BANGKOK — It was an anti-Communist blood bath of at least
half a million Indonesians. And American officials watched it happen without
raising any public objections, at times even applauding the forces behind the
killing, according to newly declassified State Department files that show
diplomats meticulously documenting the purge in 1965-66.
In one of the documents,
released
on Tuesday, an American political affairs counselor describes how Indonesian
officials dealt with prisons overflowing with suspected members of the
Indonesian Communist Party, known by the acronym P.K.I.
“Many provinces appear to be successfully meeting this
problem by executing their P.K.I. prisoners, or by killing them before they are
captured,” said the cable sent in 1965 from the American Embassy in Jakarta,
Indonesia’s capital, to the State Department.
Another cable describes how clerics from an influential
Muslim organization in Indonesia advised their flocks that atheist “P.K.I.
members are classified as lowest order of infidel, the shedding of whose blood
is comparable to killing a chicken.”
The level of detail in the cables
helps fill out a picture, outlined by previous declassifications of documents,
relating to how an anti-American leader in Indonesia was deposed by the military
amid mass extrajudicial executions.
The Indonesian slaughter took place at a time when
Southeast Asia, still emerging from colonialism, was energized by socialist
ideology.
The United States already had boots on the ground in
Vietnam. Indonesia, then led by President Sukarno and home to one of the world’s
largest Communist parties, was seen by Washington as the next domino that could
fall.
When a group of hard-line generals blamed Communist
Party operatives for a failed coup attempt in 1965, with China accused as a
mastermind, Washington did little to challenge that narrative.
The United States government largely stayed silent as
the death toll mounted at the hands of the Indonesian Army, paramilitaries and
religious mobs. The extrajudicial killings spread beyond suspected Communists to
target ethnic Chinese, students, union members and anyone who might have
personal feuds with the hit men. Tens of thousands of others were thrown into
tropical gulags.
Eventually, President Sukarno, with his anti-American
talk and socialist sympathies, was replaced by Suharto, a general who held power
for 32 years, instituting a policy he called the New Order to reinvigorate the
economy through foreign aid and investment.
Another of the newly released cables shows how the
American Embassy in Jakarta made clear that any aid from the United States was
contingent on Sukarno’s being removed from power. Upon Suharto’s ascension in
March 1966, that American aid began to flow.
In some of the cables, American diplomats exulted in the
abrupt political transition, even as they noted the rising body count. One file
refers to the political changes as a “fantastic switch.”
The Indonesian military, which
still wields considerable power today, has tried to blame the orgy of violence
on a public furious with the excesses of the Communist Party, absolving itself
of direct culpability.
But the cables indicate how members of the American
foreign service, at least, held the military directly responsible for some of
the deaths. One cable alleges that Suharto gave the orders for certain mass
executions.
“The State Department supports the declassification of
any relevant documents from the period which do not pose a national security
risk,” she said in a statement.
In 2015, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico reintroduced a
resolution in the Senate calling for Indonesia to face up to its traumatic
history. He also held the United States to account for its “military and
financial support” there, which included providing lists of possible leftist
sympathizers to the Indonesian government and, as one cable released Tuesday
showed, pushing to bury foreign news coverage of the killings.
The legacy of the massacre continues to divide
Indonesia. For decades, under Suharto’s rule, Indonesians dared not call for
justice. Even after he was deposed in 1998, there was little effort to set up an
Indonesian form of a truth and reconciliation commission.
But in part after the filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer
released a documentary in 2012 called “The
Act of Killing,” chronicling the life of an unrepentant hit man in the
purge, members of Indonesian society began to delve into its history.
Joko Widodo, the Indonesian president, has talked about
the need to address past human rights violations.
Still, there are limits to how far
Indonesia is willing to go. Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a human rights lawyer,
helped convene an international people’s tribunal on the killings at The Hague
in 2015. (The court had no real authority beyond an airing of testimony, but it
held the Indonesian government responsible for crimes against humanity and
accused the United States, Britain and Australia of complicity.)
But in recent months, conservative groups have rekindled
anti-Communist sensibilities in Indonesia. Efforts last month to organize
screenings of Mr. Oppenheimer’s second documentary, “The Look of Silence,” were
restricted by a military directive. A mob gathered around a building where Ms.
Katjasungkana and others were believed to be gathering to talk about the
violence.
“I just hope these new documents will encourage the
Indonesian government to be more open and stop the state denial that the
military was involved in these atrocities,” she said. “Hopefully, America will
also admit its involvement.”
Jusuf Wanandi is a Chinese-Indonesian who supported
Suharto for decades, even if he grew disillusioned with his strongman-like
leadership. Unlike many of Suharto’s former acolytes, Mr. Wanandi admits that
the events of 1965-66 spiraled out of control.
Yet even he advised patience.
“It is impossible to move forward
because emotions are still raw,” Mr. Wanandi said. “We need some more
time.”
