Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66
Large-scale killings and civil unrest primarily targeting members of the Communist Party (PKI) were carried out in Indonesia from 1965 to 1966. Other affected groups included alleged communist sympathisers, Gerwani women, trade unionists,[14] ethnic Javanese Abangan,[1] ethnic Chinese, atheists, so-called "unbelievers", and alleged leftists in general. According to the most widely published estimates at least 500,000 to 1.2 million people were killed,[3]: 3 [4][5][7] with some estimates going as high as two to three million.[15][16] The atrocities, sometimes described as a genocide[17][2][3] or politicide,[18][19] were instigated by the Indonesian Army under Suharto. Research and declassified documents demonstrate the Indonesian authorities received support from foreign countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.[20][21]: 157 [22][23][24][25]
Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66
1965–1966
PKI members, alleged PKI sympathisers, Gerwani members, ethnic Javanese Abangan,[1] atheists, and ethnic Chinese[2]
Indonesian Army and various death squads, supported by the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western governments[8][9][10][11][12][13]
The killings began as an anti-communist purge following a controversial attempted coup d'état by the 30 September Movement. It was a pivotal event in the transition to the "New Order" and the elimination of PKI as a political force, with impacts on the global Cold War.[26] The upheavals led to the fall of President Sukarno and the commencement of Suharto's three-decade authoritarian presidency.
The abortive coup attempt released pent-up communal hatreds in Indonesia; these were fanned by the Indonesian Army, which quickly blamed the PKI. Additionally, the intelligence agencies of the United States, United Kingdom and Australia engaged in black propaganda campaigns against Indonesian communists. During the Cold War, the United States, its government, and its Western allies had the goal of halting the spread of communism and bringing countries into the sphere of Western Bloc influence. Britain had additional reasons for seeking Sukarno's removal, as his government was involved in an undeclared war with the neighbouring Federation of Malaya, a Commonwealth federation of former British colonies.
Communists were purged from political, social, and military life, and the PKI itself was disbanded and banned. Mass killings began in October 1965, in the weeks following the coup attempt, and reached their peak over the remainder of the year before subsiding in the early months of 1966. They started in the capital, Jakarta, and spread to Central and East Java, and later Bali. Thousands of local vigilantes and Army units killed actual and alleged PKI members. Killings occurred across the country, with the most intense in the PKI strongholds of Central Java, East Java, Bali, and northern Sumatra.
It is possible that over one million suspected PKI members and alleged communist sympathizers were imprisoned at one time or another. Sukarno's balancing act of "Nasakom" (nationalism, religion, and communism) unravelled. His most significant pillar of support, the PKI, was effectively eliminated by the other two pillars—the Army and political Islam; and the Army was on the way to gaining unchallenged power. In March 1967, Sukarno was stripped of his remaining authority by Indonesia's provisional parliament, and Suharto was named Acting President. In March 1968, Suharto was formally elected president.
