Dewi says Soeharto knew of coup plot

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)