Indonesian PKI<\/p>\n
The news that British intelligence was involved in serious
\ncover-up work over the 1965-1966 bloody purges in Indonesia is
\nold news really, but no less important for that.<\/p>\n
The British had long been hostile to Indonesia's first
\npresident Sukarno and well before \"confrontation\". As a very
\nsmall glimpse into that world of anti-Sukarno intelligence-
\ngathering I was told a story last year by my father, a serving
\nRoyal Air Force officer in the mid-1950s at Seletar in Singapore,
\nthen a British colony.<\/p>\n
A colleague of his in logistics was going on a legitimate trip
\nto the South Sumatra oil town of Palembang. Intelligence, whether
\nMI5 or MI6, I don't recall, approached him. He was asked -- in
\nthese circumstances this was an order -- to gather as much
\ninformation as he could about Indonesia's \"preparedness\". Given
\nwhat serving CIA officers of the time have
\nsaid openly about subversion of Sukarno in Sumatra in the 1950s,
\nthis is hardly surprising, all part of Britain's cozy
\nrelationship with the \"Dulles boys\" at the time as well as, of
\ncourse, with its own nervous colonial disposition.<\/p>\n
As for the 1965 putsch -- it was not a coup d'etat -- one
\nquestion that the hysterical anti-communists in the West, who
\nhave tried to gloss over the bloodbath that followed, have never
\nanswered is, \"Why would the Indonesian communist party (PKI),
\nthen the third largest communist party in the world, have staged
\nsuch an action and not called its supporters out onto the
\nstreets?\"<\/p>\n
Given what we know, the PKI could have paralyzed all the major
\ncities of Indonesia. That it did not, does not make sense unless,
\nof course, it was purely a case of adventurism, for which we
\nwould have to conclude that it was terminally stupid. So
\nterminally stupid that it exposed itself to immediate
\nretribution, hardly the posture of hardened conspirators. Well,
\nwere they?<\/p>\n
DAVID JARDINE<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/indonesian-pki-1447899208", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }