Let's also look at the slaughter of Dutch Indonesians after WWII when Suharto took control after The Netherlands released Indonesia as a colony. Dutch and Dutch Indonesians were placed in concentration camps by the Japanese during the war. After the war the Dutch Indonesians remained in concentration camps to protect themselves from being beheaded by Indonesians. No mention of this period in history.
4
Joshua Oppenheimer is an incredibly courageous filmmaker and journalist for tackling this history head on. Everyone should watch his two films about these events, The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence. We all need to notify our congresspeople to support Tom Udall's resolution. Truth and reconciliation on both sides of the Pacific.
6
Beware Americans bearing gifts: is there a developing nation that American interventionist foreign policy hasn't utterly effed up? And they always install the most despotic puppets, too, and then wonder why the local populations view America as The Great Satan.
9
Indeed, it is time for a "truth commission" to look into the darkest chapter of Indonesia's history. In a process of "truth, reconciliation and justice" witnesses should be allowed to speak out, before time runs out for them. It is equally important for millions of families, scarred by the trauma of mass killings and atrocities to heal their wounds.
If Indonesia continues to sweep its worst massacres of modern history under the carpet, these events will come back every year to haunt the the country, when its people seek to commemorate the anniversary.
If Indonesia continues to sweep its worst massacres of modern history under the carpet, these events will come back every year to haunt the the country, when its people seek to commemorate the anniversary.
7
Every mass killer uses the same excuse' but they needed killing!"
1
I have a sinking feeling that Udall's resolution will go nowhere. With the current congress I wouldn't expect certain members to own this truth. Our government was full of folly during the Cold War, and the world was with us or against us. The nonaligned movement was doomed as long as Washington and Moscow could pull the strings of their various puppets to create fear and mayhem in service to their ideologies.
Now we have a political landscape littered with fools who refuse to accept scientific fact or historical reality.
Now we have a political landscape littered with fools who refuse to accept scientific fact or historical reality.
10
If Indonesia reveals this information about their own private holocaust, how will they continue to run those cheerful business ads, promoting their "diverse, tolerant, young, vital, cooperative, growing economy," and inviting American investment? Not on your murderous lives.
8
We might also look at the alignment in the Ukraine (where we helped arrange a coup) of the installed government with the modern day remnants of the Ukrainian SS Division which fought against Americans in WWII.
2
Wouldn't the members of this SS division be at least 85 years old today?
3
How artfully that specter of communism was used to enable the U.S. to become the largest, most powerful empire the world has ever known.
10
Every sanctimonious self-righteous abuser of power on this planet puts their victims in some category that takes off the limits on abusing them.
10
Let the United States declassify its documents as soon as Russia and China declassify their documents showing how they systematically tried to impose a murderous, totalitarian Communist regime on Indonesia (and Malaysia), just as they supported mass murder by the North Vietnamese, Khmer Rouge, and Pathet Lao. Suharto committed mass murder - true - but a fair rendering of history would require an admission that a successful Communist takeover of Indonesia would have resulted in mass murder on a much greater scale.
9
I have never understood the logic of anti-commie diehards like this gentleman from Ohio. They excuse every atrocity and every foolish, feckless, foreign adventure by our government in the name of our cold war against communism. To them, it's okay for us to be bad if our badness served the goal of defeating the evil commies, even if their demise could only be achieved through overt and covert force and violence, obscene defense and intelligence spending, and lies and manipulation by everyone from the Presidents on down. And of course, keeping the ugliness of our nation's behavior hidden from the public as long as possible.
Keeping secrets is certainly not unique to the USA, and some nations are even more secretive than us. (See e.g., Britain, Russia and China.) But none of these other nations prides itself as the world's, indeed history's, most "exceptional" country in terms of all that is good and decent. Therefore, it behooves the US to come clean about its past, including its covert roles in destabilizing and overthrowing foreign governments.
If we really want to be seen as that "city on the hill", that beacon of freedom and human decency, we need to stop hiding our long past mistakes and egregious actions in foreign lands by keeping them classified. If we continue to keep such matters secret because our former enemies haven't declassified their own mistakes or worse behavior, we've no right to call our nation "exceptional"; puerile would be more a accurate description.
Keeping secrets is certainly not unique to the USA, and some nations are even more secretive than us. (See e.g., Britain, Russia and China.) But none of these other nations prides itself as the world's, indeed history's, most "exceptional" country in terms of all that is good and decent. Therefore, it behooves the US to come clean about its past, including its covert roles in destabilizing and overthrowing foreign governments.
If we really want to be seen as that "city on the hill", that beacon of freedom and human decency, we need to stop hiding our long past mistakes and egregious actions in foreign lands by keeping them classified. If we continue to keep such matters secret because our former enemies haven't declassified their own mistakes or worse behavior, we've no right to call our nation "exceptional"; puerile would be more a accurate description.
17
No one is saying that Moscow and Beijing are not culpable. But the killings in Indonesia were condoned by us, given support by us. Let's be the ones that stand up and tell the truth without having to wait for others to join us. After all, China and Russia will never admit to their hand in crime, but they are not US.