The killings are skipped over in most Indonesian history textbooks and have received little attention by Indonesians due to their suppression under the Suharto regime, as well as receiving little international attention. The search for satisfactory explanations for the scale and frenzy of the violence has challenged scholars from all ideological perspectives. The possibility of returning to similar upheavals is cited as a factor in the "New Order" administration's political conservatism and tight control of the political system. Vigilance and stigma against a perceived communist threat remained a hallmark of Suharto's doctrine, and it is still in force even today.[27]
Despite a consensus at the highest levels of the U.S. and British governments that it would be necessary "to liquidate Sukarno", as related in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) memorandum from 1962,[28] and the existence of extensive contacts between anti-communist army officers and the U.S. military establishment – training of over 1,200 officers, "including senior military figures", and providing weapons and economic assistance[29][30] – the CIA denied active involvement in the killings. Declassified U.S. documents in 2017 revealed that the U.S. government had detailed knowledge of the mass killings from the beginning and was supportive of the actions of the Indonesian Army.[9][22][31] U.S. complicity in the killings, which included providing extensive lists of PKI officials to Indonesian death squads,[37] has previously been established by historians and journalists.[22][26]
A top-secret CIA report from 1968 stated that the massacres "rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century, along with the Soviet purges of the 1930s, the Nazi mass murders during the Second World War, and the Maoist bloodbath of the early 1950s."[38][39] It has been referred to as the "biggest US-backed genocide" as a result of US support.[40]
Political purge[edit]
The Army removed top civilian and military leaders it thought sympathetic to the PKI in the weeks that followed.[49] Slowly, the parliament and cabinet were purged of Sukarno loyalists and those linked to the PKI were stripped of their positions. Leading PKI members were immediately arrested, some summarily executed.[50] Army leaders organised demonstrations in Jakarta[50] during which on 8 October, the PKI Jakarta headquarters was burned down.[51] Anti-Communist youth groups were formed, including the Army-backed Indonesian Students' Action Front (KAMI), the Indonesian Youth and Students' Action Front (KAPPI), and the Indonesian University Alumni Action Front (KASI).[52] In Jakarta and West Java, over 10,000 PKI activists and leaders were arrested, including famed novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer.[52]
The initial deaths occurred during organised clashes between the Army and the PKI, including some Indonesian armed forces and police units who were sympathetic to communism and were resisting General Suharto's crackdown. For example, much of the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the Police Mobile Brigade Corps had many servicemen and even commanding officers holding PKI or affiliate organization membership cards due to a huge party-led effort to recruit from these.[53] In early October, forces of the Strategic Command (Suharto's Kostrad) and the RPKAD para-commandos led by Colonel Sarwo Edhie Wibowo were sent to Central Java, a region with strong PKI support, while Army servicemen of uncertain loyalty were ordered discharged from the ranks.[52] At the same time, the Siliwangi Division was deployed to guard Jakarta and West Java, both of which, unlike Central and East Java, remained relatively immune to the mass killings.[54] Early fighting in the Central Java highlands and around Madiun suggested the PKI might be able to establish a rival regime centred on these regions. However, widespread fears of a civil war between factions supported by the United States and China, respectively, quickly evaporated as the forces sent by Suharto took control.[53] Many rebel commanders chose not to fight as Suharto-deployed forces arrived, although resistance came from some, like General Supardjo, for a few more weeks.
As the Sukarno presidency began to unravel and Suharto began to assert control following the coup attempt, the PKI's top national leadership was hunted and arrested, with some summarily executed. In early October, PKI chairman D. N. Aidit had flown to Central Java, where the coup attempt had been supported by leftist armed forces and police officers in Yogyakarta and in Salatiga and Semarang in Central Java.[50] Fellow senior PKI leader Njoto was shot around 6 November, Aidit on 22 November, and First Deputy PKI Chairman M. H. Lukman was killed shortly after that.[55]
Deaths and imprisonment[edit]
Although the general outline of events is known, much is unknown about the killings,[58] and an accurate and verified count of the dead is unlikely ever to be known.[112] There were few Western journalists or academics in Indonesia at the time; the military was one of the few sources of information, travel was difficult and dangerous, and the regime that approved and oversaw the killings remained in power for three decades.[113] The Indonesian media at the time had been undermined by restrictions under "Guided Democracy" and by the "New Order's" takeover in October 1966.[114] With the killings occurring at the height of Western fears over communism during the Cold War, there was little investigation internationally, which would have risked complicating the West's preference for Suharto and the "New Order" over the PKI and the "Old Order".[115]
In the first 20 years following the killings, 39 serious estimates of the death toll were attempted.[83] Before the killings had finished, the Indonesian Army estimated 78,500 had been killed,[116] while the PKI put the figure at two million.[83] The Indonesian Army later estimated the number killed to be one million.[78] In 1966, Benedict Anderson had set the death toll at 200,000. By 1985 he concluded that a total of 500,000 to 1 million people had been killed.[83] Most scholars now agree that at least half a million were killed,[117] thus more than in any other event in Indonesian history.[1] An armed forces security command estimate from December 1976 put the number at between 450,000 and 500,000.[67] Robert Cribb suggests the most accurate figure is 500,000, though he notes it is incredibly difficult to determine the precise number of people killed.[118] However, Jan Walendouw, one of Suharto's confidants, cited a number of 1.2 million victims.[3]: 121 Vincent Bevins estimates the numbers killed at up to a million or perhaps more.[21]: 157
Arrests and imprisonment continued for ten years after the purge.[1] A 1977 Amnesty International report suggested "about one million" PKI cadres and others identified or suspected of party involvement were detained.[83] Between 1981 and 1990, the Indonesian government estimated that there were between 1.6 and 1.8 million former prisoners "at large" in society.[119] It is possible that in the mid-1970s, 100,000 were still imprisoned without trial.[120] It is thought that as many as 1.5 million were imprisoned at one stage or another.[121] Those PKI members not killed or imprisoned went into hiding while others tried to hide their past.[1] Those arrested included leading politicians, artists and writers such as Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and peasants and soldiers.
