace itself andchoose open revolutionary tactics immediately afterSeptember 30, when they still might well have succeeded.

But bad as the defeat was the revolution itself was notdefeated. The struggle goes on, large forces have taken uparms. Guerrilla detachments fight in Java, Sumatra andWest Kalimantan. No sooner is one force reported to becrushed, than another force springs up.

At the heart of all the lessons and all the tactics on bothsides in the tremendous conflict of 1965 was the questionof state power and the class character of the state -- theproblem of smashing the capitalist state, with or withoutSukarno, and creating the workers' state.

"I DO NOT REPENT!"

The reborn PKI will answer these questions and solve thisproblem, as Sudisman bravely said in his speech to thejudge-executioner.

We opened this chapter with Sudisman's self-criticism.



Let us close it with his final words in defense ofrevolution, words which have no immediate relevance tothe ever-pressing problem of what to do at the givenmoment -- but which catch the soul of the Indonesianproletariat and guarantee its future victory:

In keeping with this sense of responsibility, Imust explain that it is somewhat difficult toanswer the question put by the President ofthe Court: Does the prisoner repent of hisactions?

The question in itself is quite simple: it is thereply that is difficult. Usually, the simpler thequestion, the more difficult the answer, sinceit cannot be answered by a simple Yes or No,without qualification.

After all this, out of respect for mycommunist beliefs, my communistresponsibility, and solidarity with my deadcomrades, Aidit, Lukman, Njoto andSakirman, I have come to my decision.I DO NOT REPENT.

Moreover, aware that other victims havefallen, I as a Communist cannot do less thanthey.

We live to fight and we fight to live. We donot live just for the sake of living. We live todefend life valiantly, to the death.

In the course of human history, from the firstcry of the newborn babe to death, there hasalways been struggle -- at times hardstruggle, in violent battle. A battle can bevery violent, but not all violent battles arecrowned with victory.

The objectives of life are: To have thecourage to enter this violent struggle on thebattlefield and at the same time to try to winthe battle. This is the dream of all fighters,including communist fighters. And this hasalso been my life's dream.

Life would be sterile without imagination andideals.

What a wonder of wonders is life itself! Welive to fight and we fight to live. This is mycommunist goal. This goal cannot be attainedwithout responsibility, and for meresponsibility is like a pearl. To express this, Ihave written a small poem in prison whichgoes:

Facing one attack after another,Suffering interrogation afterinterrogation,Withstanding tortures and moretortures,With my head and with my heart,Ready to face death for the PKI,This is the pearl of responsibility!

And now that I face the verdict, I say with thewords of the writer, Andrew Carr: No tearsfor Sudisman! . . .



Since I am a Communist born in Java, I feelobliged to say something in keeping withJavanese tradition:

First, I want to thank all who have helped mein the struggle.

Second, to the mass of progressiverevolutionaries, to those who believe that theyhave been hurt during the struggle throughfault of mine: Forgive me.

Third, to my family, my wife and children, asI face the verdict I ask your blessing with allmy heart.

Long live the Indonesian Communist Party!










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