10
The right wing constantly reminds us that our immorality is entirely justified by that of our enemies. This goes for congressmen having sex in public bathrooms and for client dictators torturing their own citizens. As long as there is someone who seems equally bad, our own sins are forgiven. Isn't it time we outgrew this?
2
If the communist had arisen unabated they would have done what? Abandoned communism, embraced the progressivism and forgive their enemies? The result would have been the same just different dead people and the country would still be in shambles to this day.
Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Kim Il Sung, were all monstrous dictators. Your enemies many time dictate your tactics. Losing for the sake of peace was not a good option.
Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Ho Chi Min, Kim Il Sung, were all monstrous dictators. Your enemies many time dictate your tactics. Losing for the sake of peace was not a good option.
6
Sukarno was not a communist. This must not have gotten through to a lot of you. He was a leader of the nonaligned movement, which you are dismissing out of hand. Sukarno was leading his country into a better future without the Cold War warriors pulling his strings, and they would't have it. So he had to go, and a million of his people as well, some of whom were communists, and a majority of whom were not.
10
There is not one single word or inference where I suggest Sukarno was communist. He was weakling in the face of the enemy. His better future is your fantasy. He was more likely to lose to an enemy that understands majorities don't rule they are led by childishly simple propaganda.
1
A most instructive article of what was widely known but 'hidden' under our indifference, some would say complicity. There was a time when those in power went hysterical about anything that smelled as socialism, and certainly of communism. And claiming righteous indignation, proceeded to kill 'en masse', a process filled with intolerance and injustice and, to top it off, immunity for the perpetrators. Who are we, monsters, wolves, or just ordinary men imbued with undeserved power, greed, and overwhelming ambition to prevail? Shameful all around. No one remains blameless...and that is the problem; being diffuse, we can't find the culprit, the enemy; when all the while the enemy was "us".
22
The author correctly points to U.S. actions that contributed to the mass slaughter in 1965. Our role was seen by people such as Walt Rostow and Richard Helms (among many others, including President Lyndon Johnson) as promoting "stability" in Southeast Asia. That's an awful lot of blood in the name of stability. We (or at least the U.S. government and media) have never acknowledged our role in Indonesia in 1965. That's understandable, perhaps, given that people from other lands have been brought to trial in the Hague for similar acts.
25
USA policy in the world is always to sustain dictatorship as capitalistic priority.
The only one Country in the world using atomic bomb was USA but USA still pretend to give permission to other to use H bomb. So, when USA stop to use his power to change other countries internal situation it will be a good thing.
USA is the less democratic country in the world but pretend to give lesson in the world. Is' s enough !!!!
The only one Country in the world using atomic bomb was USA but USA still pretend to give permission to other to use H bomb. So, when USA stop to use his power to change other countries internal situation it will be a good thing.
USA is the less democratic country in the world but pretend to give lesson in the world. Is' s enough !!!!
5
Human rights can never be merely an "internal matter" although governments may insist that they are. The author's films (and this article) support Indonesians by articulating what they dare not say about this devastating period of their history for fear of retribution-- and will encourage, we can hope, greater openness and a truth and reconciliation process such as he suggests.
7
The longer I am alive, the more I am ashamed to be part of a country than engages in such atrocities. This rabid fear of the Communists gave us Vietnam, the installation of the butcher Pinochet, and the whole Central American mess. Yeah, we're exceptional alright!
23
How can the author ignore the great improvement in the lives of most Indonesians? Visit Cuba. The thugs are still in power there after more than 50 years and the broad population suffers much more from their misrule than the Indonesians.
The US blockade of Cuba is responsible for Cuba's poverty today.
15
Yes. Cuba was so much better off under Batista when it was a playland for the Mafia with open sex shows and gambling and a general peonage for most people. The communists were certainly terrible. They created a medical system that is free for all, a university system likewise, and a 96% literacy rate that is 2nd only to Costa Rico's 97%. Yes. They are a repressive regime. Ask the black men in our prisons if we are any better.
10
America is to blame for many things, it has contravened ruthlessly, it's own principles. he Soviets did the same, so did the Chinese. The Cold War manifested itself in proxy wars, liquidations, oppressions and dubious policy decisions across the board. The pattern continues, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. It is often said we are past the cold war, but we are not. It has re-commenced after a short lull and while it takes a different form, Syria proves that thousands will die at the whims of others whose strategic interest outweighs the value of their lives. Indonesia's issues need to be dealt with and the past resolved. The new generation of global leaders need to see that these things, from Sri Lanka, to Burma, Syria, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Ukraine, Darfour, South Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Yemen, Libya, ....need I go on?
5
My wife is Indonesian, and her mom was not raised by my wife's grandparents but by another woman in her mom's village. Why? Because my wife's grandfather was accused of being a communist and disappeared. Many assumed he was killed. His wife (my wife's grandmother), became the sole provider for her several kids. Unsurprisingly, she soon had something along the lines of a nervous breakdown, and so the family was broken up since she just couldn't handle it all.
Flash forward about 45 years. Who shows up in my wife's hometown? Her biological grandfather, who everyone in the family had assumed was dead. Turns out he had run from East Java to Sumatra (that's like crossing most of the USA), and started his life over again there (including a new wife and children). He didn't feel safe returning to Java until a few years ago.
