Dewi says Soeharto knew of coup plot

JAKARTA (JP): A widow of founding president Sukarno, Ratna Sari Dewi, alleged on Wednesday that Soeharto had been fully informed about the planned assassination of six top generals on the night of Sept. 30, 1965 as part of a coup plot to topple Sukarno.

Dewi also contended that Soeharto, who resigned in May after 32 years in power, had not done anything to stop the conspiracy.

The 58-year-old widow strongly asserted that the abortive attempt was not masterminded and conducted by the defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Soeharto, she said, just made them the scapegoat.

"It was not the PKI, it really wasn't. Soeharto knew about it," Dewi told The Jakarta Post, and news weekly magazines Tempo and D&R.

The allegation was backed up by former colonel A. Latief, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the coup attempt.

Dewi was married and became Sukarno's fifth wife in March 1962. Born in Japan as Naoko Nemoto, she married the president not long after their first meeting at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.

A pregnant Dewi left the country in November 1966 to return to Tokyo.

Accompanied by her then three-year-old daughter Karina, she returned to Jakarta shortly before Sukarno died on June 21, 1970.

According to the government white book on the abortive coup attempt issued in 1994, communist Army officers, including Lt. Col. Untung, Brig. Gen. Soepardjo and Col. A. Latief, carried out a kidnap-and-murder operation at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1965 against seven senior Army officers, including minister of defense and security Gen. Abdul Haris Nasution.

Nasution was the only survivor of the operation because he jumped from a wall of his house before the kidnappers could seize him. They, however, shot his five-year-old daughter, Ade Irma Nasution, and his adjutant, Capt. Pierre Andreas Tendean.

The slain generals were Army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Ahmad Yani, Maj. Gen. R. Soeprapto, Maj. Gen. Harjono Mas Tirtodarmo, Maj. Gen. S. Parman, Brig. Gen. D.I. Pandjaitan and Brig. Gen. Soetojo S. Their bodies were dumped into an old well in Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta.

The nation memorializes the Oct. 1 massacre as Pancasila Sanctity Day. The date was chosen to mark the survival of the state ideology after the coup attempt, which was blamed on the PKI.

The Soeharto government insisted in the white book that Sukarno knew of the coup attempt, an allegation strongly dismissed by Dewi.

"Soeharto always says Sukarno was behind this, behind that," she said.

Dewi pointed out it was very strange that the PKI did not target Soeharto, who was then a major general commanding the Army's Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad).

Too soon

She alleged Soeharto knew about the killings too soon after the massacre. "He knew about it too fast."

While maintaining her late husband was innocent of the killings, she showed copies of his letters to her which indicated his confusion over the situation.

"Until Oct. 3, Bapak still had not known about Yani's fate," Dewi said.

Deviating from the government's denial of the existence of a Council of Generals, which was said to have planned to topple the country's founding father, Dewi insisted the council really existed at the time.

"I know about the Council of Generals but they are in my hand (under my control)," Dewi quoted Gen. Yani as telling Sukarno before the killings.

Dewi also claimed that Soeharto forced Sukarno to hand over his power to him on March 11, 1966.

According to the Soeharto government's version, Sukarno voluntarily transferred power to Soeharto in a decree known as Supersemar.

"Soeharto forced him to step down ... And no one had ever seen the original copy of the letter," Dewi contended.

She also believed her husband was killed by his carers who forced him to take an overdose of sleeping pills.

Mahar Mardjono, who led Sukarno's medical team, recently said the founding president had died of natural causes but depression, stemming from house detention, had worsened his condition.

Dewi currently resides abroad but regularly visits Jakarta. She angered the nation in 1993 after she appeared nude in her book, Madame Syuga.

Separately, Latief, 73, said on Wednesday he had reported to Soeharto on the Council of Generals' plan to topple Sukarno.

He also claimed he had told Soeharto of the plan to kidnap the generals just a few days before the tragedy. "Soeharto gave a cool response to my report."

"Soeharto knew precisely of the plans," Latief claimed in an interview with The Jakarta Post at Cipinang Prison in East Jakarta.

"Soeharto jailed Latief because he knows too much," Dewi said. (prb)