Those incarcerated in the vast network of prisons and concentration camps faced "extraordinarily inhumane conditions."[21]: 185 [5] Many did not survive this first period of detention, dying from malnutrition and beatings.[78]
As people revealed the names of underground communists, often under torture, the numbers imprisoned rose from 1966 to 1968. Methods of torture included severe beatings with makeshift materials like electric cable and large pieces of wood, breaking fingers and crushing toes and feet under the legs of tables and chairs, pulling out fingernails, electric shocks, and burning with molten rubber or cigarettes. Detainees were sometimes forced to watch or listen to the torture of others, including relatives such as spouses or children. Both men and women were subjected to sexual violence while in detention, including rape and electric shocks to the genitals.[3]: 215–216 Women, in particular, were subjected to brutal gendered violence, including being forced to ingest the urine of their captors and having their genitals and breasts mutilated.[21]: 155 Myriad instances of torture and rape, with victims including girls younger than 13, were reported to Amnesty International.[122] Those released were often placed under house arrest, had to report to the military regularly, or were banned from Government employment, as were their children.[78]
Aftermath[edit]
Impact[edit]
Sukarno's balancing act of "Nasakom" (nationalism, religion, communism) had been unravelled. His most significant pillar of support, the PKI, had been effectively eliminated by the other two pillars—the Army and political Islam; and the Army was on the way to unchallenged power.[123] Many Muslims were no longer trusting of Sukarno, and by early 1966, Suharto began to defy Sukarno openly, a policy that Army leaders had previously avoided. Sukarno attempted to cling to power and mitigate the Army's new-found influence, although he could not bring himself to blame the PKI for the coup as demanded by Suharto.[124] On 1 February 1966, Sukarno promoted Suharto to the rank of lieutenant general.[125] The Supersemar decree of 11 March 1966 transferred much of Sukarno's power over the parliament and Army to Suharto,[126] ostensibly allowing Suharto to do whatever was needed to restore order. On 12 March 1967, Sukarno was stripped of his remaining power by Indonesia's provisional parliament, and Suharto named Acting President.[127] On 21 March 1968, the Provisional People's Consultative Assembly formally elected Suharto as president.[128]
Several hundred or thousand Indonesian leftists travelling abroad were unable to return to their homeland.[129] For example, Djawoto, the ambassador to China, refused to be recalled and spent the rest of his life outside of Indonesia.[130] Some of these exiles, writers by trade, continued writing. This Indonesian exile literature was full of hatred for the new government and written simply, for general consumption, but necessarily published internationally.[131]
In late 1968, the National Intelligence Estimate for Indonesia reported: "An essential part of the Suharto government's economic program ... has been to welcome foreign capital back to Indonesia. Already about 25 American and European firms have recovered control of mines, estates, and other enterprises nationalized under Sukarno. Liberal legislation has been enacted to attract new private foreign investment. ... There is substantial foreign investment in relatively untapped resources of nickel, copper, bauxite, and timber. The most promising industry ... is oil."[132][133]
The killings served as a direct precedent for the genocidal invasion and occupation of East Timor. The same generals oversaw the killing in both situations and encouraged equally brutal methods—with impunity.[134]
The killings in Indonesia were so effective and enjoyed such prestige among Western powers that they inspired similar anti-communist purges in countries such as Chile and Brazil. Vincent Bevins found evidence that indirectly linked the metaphor "Jakarta" to eleven countries.[21]: 238
Global reaction[edit]