From what I've been told, almost all families have a story like that. The subject is still taboo among older people, especially outside the home.
Flash forward about 45 years. Who shows up in my wife's hometown? Her biological grandfather, who everyone in the family had assumed was dead. Turns out he had run from East Java to Sumatra (that's like crossing most of the USA), and started his life over again there (including a new wife and children). He didn't feel safe returning to Java until a few years ago.
From what I've been told, almost all families have a story like that. The subject is still taboo among older people, especially outside the home.
15
Where have we seen this before? Oh yeah, Iran! Blow back will always happen.
3
as near as I can make it, the death toll from various cold war proxy conflicts, which includes massacres by juntas installed/abetted by the US, amounts to somewhere between 3 - 9 million souls, not counting the scores or hundreds of millions scarred.
we need our own truth commission.
we need our own truth commission.
16
Don't forget the colonial era war against the Phillipine insurrection. And of course, the Amerindians.
9
Totally agree. Add to the list of 20 million America Indians that were wiped out by the colonists.
1
What irony that the leader of the free world ,America, has a long history of participating in war crimes, genocide, and the over throwing of governments!
8
No, not irony. It is SHAME. We claim to be exceptional. Yes, we are exceptionally hypocritical.
11
My late uncle and aunt were CIA operatives in Bogor on the island of Java from 1953 until 1956, and for whatever reason he ended up drinking himself to death on fine cognac by 1958...the CIA has a legacy of supporting all sorts of repressive regimes bent on stemming the flow of Communism, starting in the 1940s and extending to the ugly Somoza and other Central American swine whose death squads we equpped, funded and drilled, all behind the infamous Black Budget. The CIA has been involved in drug dealing for decades, knowing that this is one of the best sources of lucre. Yet the CIA missed so many events, like the Iranian revolution of 1978...We have nourished this viper to our bosoms for too long. It's past time we revoked its charter and rethought our "intelligence".
22
Is it accurate to describe as "genocide" actions staged largely by Javans against Javans and other Indonesians. The dividing lines in 1965 were, if I understand correctly, political between communists and other leftists on the one side, and right-wing nationalists on the other, rather than ethnic or cultural. There was without doubt a great deal of brutality, if not quite on the scale seen in Cambodia, where the other side came out on top. But to repeatedly and deliberately use the term genocide in this setting is surely to misuse and cheapen a powerful word.
1
Ethnic Chinese were targeted; later East Timorese and Papua New Guineans.
The USA would never sanction the murder of a countries' leader! It's not in the history books.
Chile,Cuba,Vietnam,Iraq,Nicaragua,Panama etc etc
Chile,Cuba,Vietnam,Iraq,Nicaragua,Panama etc etc
3
It wasn't a cold war for them. Mel Gibson was luckier in, 'The Year of Living Dangerously'.
1
A fine example of how America is "the greatest force for good in the world," or some such dreck daily mouthed by our politicians. A fine example too of why we are so widelt despised for our rank hypocrisy.
13
America as it is today so it was since the end of WW11. The progressive world used to wonder why United States loves war killings? To advance and protects it's strategic interests by being involved in so many wars and killings. Till today no American President or high official has been indicted and jailed for all these high crimes. Yet more invasions; war and the killings goes on today without let. The days are coming when all these crimes will be accounted for. Let the world thank Russia and China for at least trying in their ways to checkmate these appetite for bloodshed by the Western powers.
5
"Millions of people associated with left-leaning organizations were targeted, and the nation dissolved into terror — people even stopped eating fish for fear that fish were eating corpses."
My grandparents and other relatives who lived through the 1971 Liberation War in Bangladesh swear the same thing. Chilling how genocide often has the same recipe.
My grandparents and other relatives who lived through the 1971 Liberation War in Bangladesh swear the same thing. Chilling how genocide often has the same recipe.
7
It's been thirty years since I read them but Noam Chomsky's and Edward Herman's 'The Real Terror Network' (vol. I) and 'After The Cataclysm' (vol. II) dealt with the Indonesian bloodletting in great detail if I recall correctly. I was surprised not to see some reference to those works in this article. Maybe it's time to dust them off again. So much evil in the world to expose, so little time.
8
Sukarno was opposed by the US not just because he was populist and a leader of the non-aligned movement.
He also was re-arming with Soviet weapons. He was believed to be in the process of giving bases to the Soviet Navy.
Indonesia was important for itself not just as a Domino, because it had a huge population, a wealth of natural resources so great that it had led the Japanese to launch the Pacific War, and it was in a central strategic position. The US had real fears and real motives.
This was an example of foreign policy taking "realism" to extremes. The US knowingly became party to genocide, and military authoritarian government of the very type we said we'd fought WW2 to defeat in Japan, to prevent Japan from imposing in Indonesia specifically.
Re-examining these events would be more helpful if we accept that the motives were legitimate in the Cold War world. The lesson becomes the ends do not justify the means, not even for the US in the height of its self-righteousness.
That is a key modifier to the notions of the realist school of thought in foreign affairs. There are limits. Some means are self-defeating. Some means are what we are fighting against, "why we fight."
This is where the realist school and the other idealists can merge, at least enough to make policy sense. There are some things you just don't do. They are what you are fighting against. That isn't weakness or giving the other guy an advantage, but something that makes us stronger.
