bboc/15_Anticommunist_genocide_in_Indonesia.tex

\chapter{Anticommunist genocide in Indonesia}

\chapterauthor{Jacques JURQUET}

With about three thousand islands, Indonesia had a population of about two hundred million in 1998, making it the most populous country in Southeast Asia.
Its capital Jakarta has about 10 million inhabitants.

The most important islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (or Borneo), the archipelagos of Celebes and Moluccas, and finally the western part of New Guinea named Irian.

In the latitudinal extension of Java, the possession of the east of the island of Timor, a former Portuguese colony, has remained for decades the stakes of a war of annexation waged by the Indonesian army against Fretilin, an indigenous organization that founded an independent state, recognized and supported by the entire local population.
(See the specific text on this issue in this book.) 

The name Indonesia is of relatively recent creation, dating from the eve of the First World War.
In reality, the whole territory, populated by 90\% of peasants, has been occupied and plundered by Dutch colonialism since the very beginning of the seventeenth century.

As early as 1602, the Netherlands had set up a trading company called the \enquote{Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie}, which was to become in the mid-seventeenth century the \enquote{Dutch Company}, exercising its monopoly on all local agricultural productions: rice, maize, tea, coffee, cassava, copra, etc.

Then in 1799, the Dutch state itself supplanted this company, establishing the \enquote{Dutch East Indies}. 
It took direct control of their colonial management, defending Dutch interests against other colonialists.

Tobacco factories were just ahead of the exploitation of oil deposits.

The populations inhabiting these islands, belonging to several ethnic groups, have been mostly converted to Islam and in minority to Christianity.
For three centuries, they were subjected to a classical colonial exploitation involving periods of conquest and criminal repression.
In 1740, for example, a general revolt of the Chinese inhabiting these islands was crushed in blood, causing thousands of victims that are no longer talked about today.

From 1830 to 1877, the colonial surplus was estimated at 800 million guilders. From 1900 until 1910, in the capitalist countries there was official talk of the Dutch colonial empire.
The world was then divided between the great colonial empires dominated by Western states that competed with each other like those of France and Great Britain, knowing how to unite when necessary on the backs of the enslaved and plundered populations of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Indonesian nationalism emerged in 1908 and developed over the following decades.

At the same time, the ideas of communism manifested themselves from the creation in 1920 of the first Communist Party in Asia, the Communist Party of Indonesia (or P.K.I.), even before the birth of the Chinese Communist Party or that of the Vietnam Workers' Party.
But the following year, in 1921, a split confirmed the rupture between Muslim and secular militants. Then, following an insurrection in Java and Sumatra, it was banned by the colonial authorities in 1927.
Thousands of people were deported to the inhospitable Irian mountains and the communist leaders were all incarcerated in special camps.

The anti-colonialist nationalist current developed more slowly. The organization \enquote{Perhimpunan Indonesia}, to which many intellectuals adhered, multiplied the think tanks.
Within that of Bandung appeared a young engineer of exceptional popular eloquence, who dreamed of unifying nationalism, Islam and Marxism.
Born in 1901 to a father who was a teacher and then a student in Bandung, this nationalist activist was none other than the future \enquote{father of Indonesian independence}, Achmed Sukarno.
In 1927 he founded the \enquote{Persikatan Nasional Indonesia}, \enquote{Indonesian National Party} and formulated in October 1928 the fundamental slogan of a \enquote{youth oath}: \enquote{one homeland, one nation, one language}.
But the Dutch colonialists arrested him in 1929. In front of the court where he appeared, he launched the slogan \enquote{Indonesia accuses}. The P.N.I. was dissolved at the same time.

The economic crisis of 1929 had severe consequences in Indonesia.

The collapse of world prices for exportable products led to a considerable increase in unemployment and caused appalling misery among the most disadvantaged strata of the population.

The simultaneous developments of the nationalist movement and the communist movement, sometimes convergent, other times in disagreement, then experienced multiple vicissitudes, marked by a very harsh colonial repression, imprisonments and capital executions.
The essential disagreement between Sukarno's ideas and those of the Communists was over the principle of the \enquote{class struggle.}

The banned P.N.I. was replaced by the Partindo. Its leader Sukarno was arrested by the colonialists a second time in 1933.

Then a more anti-fascist than anti-colonialist organization was born in 1937, the Gerindo, and, in 1939, was created the G.A.P.I., Antifascist Nationalist Group.
The latter adopted unitary demands, such as the Indonesian language, the red and white flag and the national anthem. In 1941 he established a National Council of the Indonesian People.
But, although taking refuge in London after the occupation of its country by the Germans, the Dutch government rejected all these initiatives.
Queen Wilhelmina wanted to continue the war against Nazi Germany based on what she called \enquote{the Dutch East Indies}.
Position of a capitalism in struggle with the Nazis eager to rely on its own colonialism.

The situation in Indonesia was turned upside down after the landing of Japanese military forces in 1942 and the occupation they imposed instead of the colonialism of the Netherlands.
The Dutch tercentenary power collapsed, which was not without generating some illusions among the Indonesian populations towards the Japanese, especially in the most privileged social classes, in a comprador bourgeoisie already constituted and operational.
The new occupiers sought to win the support of Sukarno and his nationalist friends, who agreed to \enquote{play the game} at least temporarily.
But one of them, named Sjahrir, a militant of the Socialist Party, nevertheless organized resistance networks.
An even more active leader, Amir Sjarifuddin, was arrested and tortured by the Japanese services and several of his companions.

Thus, succeeding Dutch colonialism, Japanese imperialism, also based on the capitalist system, resorted to the same methods of violence and crimes as its predecessor against the Indonesian people.

When the popular illusions were destroyed by the brutal attitude of the new occupiers, a new political force was formed in Java, the PUTERA, or \enquote{Center of the People's Forces}, whose initiators and animators were still Sukarno and his friends Hatta, Ki Hadjar, Dewandro.
The Japanese tolerated it while trying in vain to gain control. Their attitude was the result of their already anxiety about their own future.

Thus, the occupying authorities went so far as to accept that in October 1943 PETA (\enquote{Volunteers Defenders of the Fatherland}) was created, which was to become the future Indonesian army.
Several future Senior Officers and Indonesian Generals began their first weapons alongside the Japanese military in this formation. Such was the case of Suharto, the future fascist dictator.

In September 1944, at a time when Tokyo's rulers felt their defeat was coming with the end of World War II, their government finally promised independence to the Indonesians.

From then on, Sukarno was able to intervene more effectively and, on June 1, 1945, he formulated the \enquote{Pantja Sila}, the five principles: nationalism, internationalism, democracy, social justice and belief in God.
He relied on the \enquote{gotong royong}, or mutual understanding. Two days after the collapse of Japan, pressed by young Indonesian nationalist activists, Sukarno and Hatta proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1945.
The sovereignty of the islands, still under Western pressure, was expressed under the name of the \enquote{United States of Indonesia}.

But the social difficulties of the people were not solved and discontent was becoming more and more acute both in the cities and in the countryside.

Did the Communists attempt an insurrection in Madiun, or were they wrongly accused of having wanted to take power in September 1948, this is a point of history that remains confused.
Still, they were chased and quickly crushed by the Siliwangi division of Colonel Nasution, Chief of Staff of the Indonesian army.
Thirty thousand of their own were killed along with their main leaders: Amir Sjarifuddin and Musso, who had just returned from the USSR the previous August.
This event can be considered to have had a premonitory aspect compared to the massacres of much greater magnitude that were to be unleashed seventeen years later.

The Dutch colonialists wanted to take advantage of the situation and captured Sukarno and his government by surprise.
However, the United States, reassured by the victory of the anti-communist military action and also very worried by the coming to power of Mao Zedong in China, imposed on the Netherlands the agreements of the Round Table signed in The Hague in November 1949.
For the American imperialists, nothing should be done that could throw the Indonesians into the camp of the Communists. At the time, on the capitalist side, the domino theory, a concrete threat to the whole of Asia, was readily mentioned.

The \enquote{United States of Indonesia} then gave way to the \enquote{United Republic of Indonesia} whose president was immediately Achmed Sukarno.
A parliamentary system was established, although the president was more in favour of a single party. This tumultuous regime wore off six governments in seven years.

During this period, the Indonesian state granted Anglo-American monopolies the exploitation of Indonesian oil wells.
Shell, Standard Oil, and Caltex managed the rich deposits of the former Dutch colony on behalf of the Western imperialist economies, mainly American and British.
The comprador bourgeoisie and the Indonesian bureaucratic capitalist elements then experienced an impetuous development on the basis of international corruption.

Senior army officers represented these privileged social strata, while communists relied on the poorest classes in the cities and, to a lesser extent, in the countryside.
Sukarno remained the living symbol of independence and tried to iron out the antagonistic contradictions between the two.

On October 17, 1950, Colonel Nasution, Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army, unleashed an armed putsch to seize power.
But the president, then supported by some of the officers and the army still influenced by his nationalist past, managed to repel this attempt.
He dismissed Nasution, but did not impose any severe sanctions on him. Sukarno was actively supported by the party he had created, the P.N.I., which represented above all the anti-imperialist national bourgeoisie.
The Communists also supported him.

Further attempts by the military occurred, notably on October 17, 1952, to force the president to dissolve Parliament, but each time the putschists, in disagreement with each other, failed.

From that time on, Sukarno changed his foreign policy by strengthening his friendly relations with the USSR and the People's Republic of China.
He understood that the United States was supporting the Indonesian army against the majority of the people.
From July 1953 to July 1955, Prime Minister Sastroamidjojo concretized the rapprochement with these socialist countries.

In April 1955 a statute was adopted concerning chinese living in Indonesia. This measure had the merit of attacking an already long-standing racism head-on, but did not succeed in eliminating it.
The comprador bourgeoisie was subject to commercial competition from some very rich Chinese, themselves in business relations with Western countries, hence a rivalry that easily turned to racism.

Then, during the same period, the famous Afro-Asian conference in Bandung was held, whose worldwide impact was considerable:
29 Afro-Asian states participated, confirming the awakening of the Third World. International personalities such as Pandit Nehru or Prime Minister Chou En laï occupied important places.
President Sukarno gained prestige compared to the states of the countries of Africa and Asia, but the success of this global gathering worried both the United States, the countries of Western Europe and the Soviet Union, which had played no role in the circumstance.

In November 1956, the Indonesian President made a long trip to the USSR first and then to the People's Republic of China.

Generals resumed their sedition actions. Sukarno agreed to hand over the duties of Chief of Staff of the Army to General Nasution.
The civil war that threatened to break out was brought under control by this officer, still loyal to Sukarno, while the rebellious soldiers were supported, almost openly, by the Americans.

In February 1957, the Head of State decided to abandon the path of Western-style democracy and replace it with a conception he had always nurtured, \enquote{directed democracy}, a concrete manifestation of a vast populist current.
This was in fact the result of a momentary rapprochement between him and the Chief of Staff, General Nasution.
But it was not until 1959 that he decreed the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, which had been in place since 1956.
The question of whether Indonesia would be a state based on Islam or on the principles of the Pantja Sila was still not settled.

By doing so Sukarno had taken over the political initiative. He banned political parties that had supported the military rebellion.
He then advocated Nasakom, a union of the three great ideological currents present among the popular strata: nationalism, religion and communism.

By 1961, with three million adherents, the Indonesian Communist Party became quantitatively a considerable force, more politically influential than the army, but without any armament in the face of a reactionary army that found itself significantly strengthened by Soviet arms deliveries.
At that time, Sukarno replaced General Nasution with another officer, General Yani.

When Indonesia decided to recover its territory from West Irian still occupied by the Dutch colonialists, the USSR supported it.
So, for fear of seeing it fall into the socialist camp, the United States forced the Netherlands to accept a negotiated solution.
Agreements were signed in August 1962. At the same time, the US imperialists offered economic support to Indonesia.

But in December 1962, the situation in Malaysia again destabilized the entire Kalimantan region. England and the United States on the one hand, and Indonesia on the other, supported opposing camps.
Sukarno and the Indonesian army, although already infiltrated by American agents, supported the national struggles of the peoples of Northern Borneo.
Eventually, the Americans, engaged in the Vietnam operations, considered it more prudent to withdraw from the Malaysian operation.

As early as 1964, Sukarno apostrophized Washington by proclaiming bluntly \enquote{To hell with your help!}.

His political line of \enquote{Indonesian-style socialism} accelerated. He moved closer to the People's Republic of China.
He even came to withdraw Indonesia from the United Nations and to propose the replacement of the UN by an organization of the New Rising Forces (N.E.F.O.S.).
Naturally, Beijing, which still did not have China's seat at the international organization, wholeheartedly supported Sukarno's proposal.

For its part, the P.K.I. took a stand in favor of the Chinese Communist Party in the ideological and political controversy that pitted the latter against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
He simultaneously launched a propaganda campaign against the Indonesian bureaucratic capitalists.

But the country's internal situation experienced renewed tension. Violent struggles pitted landless peasants against landowners, especially on the island of Java.
The unitary Nasakom association founded by Sukarno was on the verge of disintegrating, with the Communists opposing the landowners and entire factions of the Indonesian Nationalist Party backed by the military.

Feeling in an unfavorable position, the P.K.I. decided to stop the actions of the poor peasants, while obtaining from the head of state the prohibition of notorious anti-communist movements, such as the Manikebu and the Murba.
Cooperation between Sukarno and the Communists continued without a major hitch. The president observed an attitude aimed at reconciling all social forces with the army.
In reality, this was a dream that could only be explained by his fierce desire to deny the principle of the class struggle. Suffice to say that he believed in squaring the circle.

So the year 1965 opened in a period of multiple and very sharp tensions. The situation vis-à-vis Malaysia did not diminish despite the at least apparent withdrawal of the Americans.
The army, again commanded by General Nasution, sent paratrooper commandos to the area. 
The officers of the General Staff categorically rejected the proposal of the P.K.I. to arm the workers and peasants to constitute a complementary force.

The actions of the landless peasants had helped to bring together all the anti-communist forces, worried about the rise of the P.K.I. and Sukarno's foreign policy.

The United States was concerned about the relations of Sukarno, well aware of his prestige, with the People's Republic of China.

In international circles, diplomats were now talking about a Jakarta-Beijing axis, relying on Pyongyang, Hanoi and Phnom Penh.

What the reactionary generals had been plotting for years ended up happening towards the end of the year.

On the night of September 30, 1965, a colonel named Untung had six generals of the Army High Command arrested and executed.
Among them was the former chief of staff, General Ahmad Yani. For his part, General A. H. Nasution managed to escape narrowly.

The media version accepted in the following days blamed these murderous attacks on an organization called the \enquote{September 30 Movement} led by \enquote{progressive officers} who are said to belong to the Air Force.
They would have managed to seize some key points of the capital to save President Sukarno by thwarting a coup d'état prepared by generals supported by the Americans and in connection with the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA.
 
From then on the situation was quite confused. Officers favorable to Sukarno formed a \enquote{council of the Revolution}.

The P.K.I., surprised, would nevertheless have published a statement of support in their favor, but taking care to emphasize that it was only an \enquote{internal action of the army}.
He denied any participation or responsibility in the operation concerned. As for Sukarno himself, he was careful not to express his approval to the generals who had claimed to support him against a military plot about to break out.

In these circumstances, it was with extreme speed that a general head of strategic reserve, General Suharto, born in 1921, from a family of traders and a Muslim religious leader father, took over the situation, against the will of the president, proclaimed himself head of the Army, secured in twenty-four hours control of the capital, then of the air base where the officers of the \enquote{September 30 movement} were entrenched.

The ruling army immediately accused the Communists of being responsible for the attempted coup that claimed the lives of six generals.

Blind and criminal repression spread throughout Indonesia against the Communists. Anti-Chinese racism also fostered countless massacres of entire families, which most of the time had absolutely nothing to do with the communists, or even with the progressives.

According to the sources, the number of victims of the massacres ordered by General Suharto varies from five hundred thousand to one million people (cf. Encyclopaedia Universalis, 1988 edition, Corpus 9, page 1049).
All the leaders of the P.K.I. present in the country were executed without trial, hundreds of thousands of families suspected of communist sympathy were exterminated either with conventional weapons or in fires in their homes lit by the military.

Other Indonesian citizens were thrown into prisons and concentration camps by the hundreds of thousands.
In its 1971 report, the organization \enquote{Amnesty International} provides the number of two hundred thousand imprisoned still detained.

The days and years following the event of September 30, 1965 allow, in the light of history, to designate the social, political and economic forces that profited from the seizure of power by General Suharto and the Indonesian fascist army.
It is here that the \enquote{Black Book of Capitalism} contributes to revealing in an undeniable way the tragic weight of the crimes committed under the regime concerned.

But it turns out that at the time of this coup, an international conference, which Sukarno had initiated, was to open and hold its meeting in Jakarta.
Foreign delegates, invited on this occasion, immediately became the involuntary witnesses of the terror unleashed by the army.

Two Frenchmen arrived in Jakarta on the very day of the fascist putsch, to participate in the conference convened by President Sukarno.
Régis Bergeron was a well-known journalist who collaborated with the weekly \enquote{Les Lettres françaises} as editorial secretary and took responsibility for the cultural page of the daily newspaper \emph{L'Humanité}, before leaving for The People's Republic of China as a French teacher and proofreader for the journal \emph{Littérature chinoise}.
Christian Maillet, a committed painter, had been active in his youth in the Communist Party of Morocco, then, after having fought in the Resistance in France within the F.T.P., had belonged to the French Communist Party until 1964, taking a position at that time in favor of Chinese theses against Soviet theses.
Here is the testimony about Suharto's fascist coup d'état of one of these two seasoned French communists. Christian Maillet recalls:

\enquote{Comrade Régis Bergeron and I arrived at Jakarta airport on October 1, 1965 at about ten o'clock in the morning.
We were delegated by the MCF (ml) to represent it at the \enquote{International Conference for the Liquidation of imperialist bases in the world (KIAPMA)} convened in Jakarta.

As soon as we arrived, we noticed that the putschist army had the situation well in hand.
The tarmac was completely cordoned off by tanks, armoured cars and other military vehicles well equipped with men and war material.

The army immediately picked us up and took us to a hotel northeast of Jakarta. During the day we had the right to circulate in the city:
the streets were almost empty, the shops open as a whole, but practically without buyers. The army occupied all strategic points and administrative buildings.
In the evening, the curfew prevented any exit from the buildings. We then climbed to the terrace from where we had a panoramic view of the entire city.
We could see the military vehicles, headlights on, although the streets were illuminated as in broad daylight, which were idling, at the tail leu leu, spaced only about twenty meters apart.
Regularly and from all points of the city burst bursts of automatic weapons and fires glowed in different districts of Jakarta.

We could hear the strafing and see these fires for three nights... after which we were brought by the army, to the hotel \enquote{Indonesia}, huge luxury hotel, located in the center of Jakarta, in which all the delegates to KIAPMA had been concentrated.
The military let us know that we should not leave the hotel, \enquote{for our safety}! We no longer had the opportunity to know what was happening in the city.

Several times a day army trucks filled with Indonesians in civilian clothes, their foreheads surrounded by white headbands on which were written slogans illegible to us, parked for a long time in front of the hotel...
Indonesians crammed into the trucks chanted tirelessly \enquote{Communists gantoung!}, which means, according to the hotel staff, \enquote{hang the communists!}. This was intended to impress the delegates.

The hotel had an inner courtyard in which we went to escape a little from the confined and conditioned atmosphere of the buildings... and chat more freely with each other because it was obvious that we were surrounded by prying ears.
Hostiles people were throwing empty beer bottles at us from the top of the windows on the upper floors. We were able to spot one of the windows from which the projectiles were leaving.
After strongly protesting to hotel officials, these attacks stopped. We were told that they came from rooms occupied by Americans!

At that time the target of the military was limited to communists only.
The international conference could be held later once the Indonesian communists and pro-communists have been eliminated.

To make the delegates wait, we were taken by Air Force cargo plane to the island of Bali. We were received there by the governor surrounded by the authorities of the island.
An official reception was held in the governor's palace.
We learned a few days later, in Beijing, that the fake military had locked up all these administrative or political officials and their families in the palace and set it on fire! 
They were all accused of being communists and were all annihilated.}

For his part, Régis Bergeron presented in 1975 a pamphlet entitled \enquote{For a free and democratic Indonesia} publishing in French a speech by Jusuf Adjitorop,
 a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Indonesia, who, being abroad at the time of the coup, was one of the few survivors of the leadership of this party.
Reading this preface, we discover that the fascist murderous repression had not ceased ten years later:

\begin{quote}
\enquote{... For the third time in its history, after 1926 and 1948, the leadership (of the P.K.I.) was almost completely exterminated.
Repression still hits it today and on 28 August 1975, for example, Asep Suryaman, arrested in 1971 in Bandung, was sentenced to death.
Its militants also fell in battle, such as Said Ahmed Sofyan, first secretary of the Party for West Kalimantan (formerly Borneo), assassinated during a sweep on January 12, 1974.}\rfootnote{Every quote in this block is unterminated in the original text}

\enquote{There are countless dead or prisoners. Indonesia has become a vast concentration camp where, according to the most recent estimates, some one hundred thousand political prisoners are still suffering and in even worse conditions, it seems,
whether in Salemba prison (Jakarta) where three of them died of starvation in 1974 or on the sinister island of Buru and many other places of torture and death, Mabarawa, Kalisotok, Koblen, etc....}

\enquote{... That the Indonesian Communist Party was not involved in the \enquote{coup} that served as a pretext for the fascist generals to take power, no one doubts it today...}

\enquote{... It is proven that the seizure of power by the military was facilitated by the CIA, this all-purpose body of American imperialism that would soon make a comeback in Indonesia...}

\enquote{... Sukarno's widow, in October 1974, denounced the role that Japan, for her part, later played in consolidating the power of the generals.
When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, she revealed that he had \enquote{played a major role in helping the military and professional students who, after the 1966 coup (i.e. sukarno's final ouster), massacred a million people accused of being communists, but who were only Sukarno's supporters.}}\rfootnote{Original text has two opening quotes but only one closing quote.}
\end{quote}

Today, imperialism masters the Indonesian economy and, in so doing, its politics.

The \enquote{New Order} regime derives its glory from having largely opened the country to foreign investment...
Money flows into Suharto's coffers in the form of loans, aid, etc. granted by many international organizations (American and Japanese)...\rfootnote{Original text has a stray end quote here.}
\emph{(Cf. \enquote{Pour une Indonésie libre et démocratique (For a free and democratic Indonesia)} by Jusuf Adjitorop, Editions du Centenaire, collection \enquote{Le Tiers-Monde en lutte (The Third World in Struggle)}, 4th Trim. 1975,
the text of the Indonesian leader dates from May 23, 1975, the day of the 55th anniversary of the foundation of the P.K.I.)}

To Bergeron's precise indications are those that were also published in 1975 by the Indonesia-France Committee under the title \enquote{The Indonesia of the Generals... ten years of fascism}:

\begin{quote}
\enquote{... Prisoners are divided into four categories: A, B, C and X. For the A, the government claims to have formal proof of their participation in the coup d'état of October 1965 (there are five thousand);
the B's will never be tried for lack of evidence according to official statements, but they present a danger to the country, being \enquote{pure communists};
in category C, the government classifies those who have been arrested \enquote{legitimately}, but who will be released later when the situation allows. No evidence is held against them...

