Torture Squads in Djakarta: How Indonesian Generals Died (South China Morning Post, 15 Oktober 1965)

=== [PDF page 1] === TORTURE SQUADS IN DJAKARTA How Ind i ied: Dj South China Morning Post (1946-); Oct 15, 1965; Proouest onesian Generals Died: Djakarta pg. 12 TORTURE SQUADS: IN. DJAKARTA | | How Indonesian ~ Generals Died _Diakarta. ENZIED members of the Indonesian Communist “Gerwani” women’s organisation chanted vile insults and daneed naked in a room while youths of the Communist front __“Pemuda_ nt “Pemuda Rakjat’ emasculated six Army Generals and a young Army officer whom they mistook for the Defence Minister, Adbul Haris Nasution. The scenc—a secret training camp of the Indonesian Communists elght miles south of Djakarta on the outskirts of Halim Perdana Kusumah. air base. The time and date—five o’clock on the morning of Friday, October 1. The chief witness for the prosecution—a policeman who had been asked to point out a road unknown to the executioners. The policeman was patrolling Djakarta’s fashionable suburb, Kebajoran, that night when the Communists — dressed in_unlforms of volunteers in Indonesia’s “Crush Malaysia” campaign —asked him to accompany them to the house of one.of the Gencrals. He witnessed the tor- {uring and the killing from the beginning until the end. Not Harmed He stayed in the truek which carried the General to the air base training camp but amazingly was not harmed by the Cominunists. The man, whose name ts being kept a strict secret for fear of Communist retaliatory measures, managed to sneak out of the training camp but Jater fell unconscious from shock on the malin road. The policeman Jost control of his speech for more than 12 hours after loyal Government troops found him. He was rushed to the Djakarta Army hospltal and kept in constant observation until he had recovered sufficiently to tell Army officers where the torturers had hidden the badly mutilated boclics. The torturing to death of Indonesia's Army leadership heralded a coup which was to have made Indonesia a replica of People’s China. The day was significant — October 1 — when China was celebrating its national day but also exactly 417 years alter ihe famous anti-Communist itiwanci" division effectively crushed the first Communist rebellion in the cast Java town of Madiun, a stronghold of the ‘From A Special ” Correspondent -“Partal Kommunist Indonesia (PKI).” old leader of the PKI, the biggest Communist Party outside the Sino-Sovict bloc, was not in the large ofcial. Indonesian delegation visiting ‘Peking on the occasion of the celebrations. He had his reasons. If his hooligans had succeeded in rounding up all Generals including Defence Minister Nasu- {lon they would have killed President Sukarno as well. v2) LRA et 3 ah8 St ae Fo 2 Inomediately afterwards Aidit was (0 have addressed = the Indonesian pcople in a nafion-wide broadcast In which he would have put the blame on the Generals for having killed Sukarno. No doubt, Aldit would have managed to rally the pro- Sukarno forces round his selfslyled “Revolutionary Couns cl ad His name was to have topped the 4S-member council. His actions would have plunged the entire archipelago into a bitter civil war as a result of mass exccutions and a PKI reign of terror. “ But those who | staged the coup made several mistakes in thelr haste to kill the Generals, The most. sefigus error they made was the abduction of Defence Minister Nasution’s Aidede-camp Plerre Tendean in the belief that they had “arrested” the Minister himself. Four truckloads of leftist “pjakorabirawa” rebels, air force paratroopers of PKI sympathiser Alr Vice-Marshal Omar Dhani, and dichard Communist | youths in military uniforms shricked to a halt in front of Nasution’s big mansion in Djakarta'’s residential district. The rebels, numbering ‘about, storme where Tendean jn his pyjamas was standing near the entrance. The first Neutenant, who despite his age of 26 resembles Nasution, was asked whether he was the gencral. He replied “Yes,” Tendean was maltreated on the spot'and dragged into one of the trucks. The rebels had sent one truckload of gangsters two houses further down to abduct the Second Deputy Premicr, Dr Johannes Leimena. The single guard, Karel Tubun, offered flerce resistance and wounded scveral rebels be-. fore he was riddled with buile!s, but the rebels fled without adducting Dr Leimena. As one Jot of men carried Tendean out of Nasution's house, a rebel fired a machinegun burst into the body of ravenhaired 5-year-old Ade Irma Suryanl, second daughter of Nasution.. She died six days later in an fron lung in Djakarta’s Army Hospital on the day her father was delivering his funcral oration to seven of his closest friends and associates. High Position In the early hours of October 1 Djakarta was'still slecping, unaware of the activities of the “September 30 Movement” os- ‘tensibly led by 36-ycar-old Lieutenant Colonel Achmad Untung. Untung had been promised a high position by the Communists if the coup proved successful. A good fighter with no brains, Untung betrayed his own chief. Nasution had managed to escape by climbing over a wall dressed in his pyjamas after his wife had persuaded her husband not to Nsten to the men who came to his residence to tell him that he had been “summoned” by President Sulerno. Mrs Nasution kept the door of the bedroom locked until she was certain her husband had escaped, Nasution who sprained his ankle while escaping visited his Nttle daughter in hospital shortly afterwards. He was still dressed in his pyjamas. ° All the six army Generals were rounded up by Untung’s men and the Communist youths between 3.30 am and 4.30 am. Their first victim was Brigadier General Sutojo Siwomihardjo, 7 udte-Advecat Army. ‘The front door of his residence was forced open. Next came Major General Garjono, 41, Third Deputy to the Army Chief. He was wounded and tortured on the spot. ~The Fourth Assistant to the Army Chief, Brigadier General Pandjaitan, 40, was riddled with bullets by another gany. Neighbours heard = a_ child desperately crying “Papa” while Pandjaitan’s two sons were wounded defending their father. Pandjaitan was thrown from the balcony of his home wraped in a carpet, sealed with a ayonet, and dragged intu a waiting truck. Paralysed ’ First Assistant to the Army Chief, Major General Sarim Parman, 47, in charge of Army Intelligence but apparently totally unaware of Untung’s plot, was kidnapped at 4.30 in the moming. At about the same time shots were hcard from the home of Army Chief Lieutenant General Achmad Yani, 43, his left leg was paralysed by gunfire so that he could not escape,” Yani’s guards engage! the rebels but were overpowered, The General was dragged to the ~ rate of his residence and tortured—bayonels were thrust in his face and his fingernails were torn off. The sixth and last Army General to be kidnapped was Major General Suprapto, 45, Second Depuly to the Army Chief. The rebels had one destination — the Communist training camp at Lubang SBuaja_ onthe air base compound. The last aot of torture and massacre took place jn the field kitchen of this camp where soldiers later found bloodstains and Peking propaganda magazines and other Comraunist literature,. Mass Grave Frogmen of the Marine Corps uncovered the mass grave carly on Monday morning, October 4, after the policeman who had witnessed the torture and killings regained consciousness, The discovery of the bodles was later shown on television all over West Java and was watched by thousands of horrificd Javanese. The Communists had dug a number of false “graves” all over the training camp to mise lead search parties. Five buses and a truck were found parked along the road leading to the training camp and apparently abandoned In great haste by some of the “Gerwani" and “Pemuda Rakjat'' men. In the field kitchen, soldiers found hot coffee and tee, but it was deserted. Some of the rebels are bee lleved to have escaped in one of the five Hercules transport aircraft which managed to leave the air base early on Saturday, flying Untung’s men to Djogjakarta air base, centre of their rearguard fight against Joyal Government troops -=AFR. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. 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