The Indonesian Genocide of 1965: Causes, Dynamics and Legacies (McGregor, Melvin and Pohlman, eds., 2018)

McGregor, K., Melvin, J., & Pohlman, A. (Eds.). (2018). *The Indonesian genocide of 1965: Causes, dynamics and legacies*. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4 PDF: 02 Secondary Sources/2.2 1965 Violence, Memory and Historiography/McGregor, Melvin and Pohlman (2018) - The Indonesian Genocide of 1965.pdf PDF PAGES 1 to 100 of 398. Text from the PDF text layer where present, otherwise Tesseract OCR (ind+eng); OCR errors remain. === [PDF page 1] === THE INDONESIAN GENOCIDE OF 1965 CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES EDITED BY KATHARINE MCGREGOR, JESS MELVIN AND ANNIE POHLMAN PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF GENOCIDE === [PDF page 2] === Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide Series Editors Thomas Kühne Clark University, USA Deborah Mayersen University of Wollongong, Australia Tom Lawson Northumbria University, UK === [PDF page 3] === Genocide has shaped human experience throughout history and is one of the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century. Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide is dedicated to the study of this phenomenon across its entire geographic, chronological and thematic range. The series acts as a forum to debate and discuss the nature, the variety, and the concepts of genocide. In addition to histories of the causes, course, and perpetration of genocide, the series devotes attention to genocide’s victims, its aftermaths and consequences, its representation and memorialization, and to genocide prevention. Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide encompasses both comparative work, which considers genocide across time and space, and specific case studies. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14582 === [PDF page 4] === Katharine McGregor - Jess Melvin Annie Pohlman Fditors The Indonesian Genocide of 1965 Causes, Dynamics and Legacies palgreve macmillan === [PDF page 5] === Editors Katharine McGregor Annie Pohlman University of Melbourne University of Queensland Melbourne, VIC, Australia St. Lucia, QLD, Australia Jess Melvin Yale University New Haven, CT, USA Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide ISBN 978-3-319-71454-7 ISBN 978-3-319-71455-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017959322 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018, corrected publication 2018 Chapter 12 is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapter. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: ‘After 1965’. © Alit Ambara. 2017 Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland === [PDF page 6] === uorssttusad yim paonpoaddi (9TOT usseyusdo)) (4035177 uursauopuy Jo suY 1014917 “YG WOYOY:20INOS "risduopuy Jo dewy 1 de “sso1g SVIN === [PDF page 7] === Preface It is now over half a century since the Indonesian genocide, one of the largest genocides of the twentieth century, yet research on this violence has only recently begun to intensify. This volume brings together Indonesian and foreign scholars to present new, highly original analyses of the causes, dynamics and legacies of this genocide through the use of a wide range of sources and different scholarly lenses. This volume is a result of presentations made at the 2015 Indonesia Council Open Conference held at Deakin University in Geelong. First we would like to thank all the participants in our panels at this conference for joining with us to commemorate and reflect on the 50th anniversary of the 1965 genocide in Indonesia. Presenters came from around the world on their own funding to be with us. Secondly we would like to thank the contributors to this volume who offered their papers for publication and who have worked intensely with us to edit and develop their work. Thirdly we would like to thank the convenor of the 2015 Conference, Dr. Jemma Purdey, for supporting the initial conference theme and for writing an epilogue for this volume. In the production of this ambitious, 17-chapter volume we have received assistance from several research assistants including Hannah Loney and Faye Chan. We have also received assistance in reviewing the volume from three external referees and one of our contributors, Dr. Ken Setiawan. We thank them all for the valuable insights and feedback. We are delighted that Alit Ambara (NobodyCorp) agreed to provide us with the cover image for this book. vii === [PDF page 8] === viii    Preface Lastly we thank the team at Palgrave Macmillan (Emily Russell, Carmel Kennedy, Deborah Mayersen) for assisting us along the way with the production and finalization of the manuscript. === [PDF page 9] === The original version of the book was revised: The author name “Jemma Purdey” has been included in Table of Contents, Notes on Contributors and Epilogue. === [PDF page 10] === Contents 1 New Interpretations of the Causes, Dynamics and Legacies of the Indonesian Genocide 1 Katharine McGregor, Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman 2 A Case for Genocide: Indonesia, 1965–1966 27 Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman Part I New Empirical Research and Interpretations 3 The Road to Genocide: Indonesian Military Planning to Seize State Power Prior to 1 October 1965 51 Jess Melvin 4 The 30 September Movement and Its Aftermath in Bali, October–December 1965 71 Akihisa Matsuno 5 The Connection Between Land Reform and the 1965–1966 Tragedy in Bali 89 Roro Sawita === [PDF page 11] === xii    Contents 6 Two Women’s Testimonies of Sexual Violence During the 1965–1966 Indonesian Massacres 115 Annie Pohlman 7 A Rite of De-modernization: The Anti-Communist Purge in Surabaya 133 Robbie Peters 8 Counterrevolution in a Revolutionary Campus: How Did the “1965 Event” Affect an Indonesian Public University? 157 Abdul Wahid 9 The 1965–1966 Violence, Religious Conversions and the Changing Relationship Between the Left and Indonesia’s Churches 179 Vannessa Hearman Part II Legacies of the Indonesian Genocide 10 The Efficacy of “Dangerous” Knowledge: “Children of Victims” in Indonesia After 1965 199 Andrew Conroe 11 Remembering Suffering and Survival: Sites of Memory on Buru 215 Ken Setiawan 12 Heads from the North: Transcultural Memorialization of the 1965 Indonesian Killings at the National Gallery of Australia 235 Katharine McGregor 13 The History of Loss and the Loss of History: Papermoon Puppet Theatre Examines the Legacies of the 1965 Violence in Indonesia 253 Marianna Lis === [PDF page 12] === Contents    xiii 14 Violent Histories and Embodied Memories: Affectivity of “The Act of Killing” and “The Look of Silence” 269 Ana Dragojlovic 15 Zombie Anti-Communism? Democratization and the Demons of Suharto-Era Politics in Contemporary Indonesia 287 Stephen Miller 16 After 1965: Legal Matters for Justice? 311 Nukila Evanty and Annie Pohlman 17 Working from the Margins: Initiatives for Truth and Reconciliation for Victims of the 1965 Mass Violence in Solo and Palu 335 Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem Epilogue 357 Jemma Purdey Glossary 367 Index 375 === [PDF page 13] === Editors and Contributors About the Editors Katharine McGregor is an Associate Professor in Southeast Asian History at the University of Melbourne. Her research to date has focused on modern Indonesian history and memory, the Indonesian military, Islam and identity in Indonesia and historical international links between Indonesia and the world. She is currently undertaking an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship on the project: Confronting Historical Injustice in Indonesia: Memory and Transnational Human Rights Activism. Her books include History in Uniform Military Ideology and the Construction of the Indonesian Past (2007) and The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (2012), co-edited with Douglas Kammen. Dr. Jess Melvin is Henry Hart Faculty Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies and Post-Doctoral Associate in Genocide Studies at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies at Yale University. Her book, The Army and the Indonesian Genocide: Mechanics of Mass Murder, will be published in 2018. Dr. Annie Pohlman teaches Indonesian studies at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She is author of Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965–1966 (2015) and co-editor of Genocide and Mass Atrocities in Asia: Legacies and Prevention (2013). === [PDF page 14] === xvi    Editors and Contributors Her research interests include Indonesian history, comparative genocide studies, torture, gendered experiences of violence, and oral testimony. Her current program of research investigates the normalization of torture within security institutions during Indonesia’s New Order regime (1966–98). Contributors Dr. Andrew Conroe is an anthropologist and historian of Southeast Asia. His book project Generating History: Violence, Justice, and the Risks of Remembering in Indonesia is based on extensive fieldwork in Central Java, Indonesia, and examines how the realms of the social, the political and the personal are constructed and contested in the intergenerational transmission of memories of violence among families of former political prisoners. His current research looks at the emergence of the documentary film genre in Indonesia and how it contributes to the construction of “truthful” historical subjects as part of human rights and transitional justice practices. Dr. Ana Dragojlovic is an anthropologist working at the intersections of mobility, affect theory, post-colonial and critical race studies, feminist and queer theory, and masculinity studies. Her regional specialization reflects her interest in diasporas and empires, including Indonesia, the Netherlands, the Dutch East-Indies and Afro-Asian connections (particularly in relation to the Afro-Caribbean). Dr. Dragojlovic is a Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at the Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne. She is the author of Beyond Bali: Subaltern Citizens and Post- Colonial Intimacy, Amsterdam University Press (2016) and co-author (with Alex Broom) of Bodies and Suffering: Emotions and Relations of Care, Routledge (2017). Nukila Evanty is currently a gender specialist at an Intergovernmental Organization in Indonesia, and a visiting lecturer at University of Mahendradatta Bali and University of Atmajaya Jakarta. She earned her Master of Laws and International Relations from the University of New South Wales, Australia and was appointed as Coordinator of Poverty Reduction and Post Conflict Resolution at Australia Reference Group (ARG) alumni Indonesia in 2014–2016. She was a finalist for an outstanding Australia Alumni Award in 2011. She is focused on and === [PDF page 15] === Editors and Contributors    xvii interested in social justice, women’s rights and human security issues. She has published five international books. Dr. Vannessa Hearman is a lecturer in Indonesian Studies at Charles Darwin University, Australia. Born in Indonesia, she is a historian, and researches political and social activism during the Sukarno era and the destruction of the Indonesian left movement. She is working on a monograph on the anti-communist repression in East Java. Her research has been published in journals such as Critical Asian Studies, Labour History, South East Asia Research and Indonesia, and in several book chapters. She also researches and writes about memorialization, activism and history in post-authoritarian Indonesia and in Timor-Leste. She teaches Indonesian language, history and politics. Marianna Lis received her Ph.D. in theatre studies in the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2017. She received her MA from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Warsaw in 2011, where since 2012 she has lectured MA students on Intercultural Performance. In the academic year 2010–2011 she studied at the puppetry department in the Indonesian Institute of the Arts in Surakarta with a Darmasiswa scholarship. Since 2012 she has conducted field research in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She published over 20 articles and essays on contemporary wayang in Poland and abroad. Akihisa Matsuno is a professor in international politics and teaches conflict studies at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University. He has written on self-determination, human rights, democracy, peace building and transitional justice in Timor-Leste, West Papua and other conflict areas in Southeast Asia. His publications include A History of East Timor towards Independence (Japanese), “West Papua and the changing nature of self-determination”, and “Justice defeated: a trajectory of the pursuit of justice in Indonesia and East Timor (Japanese)”. Currently he researches extermination of political groups or politicide, focusing on the post-1965 massacre in Indonesia. Dr. Stephen Miller lectures in Indonesian Studies at Charles Darwin University and is also currently a visiting lecturer in Political and Social Sciences at Gadjah Mada University. He previously lectured in Indonesian Studies at the University of Tasmania (2010–2016), the University of New England (2001–2010), and Flinders University (1999–2000). He completed an honours degree in Southeast Asian === [PDF page 16] === xviii    Editors and Contributors Studies at the Australian National University, conducting research on the journalism of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and a Ph.D. at the University of New South Wales on culture in the Indonesian communist movement in the 1950s. His current research focuses on communism’s place in Indonesian history and contemporary Indonesian anti-communism and far right-wing politics. Dr. Robbie Peters is a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Sydney. His book, Surabaya, 1945–2010 was shortlisted for the EuroSEAS humanities book prize and he has written journal articles on urban renewal and the political economy of violence in the Indonesian city; gender and work in Saigon, Jakarta and Surabaya; the politics of death and its commemoration in the Indonesian city; cash transfers and the urban poor in Indonesia; and the informal economy of Indonesia’s app-based motorbike taxi drivers. His main area of research interest is into forms of revolutionary violence in Indonesia. Dr. Jemma Purdey’s research interests include biography, human rights and reconciliation in Indonesia and Australia’s relationship with Indonesia. She is author of Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia, 1996–1999. Singapore: ASAA SEA Publications Series, Singapore University Press, 2006; From Vienna to Yogyakarta: The life of Herb Feith (Sydney, UNSW Press, 2011); and co-editor with Antje Missbach of Linking people: Connections and encounters between Australians and Indonesians (Regiospectra, Berlin, 2015). Jemma is Chair of the board that publishes the magazine Inside Indonesia and a member of the Board of the Herb Feith Foundation. Roro Sawita is a historian and activist, whose work primarily focuses on the tragedy of 1965–1966 in Bali. Roro first learnt of the mass killings in 1965–1966 as a history undergraduate student, when she met and heard the stories of several survivors. With these survivors, Roro formed the Komunitas Korban 65 Bali. She is also a part of Taman 65, a group focusing on “melawan lupa” (opposing/preventing forgetting) and young Indonesians about 1965–1966. Roro has undertaken significant oral history based research across Bali, interviewing both survivors and perpetrators of the tragedy 1965–1966. Dr. Ken Setiawan is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne. Ken holds a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Law from Leiden University, The Netherlands. Her research interests === [PDF page 17] === Editors and Contributors    xix include Indonesian politics and society, human rights anthropology, and historical justice and memory. She is author of Promoting Human Rights: National Human Rights Commissions in Indonesia and Malaysia (Leiden University Press, 2013) and has published in various journals including the Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Global Change, Peace and Security. Dr. Abdul Wahid is a lecturer at the Department of History, Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in November 2013. In addition to his research on the 1965 case he has researched violence during and after the Japanese occupation including the “bersiap” violence. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the KITLV for the project: “Violence Strikes Root: Why vigilantism became central to Indonesian politics, 1943– 1955”, investigating the mobilization of Indonesian youth during the Japanese period and the fragmentation of their political trajectories during and after the Indonesian independence war of 1945–1949. Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem did her Ph.D. at Department of Political and Social Change at the Australian National University and an awardee of Australian Leadership Award. She has a Bachelor of Political Science from the University of Indonesia, and Master of Arts in Political Theory from the Central European University, Hungary. She teaches political science at the University of Indonesia and had been involved in social activism for issues on gender, democracy, human rights and post conflict with national and international organizations. Her work includes research and advocacy related to the 1965 mass violence where she works closely with victim communities. === [PDF page 18] === List of Figures Fig. 8.1 Suspended students per faculty (19/1/1966) 170 Fig. 8.2 The RPKAD plaque awarded to UGM for its role in the anti-communist purge in 1965 on display at the UGM Museum 170 Fig. 11.1 The Tugu monument, Buru Island 224 Fig. 11.2 The renovated arts hall within the former Buru Island prison camp 226 Fig. 12.1 Heads from the North, National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden 240 Fig. 12.2 Individual head in Heads from the North, National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden 243 Fig. 12.3 Plaque for Heads from the North, National Gallery of Australia Sculpture Garden 247 Fig. 13.1 Mwathirika, Papermoon Puppet Theatre 261 Fig. 13.2 Setjangkir Kopi dari Playa, Papermoon Puppet Theatre 266 Fig. 15.1 Pekerja Keras Indonesia (“Hard Working Indonesians”) (www.facebook.com/Pekerja-Keras-Indonesia- 202262046604402/) 293 Fig. 15.2 The “Marxist Manja Group” (the “Spoilt Marxist Group”) (https://www.facebook.com/dewankesepianjakarta/) 293 Fig. 15.3 “Caca Handika - Penyanyi Dangdut Militan” (Caca Handika—The Militant Dangdut Singer) (https://www.facebook.com/dewankesepianjakarta/) 294 xxi === [PDF page 19] === xxii    List of Figures Fig. 15.4 Didit Putra Erlangga’s Twitter post (https://www.facebook.com/dewankesepianjakarta/) 300 Fig. 17.1 Elements of Local Transitional Justice 345 Map 5.1 Map of Bali as of 2007 98 === [PDF page 20] === List of Tables Table 5.1 Systems of share cropping applied across different districts of Bali in the 1950s. Data sourced and adapted from Raka (1955) 95 Table 5.2 Maximum amounts of land under the land reform laws of 1960 that could be owned by individuals according to the related population density 96 Table 17.1 Government Social Program for Victims of Human Rights Violation 343 xxiii === [PDF page 21] === CHAPTER 1 New Interpretations of the Causes, Dynamics and Legacies of the Indonesian Genocide Katharine McGregor, Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman The mass violence which engulfed Indonesia from October 1965 was genocidal in nature. The estimated 500,000–1,000,000 men, women and children who were killed during this mass violence died primarily because of their membership within a socio-political group; a group that was defined by the perpetrators of this violence as anyone deemed to be either a member of, or otherwise affiliated with, the PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia, K. McGregor (*) School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia J. Melvin Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA A. Pohlman School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia © The Author(s) 2018 1 K. McGregor et al. (eds.), The Indonesian Genocide of 1965, Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_1 === [PDF page 22] === 2 K. McGREGOR ET AL. Indonesian Communist Party). These killings, which occurred at the height of the Cold War in Southeast Asia, were systematic in nature. They were led and coordinated by the Indonesian military leadership, with the intention of physically destroying the PKI as a political force and facilitating the military’s rise to power. Arguably, the Indonesian killings are the clearest case of genocide against a socio-political group in the twentieth century. These killings are not, however, generally understood as a case of genocide. The reason for this exclusion is twofold. First, the Indonesian killings have not, until recently, been understood as a case of state-sponsored violence. Instead, the killings have been explained as a result of spontaneous violence which arose out of Indonesian society as an organic response to the alleged evils of Communism. This interpretation, which was originally posited by the Indonesian military (Farid, 2005; Melvin, 2014; Roosa, 2016), was adopted by the United States, United Kingdom and Australian governments and mainstream media in these countries (Simpson, 2008; Tanter, 2013). This denial of military agency behind the killings was often accompanied by open support for the brutal military regime which came to power on the back of the killings, General Suharto’s “New Order” (1965–1998). Suharto, Time magazine infamously declared in July 1966, was “the West’s Best News for years in Asia”. This interpretation was rarely critically questioned by the few Indonesia scholars in these countries who discussed the violence in the decades to follow (Crouch, 1978; Sundhaussen, 1982). Indeed, until very recently it was a matter of serious scholarly contention as to whether or not the military had ordered the killings as part of a national, centralized campaign (see, for example, Cribb, 2002). Second, the Indonesian killings, when they have been recognized as the result of deliberate state policy, are not generally considered to meet the legal definition of genocide, as laid down in the 1948 United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (“Genocide Convention”). This is because of the identity of those who were persecuted. Within both the international legal community and the field of comparative genocide studies, the term genocide has generally only applied when considering attempts to wipe out ethnic, racial, national or religious groups. This has led to a situation in which scholarly discussion about whether or not the Indonesian === [PDF page 23] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 3 killings constitute a case of genocide has focused almost exclusively on semantic debates related to the identity of its victims. As a result, some Indonesia and genocide scholars have concluded the Indonesian killings do not “in legal terms” constitute a case of genocide, specifically because the killings were “political” and not based on ethnic, racial or religious bias (Gellately & Kiernan, 2003, pp. 46–47; see also Cribb & Coppel, 2009).1 This interpretation is at odds with certain legal scholars who argue there is no legal or moral justification for excluding political groups from protection under the Genocide Convention (van Schaack, Building on the pioneering work of Robert Cribb, who was amongst the first scholars to investigate the killings in greater detail, this volume seeks to reposition current understandings of the Indonesian killings within the field of comparative genocide studies. In doing so, it draws on work particularly from younger scholars of Indonesia that represents a new wave in the study of the killings. This new generation has grown up outside the shadow of the Cold War; a distance that has allowed a new, less ideologically charged, perspective of events. Indeed, key early studies in this new wave of scholarship have been critical not only of official Indonesian propaganda accounts that have sought to justify the violence (McGregor, 2007; Roosa, 2006), but of the role of the US and its allies in encouraging and facilitating this violence (Simpson, 2008; Wardaya, 2008). They have also uncovered new evidence of the specific patterns in the violence across different regions of Indonesia (Ahmad, 2008; Kammen & McGregor, 2012). This new generation of scholars has also been inspired by and directly benefited from the new democratic space that has opened up in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998. Survivors of the killings are today more free to speak openly about their experiences and this has enabled previously unthinkable interactions between survivors, researchers and human rights activists. Indeed, a key motivation of this new generation of scholars has been to capture the stories of survivors as this older generation ages before their experiences are lost. Through the use of oral history methods in particular, scholars and activists have sought to record and draw meanings from the stories of survivors (examples of which include: Hutabarat, 2012; Kolimon, Wetangterah, & Campbell-Nelson, 2015; Roosa, Ratih, & Farid, 2004; Sukanta, 2013; Wieringa, 2002). === [PDF page 24] === 4 K. McGREGOR ET AL. More recently, perpetrators have also begun to offer accounts of how they participated in the killings and at whose direction. These accounts build on the success of Joshua Oppenheimer’s first award-winning film on the topic of the genocide, The Act of Killing (2012), which features the self-incriminating testimony of former death squad leaders who actively participated in the killings in Medan, North Sumatra. This documentary in turn spurred a leading Indonesian popular publication, Tempo, to run a special edition of the magazine dedicated to perpetrator accounts (Tim Laporan Khusus Tempo, 2013). These accounts have made it increasingly difficult for the Indonesian state to continue to deny military agency behind the killings (see also, Kurniawan, 2013). The recent discovery of previously classified internal documents produced by the Indonesian military and government during the time of the genocide, meanwhile, has driven the final nail into the myth of military nonagency behind the killings (Melvin, 2014). These documents prove, using the military’s own words, that the genocide was perpetrated as a deliberate nationwide campaign intended to destroy an entire human group, the Communist party and its supporters. This new evidence and more open accounts from survivors and perpetrators have enabled this emerging generation of scholars to extend on previous studies emphasizing the regional dimensions of the killings. These scholars have built on these earlier studies to examine more systematic patterns in the violence across the archipelago, as well as to examine how Indonesians have lived with the legacies of the genocide. They have also led to a fundamental reassessment of what is now “knowable” about the Indonesian killings (Roosa, 2013). Of the two major “unresolved problems” identified by Robert Cribb in 2002 as gaps in scholarly understandings of the events of 1965–1966—namely the question of agency behind the killings and the number of victims killed—only the second question can today be regarded as “unresolved” (Cribb, 2002). Coupled with renewed attempts within Indonesia to seek justice for victims of the killings (see Evanty & Pohlman, this volume; Wahyuningroem, this volume), there is reason to believe that the next few years will see even further advances in the struggle to achieve truth and justice for victims and survivors of the Indonesian genocide. Critically, these new perspectives on the Indonesian killings reflect a general turn in comparative genocide studies which has moved away from sharp legalistic interpretations of genocide (as per the definition of the crime in the 1948 UN Genocide Convention) to consider the broader === [PDF page 25] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 5 sociological processes which underpin genocidal events. As discussed in greater depth by Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman in Chapter 2 of this volume, part of this turn has been a result of dissatisfaction with the enduring debates and disagreements within the field; many of these debates hinging on the omission of a number of key categories of human groups (particularly political groups) and types of violence, as well as the ambiguities and uncertainties embedded in the interpretations of intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a human group (Greenawalt, 1999; Shaw, 2015; Short, 2010). This does not mean, however, that scholars of the Indonesian genocide have abandoned the 1948 Genocide Convention and the mechanism that it provides to access the international justice system. The main difficulty in applying the Convention to the Indonesian case has been demonstrating that the 1965–1966 killings satisfy its strict definitional requirements. According to this definition, which has also been adopted by the International Criminal Court, the crime of genocide is defined as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [sic], racial or religious group” (Article II, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948). As noted above, this has led to confusion as to whether the victims of the 1965–1966 killings constitute a protected group under the Convention. While it is clear the PKI was targeted as a political group during the killings, this is not the full story. Prosecutors at the recent International Peoples Tribunal, a non-legally binding investigation into the 1965–1966 killings held in 2015–2016, have controversially recommended further investigation into whether the PKI constituted a part of the “Indonesian national group”: a potentially protected target group under the Convention (IPT, 2016). It has also been argued that the targeting of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community during the killings constitutes genocide as specified by the Convention (Melvin, 2013). More recently, Melvin has uncovered evidence the Indonesian army deliberately portrayed its genocidal attack against the PKI as a Holy War (Melvin, 2018). Through this process, which was designed to both justify the violence and disguise the army’s own central role in the violence, the PKI and the broader group of individuals targeted for extermination by the army were identified and targeted as “atheists” (Melvin, 2018), a protected sub-group of religious groups under the Convention (Lippman, 1994; Nersessian, 2010; see also Schabas, 2000). The question of whether or not the Indonesian killings constitute a case of genocide as defined by the Convention remains an active and ongoing debate within scholarship into the 1965–1966 killings, and is addressed in the following chapter (Melvin & Pohlman, this volume). === [PDF page 26] === 6 K. McGREGOR ET AL. The chapters found in this volume were originally presented at the Indonesia Council Open Conference held in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, in July 2015 as a form of scholarly recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the massacres. The contributors approach these events from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropological, historical, socio-political and legal interpretations, in order to explore their causes and impacts, and the long-lasting effects of this violence on Indonesian society. Between them, the authors cover the dynamics of the killings broadly to consider, amongst other topics: the effects of societal and political tensions in different parts of Indonesia during the lead up to 1 October 1965 and the impacts these tensions had on the dynamics of local killings; the roles played and responses made by various institutions, both religious and state, in the killings; and, crucially, the interaction between military and civilian perpetrators in carrying out the killings and mass arrests of suspected Communists. The contributors also weigh the immediate and long-lasting impacts of the killings to examine how families and especially children have coped with the violence and its effects; examine attempts made to memorialize and commemorate the dead through artistic representations of the violence; and reflect on the legacies of anti-Communist discourse in contemporary Indonesia. The possibilities for redress and reconciliation for these events in contemporary Indonesia are also debated. In presenting the killings from this multi-angled approach, this volume focuses on the unique Indonesian context of the genocide and its impact on Indonesian society. It also has much to contribute to understandings of and contemporary debates within comparative genocide studies. It does so, first, by offering in-depth coverage of the Indonesian case for comparative analysis. The processes of genocidal violence described and examined in this volume are striking in their similarity to other cases of genocide cross-culturally. The dynamics of military-civilian participation in the massacres and arrests, the mass mobilization and deployment of perpetrators, the incitement of civilian participation through propaganda, and the ongoing use of particular forms of violence, including sexual enslavement and forced labour, are all issues of direct comparative relevance for scholars examining genocides in other contexts. The volume also contributes directly to contemporary understandings of genocide by broadening the field to include the 1965 case. The Indonesian genocide, which effectively wiped out not only the masssupported Indonesian Communist Party but also the Left more broadly === [PDF page 27] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 7 within the Indonesian polity, stands as one of the few cases, certainly within the modern historical context, whereby a socio-political group was eliminated, as such. With the exception of the work of Cribb (see especially 2001a, 2001b, 2003, 2010), and then later Pohlman (2014, 2015) and Melvin (2013, 2014), who have argued for the inclusion of the Indonesian case in this field, these events in Indonesia have, for the most part, been overlooked by scholars in comparative genocide studies. Meanwhile, the few comparative genocide volumes that have included the Indonesian killings have tended to portray the Indonesian case as an example of stand-alone mass killings (see, for example, Dwyer & Santikarma, 2007; Pohlman, 2012; Rafter, 2016). This volume seeks to help to remedy this oversight by presenting a case in Chapter 2 for why the Indonesian killings should be understood as genocide, while offering a deeper understanding of the social and political dynamics within the Indonesia case and examining the broad range of responses from individuals, communities and organizations to these events in Indonesian society. The following section will provide a background and overview of the Indonesian case. Warning Signs of Genocide: The Sukarno Years The years prior to the genocide in Indonesia were turbulent. These years, with the benefit of hindsight, saw the development and exacerbation of many of the “risk factors” for genocide, including severe socio-political cleavages in society and increasingly disastrous economic conditions (McLoughlin & Maysersen, 2013). After gaining independence from the Dutch in 1945, the new Republic of Indonesia began with a period of parliamentary democracy. The country’s first general election in 1955 saw wide-ranging debates about what kind of nation Indonesia would become: nationalist, religious, Communist and socialist ideas competed for how best to achieve prosperity and modernity (McVey, 1994). By the end of the 1950s, however, the country’s first President, Sukarno, had replaced the democratic system with an authoritarian form of governance which he termed “Guided Democracy”. This form of governance enabled the rise and entrenchment of the Indonesian Armed Forces into civilian governance (Lev, 1966). Economically during this period, Indonesia faced impending crisis. Already depressed from years of war, Indonesia’s economy in the 1950s declined rapidly, both due to poor economic planning under Sukarno === [PDF page 28] === 8 K. McGREGOR ET AL. and the heavy debt repayment obligations placed on the new nation by the Dutch as the price of independence. By the mid-1960s, many saw Indonesia’s economic prospects in apocalyptic terms: the threat of mass starvation, poor rice production and three-digit levels of inflation were predicted to prolong the country’s economic stagnation and drive the majority of the population into even deeper levels of poverty (Fox, 2002; Mackie, 1964). Existing socio-political cleavages in society also worsened under Guided Democracy. By the early 1960s, Indonesian society was undergoing a process described by Robert Cribb as political “pillarization”, whereby the polity became divided between three “streams”: Islamic, Communist and a group described by Cribb as the “developmentalists”. This last group advocated for a continuation of the capitalist policies from during the colonial era, which they argued would now benefit Indonesians rather than the Dutch (Cribb, 2001a). This developmentalist stream found its largest base amongst Dutch-educated professionals and, over time, became more closely associated with nationalist groups and the Indonesian Army. Meanwhile, the Islamic stream was popular among land owners and local elites. It also competed with the PKI for influence within Indonesia’s peasant population (Hefner, 2000). By contrast, the Communist stream drew its largest membership from amongst Indonesia’s large peasant population. It was also popular with plantation workers and unionized transportation workers, teachers and artists. Each of these three streams had its own political parties, along with a vast array of social and cultural institutions and organizations. From the early 1960s until the beginning of the genocide in late 1965, this pillarization grew steadily more pronounced, with each stream seeing itself as the rightful heir to the Indonesian state. Deep enmities developed between the three streams. The most significant cleavage was, however, between the military and the PKI, who vied for influence at both national and local levels (Crouch, 1978). This process of pillarization cannot, by itself, explain why the genocide occurred. The killings were not an inevitable outcome of intense political competition; they were the intended outcome of a deliberate campaign launched by the military to physically annihilate its political enemies. These socio-political cleavages in the Indonesian polity in the period prior to the killings, however, help to explain the scope of the killings, which went far beyond the targeting of PKI cadre. It was not just “members of the PKI” who were targeted, but rather “Communists” as an established socio-political group. === [PDF page 29] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 9 The events in Indonesia also need to be understood in the global context of the Cold War. By the mid-1960s, the PKI had emerged as the largest Communist party in the world outside the Soviet Bloc and mainland China. The party claimed 3.5 million members but, more importantly, it also had a mass support base of more than 20 million others (Mortimer, 1974, p. 366).2 These additional members were part of the PKI’s official youth wing (Pemuda Rakyat, People’s Youth) as well as its many affiliated organizations, including a peasant’s association (BTI, Barisan Tani Indonesia), a trade union confederation (SOBSI, Sentral Organisasi Buruh Seluruh Indonesia) and a large artists’ organization (LEKRA, Lembaga Kebudayaan Rakyat). The PKI’s claimed membership also included organizations which were not officially affiliated to the party, but which enjoyed strong ties with the organization, particularly the mass-supported Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian Women’s Movement) and Baperki (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia, Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship), an ethnic Chinese organization set up in the 1950s (Purdey, 2003). Communist supporters thus made up approximately one quarter of Indonesia’s estimated 100 million population at the time (Manning, 1998). The large size of the party and its growing popularity attracted the attention of Western nations who, subscribing to the so-called domino theory, feared that following China’s embrace of Communism in 1949, successive countries would “fall” to the Communist Bloc. This fear was especially heightened in Southeast Asia, then a major theatre of the Cold War. The conflict in Viet Nam had escalated from June 1965 when, despite massive troop deployment, the United States seemed unable to make considerable headway. Further to this, Western nations feared that the loss of Indonesia to the Communist world would jeopardize their economic interests. Indonesia was a large, resource-rich country located on important shipping lines that was close to Australia and to British interests in Singapore (Easter, 2004; Simpson, 2008). The PKI had also developed strong ties with President Sukarno who was himself making overtures to Communist countries in the region. President Sukarno, a self-declared Marxist, had courted both Western and Soviet aid until the early 1960s when he began to lean increasingly towards Communist China as the most suited model for Indonesia to follow. From 1963 he began to speak about setting up a PKI-supported Jakarta–Peking axis, which greatly concerned Western and neighbouring anti-Communist countries (Brackman, 1969). === [PDF page 30] === 10 K. McGREGOR ET AL. Meanwhile, although Sukarno managed to secure Western support for the so-called return of West Irian (West Papua) in August 1962, following a year-long military campaign against Dutch attempts to retain the territory, he secured very little support for his next campaign of opposition to the new nation of Malaysia; known within Indonesia as the “Crush Malaysia” (Ganyang Malaysia) campaign and outside Indonesia as “Confrontation” (Konfrontasi). Throughout this campaign, which had originally been supported by the PKI, Indonesians engaged in mass mobilization and military training, ostensibly in order to prepare for a war with the British. This escalation resulted in border skirmishes and became a significant drain on British military resources. It also caused distrust of both Sukarno and the PKI to mount in the West (Easter, 2004). In response, Western countries, especially the United States, courted anti-Communist members of the Army for training in the United States and tried to foster support for any moves that could be made to weaken the President and the PKI (Simpson, 2008). Non-Communist groups within Indonesia also feared the PKI’s mass support base, which was particularly strong amongst large sections of Indonesia’s poor. For years, the PKI and armed forces had warily circled each other with mutual mistrust. The Ganyang Malaysia campaign, however, brought these simmering tensions to boiling point as the military came to suspect that the PKI intended to use the campaign to challenge the military’s monopoly over armed force (Melvin, 2014). Meanwhile, these tensions were further exacerbated by the declining health of Sukarno, who appeared to be the only one capable of controlling these two opposing forces (van der Kroef, 1968). Tensions between Communist supporters and some parts of the Islamic community also rose, particularly in parts of Central Java, where the PKI-supported land-reform movements (known as aksi sepihak) had provoked anger amongst more politically conservative, and land-rich, religious groups (Fealy & McGregor, 2010). The military used the Crush Malaysia campaign to prepare civilians for a move against the PKI (see Melvin, this volume). It was against this backdrop of longsimmering tensions and disastrous economic conditions that the fateful coup attempt occurred. === [PDF page 31] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 11 Tipping Point for Genocide: 1 October 1965 and Incitement Through Propaganda A poorly planned and executed attempted coup during the early hours of 1 October 1965 in the country’s capital, Jakarta, was the trigger that led to the annihilation of the PKI and the establishment of a new military government in Indonesia, General Suharto’s New Order regime. The coup attempt involved the kidnapping and assassination of six top generals and one general’s aide by a group of Leftist-leaning soldiers calling themselves the “30 September Movement” (Gerakan 30 September). Five decades on, questions remain regarding who was involved in plotting this coup attempt, and whether indeed it was intended as a coup or as an action aimed at alerting Sukarno of what the group’s members understood to be an imminent military coup. Questions also remain about who was involved, and how this relatively small-scale event led so quickly to a full-scale counterattack by the military that would, in turn, escalate into genocide (Roosa, 2006). What is clear is that the military leadership used the Movement’s failed coup attempt to move against its main political rival, the PKI. Indeed, it has been argued, the military leadership’s actions during the morning of 1 October 1965 constituted the true coup (Melvin, 2014; Wieringa, 2002). The remaining upper echelons of the military, under the command of General Suharto, who was in charge of the Jakarta-based Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad), swiftly put down the 30 September Movement and then mobilized to seize control of the state. As examined in Melvin’s chapter (this volume), the military leadership used the actions of the 30 September Movement as the pretext to launch its long-term plan to seize state power, which it initiated on 1 October through the activation of Operation “Berdikari”. The elaborate propaganda campaign that began in the days after 1 October was created and disseminated by the Indonesian Army and was a critical causal element in the incitement of civilian participation in the genocide (Cribb, 2001a; Kammen & McGregor, 2012; Pohlman, 2014). As many researchers have shown, the role of hate propaganda is often seen as a sine qua non in the build-up and prolonging of genocide and other mass human rights abuses (e.g. Kuper, 1981; Staub, 1992). Spread by newsprint and radio across the country, this propaganda blamed the actions of the 30 September Movement on the PKI and used deeply dehumanizing language to depict Communist supporters as dangerous internal enemies of the Indonesian people who had to be eliminated (Drakeley, 2007; Henry, 2014). === [PDF page 32] === 12 K. McGREGOR ET AL. Central to this propaganda were entirely false stories that Communist supporters and, in particular, women who were members of the mass organization Gerwani, had carried out sexually perverted acts as part of the attempted coup, all of which were seen as evidence of the PKI’s alleged immorality and savagery (Drakeley, 2007; Wieringa, 1998). These stories were reinforced with warnings and other elaborate lies. These included claims that the PKI had secretly been planning to take over the country and kill non-Communist supporters: false reports of weapons hoards and graves allegedly having been dug for the bodies of non-Communists all supported the allegations that Communists posed an imminent threat to society. The consequence of this propaganda was that it created the appearance of the PKI as a dangerous enemy (Cribb, 2001a; Drakeley, 2007). This, in turn, incited widespread civilian participation in the anti-Communist violence that was underway by mid-October and continued at frantic pace for the following six months, resulting in the murder of an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 men, women and children (Cribb, 1990, p. 12). This participation was not, however, fully voluntary. As recently discovered military documents from the time of the genocide demonstrate, civilian participation in the killings was explicitly ordered by the Army (Melvin, 2014). The Genocide Carried Out: Mass Arrests and Mass Killings The estimates for how many died during the mass violence that began in October 1965 range from as low as 78,000 to higher than 3,000,000 (Cribb, 1990, pp. 11–14). In most contemporary analyses of these events, academics estimate a figure of 500,000 dead (Cribb, 2001b; Kammen & McGregor, 2012, p. 10), and it remains unlikely that a more exact death toll will be possible without considerable further research. The number of people detained in the mass arrests is also unknown, although estimates range from approximately 500,000 to more than 1,500,000 (Amnesty International, 1985; van der Kroef, 1976, p. 643). These waves of extralegal mass arrests began in early October as the Army, with civilian participation, rounded up and detained hundreds of thousands of people for their alleged “direct or indirect involvement” in the 30 September Movement’s coup attempt (Tapol, 1976, p. 1). These mass arrests continued well after the pace of the massacres had abated by mid-1966, with various “clean up” operations of suspected “Communist elements” === [PDF page 33] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 13 continuing through until at least 1970 (Fealy, 1995; van der Kroef, 1970). The majority of those arrested, known as tapol (an abbreviation of tahanan politik or “political prisoner”), were detained unlawfully without trial and held in prisons, army barracks and guard posts, and in a vast array of ad hoc detention centres that had been established as more and more detainees were rounded up. Many were subjected to interrogation, torture, starvation and forced labour in overcrowded, unsanitary and inhumane conditions (Southwood & Flanagan, 1983). Those killed and arrested following the Army’s seizure of state power were primarily those connected with the PKI or one of its associated organizations. This connection could be based on an individual’s membership within one of these organizations, such as LEKRA, the BTI or Gerwani, but this connection could also be established through guilt by association. Individuals who were related to or associates of members were also often made targets, such as neighbours, friends or business partners. The children of targeted individuals were also not immune. In some cases, people were arrested or killed through cases of mistaken identity or else were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were also some cases of opportunistic violence against individuals due to rivalries or prior disputes, whereby victims were named as PKI suspects and therefore killed or imprisoned (see Cribb, 1990; Pohlman, 2015). Members of Indonesia’s Chinese community were also targeted in this way. Ethnic Chinese members of the PKI were targeted, as were members of Baperki, alongside indigenous Indonesian Communists. As this violence escalated such distinctions became theoretical and ethnic Chinese in general came under attack (Melvin, 2013; see also Tsai & Kammen, 2012). Patterns for how the killings and mass arrests were carried out vary widely across the Indonesian archipelago. The timing of when the violence began ranges from early October in places such as Aceh in Sumatra’s north (Melvin, 2014) to as late as December 1965 in parts of eastern Indonesia (Lamasitudju, 2014). The majority of the killings were carried out between October 1965 and March 1966. In some areas, however, the killings continued for much longer; one example being the Army’s “Trisula” Operation, which was aimed at wiping out Communist remnants in 1968 in parts of South Blitar, East Java (Hearman, 2012). How victims were killed also varied. There are some reported cases of whole families and communities of villagers being massacred in direct attacks by soldiers and militias, though these seem to have been === [PDF page 34] === 14 K. McGREGOR ET AL. uncommon (Roosa, 2006, p. 31; Young, 1990, p. 89). In general, the types of killings implemented fall into two main categories; public killings, which were recorded by the military and often implemented by civilians acting under the leadership of the military; and systematic mass killings carried out at military-controlled killing sites (Melvin, 2014). The majority of deaths occurred at military-controlled killing sites, with the often secretive nature of these executions limiting the number of witnesses. For many victims, death was preceded by capture. Some victims were “called” (diapel) to report to the local military command post while others were captured after the arrival of soldiers or militia to the area who then hunted down suspected PKI supporters. Sometimes family members simply disappeared or went into hiding, never to be seen again. Once in detention, the outcome for many detainees was torture and mistreatment followed either by removal and execution in a remote place, or else by months if not years of imprisonment. Sometimes this process happened very swiftly: suspected PKI supporters would be rounded up from a particular area, spend only a few hours or days in an ad hoc detention centre or military post, then be taken to a nearby site that was convenient for the disposal of many bodies, and executed en masse (Kammen & McGregor, 2012; McGregor, 2009; Melvin, 2014; Roosa, 2006). The killings and arrests were perpetrated by the Indonesian Army and civilians drawn from mostly religious and nationalist organizations opposed to the PKI. General Suharto, as head of the Jakarta-based Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad), responded first to the 30 September Movement’s coup and took over command of the Army effectively from 1 October. This was a position that he augmented within his seizure of control over the Kolaga command in Sumatra, where he established de facto martial law from 1 October (Melvin, 2014). Within days, Suharto had established a new strategic organization, the Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (KOPKAMTIB). This new Command gave him and his clique within the Army’s hierarchy power over the entire armed forces and, as time went on, over much of the civilian government structure as well (Crouch, 1978; Melvin, 2014; Southwood & Flanagan, 1983). Suharto tasked a Special Forces unit, the red beret paratrooper unit RPKAD, with organising the massacres in Java and Bali. RPKAD, led by Colonel Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, began this task when they were sent into Central and East Java provinces in October, where they recruited, trained and then worked closely with civilian militias to capture and kill suspected PKI members (Jenkins & Kammen, 2012; McGregor, 2013). === [PDF page 35] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 15 Military and civilian actors cooperated in wiping out suspected Communists across Indonesia under the leadership of Army guidance. Overall and command responsibility for the genocide lies with the Indonesian Army, though this does not lessen the criminal liability of the many civilians who took active roles in hunting down and murdering half a million of their fellow countrymen and women, and unlawfully imprisoning many more. Of the civilian militias involved in the killings and mass arrests, there were several notorious groups. Banser, a paramilitary brigade set up by one of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), began hunting down PKI members by the second week of October in parts of East Java. Working under the direction of the Army and local Islamic preachers, or ulama, killings by Banser members spread across large parts of Java (Fealy & McGregor, 2010, 2012). In each region of Indonesia such groups were established, such as the Tameng, mobile killings squads made up of mostly thugs associated with the PNI (Partai Nasionalis Indonesia, Indonesian Nationalist Party) in Bali (Robinson, 1995), and the various Protestant and Catholic student groups who took part in the killings in the southeastern island province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) (Farram, 2010). In North Sumatra, the military coordinated its anti-Communist death squads under the umbrella of the Komando Aksi (Oppenheimer, 2004). All of these groups had at least some contact with the Indonesian Army in coordinating and carrying out the killings and arrests. Evidence of this coordination has been found in the form of military documents recovered from Aceh, which detail military support for the establishment of anti-Communist death squads, and record the transfer of material support, including rifles and machine guns, to these groups for the explicit purpose of assisting the military in its annihilation of alleged The Indonesian genocide took place in the context of a military takeover of the Indonesian state by Major General Suharto. It resulted in a complete reorientation of Indonesian society and the rise of a military dominated regime self-labelled the New Order. The anti-Communist leadership of the Army was assisted during the genocide by Western supporters with arms and equipment, and encouraged by means of direct communication and assistance with propaganda especially from the United States, Britain and Australia to carry out a thorough purge of leftist groups in society (Simpson, 2008). Recent studies have also highlighted the complicity or indifference of the governments of European === [PDF page 36] === 16 K. McGREGOR ET AL. countries and of the Soviet Union to the attack on the PKI and its affiliates in Indonesia due in large part to the party’s decision to side with Communist China (see Schaefer & Wardaya, 2013). The new militaryled regime was welcomed onto the political stage by Western countries and negotiations soon began between leaders of these countries and the new military leaders and technocrats of Indonesia to restore foreign access to Indonesian markets (Simpson, 2008). Part I: New Empirical Research and Interpretations Part I of this volume brings together new empirical research into the genocide and new understandings of how this violence should be interpreted. It reflects on why such widespread violence was able to occur, local contributing factors to the intensity of this violence, and the role of the military in instigating and coordinating this violence. These chapters provide analyses of how the genocide affected Indonesia’s social structures and the lasting impacts of this period for survivors. In doing so, the authors in the opening chapters take up questions that remain insufficiently answered in studies of the violence so far, such as: the extent to which the Army was planning for a confrontation with the PKI pre-1965; the role of regional Army divisions outside Java in the 30 September Movement; survivors’ reflections on the contribution of local tensions raised due to land reform on the violence; and survivor accounts of the Army’s systematic use of sexual violence against women and girls. The first chapter of Part I, Chapter 3 by Jess Melvin, argues the role of the military in initiating and implementing the Indonesian genocide is greater than it has previously been possible to demonstrate. Melvin uses internal government and military documents to demonstrate the Army leadership’s attack against the PKI began as an aggressive attack, conceived of from 1 October 1965 as a means of seizing state power and physically annihilating the Army’s political enemies. Chapter 4 by Akihisa Matsuno draws upon new oral history interviews and the re-interpretation of military trial records to produce a detailed account of the actions of the 30 September Movement in Bali. Matsuno proposes the disorganized and, at times, seemingly improvised nature of the Movement’s actions in that province support John Roosa’s contention that a major contributing factor to the failure of the Movement nationally was its lack of central coordination (Roosa, 2006). The Army’s subsequent response, however, was coordinated. Together the two === [PDF page 37] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 17 chapters by Melvin and Matsuno, based on case studies from the outer islands of Sumatra and Bali, add important insights into the actions of the Indonesian Army before and during the immediate aftermath of 1 October 1965. Chapters 5 and 6 draw on oral history interviews with survivors and participants in the violence to expand our understanding of how the genocide was comprehended and experienced by those who lived through it. In Chapter 5, Roro Sawita draws on interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses of the genocide in Bali to propose that the issue of land reform contributed significantly to the intensity of mass killings in that province. During 1965–1966, Sawita argues, those opposed to land reform used anti-PKI sentiment to settle scores and ensure their continued control over their land. The scale of violence in Bali, however, would not have been possible without the arrival of RPKAD forces in the province in December 1965. Annie Pohlman in Chapter 6 draws from her extensive original oral history interviews with women survivors from West Sumatra to provide new empirical evidence of the deliberate way in which sexual violence was systematically perpetrated against women and girls during the genocide. Pohlman focuses specifically on two women’s accounts about their experiences of sex-selective and gendered forms of violence to argue that, as in other cases of genocidal violence, Indonesian women experienced unique forms of violence based on their identity as women. Taken together, these two chapters provide new insight into how violence was coordinated at the local level in two provinces of Indonesia. The second half of Part I focuses on the impact of the genocide on Indonesia’s social structures. The chapters here use different lenses from anthropology and history to assess changing social structures across the realms of the performing arts and institutions of higher education and religion. Robbie Peters in Chapter 7 presents an anthropological view of how the genocide might be interpreted as a social phenomenon. Drawing on the work of anthropologist James Peacock, who studied the subversive nature of ludruk clown dramas in Surabaya during the 1960s, Peters observes that the PKI, like the character of the ludruk clown, was understood as both a symptom of modernization and as a potentially unsettling outsider that threatened to overturn tradition. One goal of genocidal violence is to engage in a project of remaking society. Using an historical approach in Chapter 8, Abdul Wahid charts how the prominent Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta transitioned === [PDF page 38] === 18 K. McGREGOR ET AL. from being a revolutionary campus to a site of violence during the purge of both staff and students on the political left. He explores the conditions on campus and the direction of education just before, during and after the political turmoil. Based on first-hand sources of information and new oral history interviews, the chapter analyses how Suharto’s anti- Communist campaigns have disrupted and changed the academic life of Indonesian universities, as well as the legacies of New Order era policies that remain in effect at present day universities in that country. Vannessa Hearman in Chapter 9 reflects on another response to the genocide, that of religious conversion. In the aftermath of the killings, Hearman explains, conversion to Christianity was observed in Javanese communities that had been affected by the violence, as well as in prisons. The New Order regime required citizens to identify as belonging to several permissible religions. But, what was the reason, beyond this requirement, for survivors and former political prisoners to take up Christian religions in a vastly Muslim area? This chapter analyses the changing relationship between religious organizations and the political Left in Indonesia before, during and after the violence and explores the reasons, both pragmatic and spiritual, that led political prisoners to take up Christian religions in a period of flux and dramatic change. Part II: Legacies of the Indonesian Genocide Part II reflects on the legacies of the 1965 genocide with a particular focus on living with, understanding and memorializing this violent past. These chapters examine intergenerational and family memory, the enduring effects of the violence and efforts to achieve justice for survivors. Beyond imprisonment, former political prisoners and their families and the families of those killed continued to face ongoing formal and social persecution as persons stigmatized as national traitors. The continued stigmatization of alleged Communists and their families was a product of the relentless propagation of anti-Communism for the duration of the New Order regime and beyond. The first chapter in Part II, Chapter 10 by Andrew Conroe, charts how children and grandchildren of those killed or imprisoned in the genocide were viewed with suspicion by the New Order government and more broadly in society in terms of the possibility they would eventually seek revenge for their parents’ suffering. Based on fieldwork in Yogyakarta he analyses how children have approached their parents’ pasts differently. === [PDF page 39] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 19 Many are intensely curious about their parents’ and grandparents’ past, perhaps especially because their experiences have been repressed or erased in mainstream history teaching and history books. Chapters 11 and 12 by Ken Setiawan and Katharine McGregor take up the theme of second-generation memory and memorialization of the 1965 violence. In Chapter 11 Ken Setiawan reflects on how sites of memory of camaraderie in the camp and/or of places of terror potentially allow the articulation of previously unshared memories of imprisonment amongst fellow prisoners and family members. The observations shared in this chapter are based on her 2015 visit to the island with her father Hersri Setiawan captured in the film Pulau Buru Tanah Air Beta directed by Rahung Nasution (2016). She examines how former prisoners remember their experiences and those of fellow prisoners in the camp after a very long absence from the island. Despite the existence of hundreds of mass graves across Indonesia, only a handful have been marked out, usually with very modest signposts, largely due again to ongoing caution with regard to memorialization of those who suffered in 1965 and ongoing stigmatization of those who died (McGregor, 2012; van Klinken, 2016). It is therefore quite remarkable that the only memorial in the world to all those who died in the 1965 Indonesian genocide is located in the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Australia. In Chapter 12 Katharine McGregor examines how this transcultural Australian memorial, produced by Indonesianborn artist Dadang Christanto, whose father disappeared in 1965, came about and how it connects the histories of the two countries. Chapters 13 and 14 by Marianna Lis and Ana Dragojlovic examine how the different artistic mediums of puppetry and film have been used to communicate some of the legacies of the genocide with audiences and some responses to these initiatives. Lis traces the story of why and how young artists in the Yogyakarta based Papermoon Puppet Theatre took up the theme of 1965 in two of their performances. Her chapter helps illustrate the curiosity that many young Indonesians have concerning the history of 1965, which they do not feel they have much information about. Indeed, this curiosity was particularly apparent during the fiftieth anniversary of the violence. Lis argues that through their exploration of these themes using life size puppets, Papermoon Puppet Theatre performers hoped to engage audiences in working through this chapter of history. === [PDF page 40] === 20 K. McGREGOR ET AL. In Chapter 14 Dragojlovic takes up the theme of the response of a child of parents who were imprisoned to the now famous films about the 1965 violence directed by Joshua Oppenheimer et al., The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014). As mentioned above, these two films focus on accounts from perpetrators, who recount their involvement in the 1965 massacres in and around the North Sumatran city of Medan. Using theories of affect, Dragojlovic traces the responses that the films triggered in a woman of Dutch Indonesian background living in the Netherlands, whose parents were imprisoned before migrating to the Netherlands. The films led her to re-examine her family history and to begin to work through her relationship to this past. Dragojlovic’s chapter, like that by McGregor, reminds us how the history of the Indonesian genocide is connected to multiple communities of memory through processes of migration. It also adds to the insights from Conroe and Setiawan as to how children of former political prisoners have variously dealt with the personal legacies of their family histories. The final chapters in Part II reflect on the pursuit of justice as another legacy of the 1965 violence. These chapters examine Indonesian activism related to 1965 and the context of continuing anti-Communism with which activists have had to contend. In Chapter 15 Stephen Miller argues that since the fall of the New Order regime in 1998 anti- Communist groups aligned with the military have used increasingly fascist-style tactics to counter democratic reforms. He explains how in the context of more open discussions of 1965, artists and activists have used Communist symbolism to challenge apolitical art and music. Yet alongside this trend and human rights advocacy for victims of the 1965 violence, anti-Communist groups have continued to use the label “Communist” to delegitimize and attack persons and groups seeking to further the process of Indonesian democratization. Miller’s chapter highlights the ongoing presence of the Indonesian military in politics despite its formal return to the barracks in 1999. Combined with the findings of new research outlined in Chapter 3 by Melvin as to how central the Indonesian military was in planning and co-ordinating the genocide, it is clear just how difficult an environment in which human rights activists and survivors have operated. The two final chapters present different dimensions of struggles for historical justice for the case of the 1965 genocide. Focusing on legal mechanisms available to address the legacies of the 1965 violence in === [PDF page 41] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 21 Chapter 16 Nukila Evanty and Annie Pohlman outline some of the most promising legal mechanisms introduced in the early reform era of 1998– 2004. They revisit the 2004 legislation for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was rejected by the Constitutional Court in 2006, and the lack of response to the National Commission of Human Rights’ investigation into 1965 to assess why both of these efforts, in the end, failed. Further to this they highlight the contradictory patterns in new laws relating to persons labelled Communist that at once revoke and reinforce discrimination against these persons. The final chapter of Part II by Sri Lestari Wahyuningroem discusses two local government initiatives to address the legacies of 1965 in the cities of Solo, Central Java, and Palu, Central Sulawesi. She situates these joint initiatives alongside the several state initiatives that have to date achieved very little. She analyses what made these local initiatives focusing on reconciliation and reparation programs a success and asks how applicable these examples of local activism might be to national-based approaches to addressing the case of 1965. To complete our volume Jemma Purdey offers an epilogue to reflect on how the chapters contribute to new perspectives on the 1965 violence and on violence and genocide more broadly. Notes 1. Robert Cribb and Charles Coppel make the specific argument that, contrary to the popular claim that the majority of victims of the 1965–1966 killings were Chinese killed due to their ethnic identity, the majority of victims were non-Chinese Indonesians, killed due to their political identity as defined by their affiliation with the PKI (Cribb & Coppel, 2009, p. 447). In doing so, they propose that the 1965–1966 killings do not constitute a case of genocide because Indonesia’s Chinese community was not targeted as such. Melvin and Pohlman argue in Chapter 2 that Cribb and Coppel go too far in arguing that ethnic-based killings did not occur in 1965–1966. 2. This figure, calculated to account for joint-membership, includes members of the PKI, Pemuda Rakjat, SOBSI, BTI, Gerwani, Lekra and HSI (Mortimer, 1974). It is not an exhaustive list of all organizations deemed by the military to be “affiliated” to the PKI. It does not, for example, include Baperki membership, estimated to number 280,000 in 1965 (Bertrand, 2004). === [PDF page 42] === 22 K. McGREGOR ET AL. References Ahmad, T. (2008). Kamp pengasingan moncongloe. Depok: Desantara. Amnesty International. (1985). Statement of Amnesty International’s concerns in Indonesia. Indonesia, 43, 109–134. Bertrand, J. (2004). Nationalism and ethnic conflict in Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brackman, A. (1969). The communist collapse in Indonesia. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. (1948). United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260A (III) Article 2. Cribb, R. (1990). Introduction: Problems in the historiography of the killings in Indonesia. In R. Cribb (Ed.), The Indonesian killings 1965–1966: Studies from Java and Bali (pp. 1–44). Clayton, VIC: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. Cribb, R. (2001a). Genocide in Indonesia, 1965–1966. Journal of Genocide Cribb, R. (2001b). How many deaths? Problems in the statistics of massacre in Indonesia (1965–1966) and East Timor (1975–1980). In I. Wessel & G. Wimhöfer (Eds.), Violence in Indonesia (pp. 82–98). Hamburg: Abera. Cribb, R. (2002). Unresolved problems in the Indonesian killings of 1965– 1966. Asian Survey, 42(4), 550–563. Cribb, R. (2003). Genocide in the non-western world. In S. Jensen (Ed.), Genocide: Cases, comparisons and contemporary debates (pp. 123–130). Kobenhaven: Danish Center for Holocaust Studies. Cribb, R. (2010). Political genocides in post-colonial Asia. In D. Bloxham & A. D. Moses (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of genocide studies (pp. 445–465). New York: Oxford University Press. Cribb, R., & Coppel, C. A. (2009). A genocide that never was: Explaining the myth of anti-Chinese massacres in Indonesia, 1965–66. Journal of Genocide Crouch, H. (1978). The army and politics in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Drakeley, S. (2007). Lubang Buaya: Myth, misogyny and massacre. Nebula, 4(4), 11–35. Dwyer, L., & Santikarma, D. (2007). Speaking from the shadows: Memory and mass violence in Bali. In B. Pouligny & A. Schanbel (Eds.), After mass crime: Rebuilding states and communities (pp. 190–214). Tokyo and New York: United Nations University Press. Easter, D. (2004). Britain and the confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–66. London: Taurus Academic Studies. Farid, H. (2005). Indonesia’s original sins: Mass killing and capitalist expansion 1965–1966. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 6(1), 3–16. === [PDF page 43] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 23 Farram, S. (2010). The PKI in West Timor and Nusa Tenggara Timur: 1965 and beyond. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 166(4), 381–403. Fealy, G. (1995). The release of Indonesia’s political prisoners: Domestic versus foreign policy, 1975–1979. Clayton, VIC: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies. Fealy, G., & McGregor, K. (2010). Nahdlatul Ulama and the killings of 1965– 66: Religion, politics, and remembrance. Indonesia, 89, 37–60. Fealy, G., & McGregor, K. (2012). East Java and the role of Nahdlatul Ulama in the 1965–66 anti-communist violence. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (pp. 104–130). Singapore: NUS Press. Fox, J. W. (2002). Poverty reduction in Indonesia, 1965 to 1997: A country case study. Technical report submitted by Nathan Associates, Inc. to USAID, Washington, 29 November. Gellately, R., & Kiernan, B. (Eds.). (2003). The specter of genocide: Mass murder in historical perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Greenawalt, A. K. A. (1999). Rethinking genocidal intent: The case for a knowledge-based interpretation. Columbia Law Review, 99, 2259–2294. Hearman, V. (2012). South Blitar and the PKI bases: Refuge, resistance and repression. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (pp. 182–207). Singapore: NUS Press. Hefner, R. W. (2000). Muslims and democratization in Indonesian. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Henry, A. H. (2014). Polluting the waters: A brief history of anti-Communist propaganda during the Indonesian massacres. Genocide Studies International, 8(2), 153–175. Hutabarat, R. (2012). Melawan lupa: Narasi-narasi komunitas taman 65 Bali. Denpasar: Taman 65 Press. Indonesia: Vengeance with a smile (1966, July 15). Time. IPT 1965. (2016). Final report of the IPT 1965: Findings and documents of the International People’s Tribunal on Crimes against Humanity Indonesian 1965. The Hague and Jakarta: IPT 1965 Foundation. Jenkins, D., & Kammen, D. (2012). The Army para-commando regiment and the reign of terror in Central Java and Bali. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (pp. 75–103). Singapore: NUS Press. Kammen, D., & McGregor, K. (2012). Introduction: The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (pp. 1–24). Singapore: NUS Press. Kolimon, M., Wetangterah, L., & Campbell-Nelson, K. (Eds.). (2015). Forbidden memories: Women’s experiences of 1965 in Eastern Indonesia. Victoria: Herb Feith Foundation & Monash University Publishing. === [PDF page 44] === 24 K. McGREGOR ET AL. Kuper, L. (1981). Genocide: Its political uses in the twentieth century. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kurniawan. (2013). Pengakuan algojo 1965. Jakarta: Tempo Publishing. Lamasitudju, N. (2014). Rekonsiliasi dan permintaan maaf walikota. In B. T. Wardaya (Ed.), Luka bangsa luka kita: Pelanggaran HAM masa lalu dan tawaran rekonsiliasi (pp. 371–383). Yogyakarta: Galang Press. Lev, D. S. (1966). The transition to guided democracy: Indonesian politics, 1957– 1959. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesia Project. Lippman, M. (1994). The 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide: Forty-five years later. Temple International and Comparative Law Journal, 8(1), 29. Mackie, J. A. C. (1964). Inflation and confrontation in Indonesia. Australian Manning, C. (1998). Indonesian labour in transition: An East Asian success story? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McGregor, K. (2009). The Indonesian killings of 1965–1968. Online encyclopaedia of mass violence. Retrieved from http://www.massviolence.org/ The-Indonesian-Killings-of-1965-1966. McGregor, K. (2012). Mass graves and memory of the 1965–66 killings. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–1968 (pp. 234–262). Singapore: NUS Press. McGregor, K. (2013). Mass violence in the Indonesian transition from Sukarno to Suharto. Global Dialogue, 15(1), 134. McGregor, K. E. (2007). History in uniform: Military ideology and the construction of the Indonesian past. Singapore: NUS Press. McLoughlin, S., & Mayersen, D. (2013). Reconsidering root causes: A new framework for the structural prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. In B. Ingelaere, S. Parmentier, J. Haers, & B. Segaert (Eds.), Genocide, risk and resilience: An interdisciplinary approach (pp. 49–67). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McVey, R. T. (1994). The case of the disappearing decade. In D. Bourchier & J. Legge (Eds.), Democracy in Indonesia: 1950s and 1990s (pp. 3–15). Clayton, VIC: Centre of Southeast Asian Studies. Melvin, J. (2013). Why not genocide? Anti-Chinese violence in Aceh, 1965– 1966. Journal of Southeast Asian Affairs (GIGA), 3, 63–91. Melvin, J. (2014). Mechanics of mass murder: How the Indonesian military initiated and implemented the Indonesian genocide, the case of Aceh (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia). Melvin, J. (2018). The army and the Indonesian genocide: Mechanics of mass murder. New York: Routledge (forthcoming). Mortimer, R. (1974). Indonesian communism under Sukarno: Ideology and politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. === [PDF page 45] === 1 NEW INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CAUSES, DYNAMICS AND LEGACIES … 25 Nasution, R. (Director). (2016). Pulau Buru tanah air beta [DVD]. Jakarta Beranda Rakyat Garuda. Nersessian, D. (2010). Genocide and political groups. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oppenheimer, J. (2004). Show of force: Film, ghosts and genres of historical performance in the Indonesian genocide (Doctoral dissertation, University of Arts, London, United Kingdom). Oppenheimer, J. (Director). (2014). The look of silence. Denmark: Final Cut for Real. Oppenheimer, J., C. Cynn, & Anonymous. (Directors). (2012). The act of killing. Denmark: Final Cut for Real. Pohlman, A. (2012). Spectacular atrocities: Making enemies during the 1965– 1966 massacres in Indonesia. In P. Dwyer & L. Ryan (Eds.), Theatres of violence: Massacre, mass killing and atrocity throughout history (pp. 199–212). New York: Berghahn Books. Pohlman, A. (2014). Incitement to genocide against a political group: The anti-Communist killings in Indonesia. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 11(1), 1–22. Pohlman, A. (2015). Women, sexual violence and the Indonesian killings of 1965– 1966. New York: Routledge. Purdey, J. (2003). Political change: Reopening the Asimilasi vs Integrasi debate: Ethnic Chinese identity in post-Suharto Indonesia. Asian Ethnicity, 4(3), 421–437. Rafter, N. (2016). The crime of all crimes: Toward a criminology of genocide. New York: New York University Press. Robinson, G. (1995). The dark side of paradise: Political violence in Bali. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Roosa, J. (2006). Pretext for mass murder: The September 30th movement and Suharto’s coup d’etat in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Roosa, J. (2013). Who knows? Oral history methods in the study of the massacres of 1965–66 in Indonesia. Oral History Forum d’histoire orale, 33, 1–28. Roosa, J. (2016). The state of knowledge about an open secret: Indonesia’s mass disappearances of 1965–66. Journal of Asian Studies, 75(2), 281–297. Roosa, J., Ratih, A., & Farid, H. (Eds.). (2004). Tahun yang tak pernah berakhir: Memahami pengalaman Korban 65, esai-esai sejarah lisan. Jakarta: Lembaga Studi dan Advokat Masyarakat. Schabas, W. (2000). Genocide in international law: The crime of crimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schaefer, B., & Wardaya, B. T. (Eds.). (2013). 1965 Indonesia and the world. Jakarta: Goethe Institut & PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Shaw, M. (2015). What is genocide? (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Short, D. (2010). Cultural genocide and indigenous peoples: A sociological approach. International Journal of Human Rights, 14(6), 833–848. === [PDF page 46] === 26 K. McGREGOR ET AL. Simpson, B. R. (2008). Economists with guns: Authoritarian development and US-Indonesian relations, 1960–1968. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Southwood, J., & Flanagan, P. (1983). Indonesia: Law, propaganda and terror. London: Zed Books. Staub, E. (1992). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sukanta, P. O. (Ed.). (2013). Sulawesi Bersaksi. Jakarta: Lembaga Kreatifitas Kemanusiaan. Sundhaussen, U. (1982). The road to power: Indonesian military politics, 1945– 1967. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Tanter, R. (2013). The great killings in Indonesia through the Australian mass media. In B. Schaefer & B. Wardaya (Eds.), 1965: Indonesia and the World (pp. 129–144). Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Tapol. (1976). Indonesia: The prison state. London: Tapol. Tim Laporan Khusus Tempo. (2013). Pengakuan algojo 1965: Investigasi Tempo perihal pembantaian 1965. Jakarta: Tempo Publishing. Tsai, Y.-L., & Kammen, D. (2012). Anti-communist violence and the ethnic Chinese in Medan, North Sumatra. In D. Kammen & K. McGregor (Eds.), The contours of mass violence in Indonesia, 1965–68 (pp. 131–155). Singapore: NUS Press. van der Kroef, J. (1968). The Sino-Indonesian rupture. The China Quarterly, 33, 17–46. van der Kroef, J. (1970). Indonesian communism since the 1965 coup. Pacific van der Kroef, J. (1976). Indonesia’s political prisoners. Pacific Affairs, 49(4), 625–647. van Klinken, G. (2016, March 15). Homemade Monument. KITLV Blog. Retrieved from http://www.kitlv.nl/blog-homemade-monuments-2/. van Schaack, B. (1997). The crime of political genocide: Repairing the genocide convention’s blind spot. The Yale Law Journal, 106(7), 2259–2291. Wardaya, B. T. (2008). Indonesia melawan Amerika: Konflik Perang Dingin, 1953–1963. Yogyakarta: Galang Press. Weiss-Wendt, A. (2005). Hostage of politics: Raphael Lemkin on “Soviet genocide”. Journal of Genocide Research, 7(4), 551–559. Wieringa, S. E. (1998). Sexual metaphors in the change from Sukarno’s Old Order to Suharto’s New Order in Indonesia. Review of Indonesian and Malay Wieringa, S. E. (2002). Sexual politics in Indonesia. New York: Palgrave. Young, K. R. (1990). Local and national influences in the violence of 1965. In R. Cribb (Ed.), The Indonesian killings of 1965–66: Studies from Java and Bali (pp. 63–100). Clayton, VIC: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University. === [PDF page 47] === CHAPTER 2 A Case for Genocide: Indonesia, 1965–1966 Jess Melvin and Annie Pohlman This chapter examines the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966 as genocide. One of the central aims of this volume is to position the eradication of those associated with the PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia, the Indonesian Communist Party) firmly within the field of comparative genocide studies, both so that scholars within the field may be better able to consider the Indonesian case and so that the analytical templates and methods developed for understanding some of the canonical genocides might be expanded and improved (Cribb, 2003). To this end, we make the argument that the Indonesian killings of 1965 should be understood as genocide. After discussing key debates related to the use of the term in relation to the 1965–1966 killings, we make this argument on three fronts, drawing on work in cross-cultural studies of similar genocidal violence. First, we argue that the exclusion of political groups from protection under the 1948 United Nations Convention J. Melvin (*) Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA A. Pohlman School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia © The Author(s) 2018 27 K. McGregor et al. (eds.), The Indonesian Genocide of 1965, Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_2 === [PDF page 48] === 28 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereafter, the “Genocide Convention”) has been used to conclude prematurely that victims of the killings do not constitute a protected group under the Convention. Second, we posit that the eradication of a socio-political group from the national polity underlines the socially transformative process of genocidal violence. Last, we reflect on how the Genocide Convention, in its current form, may be applied to the Indonesian killings and consider both the inclusion of “ideologically constituted” national groups and how ethnic Chinese Indonesians were persecuted during 1965–1966. Defining and Contesting Genocide In the seven decades since Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide”, defining what Winston Churchill had called a “crime without a name”, scholars have contested what is meant by the term (Power, 2002, pp. 17–47). In the field of genocide studies, which developed primarily from the 1980s amongst scholars drawn mostly from history and law, but which today incorporates an increasing number of other disciplines, the term has become an “essentially contested concept” (Collier, Hidalgo, & Maciuceanu, 2006; Gallie, 1955–1956; Powell, 2004; Straus, 2001). As a result, there has been a tendency, as Martin Shaw notes, to “simply define genocide anew each time in whichever way appears most convenient for the particular moral, political, legal or academic project” undertaken (2015, p. 22). Specifically, a rift has developed between scholars who adopt the current legal definition of the crime of genocide and those who advocate on behalf of moving away from this legal definition in favour of a “sociological” use of the term The definition of the crime of genocide, as it was laid down in the 1948 Genocide Convention, was a product of the political compromises which had been necessary to secure the convention (Weiss-Wendt, 2005). This legal definition of the term has also been the subject of debates and disagreements that endure to this day. Many of these debates centre on the human groups and types of violence discussed in the Genocide Convention, as well as the interpretation of intent to commit genocide (Greenawalt, 1999; Shaw, 2015; Short, 2010). For many scholars examining cases of genocidal violence across human === [PDF page 49] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 29 history, whose research has examined colonialism, imperialism, slavery, nation-building or ethnic cleansing, these debates stem from the legal definition of the term adopted by the Convention and often remain marred by dogmatic interpretations and conceptual “blockages” over how we understand and apply the term “genocide” (Moses, 2002; Thaler, 2014). When considering the mass violence that spread across Indonesia in late 1965, there is a core polemical definitional and conceptual issue at stake.1 This issue relates to the identity of the target group that was eradicated in Indonesia. It has often been argued that victims of the killings were targeted primarily in terms of real or perceived affiliation with the PKI or one of its many associated organisations (see Chapter 1, this volume). As with many of these conceptual debates within the field of comparative genocide studies, the question of whether a group of victims defined by their socio-political affiliation per se can be the victims of genocide is derived directly from the Genocide Convention’s legal definition of the crime. As Article II of the Convention reads, “genocide means [a range of] acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical [sic], racial or religious group, as such” (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Dec. 9, 1948, 78 U.N.T.S. at 280, Article II). This definition implicitly excludes political groups from protection under the Convention. Yet, as will be discussed further below, the automatic rejection of the 1965–1966 killings as a case of genocide on this basis is premature. The polemic debates over what genocide is, who commits it, who the victims can be and how this violence can be prevented are, in many ways, driven by what are seen as the unique moral imperatives of the term (Boghossian, 2010; Lee, 2009; Thaler, 2014). These contestations are so sharp, and their terms so strong, because the stakes are so high. For many, the rejection of the term can lead, and does lead, to a denial that the violence happened at all (Irvin-Erickson, La Pointe, & Hinton, 2013; Thaler, 2014). Worse still, wilful blindness to genocidal intent and action, the lack of will to name violence as genocide or to intervene to stop it, are often driven by a facile politics of not-naming, and therefore ignoring, the kind of catastrophic violence that makes the promise of “never again” all the more hollow (Mamdani, 2010; Theriault, 2010). Cases of genocidal violence such as the Indonesian mass killings have been relegated, as some contemporary scholars have argued, to a long === [PDF page 50] === 30 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman list of hidden, forgotten and often denied genocides in human history (Irvin-Erickson et al., 2013; Lemarchand, 2011). For the Indonesian case, despite the comparative size and scale of the violence and the intensity with which the massacres were carried out, these mass killings have been left out of what Bloxham and Moses call “the canon” of genocide cases within the field: the Holocaust, Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and now, Darfur (2010, p. 4). Indeed, in their discussion of this canon, Irvin-Erickson et al. (2013, p. 6) classify the Indonesian case as belonging to the “periphery” of the field. Researchers have long questioned why some genocides receive greater attention than others; the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust debate being somewhat symptomatic of this (Stone, 2004). For many, the Genocide Convention sets up scholarly debates in unhelpful juridical terms, framing particularly historical cases as non-genocides because they do not conform to the legal constraints of a convention created in the midtwentieth century (Barta, 2008; Moses, 2002). For others, the privileging of some cases of genocide over others in this canonical understanding of our shared history of atrocity only ends in setting up a “zero-sum game” whereby some genocides are reified at the expense of erasing others from memory (Moses, 2013). For others still, the framing of particular events as genocide and the genealogy of denying the term for others, demands close and critical scholarly attention. Daniel Feierstein (2013), for example, warns us that as genocide researchers we must refuse to view this violence through a “binary model”—in which perpetrators and victims are oversimplified into distinct groups—because it obscures our understanding of the broader social phenomena (see also Cribb, 2003). Meanwhile, Chomsky and Herman (1979) distinguish between what they term “constructive”, “benign”, “nefarious” and “mythical bloodbaths”, in order to highlight how some atrocities are condemned by world powers and the media while others are ignored or even celebrated. Genocide scholars must constantly critique how and why mass violence is portrayed, disavowed, endorsed or ignored. As Adam Hughes Henry (2016) rightly points out, for the USA and its allies, the “repositioning” of Indonesia as a result of the killings as a clearly anti-Communist nation open to western investment and support altered the balance of Cold War politics in Southeast Asia and justified, even necessitated, the eradication of the PKI. === [PDF page 51] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 31 The Indonesian Killings as Genocide In this chapter, we make three main arguments for why the 1965–1966 killings in Indonesia must be understood as genocide, drawing on recent insights within the field of comparative genocide studies. We make this argument on the grounds: first, that debate over the dismissal of the 1965–1966 killings due to the exclusion of political groups from protection under the Convention has been based on a misunderstanding of the findings of key genocide scholars including Leo Kuper, Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, who have argued since the early 1980s that the military’s target group was far broader than a political group; second, that the Indonesian case highlights the socially transformative processes of genocide; and third, that we should reassess the Indonesian killings in light of recent reconsiderations of what constitutes a “protected” group. On the first point, the seemingly recurrent impediment to naming the 1965 case in Indonesia genocide is the exclusion of political groups from the list of protected groups specified within the legal definition of the crime in the 1948 Convention. The exclusion of political groups has been a core issue of contention within the field for many decades. A number of scholars have ably demonstrated that this exclusion from the final draft of the Convention was based on fallacious reasoning and political compromise (Saul, 2001; van Schaack, 1997; Weiss-Wendt, 2005). Beth van Schaack, for example, through an examination of the preparatory drafts of the Convention, clearly plots the purposeful creation of the document’s “blind spot” (the exclusion of political groups) by “state leaders intent on protecting their own interests” and aiming to insulate themselves from potential liability (1997, p. 2291). It is important to note that the exclusion of political groups has not always been seen as reason to exclude victims of the 1965–1966 killings from being understood as victims of genocide. Indeed, key genocide scholars, including Kuper (1981), and Chalk and Jonassohn (1990), have argued since the early 1980s that victims of the 1965–1966 killings constituted a much broader target group than a purely political group (Melvin, 2018). According to Kuper, the 1965–1966 killings were “quite comparable to massacre by virtue of race” due to the finality and immutability past affiliation played in the targeting of individuals for destruction (1981, p. 154). He also asserts the military’s target group drew additionally upon class, religious and ethnic identity (Kuper, 1981). Similarly, Chalk and Jonassohn argue the targeting of individuals for destruction “had === [PDF page 52] === 32 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman curious overtones of an ethnic, religious and economic character” (1990, p. 382). Kuper, Chalk and Jonassohn all believed there were grounds for arguing the 1965–1966 killings constituted a case of genocide under the Convention. They were held back from formalizing their findings, however, by the severe lack of documentary evidence available with which to both prove military intent and the identity of the military’s target group. This has led to an “evidence problem” that has seriously hampered the As a consequence, debate over whether or not the 1965–1966 killings constitute a case of genocide has often centred on the problematic nature of the exclusion of political groups from protection under the Convention. Of the several scholars (Melvin, 2014, 2018; Pohlman, 2014; see also Fein, 1993a) who have debated this point in relation to the Indonesian killings of 1965, Robert Cribb makes a compelling argument (2001, 2010). First, as with other scholars on the topic of how the Genocide Convention was drafted, Cribb highlights that the erasure of political groups from the final version of the definition in the Convention was a concessionary measure to shore up support from UN member states. Critically, however, Cribb also draws our attention to the flawed understanding of group identity that underpinned “common political and scientific wisdom at the time” when the Convention was drafted (2001, p. 221). As he explains, this understanding reasoned that a person’s membership within a racial, ethnic or even religious group was stable, natural or immutable. Membership within a political or social group, conversely, was a matter of choice, making such groups somehow “unstable” or “mutable”; therefore the world’s “indignation” against the massacre of civilians is “often tempered by the rationalization that the victims [of political killings] had chosen to engage in politics and that their doom, even if unjust, was a consequence of their own fatal decisions” (Cribb, 2010, p. 447, 2001, 2003; see also LeBlanc, 1988, pp. 274–275). As Cribb and others have argued, such an understanding of ethnic or racial group identity as somehow having “primordial or historically determined” roots is seriously flawed and thus the legal definition of the crime of genocide in the Convention of protecting only these types of “stable” groups is based on an essentially fallacious logic (Cribb, 2010, p. 447, 2001, 2003; LeBlanc, 1988; Lippmann, 1998; Pohlman, 2014; Saul, 2001). To demonstrate how similar these stable and unstable group identities can be, Cribb traces the evolution and consolidation of === [PDF page 53] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 33 Indonesia’s Communist group leading up to the 1965 massacres (2001; see also Rafter, 2016). As discussed in the previous chapter, Cribb outlines the process of political “pillarization” in Indonesia, leading to deep divides between three constituent groups: Communist, Islamist and the group which became most closely aligned with the Army’s power bases, the “developmentalists” (2001). The argument here is not really that a Communist group existed—the existence of this group is not contested—but rather that all group identity is socially constructed. In mid- 1960s Indonesia, one’s membership within any of these groups was just as (un)stable and malleable as any of the many ethnic, religious, linguistic or other groups in Indonesia at the time. By highlighting this aetiology of a Communist group in Indonesia, and how membership within this group became the primary category for persecution after 1965, Cribb demonstrates the false logic underpinning the protection of primarily racial or ethnic groups over others. Furthermore, Cribb explains how, by premising our understanding of genocide on the attempt to wipe out a group most commonly defined on an “ethnic” basis (the Holocaust against European Jewry as archetype), we obscure the commonalities and continuities between episodes of genocidal violence, falsely ascribing the analytical templates developed for the study of the destruction of ethnic groups to much broader cases (Cribb, 2003). Cribb’s concern goes beyond the need to include the 1965 killings within the field of comparative genocide studies; he is asking for a more fundamental appraisal of what motivates the mass destruction of human populations. He deconstructs the eradication of the Left in Indonesia to try to understand these motivations more fully. In a comparative discussion of the positioning of political genocides within this field, Cribb also examines some of the other cases of mass political killings of the last century, such as in the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia (2010). Each case, Cribb argues, highlights the similarities between mass persecutions based on political affiliation with other genocides against ethnic, racial or religious groups. As he points out, the Cambodian genocide has activated perhaps the most broad-ranging engagement with understanding genocide as the attempt to “rid the body politic of a vast group of people whose very existence seemed inimical to the nation as the perpetrators conceived it” (2010, p. 449), provoking a range of academic attempts to try to encompass such killings within genocide, including concepts of “auto-genocide” and “politicide” (see Harff & Gurr, 1988; Shaw, 2015). For Cribb, “the experience of Cambodia continues to sit === [PDF page 54] === 34 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman uncomfortably on the sharp frontier of genocide studies, bringing other mass political killings such as Indonesia and China in its wake” (2010, p. 463). Cribb is certainly not the only scholar in the field who implores us to look beyond the “canonical” cases to include other genocidal events in evaluating and creating the tools to understand the mass destruction of human groups. Numerous scholars from a variety of fields engaged in genocide studies have asked us to incorporate a wider sample of cases within our comprehension of the phenomena of genocide (for example, Fein, 1993b; Owens, Su, & Snow, 2013; Shaw, 2015). It is through this greater inclusion of cases, including those in which socio-political groups were targeted, that the similarities between genocidal processes can be elucidated and, potentially, prevented. This broader view of genocidal processes leads to our second and third arguments in our effort to reposition understandings of the 1965 events in Indonesia within the field of comparative genocide studies. Here we argue that the 1965 case in Indonesia provides a critical comparative study for understanding the social and transformative process of genocidal violence. By understanding the 1965 killings as a fundamentally “creative” process of transformation to remake the nation (through the eradication of part of the national polity), this reveals the essentially genocidal nature of these mass killings. In his comparative study of the Holocaust (1933–1945) and statesponsored repression in Argentina (1974–1983), Daniel Feierstein has recently argued for a shift in contemporary understandings of genocide to consider this violence as “the deliberate annihilation of groups as a distinctive form of social engineering” (2014, p. 6). Building on the work of those who have also considered the transformative elements of genocidal processes, including Kiernan (2003; see also 2007) and Dadrian (2004), Feierstein asks us to reposition how we comprehend this violence to think of “genocide as a social practice – a mechanism capable of destroying and reorganizing the fabric of entire societies” (2014, p. 2). Feierstein’s work echoes a general movement, particularly in anthropological analyses of mass violence, towards understanding genocide as a socially creative process; indeed, Straus (2012) notes this trend in a recent article examining the main research trajectories within the field. This growing field of scholarship examines ideas of how “enemies” are identified and vilified so as to justify extreme violence against them. Through the eradication of these now-identified enemies, === [PDF page 55] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 35 society is remade anew (see, for example, Appadurai, 1998; Dunn, 2009; Mamdani, 2001). In the Indonesian case, in the wake of the Army’s dehumanizing propaganda in which Communist supporters were depicted as dangerous and treacherous enemies, the violence functioned to both classify these dangerous internal enemies and necessitate the eradication of the PKI, therefore reforming the Indonesian social polity (see Chapter 1, this volume; Pohlman, 2012). A range of scholars have highlighted this transformative function of the Indonesian genocide by showing how not only Indonesia’s polity but also its fundamental social, cultural and religious landscape was changed forever by the violence (for example, Dwyer & Santikarma, 2003; Hearman, this volume; Ida Bagus, 2012). For Feierstein, this conceptualization of genocide as a socially creative process leads him to reassess how we understand the destruction of a “national” group, which in turn leads to our third argument in this chapter. In essence, he reconsiders what was meant by the term “national” group as per Article 2 of the Genocide Convention in his analysis of repression against the political Left in Argentina under the military junta. Feierstein argues for an understanding of genocide as “essentially a partial destruction of the perpetrators’ own national group – a destruction that is intended to transform the survivors through the annihilation of the victims” (2013, p. 68). The Argentine case, as he argues, in which the extermination of a political group was a part of a national group (Leftists in the Argentine national group) highlights how genocide is not so much a result of clashes between groups (e.g. Tutsi and Hutu; Turk and Armenian) but is mainly “a power strategy” in which “the ultimate purpose of genocide is not the destruction of a group as such but the transformation of society as a whole” (2013, p. 73). In this sense, genocide can be understood as a creative process in which the nation is remade without a part of its former self. Thus, when we consider the eradication of the Left from Indonesia, it is not only the physical processes of mass imprisonment, murder and political repression that reveal the genocidal nature of these events, it is also the complete realignment of Indonesia’s polity. Internal military documents produced during the time of the killings indicate the Indonesian military leadership did not simply intend to destroy its political enemies, it intended to remake the Indonesian state through the form of a “perfected” government; a “New Order” through which to consolidate === [PDF page 56] === 36 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman its new post-genocide regime (Melvin, Chapter 3). As dealt with in this volume, the enduring legacies of the New Order’s militarist anti-Communism (Miller, Chapter 15) and the familial inheritance of political repression against former Leftists (Conroe, Chapter 10; Dragojlovic, Chapter 14), all reveal the ways in which Indonesian society was remade after 1965. Nevertheless, the importance of the Convention as the key means of seeking redress for genocidal violence cannot be overlooked. This is particularly so in the case of the 1965–1966 killings when reference to the Convention has been the key means by which the case has been relegated to its current status as a “peripheral” case of genocide. Applying the Genocide Convention to the Indonesian Killings As mentioned in the previous chapter, at the recent International People’s Tribunal for 1965 (IPT65), the judges considered Feierstein’s arguments regarding the destruction of a “national” group in their final judgement regarding the Indonesian case (2016). The Prosecution did not include the charge of genocide in the indictment presented to the Tribunal at the public hearings in November 2015, but the judges decided that they would consider the issue in their Final Report (2016, p. 72). Reflecting on some of the same judgements made before the recent Argentine Federal Tribunals considered by Feierstein, the judges at the IPT65 confirmed that the criminal acts presented to the Tribunal by the Prosecution “demonstrate the extent to which Indonesian society was completely and intentionally reorganized through terror” and that this constituted genocide because of “the destruction of a significant part of the ‘Indonesian national group’” (2016, p. 75). In their findings, the judges concluded that: The facts brought before the Tribunal by the Prosecution include acts that fall within those enumerated in the Genocide Convention. These acts were committed against a significant and substantial section of the Indonesian nation or “Indonesian national group,” a protected group as enumerated in the Genocide Convention, and were committed with the specific intent to annihilate or destroy that section in whole or in part (2016, p. 82). === [PDF page 57] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 37 There is, however, disagreement among genocide scholars as to whether the partial destruction of a perpetrator group’s own national group (“auto-genocide”) fulfils the stringent definitional requirements of the Convention. International law expert, William Schabas, for example, in his commentary on the Convention, explains that: “Confusing mass killing of the members of the perpetrators’ own group with genocide is inconsistent with the purpose of the Convention, which was to protect national minorities from crimes based on ethnic hatred” (Schabas, 2000, p. 119). International law establishes that the Convention does not apply to members of a national group who are targeted by members of the same national or ethnic group. It is due to this reasoning that the killings of ethnic Khmer during the 1975–1979 killings in Cambodia are not recognised as genocide under international law, while the killing of ethnic minority groups, including ethnic Vietnamese, Cham, Chinese and Thai victims, are (Schabas, 2001). Accepting this exclusion of “auto-genocide” does not preclude victims of the 1965–1966 killings from being understood as a protected group under the Convention. Returning to Cribb’s argument, it is possible to see not only the essentially modern nature of Indonesian national identity, but the manner in which this identity developed as an amalgam of three distinct sub-national group identities: Communist, Islamist and “developmentalist”. Cribb argues “the nature of Indonesian national group identity shows with unusual clarity how political cleansing can also be ethnic cleansing” (Cribb, 2001, p. 222). This is because the targeting of any of these sub-national groups for destruction amounted to an attempt to destroy a key and permanent component part of the nation. It was not the Indonesian national group per se that was targeted for destruction during the 1965–1966 killings, but rather Indonesia’s “communist group”, which can be understood as an “ideologically constituted national or sub-national group” within the Indonesian national group (Melvin, 2018). This distinction is further strengthened by the fact that the military explicitly described its target group as “the communist group” (kaum komunis) in its own internal documentation of the killings (Melvin, 2018).2 The inclusion of ideologically constituted national or sub-national groups as a type of protected national group under the Convention could well address the current problematic sidelining of genocidal violence against Communist groups in Latin America and Indonesia during the Cold War from mainstream discussions of genocide. As can be seen === [PDF page 58] === 38 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman so clearly in the case of Indonesia, Communist groups often played a key role in the formation of national identity in post-colonial states (Cribb, 2010; Feierstein, 2010). Their exclusion amounts to a privileging of ethnicity-based national groups. Indeed, it could be argued that the greatest impediment to the 1965–1966 killings being understood as a case of genocide under the Convention has been the recurring difficulty Indonesia researchers have faced in proving military intent behind the killings. Due to the severe shortage of documentary evidence available with which to counter military claims that the killings were “spontaneous”, debate has remained stuck at the point of trying to prove military agency. It has only been since the discovery of internal military records from the time of the killings that is has been possible to definitively shatter military propaganda accounts and prove the killings were implemented as a deliberate and coordinated “Annihilation Operation” aimed at destroying Indonesia’s Communist group (Melvin, Chapter 3). New research has also uncovered a clear pattern of race-based killings during the time of the 1965–1966 killings. The following section will provide an overview of the targeting of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community during the time of the killings. It will also reflect on the potential consequences of these findings for attempts to have the 1965–1966 killings recognised as a case of genocide. The Targeting of Indonesia’s Ethnic Chinese Community as Genocide In their Final Report, the IPT65 judges additionally considered whether the targeting of ethnic Chinese constituted genocide (2016, p. 76). In their deliberations, the judges examined the findings of the Tribunal Report, which asserts: In Indonesia most Chinese were murdered because they belonged to Baperki, an association of Chinese Indonesian[s] associated with the PKI, but ethnic motives played a role in mass killings of Chinese-Indonesian citizens as well, particularly in Medan, Makassar and Lombok… To the extent that they were killed because of their Chinese identity, their murders would plausibly amount to genocide under the Genocide Convention === [PDF page 59] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 39 The judges also considered new research from Aceh (Melvin, 2013, 2014) which, the Report explains, “has uncovered events of mass killings of Chinese in that province” (2016, p. 76). The judges, however, reserved their findings to state that “further investigation is required” before a ruling can be made regarding whether or not violence against the Chinese community should be classified as genocide (2016, p. 76). This open finding is, in part, a reflection of the limited research that has to date been conducted into anti-Chinese violence during the time of the killings nationally. It is also a reflection of a current debate among scholars of the genocide regarding how such violence should be interpreted. Robert Cribb and Charles Coppel have, for example, argued “there is simply no evidence for a special targeting of Chinese for murder during this period” (2009, p. 448). In doing so, Cribb and Coppel do not claim that ethnic Chinese were not the subject of violence, nor do they deny that Chinese were killed as a result of this violence. Rather, they argue these victims were not killed for being Chinese per se, and that, as such, were not killed as members of a protected group under the Genocide Convention. Initially, this argument was intended to counter erroneous claims commonly found in media reports that emerged during the killings that claimed the majority of victims killed in 1965–1966 were Chinese (Cribb & Coppel, 2009). An article in the Australian edition of Life in 1968, for example, describes the genocide as a result of “centuries-old racial antagonisms” resulting in the massacres of “hundreds of thousands of Chinese” (cited in Cribb & Coppel, 2009, p. 452). Cribb and Coppel correctly explain the majority of victims were indigenous Indonesians. They go too far, however, in dismissing the issue of race as a motivating factor behind the violence of the genocide. As cited above, the International People’s Tribunal has proposed that “ethnic motives” played a role in the killings in Medan, Makassar, Lombok and Aceh. Reports of targeted killings of Chinese have also been uncovered in Central Java (Cribb & Coppel, 2009), Sumbawa, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan (Davidson, 2008). These killings were not “collateral damage” to the main targeting of indigenous Indonesian Communists. They were the result of a deliberate campaign to conflate “China” and “Chinese people” with the actions of the 30 September Movement. In this first instance, this campaign was intended to strengthen antipathy towards the PKI. From 6 October 1965, the military leadership accused the 30 September Movement of being “in the service of Foreign Subversives [Communist China]” (Melvin, 2014). === [PDF page 60] === 40 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman It also played on racist stereotypes already present within Indonesian society, which blamed “Chinese” for the country’s economic woes (Coppel, 1989; Suryadinata, 1992). A result of this campaign was the targeting and destruction of shops owned by ethnic Chinese, regardless of their political orientation, alongside the targeting and killing of individuals attacked for their real or perceived affiliation with the PKI (Melvin, 2014). In Aceh, the indiscriminate targeting of ethnic Chinese peaked in April 1966, four months after the end of systematic mass killings of people accused of being members of the PKI and its affiliated organisations in that province. This violence, which resulted in the torture and murder of members of Aceh’s Chinese community, was only brought to a close by the mass expulsion of Aceh’s Chinese community, including local Chinese with Indonesian citizenship, from the province by Aceh’s Military Commander, Ishak Djuarsa (Melvin, 2014). Perhaps the most extreme anti-Chinese violence occurred in West Kalimantan, the home to Indonesia’s largest Chinese population. According to Jamie Davidson (2008), despite violence during the immediate aftermath of 1 October 1965 remaining subdued due to the small size of the PKI in the province, allegations of Chinese complicity in the actions of the 30 September Movement gained support. From March 1966, when anti-Chinese sentiment was spreading nationally, Chinese people accused of being affiliated with the PKI were ordered to leave the province by Brigadier General Ryacudu, Head of West Kalimantan’s “G30S PKI Annihilation Operation” (Davidson, 2008). Key PKI cadre were able to escape and fled to Bengkayang district, where they launched an armed resistance movement under the name of the “West Kalimantan Communist Army”. In early 1967, the local military launched a series of operations to crush the rebel army, whose members were described as a “band of Chinese communists”. Anti-Chinese massacres broke out in the province in November 1967. The number of Chinese estimated killed in West Kalimantan at this time range from 2000 to 5000 (Davidson, 2008). For these victims, “Chinese” and “Communist” identity was conflated, such that being “Chinese” was alleged to be proof of being “Communist”. The targeting of members of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community based on the ethnic identity of this group during the killings plausibly amounts to genocide, as defined by the Convention. This, moreover, can be argued regardless of how the Convention is applied to the military’s larger target group, as the case of the Cambodian genocide is === [PDF page 61] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 41 able to illustrate. Genocide scholar and Cambodia expert Ben Kiernan has argued the Cambodian killings should be understood as a case of genocide because certain sub-groups of victims targeted by the Khmer Rouge were persecuted due to their identity as members of Cambodia’s Vietnamese, Cham and Khmer Krom ethnic minority groups (Kiernan, 1990, 2009). This argument was adopted by Benjamin Whitaker, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Genocide, who argued that the Khmer Rouge was guilty of genocide, “even under the most restricted [legal] definition… since the victims included target groups such as the Chams [an ethnic and religious minority]” (cited in Kiernan, 1990, p. 40, emphasis added). The same position was adopted by the US State Department in 1989 and by the current UN-sponsored trial of senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea (the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, ECCC), who are accused of “the crime of genocide… crimes against humanity… [and] grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Convention” (Agreement between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia, 2003; Melvin, 2013, 2014). To date, the ECCC has yet to prosecute former members of the Khmer Rouge for the crime of genocide, choosing instead to pursue charges of crimes against humanity. This sidelining of one of the Tribunal’s key original missions to pursue charges of genocide against the Khmer Rouge has meant it has yet to be tested in a court of law whether the Cambodian killings can be ruled a case of genocide under the Convention. As such, there is yet to be legal precedence for adopting a similar argument in the case of Indonesia. The ECCC’s reluctance to pursue charges of genocide against the Khmer Rouge would appear to be driven by domestic political considerations within Cambodia. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and other top members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party are former Khmer Rouge cadres and this has made them nervous about expanding the scope of the charges. As such, the Cambodian government has sought to tightly limit the Tribunal’s room for manoeuvre (see Brinkley, 2013; McCargo, 2011). This situation in Cambodia has parallels with the current situation in Indonesia. The current Indonesian state also retains strong and, in many cases, direct personal links to Suharto’s New Order regime. It is equally against the self-interest of the Indonesian government to prosecute perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide. The International Criminal Court was established precisely to overcome such self-interest on behalf of perpetrator states. Yet, the international community remains just as reluctant === [PDF page 62] === 42 J. Melvin and A. Pohlman to alienate its post-Cold War allies in Jakarta as in Phnom Penh. It is this political hurdle, rather than theoretical debates relating to how the Genocide Convention might best be adopted in the case of Indonesia, that is the most significant impediment to justice for victims of the Indonesian genocide. Conclusion This chapter has presented a case for understanding the Indonesian killings as genocide. It has argued that the exclusion of political groups from protection under the 1948 Genocide Convention has been used to conclude prematurely that victims of the 1965–1966 killings do not constitute a protected group under the Convention. It has also posited that the eradication of a socio-political group from the national polity underlines the socially transformative process of genocide. Further, it has proposed that new evidence now available supports the argument advanced since the early 1980s that victims of the 1965–1966 killings constitute a group far broader than a political group. This group, this chapter has argued, can be understood as a protected group under the Convention. The Indonesian genocide occurred over half a century ago and yet it will continue to haunt Indonesian political life until these crimes are properly investigated and redressed. Furthermore, these killings will cast a shadow over the international justice system for as long as its perpetrators continue to enjoy complete impunity for their actions. The recognition of the 1965–1966 killings as a case of genocide removes the case from its current “peripheral” status and allows scholars and human rights activists to focus on the more important question of why this violence occurred. Notes 1. The politics of naming the 1965–1966 killings as genocide within Indonesia has its own complex history. The first public uses of the term can be traced to the late New Order period and have largely been associated with attempts to seek justice for victims of the killings (see Melvin, 2018). 2. It has additionally been argued that victims of the 1965–1966 killings constitute a religious group. This argument has been advanced based on new evidence victims of the killings were deliberately identified for destruction by the military as “atheists” (Melvin, 2018). === [PDF page 63] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 43 References “Agreement Between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia Concerning the Prosecution Under Cambodian Law of Crimes Committed During the Period of Democratic Kampuchea” (2003, June 6), as signed by Sok An, Senior Minister in Charge of the Council of Ministers and Hans Corell, Under-Secretary for Legal Affairs of the Legal Council. Appadurai, A. (1998). Dead certainty: Ethnic violence in the era of globalization. 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Annual Review of Sociology, 39, 69–84. Pohlman, A. (2012). Spectacular atrocities: Making enemies during the 1965– 1966 massacres in Indonesia. In P. Dwyer & L. Ryan (Eds.), Theatres of violence: Massacre, mass killing and atrocity throughout history (pp. 199–212). New York: Berghahn Books. Pohlman, A. (2014). Incitement to genocide against a political group: The anti-Communist killings in Indonesia. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 11(1), 1–22. Powell, C. (2004). Civilization and genocide (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada). Power, S. (2002). A problem from hell: America and the age of genocide. New York: Basic Books. Rafter, N. (2016). The crime of all crimes: Toward a criminology of genocide. New York: New York University Press. Saul, B. (2001). Was the conflict in East Timor “genocide” and what does it matter? Melbourne Journal of International Law, 2(2), 477–522. Schabas, W. (2000). Genocide in international law. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schabas, W. (2001). Cambodia: Was it really genocide? Human Rights Shaw, M. (2015). What is genocide? (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Short, D. (2010). Cultural genocide and indigenous peoples: A sociological approach. International Journal of Human Rights, 14(6), 833–848. Stone, D. (2004). The historiography of genocide: Beyond “uniqueness” and ethnic competition. Rethinking History, 8(1), 127–142. Straus, S. (2001). Contested meanings and conflicting imperatives: A conceptual analysis of genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 3(3), 349–375. Straus, S. (2012). Retreating from the brink: Theorizing mass violence and the dynamics of restraint. Perspectives on Politics, 10(2), 343–362. Suryadinata, L. (1992). Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese minority and China. Singapore: Heinemann. Thaler, M. (2014). Political imagination and the crime of crimes: Coming to terms with “genocide” and “genocide blindness”. Contemporary Political === [PDF page 67] === 2 A CASE FOR GENOCIDE: INDONESIA, 1965–1966 47 Theriault, H. C. (2010). Genocidal mutation and the challenge of definition. van Schaack, B. (1997). The crime of political genocide: Repairing the Genocide Convention’s blind spot. The Yale Law Journal, 106(7), 2259–2291. Weiss-Wendt, A. (2005). Hostage of politics: Raphael Lemkin on “Soviet genocide”. Journal of Genocide Research, 7(4), 551–559. === [PDF page 68] === PART I New Empirical Research and Interpretations === [PDF page 69] === CHAPTER 3 The Road to Genocide: Indonesian Military Planning to Seize State Power Prior to 1 October 1965 Jess Melvin The Indonesian genocide, the Indonesian military’s chief propagandists would have us believe, was the result of a “spontaneous” uprising by “the people” of Indonesia; an “explosion” of “communal clashes resulting in bloodbaths in certain areas of Indonesia” (Notosusanto & Saleh, 1967, p. 77; Staf Angkatan Bersendjata, 1965, p. 111). This is simply not the case. The Indonesian genocide was initiated and implemented by the Indonesian military as a self-described “annihilation operation” (operasi penumpasan) (“Laporan”, 1966, p. 17). The intention of this operation was to facilitate the military leadership’s plan to seize state power. Such an extensive operation, which resulted in the murder of approximately one million unarmed civilians nationally, would have been impossible without extensive coordination and planning.1 A key difficulty for scholars of the Indonesian genocide is that, despite it being known that the Indonesian military had expressed its intention to seize state J. Melvin (*) Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA © The Author(s) 2018 51 K. McGregor et al. (eds.), The Indonesian Genocide of 1965, Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_3 === [PDF page 70] === 52 J. Melvin power during the months leading up to 1 October 1965, the nature of such planning has, beyond its broadest outlines, remained unknown.2 In this chapter, I show that such planning did take place and demonstrate how this planning occurred in Aceh, Indonesia’s western-most province, and Sumatra more generally, using the military’s own account of events. Drawing upon 3,000 pages of previously unknown government and military documents from Aceh, this chapter argues the military’s seizure of state power on 1 October 1965 was the result of at least 12 months’ planning and preparation. This planning and preparation was facilitated under the guise of the “Crush Malaysia” (Ganyang Malaysia) campaign and was premised on concentrating security powers in the hands of the military. This concentration of security powers was achieved through the adoption of Ganyang Malaysia-era “Dwikora” legislation, which was ironically first conceptualized by Sukarno as a means of providing a counterbalance to the military’s monopoly of armed power; and two inter-lapping military operations, the Operasi Singgalang and Operasi Berdikari. It was these operations that provided the military leadership with the powers and chains of command that it used to launch its seizure of state power and genocidal attack against its political enemy, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI, Partai Komunis Indonesia) in Aceh from 1 October 1965. Before moving to outline military planning to seize state power prior to 1 October 1965, it is necessary to make several important qualifications. First, intent is often difficult to prove; this is particularly the case when researching a 50-year-old event using incomplete military records. The conclusions reached in this chapter are by nature speculative: they present a partial rather than total explanation of military planning to seize state power. Second, proving the military leadership’s intent to launch a campaign to seize state power is separate to proving the military leadership’s intent to launch a campaign of genocidal violence. I believe there is evidence to prove military intent to commit genocide. I have documented this elsewhere. This chapter will concentrate on demonstrating military intent to seize state power prior to 1 October 1965.3 Here I propose it is possible to see the culmination of two distinct processes in the military’s seizure of state power: the first was the outcome of a long-term plan by the military leadership to create and control an internal parallel government or “state within the state”, through the formation of the Supreme Operations Command (KOTI); the === [PDF page 71] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 53 second was the outcome of a reactive and opportunistic plan shaped by the circumstances created by the foolhardy actions of the 30 September Movement during the morning of 1 October 1965. This second process, enacted under the leadership of General Suharto, spearheaded the implementation of the military’s underlying plan to seize state power. It is the first, long-term plan, that can help to explain the seamlessness of the military’s actions in implementing an undeclared coup, which placed almost the entire key executive coercive infrastructure of the Indonesian state under the military’s control. Meanwhile, it was the determination of the military leadership under Suharto to use the momentum of circumstance to kick the military’s long-term plan into action that explains the speed and ruthlessness of this campaign. This chapter proposes that the first phase of this campaign can be traced back to at least September 1964, when the military leadership threw its support behind Sukarno’s Ganyang Malasia campaign and actively began to seek autonomous control over military command structures. The decision to activate these plans to begin to seize state power on 1 October 1965, this chapter will show, was not made until the morning of 1 October 1965.4 Meanwhile, the decision to use these preparations to launch a campaign of genocidal violence did not fully evolve until the crucial 1–14 October 1965 period.5 This understanding does not negate military accountability for the coup and ensuing genocide. Indeed, this chapter argues that the military’s seizure of state power and the ensuing genocide would not have been possible without this planning and preparation. Indonesia at a Crossroads In 1965 Indonesia was at a crossroads. The Cold War was at its height in Southeast Asia, and it appeared to be only a matter of time before the PKI, the largest Communist Party in the world outside of the USSR and Communist China, would come to power. The Indonesian military—a highly politicized armed forces that had constituted an integral part of Indonesia’s political life since Indonesia’s national revolution—was, however, determined to halt the PKI’s rise and place the Indonesian state under its own direction. From the early 1960s the Indonesian military leadership began to make specific plans to “re-orient” the Indonesian state. === [PDF page 72] === 54 J. Melvin In January 1965, the US Ambassador noted the Indonesian m ilitary was “developing specific plans for takeover of government [the] moment Sukarno [Indonesia’s highly popular and avowedly Marxist ‘President For Life’] steps off stage” (Roosa, 2006, p. 189). Meanwhile, some officers in the top military command advocated that such a takeover should be launched before Sukarno’s death if the PKI succeeded in forming an armed civilian militia. It was to be “a coup that would not appear to be a coup” (Roosa, 2006, p. 189). The military leadership’s eventual decision not to wait until Sukarno stepped off stage was intimately tied to the Ganyang Malaysia campaign, which was launched by Sukarno in September 1963. The Ganyang Malaysia campaign—officially aimed at protesting the formation of the Malaysian nation state6—became a disguised power struggle between Sukarno, the military leadership and the PKI, and was ultimately used as a cover by the military leadership to prepare itself to take power. It would be the legislation and structures that were established during this time that were ultimately used by the military leadership to launch its attack against the PKI and which explain the highly centralized and intentional nature of this attack. Dwikora and the Mandala Satu Command Sukarno had originally signalled no interest in opposing the formation of an independent Malaysia. This was in contrast to the PKI, which vocally argued that the new nation would act as a puppet nation for British and US imperialism in the region. From September 1963, however, Sukarno threw his support behind the campaign, seeing it as a means to reclaim the spirit of national unity that had been generated by earlier military campaigns (Crouch, 2007, pp. 58–59). The military leadership, meanwhile, was vehemently opposed to the campaign, worried that it would affect its relationship with the US military and threaten its now eroded powers, which had been in decline since Martial Law was lifted in mid- 1963 (Crouch, 2007, pp. 59–62). On 3 May 1964, Sukarno announced his concept of Dwikora (“Peoples Double Command”), which called for the intensification of the Indonesian revolution and Ganyang Malaysia campaign, as well as for the mobilization and training of 21 million volunteers to support this campaign. These concepts were subsequently codified in September 1964 through a piece of legislation entitled “Decisions to Increase === [PDF page 73] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 55 the Implementation of Dwikora” (“Keputusan”, 1966, p. 1244). This legislation established a new military chain of command to oversee the Ganyang Malaysia campaign, known as the KOTI (“Supreme Operations Command”) command. This new command possessed broad and sweeping powers akin to Indonesia’s existing State of Military Emergency and State of War legislation.7 Sukarno’s apparent intention was to use this legislation to curtail the military’s powers by placing his own allies in control of this command and to provide a counterbalance to the military’s monopoly on arms by providing basic arms’ training to the campaign’s proposed 21 million volunteers (Sundhaussen, 1982, p. 186). The military also appears to have sensed the opportunities this legislation presented for it to launch its own attack against the PKI, so long as it was able to wrest control over the campaign. It therefore chose to support rather than oppose the implementation of Dwikora as might have been expected. This led to the odd situation in which the military leadership publicly committed itself to preparing for an armed conflict with Malaysia, while it secretly went about sabotaging military actions related to this campaign (Crouch, 2007, pp. 69–75). This disguised power play produced the structures that would eventually be used by the military to launch its attack against the PKI, as it sought to create a new parallel government, or “state within the state”. Beneath the newly consolidated KOTI command, a new military command, the Kolaga (“Area Alert Command”), was established parallel to the Kodam Command (“Military Area Command”, the existing province-level military command structure) to coordinate and direct all military activities related to the Ganyang Malaysia in Sumatra and Kalimantan (Crouch, 2007, p. 187). These two locations were chosen due to their physical proximity to Malaysia. In Sumatra, this command structure was known as the Mandala Satu (First Mandala) Command. In Kalimantan, it was known as the Mandala Dua (Second Mandala) Command (Poesponegoro & Notosusanto, 2008, p. 466). The Mandala Satu Command in Sumatra was headed by a Mandala Satu Commander (Panglatu: Panglima Mandala Satu), a position held by Mokoginta, who was also the Inter-Provincial Military Commander (Pangkoanda) for Sumatra under the Kodam command structure. Under the Panglatu in Sumatra, meanwhile, there existed a network of Regional Authorities for the Implementation of Dwikora (Pepelrada: Penguasa Pelaksanaan Dwikora Daerah) responsible for territories corresponding === [PDF page 74] === 56 J. Melvin with the Kodam. In Aceh the position of Pepelrada was held by Aceh’s Kodam Commander Ishak Djuarsa.8 This new KOTI command possessed unprecedented powers, including the right to seize property, impose curfews, search people and their belongings, ban people from living in or leaving certain areas, temporarily exile people, require civilians to assist in the implementation of Dwikora and arrest and detain people for up to 30 days without charge (“Keputusan”, 1966, pp. 1244–1247). These powers allowed the military to effectively implement martial law without having to declare martial law. Most disturbingly, Dwikora was implemented internally through the KOTI command, allowing the military to effectively impose de facto martial law conditions without first having to seek permission from Sukarno, as was the case with Indonesia’s martial law legislation (“Keputusan”, 1966, p. 1244). This development facilitated Suharto’s effort to wrest control of the Indonesian state during the post-Movement period. It also helps to explain why Suharto did not need to confront Sukarno directly in order to seize these new powers. In the case of Aceh and Sumatra, as a result of the military’s depth of preparation during the pre-attack period, such a confrontation was simply not necessary. Sukarno and the PKI were aware of the potential powers that this new command possessed. Indeed, they also wished to use these new powers to their own advantage. Prior to 1 October 1965, both the PKI and the military leadership were actively positioning themselves to benefit from this power struggle, while Sukarno believed he had control over the situation. It is for this reason, for example, that Omar Dhani, Indonesia’s Air Force Commander, who was sympathetic to Sukarno and who would eventually become involved in the actions of the 30 September Movement, was assigned as Mandala Vigilance (Kolaga) Commander, much to the irritation of the military leadership (Crouch, 2007, p. 61). In this position, Dhani was responsible to Sukarno, who was assigned as supreme KOTI Commander while the Army’s Ahmad Yani was assigned as KOTI Chief of Staff. Beneath Dhani was Suharto, who was assigned as First Deputy Kolaga Commander in addition to his position as KOSTRAD Commander (Crouch, 2007, p. 71). These assignments were a compromise for both the military leadership and the PKI. Each sought to influence the new command and position themselves === [PDF page 75] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 57 for what was assumed to be an inevitable struggle for control of the Indonesian state. The United States supported such a showdown. Indeed, US officials repeatedly informed key members of the military leadership that the US would support them if they moved against the PKI (Roosa, 2006, p. 193). What was inconceivable to both sides without the benefit of hindsight was that a small conspiracy group in the form of the 30 September Movement could launch an action so devastating that the military leadership would have sufficient political capital to launch a fullfrontal attack against the PKI. The actions of the Movement created an opportunity for the military to seize control, openly and without resistance, not only of the KOTI command but also the entire executive infrastructure of the Indonesian state apparatus, and to wield this new power so brutally against its political opponents. Meanwhile, Sukarno was rendered paralyzed and the PKI scrambled to save itself. The actions of the 30 September Movement thus acted not only as a “pretext”9 for the military’s plans to seize state power but also as an accelerant. This new command also had access to civilian government. At the provincial level, once Dwikora was implemented, the new regional authorities (Pepelrada) were “required to deliberate” with the Provincial Pantja Tunggal (“One in Five”), the top executive board at the provincial and district level (“Keputusan”, 1966, p. 1245). The Pantja Tunggal drew its name from the number of its members, which comprised the province’s Military Commander, Chief Prosecutor, Police Chief, Provincial Governor, and a civilian representative from the Provincial Government. This pattern was also repeated at the district level. The Pantja Tunggal was initially intended to allow civilian political representatives (especially Communists, Sundhaussen has explained, who often came to hold the civilian representative position) to act as a “counterweight” to Army officers in the provinces (Sundhaussen, 1982, pp. 185–186). Once Dwikora was implemented in response to a military threat, however, the Pantja Tunggal acted to subsume the civilian government under military control. This helps to explain the military’s ability to wrest control over Aceh’s key government structures on 1 October 1965 and to then activate and pursue its own campaign for dominance and “annihilation” of its political enemies over the following days, weeks and months. === [PDF page 76] === 58 J. Melvin Military Preparations to Seize State Power in Sumatra Throughout 1964, Sukarno became increasingly bellicose in his rhetoric; a situation which was matched on the ground by increased anti-US sentiment. US embassies and cultural centres were attacked, while US-owned plantations were occupied and taken over and the Indonesian military leadership became increasingly publicly identified with pro-US interests (Ryter, 2000, pp. 35–42). The PKI, which supported this anti-US sentiment, was now on the offensive. In Aceh, as around the country, this included the PKI becoming actively involved in training militia groups, ostensibly under the auspices of the Ganyang Malaysia campaign.10 The military also began to go on the offensive. In March 1965, the Mandala Satu Command engaged in training exercises under the direction of Mokoginta, which it named “Operasi Singgalang”.11 Operasi Singgalang was carried out in each provincial-level Military Command (Kodam) in every province in Sumatra and entailed the mobilization of “all members of the Armed Forces and all layers of society” including military-trained civilian paramilitary Hansip (Civilian Defence) (“Operasi”, 1966, p. 72). One participant in the Operation, Amir Hasan, who became a leading member of the military-sponsored Komando Aksi (Action Command) death squad that was active during the genocide in North Sumatra, has described how: “At the time of Operasi Singgalang, Hansip members were ordered every morning to deliver by motorbike secret reports to the Operation centre in Kotari Subdistrict [in coordination with the military officers responsible for coordinating Hansip at the village level]…” (Hasan, n.d., p. 5). The Operation was a dry run to test the preparedness of the provincial military and paramilitary units to respond to a call to mobilize, described by the military as a theoretical invasion by Malaysia.12 It appears to have been a means for the military to involve civilians in its own preparations to move against the PKI once the opportunity presented itself. One month later, in April 1965, this preparation was intensified through the announcement of a new operation named “Operasi Berdikari” (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17).13 Very little is known about the Operasi Berdikari. What is known is taken from military reports from the time. In the Aceh Military Command’s “Complete Yearly Report for 1965”, Djuarsa explained how during Operasi Berdikari “not only the Armed Forces and the Civilian Government participated, but also the entire society joined in the attempt to prepare the potential === [PDF page 77] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 59 of the territorial defence of Aceh” (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17). The Operation appears to have progressed through three main phases. During its first phase, from April, the Operation was essentially a preparation campaign (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17). On 1 August, the Operation entered its second phase, when yet another new military command structure was inaugurated (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17). This new command in Aceh was named the Kodahan (Defence Region Command) (“Peta”, 1966, p. 1). The Kodahan command, which existed parallel to the Kodam and Mandala Satu commands, was superimposed over Aceh’s regular territorial command structure. The stated purpose of this new command structure was to facilitate the “territorial defence” (pertahanan wilajah) of Aceh (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17); a term used to refer to the total mobilization of society to prepare for war. Under this new command, Djuarsa was appointed as Defence Region Commander (Panghanda), in addition to his positions as Kodam Commander (Pangdam) and Pepelrada, under the Mandala Satu Command, which he retained. Meanwhile, Mokoginta was appointed as Inter-Regional Defence Region Commander (Pangandahan) for Sumatra, indicating that this new command was established throughout Sumatra at this time. He would hold this position in addition to his positions as Inter-Provincial Military Commander under the Kodam Command (Pangkoanda) and Mandala Satu Commander (Panglatu). Each of Aceh’s districts were assigned as “Defence Sector Commands” (Kosekhan) in addition to their designation as Military District Commands (Kodim). Meanwhile, under the new Kosekhan structure, Aceh’s districts were divided into two major Sub-Region Defence Commands (Kosubdahan), with the Lilawangsa Kosubdahan responsible for Kosekhan to the east of Aceh’s Seulawah mountain range, including Central Aceh Kosekhan, and the Teuku Umar Kosubdahan responsible for Kosekhan to the west (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17). The significance of these new district-level command structures lay in the control they gave the military over local district and sub-district-level armed forces and civilian paramilitary organizations. Each Kosekhan was responsible for the coordination of district and sub-district-level military troops and police personnel. They were also responsible for the coordination of village-level Peoples Defence (Hansip) and Civilian Defence (Hanra) paramilitary units (“Daftar”, 1966, pp. 1–8). These paramilitary units had received intensive military training during the months prior to === [PDF page 78] === 60 J. Melvin 1 October, as evidenced during the Operasi Singgalang campaign, and, by the eve of 1 October 1965, represented a serious paramilitary force in the province. A list of the numerical strength of Hansip and Hanra units in each of Aceh’s newly assigned Kosekhan is attached to the Aceh Military Command’s Complete Yearly Report for 1965 (“Struktur”, 1966, pp. 1–3). The size of these units is striking. In Greater Aceh, the military had access to 21,661 Hansip/Hanra members “including Student Regiments”. In Pidie, it had access to 23,000 Hansip/Hanra members; in North Aceh, 22,412; in East Aceh, 21,000; in Central Aceh, 7118; in West Aceh, 23,322; in South Aceh, 21,000; in Southeast Aceh, 6157; with a total of 148,167 Hansip and Hanra members directly integrated into the military’s operations by the eve of 1 October 1965 in the province. This figure is equivalent to approximately 33.4% of Aceh’s adult male population (aged 15–54 years).14 These Hansip/Hanra units would shortly be armed with rifles and machine guns by the military, forming the shock troops of the military’s annihilation campaign in the province alongside military-sponsored death squads and the military itself (“Kekuatan”, 1966, pp. 1–2). Activation of Operasi Berdikari These escalations in the military’s preparations coincided with Sukarno’s declaration on 17 August 1965, during his national Independence Day speech, that he had publically adopted the PKI’s call for the creation of an armed “Fifth Force” or “People’s Army” (Mortimer, 2006, p. 384): an auxiliary service to be made up of armed workers and peasants that would exist parallel to the army, air force, navy and police force.15 Such a force would have effectively stripped the military of its monopoly over armed force and was a significant intensification of Sukarno’s first announcement in May 1964, when he had called for the mobilization and training of 21 million volunteers to support the Ganyang Malaysia campaign, which had so disturbed the military at that time and had initially prompted it to begin to take action. To the military, Sukarno’s announcement crossed an important line and it appears that a decision was now made within the military leadership that it would no longer delay its plans to seize power until after Sukarno had left the scene. It would now seek to seize power as soon as a suitable opportunity === [PDF page 79] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 61 presented itself and consider the possibility of sidelining or removing Sukarno if necessary. This opportunity arose during the morning of 1 October 1965, when the foolhardy actions of the 30 September Movement acted as the catalyst for the activation of the military’s plans to seize state power.16 In addition to the raft of directives that Suharto, Mokoginta and Djuarsa sent on this morning (outlined below), which indicate the depth of the military leadership’s determination to act in an insubordinate manner on this crucial day, it can now be revealed that the Kodahan command was activated on 1 October: an event that was marked by the changing of the Command’s name from the Kodahan to the Kohanda (Regional Defence Command) Command. This act was intended to signify that the Operation had moved from its preparation stage to implementation. As Djuarsa has explained: Since 1 October 1965, the Plan for Operation Berdikari was activated, which included a determination regarding the outlines of policy for the Aceh Defence Region Command as related to the territorial defence of Aceh… Since the occurrence of GESTOK [a name for the 30 September Movement] on 1 October 1965, the entire strength of Kohanda “Atjeh” has been mobilized to achieve the success of the operation to annihilate GESTOK. This operation has been weighted towards intelligence and territorial actions. This Operation (Operasi Berdikari) has… been a brilliant success. (“Laporan”, 1966, pp. 16–17.) This extraordinary statement, the first of its kind to be found, is the most explicit admission produced by the military leadership that it used the structures that it seemingly established as part of the Ganyang Malaysia campaign to launch its attack against the PKI. The military’s seizure of power and the subsequent genocide, this statement confirms, was initiated and implemented by the military leadership through the structures of the Kohanda command in Aceh, which it also used to mobilize civilians to participate in this campaign. Indeed, it would appear that Djuarsa’s statement confirms, for the first time on record, that the genocide, at least in its initial stages, was known to the military leadership in Aceh province as “Operasi Berdikari”: an operation that was established two months prior to 1 October and === [PDF page 80] === 62 J. Melvin activated during the morning of 1 October, when the military was supposedly still deciding how to react. Operasi Berdikari and the Facilitation of Genocide What was known about the mechanics of how the military leadership initiated its seizure of state power during the morning of 1 October 1965 and how this campaign escalated into genocide remained, until recently, sketchy. Nationally, it is known that Suharto assumed the position of Army Chief of Staff, a position held until that morning by Ahmad Yani, between 6.30 am and 7.00 am before refusing to step down from this position when ordered to by Sukarno at 4.00 pm (Crouch, 2007, p. 129). It is also known that during the morning of 1 October, Suharto used his position as Kostrad Commander to enforce his position as selfappointed and insubordinate Commander of the Armed Forces—a position he then used to spearhead his genocidal attack against the PKI. How Suharto extended his control nationally is less well understood. Previously, for example, the only known record of communication between Suharto and regional military commanders occurred at 9.00 pm during the evening of 1 October, when Suharto had announced: “now we are able to control the situation both in the centre and the regions” (“Pidato”, 1965, pp. 59–60). I show, however, that it is now possible to demonstrate that Suharto was in communication with Indonesia’s regional military commanders during the morning of 1 October and that the extent of inter-military communication during this crucial day was greater than previously thought. The most detailed information we have of how this process occurred can be found in the military documents discovered in Aceh. These documents reveal how, during the morning of 1 October 1965, Suharto appears to have been in contact with regional military commanders throughout the country. Through this communication, Suharto, acting in his newly self-appointed position as Army Chief of Staff, conveyed “news” that a “coup movement” had occurred in the capital (“Chronologis”, 1966, p. 1)—an announcement that pre-empted the 30 September Movement’s own coup announcement by approximately 6–8 hours.17 In Sumatra, this news was followed by “instructions” sent by Mokoginta acting in his capacity as Mandala Satu Commander (Panglatu) that troops should remain calm and “await further orders/ instructions from the Panglatu” (“Chronologis”, 1966, p. 1). === [PDF page 81] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 63 Further instructions were then sent by Djuarsa acting in his capacity as “Pangdahan ‘A’”, which conveyed the directive for all troops under him to “await further orders/ instructions” from “the Panglatu” [Mokoginta] (“Chronologis”, 1966, p. 1).18 These promised orders from the Panglatu would become clear at midnight that night, when Mokoginta delivered a speech in Medan, where he announced: “it is ordered (diperintahkan)… that all members of the Armed Forces… resolutely and completely annihilate (setjara tegas/tandas menumpas) this counter-revolution (the 30 September Movement)” (Mokoginta, 1966, pp. 152–153). In addition to declaring the military leadership’s intention to “annihilate” its political enemies, these directives and instructions are evidence that the military leadership under Suharto used the KOTI command to seize control of the Indonesian state through means of an undeclared coup. The best way to conceptualize this seizure of state power is to understand it as the culmination of two parallel processes. The first of these processes was the reactive and opportunistic actions of Suharto during the morning of 1 October, as he realized that the actions of the 30 September Movement could be used as the long-awaited pretext to launch the army’s campaign to seize state power. His immediate actions involved his self-appointment to the position of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and subsequent refusal to step down from this position. He also mobilized the Army Strategic Command (Kostrad) to neutralize the 30 September Movement and then continued to escalate this response once it was clear that the 30 September Movement had been isolated and then destroyed. He also, in addition to his position as Kostrad Commander and his new self-appointed position of Army Chief of Staff, assumed the position of KOTI Chief of Staff, which, under his control, used Dwikora legislation to mobilize the Kolaga chain of command through the self-activation of martial law conditions—one consequence of which was the activation of Operasi Berdikari in Aceh. The second of these processes was the local mobilization of the KOTI and Kolga chains of command in the provinces. In the case of Aceh, this process was driven by Mokoginta and Djuarsa, who, acting independently of Sukarno, acknowledged Suharto’s insubordinate leadership and activated the troops and structures under their own control to support his leadership. This second process was not premised primarily on personal loyalty to Suharto but rather was in accordance with the long-term strategic planning of the national military leadership. === [PDF page 82] === 64 J. Melvin These two processes should be regarded as separate because the military’s long-term plan to seize state power existed independently to Suharto’s individual actions during the morning of 1 October and could have conceivably been activated through a number of scenarios. Operasi Berdikari was the culmination of at least 12 months of planning and manoeuvring by the military leadership in Aceh. Drawing its legal basis in Dwikora legislation, Operasi Berdikari was an outcome of the steady concentration of security powers in the hands of the military under the guise of support for the Ganyang Malaysia campaign. There is evidence that similar operations may have been carried out in provinces other than Aceh, in particular in North Sumatra, though the details of these operations, if they occurred, are not yet known.19 It is also possible that Aceh acted as a kind of “test case” for the military nationally as a result of the higher concentration of pro-military sentiment in the province’s political leadership as a consequence of the settlement of the Darul Islam rebellion in the province two years earlier, which saw the military dominate Aceh’s Pantja Tunggal body (Melvin, 2014, pp. 49–53). This situation may have helped enable the military to seize control of state structures in Aceh and subsequently launch its annihilation campaign more quickly and more comprehensively than in other provinces where such planning was not yet as advanced. The case of Aceh presents an especially clear example of military intentions to prepare to seize state power prior to 1 October 1965. It also confirms that the military’s campaign in the province occurred as part of a centralized, national campaign by demonstrating the communication and coordination that occurred between the provincial military leadership in Aceh, the inter-district military leadership in Sumatra, and the national military leadership in Jakarta. Conclusion This chapter proposes that the military’s post-movement behaviour was a logical extension of its preparations and planning prior to 1 October 1965. From 1964, the military escalated its preparations to seize control of the Indonesian state in tandem with the escalation in announcements made by Sukarno and the PKI. Specifically, Sukarno’s stated plan to establish an armed civilian militia through the framework of the Ganyang Malaysia campaign appears to have triggered an escalation in military plans. The military subsequently subverted military frameworks === [PDF page 83] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 65 established during this period for its own stated objectives of seizing state power. The military’s seizure of state power and attack against the PKI was pre-planned, though the exact timing and form of this seizure was not determined until the morning of 1 October 1965. The subsequent genocide was equally coordinated and centralized. Indeed, the killings in Aceh were implemented using these exact chains of command. There was nothing spontaneous about the military’s actions. It is the extent of this planning that helps to explain the seamlessness of the military’s actions in implementing an undeclared coup that placed almost the entire key executive coercive infrastructure of the Indonesian state under its control without so much as necessitating an open confrontation with Sukarno. Notes 1. As Benedict Anderson has observed, “domestic mass murder on a large scale is always the work of the state” (2013, p. 1). Jacques Semelin has similarly argued, “massacre can only spread on a grand scale if a central authority more or less overtly encourages it” (2007, p. 167). 2. “Suharto’s coup d’état”, for example, is referenced in the title of John Roosa’s study, Pretext for mass murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s coup d’état in Indonesia (2006), but the details of how this coup was achieved is not explained in the text. 3. I present an explanation of how the military initiated and implemented the genocide in Jess Melvin, The army and the Indonesian genocide: Mechanics of mass murder (2018). 4. Whether or not Suharto had foreknowledge of the actions of the 30 September Movement remains debated in the literature. As John Roosa has observed, Nasution, Yani and the other generals killed could hardly have had known about the intentions of the 30 September Movement unless they consented to their own deaths (Roosa, 2006, p. 79). Moreover, if it is ever proven Suharto had foreknowledge of the actions of the 30 September Movement, a suggestion first posited by W. F. Wertheim, it remains debatable whether he knew what the outcome of the actions of the group would be. He could not have known with any certainty how Sukarno, the PKI, or even the remainder of the military leadership would react to these events, suggesting that the actions taken by Suharto during the morning of 1 October 1965 were at least partly improvised. === [PDF page 84] === 66 J. Melvin 5. This self-declared “annihilation operation” included the initiation and implementation of public killings and the formation of military-sponsored death squads. The decision to systematically murder prison populations, meanwhile, appears to have been made on approximately 14 October. 6. For an excellent account of the Ganyang Malaysia campaign, see Easter (2005). 7. See, “Keadaan Bahaya”, Perpu 2/1959; LN 1959-139; TLN 1908 (sdu. dg. Perpu 52/ 1960-170), in Himpunan, n.d., p. 452. 8. It was common for regional military commanders to jointly hold these two positions (Crouch, 2007, p. 362). 9. This argument has been convincingly and eloquently made by Roosa (2006). 10. A rare photograph in Life magazine shows PKI-affiliated Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, the Indonesian Women’s Movement) members conducting a drill in Jakarta carrying rifles as part of the Ganyang Malaysia campaign. Image available online: http://pramukanewss. blogspot.com.au/2013/06/ganjang-malaysia-dengan-angkatan-kelima. html. In Jakarta, PKI-affiliated People’s Youth (Pemuda Rakjat) members participated in training at Lubang Buaya (Wieringa, 2003, p. 78). An account of this training in Aceh can be found in Melvin (2014, pp. 58–60). 11. Mount Singgalang is a picturesque twin volcanic mountain adjacent to Mount Tandikat that overlooks Bukittinggi, West Sumatra. In late 1948, Bukittinggi became the bastion of the Republican government following the collapse of the Republic’s capital in Java. 12. See, for example, “Operasi” (1966, p. 72). 13. Berdikari is an acronym that means “standing on one’s own feet” and had previously been used by Sukarno. This operation was not part of the “Berdikari Operation Campaign”, known as “Kotari”, that was launched by Sukarno in September 1965. The Kotari campaign was a purely economic campaign, aimed at promoting economic self-reliance, while the Operasi Berdikari was a specific military campaign launched five months prior to the Kotari campaign in Aceh as a means of mobilizing the military and society through a territorial warfare campaign. 14. See “Atjeh Dalam Angka” (1971, p. 159). This figure uses national census data for the year 1965 to determine the average percentage of the adult male population (aged 15–54 years) (25.1%) compared to the total population. I have applied this percentage to Aceh census data estimates of total population size in the province in 1965 (1,774,160). For national census figures, see: www.populationpyramid.net/indonesia/1965/. For Aceh specific census data, see “Atjeh” (1971). === [PDF page 85] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 67 15. By way of signalling his depth of support for this proposal, Sukarno claimed the idea for a Fifth Force had been his own (Mortimer, 2006, p. 384). The formation of a “Fifth Force” was first publically proposed by PKI Chairman D. N. Aidit in January 1965 (Crouch, 2007, p. 87). 16. For an account of the events of 1 October 1965 in Jakarta, see Roosa (2006). 17. The 30 September Movement’s declaration of a “Revolution Council” at 2.00 pm marked the formal transformation of the Movement into a coup body. “Decree No. 1 on the Establishment of the Indonesian Revolution Council”, 1 October 1965 (1966, p. 136). 18. It is not known why Djuarsa continued to use the pre-1 October term for the Kohanda command, however it is likely this was done for the sake of simplicity. 19. A military map from Aceh designates North Sumatra as the “North Sumatra Regional Defence Command” (“Kohanda Sumut”), suggesting the Kohanda Command was also activated in North Sumatra on 1 October 1965. References 40 hari kegagalan “G.30.S”: 1 Oktober–10 November 1965. (1966) (2nd ed. [1965]). Jakarta: Staf Pertahanan Keamanan Lembaga Sedjara. Anderson, B. (2013, April 14). Impunity and reenactment: Reflections on the 1965 massacre in Indonesia and its legacy. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 11(15.4). Atjeh dalam Angka 1970. (1971). Banda Aceh: Badan Perentjanaan Pembangunan Atjeh. Chronologis kedjadian2 jang berhubungan dengan Gerakan 30 September di Daerah Kodam-I/Atjeh. (1966). In Laporan tahunan lengkap Kodam-I/ Kohanda Atjeh tahun 1965. Banda Aceh: Kodam-I. Crouch, H. (2007). The military and politics in Indonesia (Rev. ed.). Jakarta: Equinox Publishing. Daftar: Kekuatan ABRI Hansip/Hanra/Sukwan di Kohanda Atjeh. (1966). In Laporan tahunan lengkap Kodam-I/Kohanda Atjeh tahun 1965. Banda Aceh: Kodam-I. Decree No. 1 on the establishment of the Indonesian Revolution Council. (1 October 1965). In Selected documents relating to the “September 30th Movement” and its epilogue. Indonesia, 1 (April 1966). Djoened Poesponegoro, M., & Notosusanto, N. (2008). Sejarah nasional Indonesia VI: Zaman Jepang dan zaman Republik Indonesia. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka. === [PDF page 86] === 68 J. Melvin Easter, D. (2005). Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia, 1960–66. London: Tauris Academic Studies. Hasan Nast BA, Amir. Embun berdarah, self-published, undated manuscript, in author’s possession. Himpunan peraturan perundangan-undangan RI. (n.d.). Jakarta: Ichtiar Baru van Hoeve. “Keadaan bahaya”, Perpu 2/1959; LN 1959-139; TLN 1908 (sdu. dg. Perpu 52/1960-170). In Himpunan Peraturan Perundangan-Undangan RI. Jakarta: Ichtiar Baru van Hoeve (n.d.). Keputusan peningkat pelaksanaan Dwikora, Keppres/Plm Tert. ABRI/KOTI/ KOTOE No. 52/KOTI tahun 1964; mb 14 September 1964. In Muhono (Ed.), Ketetapan MPRS dan peraturan negara jang penting bagi anggauta Angkatan Bersendjata. Jakarta: Tentara Nasional Indonesia (1966). Laporan tahunan lengkap Kodam-I/Kohanda Atjeh tahun 1965. (1966). Banda Aceh: Kodam-I. Melvin, J. (2014). Mechanics of mass murder: How the Indonesian military initiated and implemented the Indonesian genocide, the case of Aceh. (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia). Melvin, J. (2018). The army and the Indonesian genocide: Mechanics of mass murder. New York: Routledge. Mokoginta, L. A. J. (1966). Koleksi pidato2/kebidjaksanaan Panglima Daerah Sumatra. Medan: Koanda Sumatera. Mortimer, R. (2006 [1974]). Indonesian communism under Sukarno: Ideology and politics, 1959–1965. Jakarta: Equinox Publishing. Notosusanto, N., & Saleh, I. (1967). The coup attempt of the “September 30 Movement” in Indonesia. Jakarta: NP. Operasi Singgalang: Mentjapai sukses jang gemilang, Medan, 23 Maret 1965. In A. Letdjen & J. Mokoginta, Koleksi pidato2/kebidjaksanaan Panglima Daerah Sumatra. Medan: Koanda Sumatera (1966). Peta Bagian Daerah Kohanda Atjeh. (1966). In Laporan tahunan lengkap Kodam-I/Kohanda Atjeh tahun 1965. Banda Aceh: Kodam-I. Pidato radio pimpinan sementara Angkatan Darat Major Djendral Soeharto, Pimpinan Sementara AD Republik Indonesia, Major Jendral Soeharto, 1 October 1965. In A. Dinuth, Dokumen terpilih sekitar G.30.S/PKI. Jakarta: Penerbit Intermasa (1997). Roosa, J. (2006). Pretext for mass murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto’s coup d’etat in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Ryter, L. (2000). Scalpers and destroyers: Pemuda Pancasila in Medan in the 1960’s. Originally presented at the 1999 AAS Conference in San Diego, March 10, 2000, written transcript in author’s possession. Semelin, J. (2007). Purify and destroy: The political uses of massacre and genocide. New York: Colombia University Press. === [PDF page 87] === 3 THE ROAD TO GENOCIDE: INDONESIAN MILITARY PLANNING … 69 Staf Angkatan Bersendjata. (1965). 40 hari kegagalan “G-30-S”: 1 Oktober–10 November 1965. Jakarta: Pusat Sedjarah Angkatan Bersendjata. Struktur Komando Pertahanan Daerah Atjeh. (1966). In Laporan tahunan lengkap, Kodam-I/Kohanda Atjeh tahun 1965. Banda Aceh: Kodam-I. Sundhaussen, U. (1982). The road to power: Indonesian military politics, 1945–1967. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Wieringa, S. (2003). The birth of the new order state in Indonesia: Sexual politics and nationalism. Journal of Women’s History, 15(1), 70–91. === [PDF page 88] === CHAPTER 4 The 30 September Movement and Its Aftermath in Bali, October–December 1965 Akihisa Matsuno In Bali it is still difficult for the survivors of the 1965–1966 killings to discuss their memories openly due to ongoing sensitivities about this past. The overall picture of what happened at the time, therefore, remains obscure. A particularly puzzling question is why in Bali the massacres began suddenly in late November and escalated in December after nearly two months of calm. In Central and East Java, where regional pro-30 September Movement (G30S) groups took action, military clashes and vigilante violence had begun by late October (Anderson & McVey, 2009, pp. 89–101; Cribb, 1991, pp. 159–169; Sulistyo, 2011, pp. 182–194). In comparison, Bali in October 1965 has been described as a calm period. By late October the Army authorities in Bali had not yet taken any action against the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI), and anti-Communist groups had not yet started violent attacks. A Balinese survivor of the purge described this period; “In October I still went to school just normally” (interview with A. Matsuno (*) Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan © The Author(s) 2018 71 K. McGregor et al. (eds.), The Indonesian Genocide of 1965, Palgrave Studies in the History of Genocide, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_4 === [PDF page 89] === 72 A. Matsuno a former student activist, Badung, January 5, 2010). Geoffrey Robinson described Bali in October 1965 as “a tense stalemate between competing political forces at the local level” (1995, p. 286). Behind this calm in October, however, significant events were unfolding inside the armed forces in Bali. In Jakarta, political life in the capital had been thrown into disarray by the actions of the 30 September Movement, a group of Leftist, middle-ranking military officers who had carried out an attempted coup on the night of 30 September/1 October 1965. The Movement declared that they were carrying out the coup in order to protect President Sukarno from a reported “Council of Generals” which was in turn plotting to overthrow the government (see the Introduction to this volume). The Movement in Jakarta, however, was crushed within twenty-four hours by the Army’s Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad), under the command of General Suharto. The official history of the Indonesian Armed Forces (Tentara National Indonesia, TNI) on Indonesian communism writes that, in Bali, there was a group of military officers and PKI agents who conspired to create a military movement in support of the 30 September Movement (Pusjarah TNI, 2009, p. 251). According to this book, the group planned to occupy vital installations, kidnap anti-Communist officials and set up a regional revolutionary council (Pusjarah TNI, 2009, p. 251). Geoffrey Robinson, quoting a book on the history of the 16th Regional Military Command, writes that a Presidential Guard unit, a Mobile Brigade police company, a unit from the Army’s education and training center and a military police unit were alleged to have been involved in the 1965 coup attempt in Bali (Robinson, 1995, p. 233). Quoting interviews and a local newspaper, Robinson also writes that military and police authorities “claimed to have discovered documents proving PKI-Bali plans to stage a local G-30-S coup, and indicating a sizable unofficial PKI organization in the Regional Military Command”, and that a certain Pujo Prasetio “was named as the principal G-30-S organizer in the command” (Robinson, 1995, p. 293). Oddly enough, however, details of this movement in Bali (hereafter referred to as “the movement”), including who the members were and what they actually did, have neither been made public nor reported in the media until now. It is odd because logically this could be the most convenient justification for the subsequent purge. The fact is, as explained in this chapter, the Army did not disclose information about the movement until late November, despite having discovered === [PDF page 90] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 73 its existence in early October. The Army’s silence of nearly two months needs to be explained, and by explaining it the chapter tries to answer, albeit partially, the question of how the massacres in Bali began. On the Sources Used in This Chapter This chapter uses two new sources. The first is the court proceedings of the Tamuri Hidayat trial at the Extraordinary Military Tribunal in Denpasar (hereafter referred to as ‘the Tribunal’) in 1967.1 This Tribunal was established to try those who were involved in the 30 September Movement in Bali. One of the accused, Tamuri Hidayat, was a retired soldier who worked closely with agents of the PKI Special Bureau who had been in charge of recruiting supporters and sympathizers within the armed forces. The Tribunal heard his case in September 1967 and delivered a death sentence to him at the end of that month. It was the only case of capital punishment in the Tribunal in Bali. The more-than-800–page court proceedings of his trial consists of the judgment and records of court sessions. Many important actors, mostly from Army units in Bali, appear as witnesses and their accounts provide useful information about their own involvement in these events. Needless to say, the information in the Tribunal documents needs to be handled carefully, but the facts contained in them are mostly reliable because the accused and the witnesses did not dispute the facts. What they challenged was the charge that their actions within the Movement in Bali constituted subversion (30 September). In this chapter the trial proceedings will be referred to as “BTH (Berkas Tamuri Hidayat)”, followed by the procès-verbal (berita acara) number and its content, for example, “BTH: VI, Sukarlan’s testimony”. The second new source used in this chapter is a series of interviews I conducted with former members of the armed forces and other persons who directly witnessed, or were close to, these events in Bali in 1965. These interviews were conducted in various places in Bali and other provinces in Indonesia between 2007 and 2013. They were recorded with permission, but the identity of the informants is obscured to protect their anonymity. Furthermore, a local newspaper, Suara Indonesia, while not a new source, provides basic information about the events of the period. As the newspaper was close to the PKI’s rival in Bali, the Nationalist Party (Partai Nasional Indonesia, PNI), it did not report === [PDF page 91] === 74 A. Matsuno on atrocities but does report occasionally on movements on the side of the Army. The Members of the 30 September Movement Network in Bali Who were the members of the movement? An appendix to the proceedings of the Tamuri Hidayat trial reveals that in January 1966 the Army dismissed seventeen soldiers for involvement in the 30 September Movement in Bali.2 Some of these dismissed soldiers later appeared as witnesses in the Tamuri Hidayat trial. Out of the seventeen, four were majors: Alwi and Edy Santoso from the Sub-regional Military Command (Korem) 163, Wiratmoko from the District Military Command (Kodim) 1619, and Sukarlan from the Army’s education and training center or Dodik (Depo Pendidikan) VIII. They are the highest-ranking officers among the soldiers accused to have been involved in the movement in Bali. Alwi seems to have played a major role in the movement. According to a witness who knew Sukarlan well, Alwi fought with Sukarlan in Indonesia’s independence war and served in the Diponegoro Division in Semarang before coming to serve in Bali (interview with an eyewitness, Badung, December 29, 2010). Sukarlan said at the Tribunal that Alwi had visited Sukarlan at his residence on the afternoon of 1 October. Alwi then drove Sukarlan around Denpasar to see the situation in the city, and took Sukarlan to a secret meeting being held at the house of his relative, Raden Sardiyono (BTH: VI, Sukarlan’s testimony). Another witness testified at the Tribunal that it was Alwi who presented an analysis of the situation in Jakarta at the second meeting on the same day at the house of Sardiyono (BTM: III, Kaijo Sujono’s testimony). Alwi killed himself in custody, probably in November, some days after he was arrested (interview with an eyewitness, Badung, December 29, 2010). Alwi’s close friend, Sukarlan, denied at the Tribunal that he was a member of the movement. Indeed his testimony at the Tribunal does not contain any decisive evidence of his involvement, although he was found guilty in his own trial.3 Sukarlan was born in Semarang in 1926 and entered the PETA (Pembela Tanah Air) or Homeland Defenders, which was the Indonesian auxiliary force created by the Japanese army that played an important role in Indonesia’s independence struggle. === [PDF page 92] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 75 After serving with the Diponegoro Division in Semarang and then Battalion 741 in Singaraja, north Bali, Sukarlan became the head of the Army’s education and training center, Dodik VIII, in Kediri, Tabanan, south Bali in 1961 (interview with an eyewitness, Badung, December 29, 2010). He was personally close to Sukarno’s wife, Hartini, and was sometimes invited to the Balinese Presidential palace in Tampaksiring, Gianyar. Sukarno’s parents-in-law once stayed in his home in Denpasar (interview with an eyewitness, Badung, December 29, 2010). Hartini is even said to have stayed once in Sukarlan’s home in Denpasar (Ardhana & Wirawan, 2011, p. 388). His wife, Kadarwati, was a niece of General Pranoto Reksosamodra. Pranoto was appointed as Caretaker Army Minister and Commander by Sukarno to replace murdered General Yani on 10 October 1965 in the midst of the chaos after the 30 September Movement. The appointment infuriated Suharto, and Pranoto was arrested in February 1966 and detained without trial for fifteen years (Reksosamodra, 2014, p. 280). Three captains were involved in the movement. Two of them, Wijono and Sukamto, were from the Regional Military Command or Kodam XVI/Udayana, and the third, Trenggono, was from the Cakrabirawa (Presidential Palace Guard) Detachment in Tampaksiring. Two lieutenants, S. Diman and Zaini B., were company commanders of the Battalion 741. The list of seventeen Army soldiers does not include anyone from the Mobile Brigade Police (Brimob). Four Brimob officers, however, were involved in the movement. Adjunct Police Inspector II (AIP-II) Kaijo Sujono, was the commander of the artillery unit of Brimob’s Battalion 414 stationed in Denpasar. He was born in Madiun and joined the Laskar Rakyat or people’s militia, an irregular armed group affiliated with the PKI in the independence struggle (BTH: III, Kaijo Sujono’s testimony). Another Brimob member of the movement was AIP-II Murakeh, who was the head of the Brimob dormitory in Baturiti as well as Sujono’s relative. The last two identified Brimob members of the movement were AIP-II Juhari and Brigadier Police Slamet Surono, who were both platoon commanders in Baturiti units.4 A salient feature of this group of seventeen soldiers and four Brimob officers is that all of them were Javanese except I Ketut Teduh, an instructor of the Army’s education and training center, Dodik VIII. This does not mean, however, that Balinese soldiers were not affected by the subsequent purge. From October 1965 until early 1966, scores of === [PDF page 93] === 76 A. Matsuno Balinese soldiers and policemen were arrested and discharged. They were not directly involved in the movement but they were suspected of having links with the movement. A key conspirator identified at the Military Tribunal was Tamuri Hidayat, a 41-year-old retired soldier. Strangely, although it is evident that he was no more than a liaison between the soldiers and the PKI Special Bureau agents, he is the one that received the harshest sentence. He was born in Yogyakarta in 1924. He joined the student corps (tentara pelajar) during the independence struggle and was once detained for two months in connection with the Madiun Affair in 1948. He was assigned to Bali in 1957 and the following year his former comrade Yuwonoharjo introduced him to one of the PKI’s Special Bureau agents in Bali, Wihaji (alias Narwo). Through Wihaji he met the Bureau’s senior agent, Pujo Prasetiyo (alias Paijo). In 1962 he took the oath to become a loyal supporter of the PKI. In 1964 Hidayat retired from the Army, but in September 1965 he was called to assist Special Bureau agents in preparation for a military action in October (BTH: II, Tamuri Hidayat’s testimony). Two PKI Special Bureau agents were involved in the movement. Pujo Prasetiyo was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Tribunal and, as of 1995, was still in prison in Denpasar (Robinson, 1995, p. 293). Pujo had once stayed in Beijing for some time (interview with an eyewitness, Badung, December 29, 2010). He had skills in acupuncture and in fact had taught these skills to other inmates in prison. Meanwhile, little is known about the other agent, Wihaji, including his whereabouts after 1965. Hidayat told the court that Wihaji introduced himself as a staff member of the PKI’s regional committee (Comite Daerah Besar) or CDB-Bali (BTH: II, Hidayat’s testimony). It is unlikely that Wihaji was a staff member of the CDB-Bali, however, as Special Bureau personnel were part of a separate section headed by Syam and placed directly under the control of the PKI Secretary, D. N. Aidit (Roosa, 2006, p. 128). In fact, the Tribunal did not examine the role of the PKI’s CDB-Bali in connection with the movement. The Secretary of the CDB-Bali was Ketut Kandel; his name never appeared in the trial of Tamuri Hidayat except in a list of the members of Bali’s Revolutionary Council, a body of military officers and civilian leaders that the movement allegedly established to take over after their coup. The judges did not even ask about him during the trial. By the time of the trial in 1967, Ketut Kandel had disappeared, most probably murdered at a widely-rumored mass === [PDF page 94] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 77 execution in the village of Kapal, Badung, on 15 or 16 December 1965 (interview with a former student activist, Badung, September 21, 2009). The 30 September Movement’s Plans in Bali Preparations by the movement to carry out some form of military action in Bali began, at the latest, around three weeks before 1 October (BTM: II, Hidayat’s testimony). The information provided in testimonies at the Tribunal and from interviews with witnesses is partial, but it provides some insight into the planning and movements of those involved in the 30 September Movement in Bali. In early September, Hidayat was informed by Special Bureau agent Wihaji that President Sukarno’s health was in a critical condition and that the Council of Generals, led by General Nasution and supported by the CIA, was preparing for a coup against the President. Hidayat also reported at the Tribunal that he had heard there would be an announcement from Jakarta later that month. It is also known that on 10 September Hidayat went to meet one of the four majors accused of involvement in the movement, Major Wiratmoko from the Kodim 1619 in Singaraja. Separately, First Lieutenant Zaini B. of Company A of Battalion 741 stationed in Kuta testified at the Tribunal that he had been told to occupy the Tuban airport once a movement was launched in Jakarta (BTM: Judgment). On the morning of 1 October, after the leader of the 30 September Movement, Lieutenant Colonel Untung, had released his first statement through the state radio station (RRI) in Jakarta, these officers, soldiers and civilians in different places in Bali were immediately contacted. The judgment of the Hidayat case summarizes the moves of the Special Bureau agents and armed forces members involved in the movement in Bali on 1 October as follows. At 7 a.m., 1 October 1965, Hidayat was asked by Wihaji to come to a meeting held at the house of Raden Sardiyono at Kamboja Street No. 60-D, Denpasar. Present at the meeting were Special Bureau agents Wihaji and Pujo Prasetiyo, as well as Tamuri Hidayat. Also present at this meeting were Bambang Sutopo and Kustaji, both public prosecutors in Bali, First Lieutenant Adhi Wasito, Second Lieutenant Subaja and Raden Sardiyono. At this meeting they agreed to take military action in support of the 30 September Movement in Jakarta. They planned to occupy vital installations in Bali, such as the state radio station (RRI), the post and telecommunications office (Postel), the Tuban airport and a textile === [PDF page 95] === 78 A. Matsuno factory, Balitex. The group also planned to detain “reactionary” military officers and politicians (BTH: Judgment). The names of these officers and politicians were not revealed. The judgment of the Tamuri Hidayat trial concludes that the group had a draft member list of Bali’s Revolutionary Council. Tamuri Hidayat, however, disputes this. At his trial, Hidayat testified that Pujo Prasetiyo had a memo with a number of names that he thought might be people who could become members of a Bali-based Revolutionary Council but he said that the memo was not discussed at the meeting that morning (BTH: II, Hidayat’s testimony). After the meeting, around noon, participants of the meeting left the house to contact other soldiers and Brimob officers in their network. Bambang Sutopo and Raden Sardiyono traveled to Singaraja to meet Lieutenant Colonel (Overste) Kenyung Sardiyono and Major Wiratmoko from the Kodim. Pujo Prasetiyo and Tamuri Hidayat went to see AIP-II Kaijo Sujono at the Brimob’s dormitory in Kereneng, Denpasar. From there Pujo Prasetiyo and Tamuri Hidayat went to Tabanan and met with Assistant Lieutenant II Agus Sutiyono of the Dodik VIII at the Sederhana guesthouse. They then traveled to Baturiti where they met AIP-II Murakih at his home and Police Brigadier Slamet Surono (BTH: Judgment). At 7 p.m. of the same day, a second meeting was held at the same house on Kamboja Street. This time, Captain Sukamto, Major Sukarlan, Major Alwi, AIP-II Kaijo Sujono, Major Wiratmoko, Second Lieutenant Suratman and Sergeant Jawawi attended in addition to Tamuri Hidayat and the two PKI Special Bureau agents. Captain Sukamto volunteered to take up the command of the planned military action. The meeting agreed to occupy the Balitex factory, the Tuban airport and an intersection in west Denpasar. It also agreed to take similar actions in Singaraja and Tabanan and to guard the house of the Regional Military Commander, Brigadier General Syafiuddin (BTH: Judgment). The alleged list of twenty-five Revolutionary Council members, included in the Judgment, shows an interesting composition. The list names Captain Trenggono of the Cakrabirawa Detachment as the chair and Lieutenant Colonel Kenyung Sardiyono from Kodim 1619 in Singajara as the vice-chair. It further included, in addition to other names of those conspirators, the PKI’s CDB-Bali secretary, Ketut Kandel, Governor Suteja, MPRS member Gede Puger, the 16th Regional Military Commander Syafiuddin, and PNI leader I Gusti Putu Mertha. === [PDF page 96] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 79 A local Nahdlatul Ulama leader and a Hindu religious leader are also named. In effect, the planned Revolutionary Council was to represent a Sukarno-style united coalition, representative of Sukarno’s NASAKOM (nationalism, religion, Communism) vision at the regional level with a strengthened Communist component. This second meeting ended around 9 or 10 p.m. In Jakarta by 7 p.m. on 1 October “all main installations in and around the center of Jakarta had been brought under Suharto’s control, and all hostile troops had been withdrawn from the city” (Anderson & McVey, 2009, p. 81). Calculating from the fact that Major Alwi and Hidayat reached the Dodik VIII in Kediri around 11 p.m. with the order to cancel the movement (BTH: Judgment), reports of the coup’s failure in Jakarta probably had reached Denpasar by around the end of the meeting. Aborted Actions and the Exposure of Bali’s 30 September Movement Once the 30 September Movement in Jakarta had failed, the plans of the movement in Bali had to be immediately cancelled. But it was too late. Preparations at the Brimob units in Baturiti and at Dodik VIII in Kediri were already underway. Around 11 p.m. or midnight on 1 October, two platoons of Company C of the Brimob’s Battalion 414 in Baturiti under the commands of Juhari and Slament Surono left their barracks for Denpasar (BTM: Judgment; interview with a former Brimob member, April 3, 2011). They were commanded by Kaijo Sujono. The platoons reached Balun on the outskirts of Denpasar where they set up guard on a major road. Around 1:30 a.m. on 2 October, Hidayat arrived there in a Jeep and told Sujono of the cancellation. The Brimob platoons then proceeded to the Brimob headquarters in Kerenang, Denpasar (BTM: Judgment). The following morning on 2 October, four Brimob officers, namely Sujono, Murakih, Juhari and Surono, were detained, taken to Surabaya for investigation and then returned to Bali after a few days. They were kept in custody until they were tried at the police court-martial in 1969. Sujono was sentenced to 20 years, Murakih 15 years, Juhari 12 years and Surono 10 years (interview with a former Brimob member, April 3, 2011). === [PDF page 97] === 80 A. Matsuno Meanwhile, soldiers, policemen and activists of the PKI-affiliated youth organization, Pemuda Rakyat, had gathered near the Dodik VIII on the night of 1 October. Sukarlan and Hidayat had left Denpasar for the Dodik VIII before the second meeting at the house of Sardiyono ended and had arrived in Kediri at around 8:30 p.m. (BTH: Judgment). A former policeman who witnessed the crowd near the Dodik VIII had heard that there was a plan to seize weapons and ammunition at the Dodik VIII (interview with a former policeman, Gianyar, August 26, 2013). Sukarlan, however, denies that the Dodik VIII was involved in the movement. He claims that soldiers were gathered in order to do consignering or to confine troops to their barracks in order to remain on standby. There, at around 11 p.m., Alwi came to tell Sukarlan that, “the movement has been cancelled (gerakan tidak jadi)” (BTH: VI, Sukarlan’s testimony). Sukarlan admitted at the trial that a shooting had taken place near the armory on the Dodik VIII’s premises. He explained that a guard fired a warning shot when the crowd approached the armory. Later in the prison he heard a story that it had been some Pemuda Rakyat youths who had attempted to attack the armory (BTH: VI, Sukarlan’s testimony). Sukarlan denied the charge that he was a part of the movement, but he did not deny that he had sympathy for the movement’s aims. When a judge asked Sukarlan if he agreed with the movement, pointing to the fact that he did not speak much at the meeting at Sardiyono’s house, he answered, “I think I agreed”. He also said, “Now I know it was wrong. If I had known he [Sukamto] would become the leader (gembong), I wouldn’t have agreed” (BTH: VI, Sukarlan’s testimony). If he were telling the truth, he had most probably been drawn into the plot by his long-time friend, Alwi. As a result of the aborted action at the Dodik VIII, 16 officers and soldiers of Dodik VIII were arrested (interview with a former soldier, Tabanan, September 25, 2009). While most of the arrests took place in the middle of October, Sukarlan was probably arrested on 25 November 1965 (interview with a former soldier, Tabanan, September 25, 2009). In a tragic development, Sergeant Saryono of Dodik VIII killed himself with a hand grenade (Pusjarah TNI, 2009, p. 300). The crackdown on “progressive” officers, soldiers and policemen did not stop with the arrests of those directly involved in the abortive actions. By mid-October, nine policemen in Tabanan had been put under investigation and they were arrested in mid-November (interview === [PDF page 98] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 81 with a former policeman, Gianyar, September 22, 2009). As quoted above, the TNI claims that seventy-six members of the armed forces were arrested during this period. Out of the various units involved, Battalion 741 became a particular focus of the crackdown. The following section examines what happened to the members of Battalion 741. Crackdown in Singaraja Singaraja is the capital of the northern district of Buleleng. It developed as the center of politics, economy and modern education in Bali as the seat of the Dutch colonial authorities on the island, and then as the provincial capital after independence until 1961 when the provincial capital moved to Denpasar. In 1965 the city was the second most important place for the Army on the island, as the headquarters of the Korem 163, the Kodim 1619 and the Army’s Infantry Battalion 741 were all located there. The Army in Bali had its origins in an East Javanese battalion (Battalion VIII, Infantry Regiment 39) from Sukadana/Lumajan, East Java, and it was this battalion that had developed into the Battalion 741 (Sudjatmiko, 1992, p. 121). It is not surprising that many of this Battalion’s officers were Javanese. The Battalion 741 became a focus of the crackdown against the 30 September Movement in Bali particularly because its Company B commander, First Lieutenant S. Diman, had been appointed as the field commander for the 1 October action in Singaraja, while its Company A commander, First Lieutenant Zaini B. in Kuta, was tasked with occupying the Tuban airport (BTH: Judgment). According to a soldier who knew the field commander of the Movement’s action, S. Diman, he was a man with a simple lifestyle. He did not drive a car, so he usually walked. He also liked to eat tempe (fermented soybean), but he was eloquent when he gave an indoctrination class on Sukarno’s Guided Democracy ideology or Manipol-USDEK.5 People tended to see persons like Diman as pro-PKI (interview with a former soldier, Jembrana, October 1, 2011). From late November 1965 until 1966, many members of this Battalion were arrested. On 25 November, 12 soldiers including Sergeant Madra’i, I Nyoman Notes, Ida Bagus Santa, Ida Bagus Wasa and Sergeant Pranhayal (also known as Naya) from Kupang were arrested and put in a Battalion cell. As a great shock to their fellow soldiers, on 29 November these 12 soldiers in the cell were machine-gunned from === [PDF page 99] === 82 A. Matsuno outside. All 12 soldiers in the cell died. According to one account, Sergeant Madra’i began to kick or bang the wall of the cell from inside because he heard his wife screaming in panic at their nearby home protesting against the burning of their furniture, and then the soldiers guarding the cell thought that the detainees were trying to escape, so they opened fire (interview with a former soldier, Jembrana, October 1, 2011). Some of the murdered soldiers belonged to a platoon under the command of First Lieutenant Bagus Sugiarto, a nephew of General Pranoto Reksosamodra. Sugiarto himself was arrested in Denpasar in February 1966, and was put in jail in the Pekambingan prison (interview with a former military officer, Badung, March 31, 2015). On 29 November 1965, more soldiers were arrested from Battalion 741, after which time they were detained for years without due process (interview with a former soldier, Jembrana, October 1, 2011). Analyzing the 30 September Movement in Bali From the descriptions of the movement’s members and their actions above it is now possible to discuss the scope and nature of the movement. The main conspirators were middle-ranking officers such as majors, captains and lieutenants, and they acted closely with like-minded soldiers under their command. They were Javanese and came from various units stationed in Bali. These facts indicate that the origins of the movement were not likely rooted in local Balinese politics. The conspirators believed that a military coup plotted by “the Council of Generals” against President Sukarno was imminent and they therefore planned to take action to safeguard the President from this conspiracy. Symbolically, Captain Trenggono of the Cakrabirawa (Presidential Palace Guard) Detachment was assigned to the position of chair of Bali’s Revolutionary Council, as Lieutenant Colonel Untung of the Cakrabirawa Regiment became the chair of the Revolutionary Council in Jakarta. Safeguarding the President was the task of the 30 September Movement led by Untung and, therefore, what the movement in Bali would do was to occupy vital installations and stop military and civilian leaders of the opposite camp from moving. The purpose of the movement in Bali was primarily a show of support for Untung’s attempted coup in Jakarta. In Bali, where both the civilian and military leaderships were ardent Sukarnoists and cooperative === [PDF page 100] === 4 THE 30 SEPTEMBER MOVEMENT AND ITS AFTERMATH … 83 with the PKI, from the movement’s point of view a coup against them was an illogical notion. There is even a testimony that Regional Military Commander Syafiuddin had been informed of the movement’s planned action. If this is true, Sayfiuddin had given tacit approval to the movement. The action was not a well-prepared one. On the morning of 1 October the conspirators were still discussing whether they should take military action or non-military action. They then quickly decided to take military action, but this indicates that they might not have been planning a complex action. Moreover, coordination was not easy because the units involved were scattered across Bali, as were the places they planned to take over. As John Roosa pointed out in the case of Untung’s movement in Jakarta (Roosa, 2006, p. 204), the movement in Bali also lacked a “central command” or “a single decision-making center”. The movement lacked modern communication equipment, and this fatally delayed the arrival of the decision to cancel the action at the units outside Denpasar. The movement’s relation with the PKI is a central issue. Two Special Bureau agents, Pujo Prasetiyo and Wihaji, were without doubt involved in the conspiracy. Their role was to feed the core conspirators information from Jakarta, to facilitate their meetings and discussions and to carry messages among them. However, at least from the documents of Tamuri Hidayat’s trial before the Extraordinary Military Tribunal in Denpasar two years later, it is difficult to say whether the two Special Bureau agents took the initiative or even tried to convince them to launch a military movement. Tamuri Hidayat was not a Special Bureau agent, but as a former soldier who had pledged his loyalty to the PKI, he accompanied the two Special Bureau agents. He was essentially a messenger. Other PKI local cadres or supporters do not appear as actors in the movement in the proceedings of Tamuri Hidayat’s trial. The Tribunal neither summoned them as witnesses nor used their interrogation records as evidence. Furthermore, the judges refrained from asking questions about them during the trial. Witnesses also did not mention their relation with the PKI’s Regional Committee in Bali or the CDB-Bali. It was as if the judges were satisfied with the mere fact that the accused had contact with Special Bureau agents. For the Tribunal, however, it had become impossible to prove links between the movement and the CDB-Bali because almost all members of the PKI’s local cadres and their close associates had been killed by