Anti Communist Massacres
Jan 25th, 2008, in Opinion, by Guest WriterView the original article here.
66 Comments on “Anti Communist Massacres”
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Patung Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 11:33 amI’m going to write on Pak Patoeng’s blog here a ‘hypothetical’ of scenarios of what happened if the communists actually did take over in 1965 and call for submissions.
Ah, that’s what I’ve been waiting for, what would a Peoples Republic of Indonesia have been like.
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Pakmantri Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 12:14 pmAchmad Sudarsono Said:
……………. a ‘hypothetical’ of scenarios of what happened if the communists actually did take over in 1965 …………Read Ross’ book “Red Jakarta by Ross McKay” …………
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spew-it-all Says:
January 28th, 2008 at 4:25 pmHow conclusive do you think the proof is and the level of documentation and oral history ?
I think it is very conclusive. I’ve done a bit interview of survivors, documents and scholarly researches. From these sources, it was very clear that the military was heavily involved in the killings, as i mentioned in my article. Adrian mentioned about the death list prepared by the PKI. This is very important point actually. During the raids, the military ‘found’ the evidence (death list) that the PKI was ready to kill. This fabricated evidence could have convinced local people and fuelled up the anger.
Adrian, thanks for your thought on military-sponsored violence. This is the most appropriate term, i think.
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Adrian Vickers Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 7:55 amYes, the documentation is good, although I’m sure there are many sources that the military is keeping hidden because they do not want their full involvement exposed. There is always more to be done, and Syarikat are doing a good job of documenting other aspects of the tragedy.
John Roosa has written a nice piece on Suharto , which I think is reasonably objective. I tend to agree with his view, that Indonesia could have been much more prosperous than under a leader who relied on foreign loans, oil and mineral exports and keeping labour cheap. That’s probably my main disagreement with Bob Elson, who tends to follow the ‘bringer of prosperity’ line. The Suharto prosperity was an illusion that quickly dispersed in 1997. Pak Patoeng would probably be pleased with the editorial and piece by Greg Sheridan in yesterday’s Australian. It balances out the Kingsbury view at least! I’ve already done my assessments of Suharto in my general history, and also in my ‘Keeping up appearances’ article, so I won’t re-run them here.
Would the PKI have done the same thing as Pol Pot? From my study of Cambodian history I doubt it. Cambodia was an unusual pathological state, with a prior history of brutality on both sides, followed by intense US bombing and a civil war that destroyed most institutions (William Shawcross’s Sideshow provides a good popular account for those who don’t want to wade through the heavier tomes). If the PKI had come to power (which also seems unlikely, they didn’t really have that much power, as Sukarno kept them on a tight leash and used them to balance the Army), then they probably would have acted much in the way that Fidel Castro did in Cuba, or the Vietnamese government did (mainly sending opponents to ‘re-eduation’ camps, and stuffing up the economies, although Vietnam is not doing that badly at the moment). It wouldn’t have been that great a result, and they probably would have executed some opponents, but the idea that all communist governments are going to end up like Cambodia is a paranoid fantasy. Yes, I know that Stalin and Mao were major murderous despots, although my Chinese colleagues will tell you that the majority of deaths under Mao were people who died of starvation from his mis-managements, and this is also the case with Stalin. Still pretty awful stuff, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but again, no justification for mass murder.
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January 29th, 2008 at 11:28 amForgot to add on Sarwo Edhie, our main information on him comes from books like the John Hughes account of the killings (which apparently used CIA sources, according to one rumour). Certainly in some areas he is remembered as the leader of the killings. His role seems to have been similar to Kamal Idrus, although the latter had a big falling out with Suharto. They are the people whom Suharto got to do his dirty work, but who he then distanced himself from.
But there are some very interesting stories about his relationship with SBY. One version, told to me by an old leftie, is that on his death-bed Sarwo Edhi felt burdened with the weight of the killings, and make SBY promise that he would make up for the old man’s sins.
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Olympus Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 11:53 amSo because Stalin and Mau starved millions of people to death rather than actually executing them directly that’s ok then.
Castro slaughtered his political opponents and he has kept his nation in absolute tyranny ever since, unlike Suharto he has never offered to resign his power instead treating it as family property to be handed on to his equally thuggish brother.
As regards the nice Vietnamese Communists their rule is just as brutal, again murdering and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of their opponents and driving millions of men women and children to such desperation that they clung to leaking ships to brave pirates and typhoons in the South China Sea so bad was the Communist rule.
Like I say western liberals who have never lived with the horrors of a Communist state have a very benign view of what Communists are really like. Ask any victim of Communist oppression and he will avowedly say that the only defence is to kill them before they take power, because once they get into power they will soon be doing lots of killing themselves.
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Achmad Sudarsono Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 11:55 amAdrian,
Literary history, you know, economic history, I question.
Things like life expectancy, literacy rates, population growth weren’t “taken away” by the Asian financial crisis – which hit across Asia, and not just here, though it was worse here. Also, some 60 % of investment under Soeharto was domestic — oil money, and savings from the Chinese conglomerates. The last people you should to listen to on economic growth and investment, I’m sorry, are the likes of John Roosa.
For example, you can’t “keep labour cheap” — it’s economics, mate, supply and demand. If the minimum wage is below the market-clearing level, you just won’t get enough workers. Indonesia has a lot of workers and back then (’60s, ’70s) China and Vietnam labour pool was closed. Indonesia’s wages are cheap because it’s overpopulated.
Seriously, you historians should do Econ 101. (Too much maths!).
If the Sarwo Edhie story is true, it could make for some interesting dynamics. Maybe SBY will go for a reconciliation committee after all.
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January 29th, 2008 at 12:16 pmThanks Achmad (I’m ignoring Olympus’s comment since he is too lazy to actually read what I wrote, he only seems capable of reading what he wants to read)
Yep, I’m no economist, which I hold as a virtue. The economists of the ANU (the Arndt school) not only failed to see the obvious and predict the 1997 crisis, they even had the hide to say at the time that the fundamentals of the Indonesian economy were sound! This is because they relied on faked growth data, rather than looking for substance.
Suharto did well on the family planning program, I’ll give him that, but population growth has now dropped off the international development agenda due to pressure of various religious groups. If you have money and you get sick in Indonesia you fly to Singapore, Malaysia or Thailand, not a great sign of achievement in the health system. The quality of education in Indonesia is not great, so literacy rates don’t tell the full story. If Indonesia had invested in education to the same extent as India, sure there would still be lots of cheap labour, but there would also be a skills base that would mean Indonesia doesn’t have to be ‘a nation of coolies and a coolie amongst nations’ to quote Bung Karno. Indonesian labour is still cheaper than most other countries in the region, and it has huge natural wealth that is being squandered, that’s the Suharto legacy.
There is one account of the crisis that has it that it was worse in Indonesia because it was Indonesians who rushed to get their money into overseas accounts, where it now stays. Again doesn’t sound like Suharto built the basis of a sound economy and prosperous society.
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January 29th, 2008 at 12:38 pmHi Pak Adrian,
To be fair to the Ardnt school, almost no one, predicted the crisis, and if they did, they’d be rich. How ? Borrrow $100,000 or $ 1 million in Rupiah today, change it into dollars, swap it back on January 17, 1998, when the Rupiah hit Rp.17,000 to the dollar. Speculative bubbles happen in all economies, including in Australia in 1891.
On living standards, yes, the Imams are free to attack KB (keluarga berencana) now, when they wouldn’t have dared in the New Order. That rise, according to more ANU people, came after Soeharto fell.
On the question of faked growth data. The Badan Pusat Statistics gets mixed grades, but isn’t too bad by developing country standards, I hear. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cooked the growth figures a bit. (I wouldn’t now). But there are plenty of demographics, public health people, doctors, and food scientists, who verified the improvement in the HDI.
On schools. One strong consensus on Soeharto is that in the 1990s he failed most badly in building institutions. Civilian police force, financial regulatory institutions, courts, and yes, schools, specially higher technical colleges and universities. Why ? He wanted to stay in power. He was tired, old, and arrogant and believed his own mythology.
Some economic facts though:
* Banks were only deregulated in 1988.
* Stock exchange reopened in 1991.
* Liberalized in the 1990s.
* Up until 1988, BUMNs, played a bigger role in development than after — when the technocrats became more influential.
* Most of the foreign loans were used to balance the budget — the deficit was generally spent on Repelita programs. Some of it was probably pissed away.The squandering of huge natural wealth. Yes, a complex question. Various studies concluded Indonesia spent its oil wealth in the ’70s better than Nigera, Mexico and other parts of OPEC. Couldn’t make the same case for forestry. Comes down to institutions.
Just don’t think it’s a slam dunk case on the economic legacy. India’s educational base was built under the British Raj (wasn’t it ?), and the Dutch did build an educated class — the Chinese — who are generally doing better.
So the influx of foreign, speculative, hot money was really in the 1990s.
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Janma Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 1:27 pmchange it into dollars, swap it back on January 17, 1998, when the Rupiah hit Rp.17,000 to the dollar.
You can say that again! One of my American customers owed me 10,000 dollars for material (I owed that amount in rupiah… which was only 25 million at the time.) However she sent me the money late…. and it came into my rupiah account on the 17th of January as 170 million!