He also was re-arming with Soviet weapons. He was believed to be in the process of giving bases to the Soviet Navy.
Indonesia was important for itself not just as a Domino, because it had a huge population, a wealth of natural resources so great that it had led the Japanese to launch the Pacific War, and it was in a central strategic position. The US had real fears and real motives.
This was an example of foreign policy taking "realism" to extremes. The US knowingly became party to genocide, and military authoritarian government of the very type we said we'd fought WW2 to defeat in Japan, to prevent Japan from imposing in Indonesia specifically.
Re-examining these events would be more helpful if we accept that the motives were legitimate in the Cold War world. The lesson becomes the ends do not justify the means, not even for the US in the height of its self-righteousness.
That is a key modifier to the notions of the realist school of thought in foreign affairs. There are limits. Some means are self-defeating. Some means are what we are fighting against, "why we fight."
This is where the realist school and the other idealists can merge, at least enough to make policy sense. There are some things you just don't do. They are what you are fighting against. That isn't weakness or giving the other guy an advantage, but something that makes us stronger.
18
"There are some things you just don't do." Amen.
2
Thanks to Joshua Oppenheimer for the incredible "The Act of Killing". Our involvement in it was shushed completely except for left-wing mags. This must come out to the general public.
Much of our Exceptionalism is based in brutal political decisions that favor regime change almost exclusively, death squads, as well as imposing democracy by fiat lately as if that would work.
More awareness of this could lead to an outbreak of reality, shaking old notions and demanding more transparency in our political sphere esp CIA, Pentagon and elsewhere where these are favored tools.
Much of our Exceptionalism is based in brutal political decisions that favor regime change almost exclusively, death squads, as well as imposing democracy by fiat lately as if that would work.
More awareness of this could lead to an outbreak of reality, shaking old notions and demanding more transparency in our political sphere esp CIA, Pentagon and elsewhere where these are favored tools.
17
Repeat after me: "The United States, the exceptional nation [that gleefully supports genocide]. How proud I am to be an American." Repeat after me: "The United States, the exceptional nation [that provides rightwing dictators with lists of union organizers to be mass-murdered]. How proud I am to be an American ! "
20
I've been living in and out of Indonesia for the past 35 years, mostly in Bali. When you ask a Balinese about their life, they generally talk as if their life started sometime in the 70's. No one wants to talk about anything earlier that that. Sukarno's rule was pretty hectic, there were food shortages and crop failures, in bali there was a dramatic volcanic eruption, and then the mass killings.
What would happen: the "army" would arrive at a village and convene a meeting of village leaders. The gang leader would say, OK we know you must have 100 communists in this village, now, who are they? What ensued after that was a nightmare, for the entire village. Everyone found out who they were. I've never heard any heroes named.
What would happen: the "army" would arrive at a village and convene a meeting of village leaders. The gang leader would say, OK we know you must have 100 communists in this village, now, who are they? What ensued after that was a nightmare, for the entire village. Everyone found out who they were. I've never heard any heroes named.
8
If there ever is a hint of justice in Indonesia, if there is an end to the echos of the screams of the hundreds of thousands, a great deal of the credit will belong to you Mr. Oppenheimer. You are a film maker of great vision, compassion and courage.
19
I spent the latter half of August in Indonesia and read, with interest, in Jakarta's English language newspaper that the Indonesian government was implementing a law, which would require all foreign journalists to report to the government what they were writing about. This was deemed a reasonable order by the Indonesian government, apparently. However, a day or two later, after a furious uproar from the international press reporting from and about Indonesia, the order was shelved.
7
I must be missing something here.........meeting in 1962......killings in 1965 and so on.........in 1965 i was in junior high school and the debates we had were about whether Red China should be admitted to the UN......
History IS important AND interesting.......but......that was then and this is now.....
ok.....so terrible dictators/tyrants killing, starving......but WHO were they doing it to??
THEIR OWN COUNTRYMEN.........bad? sure........sad?very.........
any of our business NOW.......NO NO NO NO.......
they didnt export terrorists worldwide then.......they did what they did......but they kept it in THEIR own country.......
OUR involvement back then? terrible....wrong.....a mindset of a different time......SO what can we do NOW??? turn the clock back? No
apologize for what we did......maybe
we have SO many current issues to deal with.......issues that place EVERY American under the risk of pressure cooker bombs.....
Would something like this happen now??? NO
this is great documentary fodder for guys like Oppenheimer but nothing else.
History IS important AND interesting.......but......that was then and this is now.....
ok.....so terrible dictators/tyrants killing, starving......but WHO were they doing it to??
THEIR OWN COUNTRYMEN.........bad? sure........sad?very.........
any of our business NOW.......NO NO NO NO.......
they didnt export terrorists worldwide then.......they did what they did......but they kept it in THEIR own country.......
OUR involvement back then? terrible....wrong.....a mindset of a different time......SO what can we do NOW??? turn the clock back? No
apologize for what we did......maybe
we have SO many current issues to deal with.......issues that place EVERY American under the risk of pressure cooker bombs.....
Would something like this happen now??? NO
this is great documentary fodder for guys like Oppenheimer but nothing else.
1
Glad you're an ex-judge. So mass murder is OK if it happens within another country? Better have your moral compass reset. BTW, decades of US meddling where we don't belong is EXACTLY why there was a 9/11 and the other attempted and successful attacks on US soil.
6
Thank you Josh for two of the bravest and most important films ever made.
6
How do we cleanse a SE Asian nation of the blood stains that we helped to create? Might we first cleanse our own house? A great step in the cleaning and healing process would be to open many of our folders on our misdeeds and to say to all, with conviction, NEVER AGAIN!
This is a hushed subject in Indonesia and even the young who lost ancestors know of the harm done but know that it is much safer to keep quiet.
With so many items on the plate of America to clean up, where do we begin?
This is a hushed subject in Indonesia and even the young who lost ancestors know of the harm done but know that it is much safer to keep quiet.
With so many items on the plate of America to clean up, where do we begin?
5
Oh boy, here we go again. Like the U.S. didn't have enough problems overseas. But it's Nazis, Nazis, all the way. And even better, it's a Muslim country to destabilize and a civil war to start. Won't that be fun? Here's an alternate suggestion: we mind our own business. Quit pushing the Holocaust button. Let the Indonesians deal with their own history.
The USA supported the slaughter. It succeeded.
2
In the antebellum South, married, church-going white men had non-consensual sex with female slaves, and the offspring of these unions were not the children of their fathers, but his property.
Today across the South 150 years later whites still wave the Confederate flag to celebrate this heritage.
After WWI, everyone knows that the Ottoman Turks massacred the Armenians. Yet no one knows, and cares, that the same Ottoman Turks massacred a similiar number of Greeks.
In college I had a professor born in Indonesia of Dutch parents. He once told me (I don't know why) that he was embarrassed to admit to anyone he was Dutch because he saw how terribly his parents treated Indonesians during the colonial period.
What would be the point for Indonesia's rulers to acknowledge their crimes?
Today across the South 150 years later whites still wave the Confederate flag to celebrate this heritage.
After WWI, everyone knows that the Ottoman Turks massacred the Armenians. Yet no one knows, and cares, that the same Ottoman Turks massacred a similiar number of Greeks.
In college I had a professor born in Indonesia of Dutch parents. He once told me (I don't know why) that he was embarrassed to admit to anyone he was Dutch because he saw how terribly his parents treated Indonesians during the colonial period.
What would be the point for Indonesia's rulers to acknowledge their crimes?
1
Isn't this the same Suharto that Bill Clinton was so cozy with in the 90's? As I recall, his declaration of the Grand Staircase-Escalante as a national monument put millions in Suharto's pockets. Maybe that's why we heard so little about this.
3
The 1965 coup in Indonesia gave the administration of Lyndon Johnson an opportunity to end the Vietnam escalation. In 1965, Americans were being told about the Hammer-Anvil theory. The theory was that Red China (as it was called then) was the hammer, and Indonesia was the anvil. All nations between the hammer and the anvil, would, according to the theory, be forced to become communist. With Indonesia (the anvil) no longer, after the 1965 coup, under the left wing influence of the pro-communist Indonesian President Sukarno, the United States could have tried to end its nascent build-up in Vietnam. The United States missed a great diplomatic opportunity. Thus, it was up to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger to end the American involvement in Vietnam.
I lived in Indonesia as an exchange student. The author has it exactly right. Students are taught that the murder of 500,000 people was justified by the killing of the generals. Anti deocratic thought extends to all parts of life. Agnostics and atheists are prosecuted as communists. People are not free to share thoughts about politics or their own political ideas. The business eliete and political eliete are the same people, a sure sign of the rampant corruption that infuses the culture. However individual people are artistic creative intelligent and the culture is an interesting mix of inclusiveness culturally. Its a beatutiful, scary interesting place. I loved living there. But the country would really blossom if this reconsiliation were accomplished. I hope it can happen, but doubt the ability of the country to change given the brainwashing about this topic at every level of the country.
5
@ drspock, of course we're intent on repeating the "excesses and mistakes" we made in supporting the Suharto regime. Consider how we invaded Iraq under false pretenses. And if certain Republican candidates have their way, we'll be invading Iran.
4
I've seen both Oppenheimer films and they are devastating. Once again, our government encouraged murder in the name of "democracy." Once again, we pretend that our hands are clean. Have we no shame? At long last, have we no shame? Our American "exceptionalism" is exeptional only in our claim that our crimes were for the noblest of reasons.
6
Jump ahead less than 10 years to Sept. 11, 1973: "The United States conducted covert operations to destabilize ... (Salvador Alende) and strengthen the (Chilean) military. Then, when genocide broke out, America provided equipment, weapons and money. ... compiled lists containing thousands of names of public figures likely to oppose the new military regime, and handed them over to the (Chilean) military, presumably with the expectation that they would be killed." -- We can thank Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the CIA. In 1976, U.S. citizen Michael Vernon Townley, working for the Chilean secret police (DINA), used a car bomb he made to kill a young American newlywed Ronni Moffit, and an exiled Chilean statesman, Orlando Letelier. In Washington, D.C. no less. This killer is repotedly still protected by the federal witness protection program (and the CIA?)
9
"The Act of Killing" was chilling indeed for the glibness displayed by (free) murderers. What of the home-grown orchestrators of millions of deaths in the name of fighting communism?
1
It is unlikely that the US will ever have a more appropriate president to call Indonesia to task.
2
So few comments posted here suggests why this Indonesia reign of murder and ongoing terror remains on the back burner in the US and why that burner is stone cold, still.
2
The U.S. must come clean about its role in the post 1965 massacres by releasing all its records of these events and acknowledging its role in encouraging and facilitating those killings and the many that followed including those during Indonesia's U.S.-blessed occupation of East Timor, the war in Aceh and the ongoing human rights violations in West Papua.
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (etan.org) and other human rights groups are supporting Senator Udall's Senate resolution to encourage an accounting by the U.S., as well as in Indonesia. The many victims and survivors of the criminal acts by Indonesia's security forces, many of them armed and trained by the U.S., deserve justice.
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (etan.org) and other human rights groups are supporting Senator Udall's Senate resolution to encourage an accounting by the U.S., as well as in Indonesia. The many victims and survivors of the criminal acts by Indonesia's security forces, many of them armed and trained by the U.S., deserve justice.
4
It's extremely sad the U.S. fear and aversion of Communism led to this horrendous event.
Most Americans are conscientious people. Only a small segment would be indifferent to this. It may have to sink in. When they are obsessed with Donald Trump & Clinton emails, they have very little curiosity left to delve into these sort of things.
Jimmy Carter actually started to acknowledge and apologize for US involvement in Latin America. Then Ronald Reagan became president and reversed everything. And people adored him & still love him as among the greatest US presidents. If some one is very likable & charismatic he can do no wrong. (When I say Bill Clinton, who has been mercilessly criticized & attacked & impeached for a trivial personal indiscretion & lying about it, doesn't have much charisma everyone refutes it)
I hope Sen. Udal's resolution will pass. Discussions on it may permeate into the public psyche. It’s important to acknowledge and apologize for our mistakes and wrongdoings. Perhaps Pope Francis’ recent visit may sway some minds. But it didn’t even sway the Georgia authorities to commute a woman’s death sentence!
Most Americans are conscientious people. Only a small segment would be indifferent to this. It may have to sink in. When they are obsessed with Donald Trump & Clinton emails, they have very little curiosity left to delve into these sort of things.
Jimmy Carter actually started to acknowledge and apologize for US involvement in Latin America. Then Ronald Reagan became president and reversed everything. And people adored him & still love him as among the greatest US presidents. If some one is very likable & charismatic he can do no wrong. (When I say Bill Clinton, who has been mercilessly criticized & attacked & impeached for a trivial personal indiscretion & lying about it, doesn't have much charisma everyone refutes it)
I hope Sen. Udal's resolution will pass. Discussions on it may permeate into the public psyche. It’s important to acknowledge and apologize for our mistakes and wrongdoings. Perhaps Pope Francis’ recent visit may sway some minds. But it didn’t even sway the Georgia authorities to commute a woman’s death sentence!
6
This is a painful article for someone who loves Indonesia. But it is a necessary one. I regularly teach and speak about the events of 1965-67 in Indonesia. But even progressive and left leaning intellectuals don't want to dwell on it. Part of human nature is to want to forget the worst of our experiences, even if we were victims. This is intensified in Java where anything that is deeply disturbing is repressed and if possible, hidden. I feel grieved that September 30, 2015 is not being discussed or openly remembered in Indonesia as the 50th anniversary of the fall of Sukarno and massacre of communists. But in a way I understand it. The only problem I have with this article is not in the truth of its accusations but that it lacks perspective on such a large and complex country. For many of the readers who know nothing about Indonesia, this portrait of great evil is all that they will know. It would be like writing about the massacre of the native Americans, the enslavement of African Americans and the oppression of women in America, as if that was the essence of America. Indonesia is just as complex as the USA and has just as much good and evil woven throughout its history.
14
United Stated could have stopped the Massacar.
Oh I forget we were killing communist.
Makes sense
Oh I forget we were killing communist.
Makes sense
2
Somehow I gained the opinion that this holocaust was directed at the Chinese and it followed the pattern of "ethnic cleansing" we saw against the Jews and the Armenians. All three of these ethnic groups were more sophisticated, educated, and commercially successful than the native peoples around them. The Indonesians, Turks, and Germans attacked out of racial resentment. The Patel people from India cleared out of East Africa when they saw the writing on the wall.
2
From 1968 to early 1970 I was a US Peace Corps volunteer living with a Chinese family in a wooden home on stilts (the house shook in heavy winds) in the ocean off the North-west coast of Borneo. It seemed idyllic until my house-mother told me that several of her relatives had arrived two years in the past and said that ALL of the Chinese in the small city they had lived in had been killed. They had escaped only because they had been out foraging for firewood when this started, and had hidden in fear until it all ended. I didn't think this was possible in that (this) day and age, but they assured me that it had indeed happened, and I should keep quiet about it.
Perhaps 20 years later I read a lengthy article in my favorite paper, the NY Times, confirming at length that this had happened. I had been a teacher in several schools in Kota Kinabalu when this happened, and I often wondered why so many of my students had been sent by their parents to Great Britain or Australia to go on to university.
When I was very young the sisters at St. Mary's school in Flushing, NY, told us that religion meant "doing unto other what we would want them to do unto us", but why the devil can't religious "believers" understand that this saying applies to ALL of us?
This is the first time I have revealed this to anyone outside of my family or very good friends!
Perhaps 20 years later I read a lengthy article in my favorite paper, the NY Times, confirming at length that this had happened. I had been a teacher in several schools in Kota Kinabalu when this happened, and I often wondered why so many of my students had been sent by their parents to Great Britain or Australia to go on to university.
When I was very young the sisters at St. Mary's school in Flushing, NY, told us that religion meant "doing unto other what we would want them to do unto us", but why the devil can't religious "believers" understand that this saying applies to ALL of us?
This is the first time I have revealed this to anyone outside of my family or very good friends!
4
I'll let this report speak for itself:
"U.S. involvement dates at least to an April 1962 meeting between American and British officials resulting in the decision to “liquidate” President Sukarno, the populist — but not communist — founding father of Indonesia. As a founder of the nonaligned movement, Sukarno favored socialist policies; Washington wanted to replace him with someone more deferential to Western strategic and commercial interests.
The United States conducted covert operations to destabilize Sukarno and strengthen the military. Then, when genocide broke out, America provided equipment, weapons and money. The United States compiled lists containing thousands of names of public figures likely to oppose the new military regime, and handed them over to the Indonesian military, presumably with the expectation that they would be killed. Western aid to Suharto’s dictatorship, ultimately amounting to tens of billions of dollars, began flowing while corpses still clogged Indonesia’s rivers. The American media celebrated Suharto’s rise and his campaign of death. Time magazine said it was the “best news for years in Asia.”
"U.S. involvement dates at least to an April 1962 meeting between American and British officials resulting in the decision to “liquidate” President Sukarno, the populist — but not communist — founding father of Indonesia. As a founder of the nonaligned movement, Sukarno favored socialist policies; Washington wanted to replace him with someone more deferential to Western strategic and commercial interests.
The United States conducted covert operations to destabilize Sukarno and strengthen the military. Then, when genocide broke out, America provided equipment, weapons and money. The United States compiled lists containing thousands of names of public figures likely to oppose the new military regime, and handed them over to the Indonesian military, presumably with the expectation that they would be killed. Western aid to Suharto’s dictatorship, ultimately amounting to tens of billions of dollars, began flowing while corpses still clogged Indonesia’s rivers. The American media celebrated Suharto’s rise and his campaign of death. Time magazine said it was the “best news for years in Asia.”
1
You hit on many very important points, especially about how our country through the CIA, etc has been a bad actor. Of course it is not just Indonesia! The structures of international power backed by the U.S government has been a disgraceul legacy around the world. We need even now to root these players out of our midst. It is not an easy task, as we seem to have a shadow government that controls even our elected representatives. If they are not controlled or deemed controllable, they are even shut out of doing their duty of regulating trade with secret trade treaties that even they can not see. We have a disgraceful situation. Suharto is just one part of this world wide and despicable system.
14
The entire cold war period, 60s and 70s, was marked by such excesses committed by the US' CIA in the third world nations of Asia, Africa, and the Latin America, suspected to be soft to the left ideology in its eyes. There's no question US would apologise for such deeds of human rights violations or destabilising democracies through military coups, let alone acknowledging them.
8
drspock has already touched on this but I'll echo his comment; the 1960s in general germinated the seed of doubt in me about the nature of my own nation, and the slaughter in Indonesia, which even then hinted at U.S. involvement and contribution, accelerated the process. That was followed by 2 years in our army, 14 month in Vietnam, Nixon's and Kissinger's murder of Allende, our involvement in Argentina's "desaparecidos," the proxy wars of Central America, then Iraq-Iran...
But underlying it all was Indonesia, and overshadowing it. The enormity of the murder was numbing to me as a 15 year old.
That sense of it has never really gone away and Mr Oppenheimer has opened that old wound that has never really healed. And yet, I say thanks. Better that than the world forgetting or, as bad, looking away.
But underlying it all was Indonesia, and overshadowing it. The enormity of the murder was numbing to me as a 15 year old.
That sense of it has never really gone away and Mr Oppenheimer has opened that old wound that has never really healed. And yet, I say thanks. Better that than the world forgetting or, as bad, looking away.
49
You can add Us collusion in and encouragement of Pakistani Army's campaign of genocide in what is now Bangladesh in the early 70's. Nixon and Kissinger were lead players in this crime. Who's is going to bring the evils doctor to justice while books extolling his "idealism" are being published even today.
2
" The enormity of the murder was numbing to me as a 15 year old." We're about the same age but, apparently, you were better informed. As I remember it, the way it was portrayed in the media was that Suharto's takeover, bloody though it was, was the adults finally taking over. At that time, I got most of my information from Time magazine and The State newspaper. What did I know. As a naïve teenager, I thought the news was the news. I hope I've learned something since.
1
"I felt I had wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust, only to find the Nazis still in power . . ."
Right-wing regimes always seem to have it in common, don't they?
Right-wing regimes always seem to have it in common, don't they?
29
Yeah, like the Soviets.
1
After watching the bone-chilling inhumanity exposed in “The Act of Killing”, there is no escaping a comparison of the Indonesian murderers to all the merciless mobs in past wars and genocides: the Crusade, Armenia, Holocaust, Nanjing massacre, Cambodia's killing fields, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Native Americans, Gaza, etc. With atrocity at such a massive scale, it is hard to persecute everyone involved. But that is the obvious part.
Even more frightening, as Joshua Oppenheimer pointed out, is the often hidden sponsors, enablers and powers that provided financing, weaponry, advice and propaganda channels. Their goal is clear: control, power and ultimately, profit. It is a sad fact that backers of the murderous mobs are often protected from persecution and hidden from public awareness. Dedicated and persistent journalists and historians perform a great service to humanity to expose the tainted hands behind the blood splattered curtains.
Even more frightening, as Joshua Oppenheimer pointed out, is the often hidden sponsors, enablers and powers that provided financing, weaponry, advice and propaganda channels. Their goal is clear: control, power and ultimately, profit. It is a sad fact that backers of the murderous mobs are often protected from persecution and hidden from public awareness. Dedicated and persistent journalists and historians perform a great service to humanity to expose the tainted hands behind the blood splattered curtains.
65
" Dedicated and persistent journalists and historians perform a great service to humanity to expose the tainted hands behind the blood splattered curtains. "
Yes....well said......but PLEASE dont make the next step into........." we need to
get involved with unseating these terrible despots "
It seems that articles such as YOU wrote ( and i am NOT criticizing or accusing
Observer.......not at all ) then are followed up by the suggestion we get involved........Arab Spring SHOULD be enough of an example of Western meddling in Eastern politics
Yes....well said......but PLEASE dont make the next step into........." we need to
get involved with unseating these terrible despots "
It seems that articles such as YOU wrote ( and i am NOT criticizing or accusing
Observer.......not at all ) then are followed up by the suggestion we get involved........Arab Spring SHOULD be enough of an example of Western meddling in Eastern politics
Excellent piece of analysis. When you read a history of massacres like the ones described here you have to wonder how democracy ever emerged at all, anywhere.
26
Thank you Joshua Oppenheimer. I have been skeptical of the Dulles Brother's foreign policy for years, beginning my education with the "Bay of Pigs" fiasco. I'm looking forward to a greater look at this. Was it the beginning of American exceptionalism? If so, it was another Huge mistake.
23
followed by more huge mistakes.......can u say " Arab Spring " ???
American silence should also be lifted. There are a number of credible journalist reports that our very own CIA and Sate Department encouraged this "purge." We were bogged down in Vietnam and pursuing the fantasy of the domino theory. Did we have a direct hand in the execution of half million people? No, but did we acquiesce and support their execution? Probably yes.
If the Pope can admit to the Catholic Church's cover up of child sexual abuse our democratic government can and should come clean to some of its excesses and mistakes, unless of course we are intent on repeating them.
If the Pope can admit to the Catholic Church's cover up of child sexual abuse our democratic government can and should come clean to some of its excesses and mistakes, unless of course we are intent on repeating them.
62
Direct hand? Well if you call lists of people direct....then I'd say yes.
Dr Spock,
There are so many hidden skeletons in America's closets that it would be a vast opening of Pandora's Box to open even 10% of them. No, in this, Lady Macbeth cannot wash her hands clean. Our best efforts would be to open a truth and reconciliation court in the US for the last decade and go back 5 years in each succeeding year or reverse it starting with the oldest first.
America has lots of innocent communist propaganda and race/ethnic blood on its hands that really needs some heavy duty washing. Some of those responsible for America's bloody hands are, like the ones in Indonesia, still very much in power or great influence. President Widodo has to walk a rather narrow line for he is not the only one with power and it is more a question of how much power those others will allow him to use.
Changes ARE being made in Indonesia, some of those changes are very good but they are taking place so very slow. Justice delayed is justice denied.
There are so many hidden skeletons in America's closets that it would be a vast opening of Pandora's Box to open even 10% of them. No, in this, Lady Macbeth cannot wash her hands clean. Our best efforts would be to open a truth and reconciliation court in the US for the last decade and go back 5 years in each succeeding year or reverse it starting with the oldest first.
America has lots of innocent communist propaganda and race/ethnic blood on its hands that really needs some heavy duty washing. Some of those responsible for America's bloody hands are, like the ones in Indonesia, still very much in power or great influence. President Widodo has to walk a rather narrow line for he is not the only one with power and it is more a question of how much power those others will allow him to use.
Changes ARE being made in Indonesia, some of those changes are very good but they are taking place so very slow. Justice delayed is justice denied.
If the USA is to pose as the anti-terror ideal, it needs to acknowledge the extra-judicial killing, torture & disappearances it sponsored in the many nations it has meddled with since the end of WW2.
Some of the murderous dictatorships the US should reconcile having been on the wrong side history by supporting:
Chile, Augusto Pinochet
Guatemala, Efraín Ríos Montt
Nicaragua, Somoza family
Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah)
El Salvador, military Junta
Etc.