In the early morning of 1st October 1965, six Indonesian generals were captured and either immediately shot, or executed later. A seventh general escaped. Those responsible for the operation then took control of the radio station in Jakarta and announced that they, the “30th September movement”, had stopped a planned coup against President Sukarno. Sukarno had come to power as part of the anti-colonial struggle and enjoyed the support of the Communist Party, Islamist groups, and others.
Little-known right wing General Suharto appointed himself Supreme Army Commander on October 1st. Suharto’s vicious reaction was described by historian Vincent Bevins as: “the state-organized extermination of civilians who opposed the construction of capitalist authoritarian regimes loyal to the United States.” By March 1966, Suharto had taken control of Indonesia, imposing a CIA-backed military dictatorship. He would stay in charge until he himself was overthrown by a popular uprising in 1998.
Under Suharto’s rule, at least 500,000 people were killed (some claim that the real figure is nearer 1,500,000). One million leftists were sent to concentration camps, where many were tortured. A CIA report even went so far as to call the aftermath of October 1, “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century.” The number killed was equivalent to those killed in Rwanda in 1994, but Indonesia received nowhere near the same media attention, even though in terms of population it was the fourth largest country in the world.
Suharto was backed to the hilt by Western governments who were bogged down in the Vietnam War and feared Communist expansion in the Global South. With 3 million members, the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, was the third largest in the world (after China and the Soviet Union) and Sukarno had been increasingly dependent on Chinese aid. The CIA provided Suharto with death lists. His assumption of power also paved the way for US companies like Goodyear to move to Indonesia and exploit prison labour.
Indonesia was a symbolically important country for the US to assert its authority. In 1955, a conference had taken place in Bandung in Indonesia for newly decolonised states trying to attain independence from both the US and the Soviet Union. Years later, in 1975, Suharto’s troops massacred over 100,000 people in East Timor. This October, as Indonesians take to the streets once more, the country’s history reminds us that their fight is not just against a corrupt government but also against murderous imperialism.
