How Britain and U.S. covered up RI massacre

How Britain and U.S. covered up RI massacre

By Isabel Hilton

LONDON: As Megawati Soekarnoputri struggles to hang on to
control of Indonesia in the latest round of political upheaval,
news has been published of how the British government covered up
one of the worst massacres of the 20th century. The slaughter in
1965 -- of up to a million alleged communist sympathizers -- was
carried out by Gen. Soeharto, who ousted Megawati's father,
President Sukarno, to become Indonesia's military dictator. What
is still less well known is that the British and American
governments did not just cover up the massacre: they had a direct
hand in bringing it about.

In the era of decolonization and the cold war, ex-colonial
powers were intent on preserving their economic interests in
former colonies while setting up nominally independent
governments. But the natives, inconveniently, did not always see
their interests as consonant with those of their former colonial
masters. Patrice Lumumba in the former Belgian Congo, Sukarno in
Indonesia -- both argued for economic as well as political self-
determination.

Lumumba was assassinated with the connivance of Belgium, the
United States and the United Nations. In Indonesia, the British
and American governments succeeded not only in engineering the
result they wanted (the replacement of Sukarno with Gen.
Soeharto), but in selling a false version of events that persists
to this day.

Roland Challis, a former BBC south Asia correspondent, has
described how British diplomats planted misleading stories in
British newspapers at the time. But there is also evidence that
the British and U.S. responsibility for the fall of Sukarno goes
back to the event that triggered it -- an alleged left-wing coup
attempt in 1965. The British were keen to get rid of Sukarno
because he was pursuing a policy of confrontation with Malaysia.
The U.S. was convinced that Sukarno would drift towards communism
-- a far bigger potential headache for U.S. interests than
Vietnam.

Sukarno was hugely popular and an assassination would have
unpredictable consequences: at worst, it might benefit the
Indonesian Communist party, the PKI. The army was divided on the
merits of a move against him. There was one man, though, who was
willing to help -- the commander of the strategic reserve,
Gen. Soeharto. The challenge was to engineer Sukarno's downfall
and, simultaneously, the elimination of the PKI.

In October 1965, a group of what are still described as
"progressive army officers" kidnapped and brutally murdered six
army generals, apparently in preparation for a coup. The motives
of the group remain a matter of dispute. At the time, they were
alleged to be in sympathy with the PKI. They have subsequently
been described as pro-Sukarno nationalists in revolt against
their rightwing superiors. But a study carried out at Cornell
University in 1966 discovered that what most of the officers had
in common was not any association with the PKI, but a connection
with Gen. Soeharto.

Lt. Col. Untung, the alleged leader, was a successful military
officer who was a known anti-communist. Some of his colleagues
had been trained in the United States where it is unlikely that
any communist sympathies would have escaped notice. Soeharto
subsequently dismantled the unit and the group's alleged links
with the PKI became the pretext for the massacre of up to 1m
people. After a series of closed show trials and staged
confessions, the leaders were said to have been executed, but
there is no independent evidence that the executions took place.

It has been known for more than 10 years that the CIA supplied
lists of names for Soeharto's assassination squads. What is less
widely known is that the supposed pro-communist coup that
triggered the crisis was almost certainly also the work of the
CIA. Sukarno was finally removed from power in 1967.

Soeharto, meanwhile, was offered economic aid and the British
lifted their embargo on sales of military aircraft. Soeharto's
massacres were whitewashed in a campaign of disinformation in
which the British government willingly participated. The
operation to "save" Indonesia, according to enthusiastic reports
in, among others, the Atlantic Monthly, was a resounding success.
"Soeharto," Atlantic Monthly assured its readers, "is regarded by
Indonesians who know him well as incorruptible ... In attacking
the communists, he was not acting as a western puppet; he was
doing simply what he believed to be best for Indonesia."

Best for Indonesia in Soeharto's view, was the granting of
lucrative concessions to western mining and oil companies. It was
the beginning of a post-independence economic order that
continues today. After 32 years, Soeharto was finally overthrown.
By then, even the U.S. government had to admit that he was one of
the most corrupt dictators of the 20th century.

-- Guardian News Service