To Western governments, the killings and purges were seen as victory over communism at the height of the Cold War. Western governments and much of the West's media preferred Suharto and the "New Order" to the PKI and the increasingly leftist "Old Order".[135] The British ambassador, Andrew Gilchrist, wrote to London: "I never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change."[136] News of the massacre was carefully controlled by Western intelligence agencies. Journalists, prevented from entering Indonesia, relied on the official statements from Western embassies. The British embassy in Jakarta advised intelligence headquarters in Singapore on how the news should be presented: "Suitable propaganda themes might be: PKI brutality in murdering Generals, ... PKI subverting Indonesia as agents of foreign Communists. ... British participation should be carefully concealed."[137]
A headline in U.S. News & World Report read: "Indonesia: Hope... where there was once none".[138] Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt commented in The New York Times, "With 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathizers knocked off, I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place."[139][3]: 177 The nationalist oilman H. L. Hunt proclaimed Indonesia the sole bright spot for the United States in the Cold War and called the ouster of Sukarno the "greatest victory for freedom since the last decisive battle of World War II."[10]: 244 Time described the suppression of the PKI as "The West's best news for years in Asia,"[140] and praised Suharto's regime as "scrupulously constitutional."[141] "It was a triumph for Western propaganda," Robert Challis, a BBC reporter in the area, later reflected.[141] Many Western media reports repeated the Indonesian Army's line by downplaying its responsibility for and the rational, organised nature of the mass killing. They emphasised the role of civilians instead, invoking the orientalist stereotype of Indonesians as primitive and violent. A New York Times journalist wrote an article titled "When a Nation Runs Amok" explaining that the killings were hardly surprising since they occurred in "violent Asia, where life is cheap."[142]
U.S. government officials were "almost uniformly celebratory" of the mass killings.[21]: 167 In recalling their attitudes regarding the killings, State Department intelligence officer Howard Federspiel said that "no one cared, as long as they were Communists, that they were being butchered."[143] Within the United States, Robert F. Kennedy was one of the only prominent individuals to condemn the massacres. He said in January 1966: "We have spoken out against the inhuman slaughters perpetrated by the Nazis and the Communists. But will we speak out also against the inhuman slaughter in Indonesia, where over 100,000 alleged Communists have not been perpetrators, but victims?"[144] U.S. economic elites were also pleased with the outcome in Indonesia. Following Suharto's consolidation of power in 1967, many companies, including Freeport Sulphur (see Grasberg mine), Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, General Electric, American Express, Caterpillar Inc., StarKist, Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin, went to explore business opportunities in the country.[21]: 167 [10]: 243 [145]
USSR's Andrei Sakharov called the killings a 'tragic event' and described it as "an extreme case of reaction, racism and militarism", but otherwise, the Soviet response was relatively muted.[144] It was likely in response to the PKI siding with China in the Sino-Soviet split.[3]: 23 Other Communist states issued sharp criticism of the killings. The Chinese government stated they were "heinous and diabolical crimes ... unprecedented in history."[144] China also offered refuge to Indonesian leftists fleeing the violence.[3]: 185 One Yugoslav diplomat commented that "even assuming the guilt of the politburo [PKI leadership], which I do not, does this justify genocide? Kill the Central Committee, but do not kill 100,000 people who do not know and had no part in it [the 30 September Plot]."[144] The killings perhaps provided a justification for the Cultural Revolution in China, as Chinese communist leaders were fearful that "hidden bourgeois elements" could infiltrate or destroy leftist movements and organisations, and it was built around this narrative.[21]: 166 The Suharto government was condemned as a "military fascist regime" by the government of North Korea.[144]
The United Nations avoided commenting on the killings. When Suharto returned Indonesia to the UN, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania was the only member state to protest.[144]