Sept. 30, 1965: What was really at stake?

Max Lane, Visiting Fellow, Center for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

In the last years of the New Order and since the fall of Gen. Soeharto, discussion opened up within Indonesian society about the real nature of what happened on Sept. 30, 1965. A consensus had developed among a large section of the country's intelligentsia, NGO community and democratic activist movement that Sept. 30 was a great human tragedy. More than one million people lost their lives: This has become an acknowledged fact of great sadness and concern. A number of short stories, poems and films have been written or produced lamenting this tragedy.

There has also been a great deal of interest in uncovering the facts of the events of Sept. 30 and the weeks afterwards. Did president Sukarno no about Col. Untung's plans? Did Soeharto know and was he involved? Did the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) really know what was happening or were just a few individual PKI leaders aware? Are there other facts that still have to be uncovered?

One outcome of this discussion, especially in the first few years after the fall of Soeharto, was the appeal for "reconciliation". Figures such as the publisher, Goenawan Mohammed, raised the example of Nelson Mandela as somebody who led the way for reconciliation between the supporters of apartheid and its victims in South Africa after the overthrow of apartheid.

Former president Abdurrahman Wahid, even before he became president, also urged reconciliation. He even sent a message to the Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPR) urging the repeal of the MPR decree banning the spreading if Marxist and Leninist ideas.

This recommendation for reconciliation was rejected, on the other hand, by the writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, demanding instead accountability for those responsible for the mass murder, mass imprisonment and confiscation of property.

The discussion of "tragedy" and "reconciliation", and even of justice, however, misses one major question: Why? Why did it happen? Why did Soeharto and his allies deem it necessary for such a wholesale purge of society? More than one million people were slaughtered; all active worker, peasant and women's campaign organizations were banned, purged or otherwise disempowered; scores of newspapers and magazines were closed; half of the intellectual and artistic community were killed or imprisoned; all left-wing political parties were smashed and later on even conservative parties were virtually taken over by the state special operations. Why?

In the sharp and bitter polarization of society between 1960- 1965, what was at stake? What indeed was being fought over?

From the point of view of Sukarno's supporters including the biggest political party, the PKI, they saw looming in the future a country dominated by corrupt and repressive business generals working hand-in-glove with Western business and financial interests. They called the business generals, kabir, capitalist bureaucrats, and the Western business and financial interests, Nekolim -- neo-colonialism and imperialism. They assessed that if the country was taken over by these parties, most Indonesians would be sacrificed for their personal wealth and economic interests. They also feared that such a new set-up would undermine the development of a genuine, and independent national culture, something that was still developing only 20 years after independence.

Opponents of Sukarno and the PKI were divided into two camps, but two camps that worked together. The Armed Forces, a section of the conservative religious organizations (though not all of them), and people who owned land opposed Sukarno because his policies undermined their privileges.

The Sukarno government began a program of retooling, that is of dismissing corrupt officials, especially kabir, which threatened the privileged position of business generals. The government also talked about arming tade union and peasant organizations, threatening the Armed Forces monopoly on weapons.

The government also introduced laws attempting to distribute land. Peasant unions which unilaterally occupied land, when the law failed to be implemented quickly, vigorously supported these laws.

Some religious organizations were opposed to the Sukarno policies for ideological reasons -- hostility towards communism as an atheistic ideology -- and also because their leadership were drawn from the land-owning and business layers of society.

The Sukarno government also nationalized first Dutch, then British and Belgium foreign companies as well as some American companies. Indonesia refused to become a member of the International Monetary Fund or take conditional loans from the World Bank.

This alliance between the Armed Forces, land-owners and Western business interests also found an ally in a section of students and intellectuals. Most students were, however, still organized in the big student organizations affiliated to the Sukarnoist and communist parties. Many of the anti-Sukarno students and intellectuals went on to become prominent figures during the New Order period: Goenawan Mohammed, Arief Budiman, Sjahrir, just to name a few.

At the time, they saw the Sukarno government as a dictatorship based the cult of the personality. A survey of the press and magazines of the time and of the discussions among the political public indicates that the level of repression under Sukarno was minimal. Two political parties had been banned for effusing to disassociate themselves from military coups in Sumatra and Sulawesi. However, the leadership and memberships, and their affiliated organizations, continued to operate.

However, there were elements of authoritarianism in the Sukarno government's methods. Political discourse, even criticism and opposition, had to be made in the language of Sukarnoism. Sukarno's opponents were forced to pretend to be supporters of Sukarno and to attack their opposition as fake Sukarnoists.

Of course, the government was not the only source of repression during this period. A bigger source was the Armed forces itself, which banned left-wing publications and activities in many provinces. Even in Jakarta, as early as 1960, Pramoedya had been arrested by the military and gaoled for one year. After all, this was a period of martial law.

The Sukarno government's resort to cult tactics and later to arresting some opponents were violations of human rights, although on a smaller scale than that carried out by the Armed Forces even before 1965, let alone compared to the mass slaughter after 1965. These methods used by the government confused the situation and facilitated some students' attention being directed away from the real issue at stake.

Today nobody speaks of kabir and Nekolim. But how different are the concepts of kabir versus KKN, and how different are the Sukarnoist critiques of Nekolim and today's criticism's of the exploitative role of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization?