Sept. 30, 1965: What was really at stake?<\/p>\n
Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Center for Asia Pacific Social
\nTransformation Studies, University of Wollongong, New South Wales,
\nAustralia<\/p>\n
In the last years of the New Order and since the fall of Gen.
\nSoeharto, discussion opened up within Indonesian society about
\nthe real nature of what happened on Sept. 30, 1965. A consensus
\nhad developed among a large section of the country's
\nintelligentsia, NGO community and democratic activist movement
\nthat Sept. 30 was a great human tragedy. More than one million
\npeople lost their lives: This has become an acknowledged fact of
\ngreat sadness and concern. A number of short stories, poems and
\nfilms have been written or produced lamenting this tragedy.<\/p>\n
There has also been a great deal of interest in uncovering the
\nfacts of the events of Sept. 30 and the weeks afterwards. Did
\npresident Sukarno no about Col. Untung's plans? Did Soeharto know
\nand was he involved? Did the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)
\nreally know what was happening or were just a few individual PKI
\nleaders aware? Are there other facts that still have to be
\nuncovered?<\/p>\n
One outcome of this discussion, especially in the first few
\nyears after the fall of Soeharto, was the appeal for
\n\"reconciliation\". Figures such as the publisher, Goenawan
\nMohammed, raised the example of Nelson Mandela as somebody who
\nled the way for reconciliation between the supporters of
\napartheid and its victims in South Africa after the overthrow of
\napartheid.<\/p>\n
Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, even before he became
\npresident, also urged reconciliation. He even sent a message to
\nthe Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) urging the repeal of the
\nMPR decree banning the spreading if Marxist and Leninist ideas.<\/p>\n
This recommendation for reconciliation was rejected, on the
\nother hand, by the writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, demanding
\ninstead accountability for those responsible for the mass murder,
\nmass imprisonment and confiscation of property.<\/p>\n
The discussion of \"tragedy\" and \"reconciliation\", and even of
\njustice, however, misses one major question: Why? Why did it
\nhappen? Why did Soeharto and his allies deem it necessary for
\nsuch a wholesale purge of society? More than one million people
\nwere slaughtered; all active worker, peasant and women's campaign
\norganizations were banned, purged or otherwise disempowered;
\nscores of newspapers and magazines were closed; half of the
\nintellectual and artistic community were killed or imprisoned;
\nall left-wing political parties were smashed and later on even
\nconservative parties were virtually taken over by the state
\nspecial operations. Why?<\/p>\n
In the sharp and bitter polarization of society between 1960-
\n1965, what was at stake? What indeed was being fought over?<\/p>\n
From the point of view of Sukarno's supporters including the
\nbiggest political party, the PKI, they saw looming in the future
\na country dominated by corrupt and repressive business generals
\nworking hand-in-glove with Western business and financial
\ninterests. They called the business generals, kabir, capitalist
\nbureaucrats, and the Western business and financial interests,
\nNekolim -- neo-colonialism and imperialism. They assessed that if
\nthe country was taken over by these parties, most Indonesians
\nwould be sacrificed for their personal wealth and economic
\ninterests. They also feared that such a new set-up would
\nundermine the development of a genuine, and independent national
\nculture, something that was still developing only 20 years after
\nindependence.<\/p>\n
Opponents of Sukarno and the PKI were divided into two camps,
\nbut two camps that worked together. The Armed Forces, a section
\nof the conservative religious organizations (though not all of
\nthem), and people who owned land opposed Sukarno because his
\npolicies undermined their privileges.<\/p>\n
The Sukarno government began a program of retooling, that is
\nof dismissing corrupt officials, especially kabir, which
\nthreatened the privileged position of business generals. The
\ngovernment also talked about arming tade union and peasant
\norganizations, threatening the Armed Forces monopoly on weapons.<\/p>\n
The government also introduced laws attempting to distribute
\nland. Peasant unions which unilaterally occupied land, when the
\nlaw failed to be implemented quickly, vigorously supported these
\nlaws.<\/p>\n
Some religious organizations were opposed to the Sukarno
\npolicies for ideological reasons -- hostility towards communism
\nas an atheistic ideology -- and also because their leadership
\nwere drawn from the land-owning and business layers of society.<\/p>\n
The Sukarno government also nationalized first Dutch, then
\nBritish and Belgium foreign companies as well as some American
\ncompanies. Indonesia refused to become a member of the
\nInternational Monetary Fund or take conditional loans from the
\nWorld Bank.<\/p>\n
This alliance between the Armed Forces, land-owners and
\nWestern business interests also found an ally in a section of
\nstudents and intellectuals. Most students were, however, still
\norganized in the big student organizations affiliated to the
\nSukarnoist and communist parties. Many of the anti-Sukarno
\nstudents and intellectuals went on to become prominent figures
\nduring the New Order period: Goenawan Mohammed, Arief Budiman,
\nSjahrir, just to name a few.<\/p>\n
At the time, they saw the Sukarno government as a dictatorship
\nbased the cult of the personality. A survey of the press and
\nmagazines of the time and of the discussions among the political
\npublic indicates that the level of repression under Sukarno was
\nminimal. Two political parties had been banned for effusing to
\ndisassociate themselves from military coups in Sumatra and
\nSulawesi. However, the leadership and memberships, and their
\naffiliated organizations, continued to operate.<\/p>\n
However, there were elements of authoritarianism in the
\nSukarno government's methods. Political discourse, even criticism
\nand opposition, had to be made in the language of Sukarnoism.
\nSukarno's opponents were forced to pretend to be supporters of
\nSukarno and to attack their opposition as fake Sukarnoists.<\/p>\n
Of course, the government was not the only source of
\nrepression during this period. A bigger source was the Armed
\nforces itself, which banned left-wing publications and activities
\nin many provinces. Even in Jakarta, as early as 1960, Pramoedya
\nhad been arrested by the military and gaoled for one year. After
\nall, this was a period of martial law.<\/p>\n
The Sukarno government's resort to cult tactics and later to
\narresting some opponents were violations of human rights,
\nalthough on a smaller scale than that carried out by the Armed
\nForces even before 1965, let alone compared to the mass slaughter
\nafter 1965. These methods used by the government confused the
\nsituation and facilitated some students' attention being directed
\naway from the real issue at stake.<\/p>\n
Today nobody speaks of kabir and Nekolim. But how different
\nare the concepts of kabir versus KKN, and how different are the
\nSukarnoist critiques of Nekolim and today's criticism's of the
\nexploitative role of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank,
\nand the World Trade Organization?<\/p>",
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