... The International Labour Organization (Geneva) has asked the Indonesian government for a report on forced labor imposed on political prisoners (referred to as \enquote{tapol}, according to an abbreviation of Indonesian \enquote{tahanan politik}).
On this subject, it was declared in Jakarta in October 1974 that since 1973 no \enquote{tapol} had been performing forced labour... (which was at least the recognition that such forced labor had been practiced until 1973, eight years after the coup)...}
\end{quote}

On March 11, 1966, the fascist Suharto seized full powers, which he had assumed de facto since the first day of his coup.
He immediately decreed the banning of the Indonesian Communist Party, of which he had already annihilated almost all the living forces.
He arrested fifteen ministers, accused of being communists, we do not know if they really were and think that they could only be friends of President Sukarno.
Then he authoritatively grouped the political parties into two distinct forces, but equally subject to his decisions. He held new formal elections and was appointed president in March 1968.
Sukarno could not or would not do anything decisive to oppose the cynical and violent maneuvers of this general who gradually distanced him from all political activity.
Locked up at home, the \enquote{father of Indonesian independence} finally died in June 1970.
The fascist \enquote{New Order} was in place. The new head of state had without the slightest reservation a political grouping founded on his initiative, the Golkar.

In January 1974 student demonstrations were brutally repressed, there were again hundreds of arrests and imprisonments.
Ten newspapers were banned. And similar events happened again in 1978.

The ties between the American rulers and Suharto continued to grow. U.S. Presidents Nixon and Ford visited Indonesia in 1969 and again in 1975.
It should be noted in passing that twelve hours after this last visit, the Indonesian army launched a most deadly aggression against the independent State of East Timor.

Conversely, Suharto went to the United States in 1970, 1975, and 1982.

US imperialism was now sure of its Indonesian accomplice or agent. One only has to look at the successive amounts of U.S. military aid to Indonesia to become aware of this.
For example, the figure of \$34 million allocated in 1979 had already risen in 1983 to \$53 million (an increase of 64\%).
Let us also note, in passing, the information provided in 1975 by the brochure already cited published by the Indonesia-France Committee:
\enquote{... President of the I.G.G.I. (International Consortium for Aid to Indonesia, of which France has been a member since its creation in 1967), Dutch Minister Pronk visited Indonesia in November 1973.
To the Indonesian authorities, with whom he was discussing the amount and modalities of I.G.G.I. aid to Indonesia for 1974, he expressed his Government's concern about Indonesian political prisoners.
At the I.G.G.I. Conference in Amsterdam in May 1974, the issue was put on the agenda to the great embarrassment of the Jakarta delegation, which did not prevent Indonesia from obtaining its 850 million dollars annually...}.

Naturally, it would be easy to add to all these characterized elements a veritable encyclopedia of the crimes and other barbaric acts of Indonesian fascism whose establishment was supported by Western capitalists.
But it is now obvious that General Suharto undertook the genocide of the communists of his own country, without sparing all those who, progressive or simply anti-imperialist nationalists, were also the victims of his ferocity.

It was with the active support of US imperialism, the capitalist countries of the West and Japan that it was able to impose its \enquote{new order}, a fascist order that continues today.

The Golkar, Indonesia's ruling party, reaffirmed in early January 1998 that it stood by its decision to nominate this executioner of its people as a candidate for his own succession for a seventh term as President of the Republic of Indonesia.
Despite the economic crisis that had led the country to bankruptcy and had led to six million unemployed, on 15 January 1998 the International Monetary Fund signed an agreement with General-President Suharto, who did not conceal his full satisfaction or that of his multi-billionaire family.

Thus the proof is well established that capitalism, when it is in its interests, does not hesitate for a moment to support a war criminal against humanity.

\rauthor{Jacques Jurquet}

Jacques Jurquet is a writer, anti-colonialist, communist militant since the Resistance. After Suharto's fascist putsch, he met several times, both in Beijing and in Europe, with surviving leaders of the Indonesian Communist Party.