Dewi accuses Soeharto of plotting coup attempt

JAKARTA (JP): A widow of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno, Ratna Sari Dewi, alleged again on Wednesday that former president Soeharto had plotted his own coup in order to wrest power from Sukarno in the mid-1960s.

"Soeharto betrayed Sukarno. He justified, on the pretext of red-hunting, killing more than one million people in four years," Dewi, who was Japanese-born Naoko Nemoto, charged at a packed media conference at her house in South Jakarta.

Dewi alleged that Soeharto -- then head of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) -- had done nothing to stop the assassination of six top generals on the night of Sept. 30, 1965, as part of a plot to topple Sukarno.

Soeharto knew of the planned assassinations but failed to take action, said Dewi, who became Sukarno's fifth wife in 1962.

"After only one day, Soeharto claimed that the PKI (the then- legal Indonesian Communist Party) was behind the incident when there was still no real evidence or witnesses," Dewi said.

The bodies of the six men were later found in a disused well in Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta. Soeharto, who led the military's counter-coup campaign and later rose to the presidency, accused the then-powerful PKI of being behind the uprising.

"The real coup took place on March 11 (1966). Unidentified soldiers were present at the state palace, so Sukarno was told by his guards, who feared for the president's life, to escape by helicopter to the Bogor presidential palace," Dewi claimed.

"When he got to Bogor, three generals were already waiting for him," Dewi added. The official version of this event states that three generals went to see Sukarno in the Bogor palace that day and were given authorization to hand over power to Soeharto.

Dewi also showed copies of two documents on Wednesday. One dated Jan. 22, 1965, appeared to be a telegram sent from Jakarta's American Embassy to the U.S. Department of State. The document has some parts erased with one sentence saying: "(blank) told me today in strict confidence Army is developing specific plans for takeover of government moment Sukarno steps off stage". (byg)