Paid the fabric bill, went to ubud and bought my piece of land…. free! Woo Hoo! -
January 29th, 2008 at 1:35 pmThere you go. Nuttin’ to sum’n’ in nanoseconds.
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January 29th, 2008 at 1:57 pmCould 1997 have been predicted? I met a guy around 1994 who was a consultant working in the banking industry in Indonesia. He was looking into the financial viability of loans that were being issued by a major institution, and he found that not one of the enterprises to which money was being lent was viable. Every loan was bad, but his employers told him he could only report ‘good news’ (ABS culture)
In the end he left quickly, saying something along the lines of ‘I’ve seen this before in Africa, and there they ended up hanging bankers from lamp-posts’. Fortunately Indonesians had a nicer view of their bankers (or their bankers paid the preman more for security), but these and other stories I collected from Indonesian businessmen at the time showed that the whole boom was one big illusion waiting to burst. Why couldn’t economists see it? Says something about economists who don’t get out and do fieldwork.
Incidentally a business friend says the same about the China boom. He predicts that it will all come crashing down sometime after the Olympics.
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January 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pmPak Adrian,
A lot of people say that, so how come they didn’t cash in ?
More importantly, how come no hard-hitting reports from Dr. Adrian Vickers in 1994 on the myth of the Indonesian economic miracle ?
Think how much fun it would’ve been sticking it to the Ardnt School.
Or maybe you weren’t so sure at the time and they weren’t so sure. It’s all so much clearer in hindsight, the prerogative of the historian. Different to people who have to make decisions and wear the results.
Yes, the old non-performing loans argument about China. So is your friend putting his money where his mouth is and taking up big mortgages in Yuan ?
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January 29th, 2008 at 5:48 pmI’m ignoring Olympus’s comment since he is too lazy to actually read what I wrote, he only seems capable of reading what he wants to read
I read perfectly well your airbrushing the nastiness out of Communism and instead always giving them the benefit of the doubt, it marks you out as the typical “useful idiot” upon whom Communists have always relied to rehash Communist propaganda and to show how it was always someone else’s fault that their murderous ideology turned murderous (hint the Communists didn’t arm themselves for “defence” but to wipe out their opponents, please don’t insult our intelligence, some of us live in the real world).
That’s two of you now who have proved incapable of continuing a debate and who run away like maiden aunts when the true evilness of Communism is brought to the fore, no surprise really.
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January 29th, 2008 at 6:43 pmHi Olympus,
Which part of ‘Stalin and Mao were major murderous despots, although my Chinese colleagues will tell you that the majority of deaths under Mao were people who died of starvation from his mis-managements, and this is also the case with Stalin. Still pretty awful stuff, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone’ didn’t you understand?
I guess you’ve never heard of the old saying ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. Communists did terrible things, but that doesn’t mean all communists everywhere should be killed because other ones in other countries did these things. It’s logic such as yours that says that because George Bush’s policies were evil, the Bali bombings were justified.
Yes Achmad, I should have written something in 1994 (if only we’d had blogs then, damn it). I had actually written an earlier version of the 2001 article by then, but it took me ages to get around to publishing. And I guess I thought that the economists knew what they were doing! It is nice being a historian (or is that ‘an historian’?)
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January 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pmAdrian,
Interesting, but you’ll have to forgive my earlier skepticism. I think the economic historians had a better idea, but time’s been purged from economics in Heinz Ardnt’s lifetime. I think he would’ve had a better since of financial panics in the past. But his institutional approach to economics is on the ropes and, alas, inductive models are all the rage. Pak Heinz, as a German, might have been more sympathetic to the Austrian school, which does have a theory of financial panics.
Phone just rang. Talk in a bit.
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dewaratugedeanom Says:
January 29th, 2008 at 8:12 pmAchmad said
For example, you can’t “keep labour cheap” “” it’s economics, mate, supply and demand.
One way to keep labour cheap is to ban unions, or make it difficult for them to operate.
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January 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pmBesides the involvement of the army, a disturbing lesson to learn from the above posts and also from the ‘Genocide’ thread is the ease by which Indonesian people are provoked into murderous and inhumane actions. It only takes some trusted figure or organization to call for action to ensure that militias and laskar are formed which set out on a killing spree. Judging from the recent past in Maluku and Sulawesi, the massacres of 1965-66 cannot be considered a merely extraordinary event not susceptible for repetition. If there is a pattern it should be investigated.
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January 29th, 2008 at 8:29 pmDewa,
Yeah, you can ban unions. But how effective are either unions – or bans – in Indonesia. Supply and demand, mate. It’s like physics.
Pak Adrian,
You still haven’t explained, though, if you saw it coming in 1994, how come you didn’t cash in. You could at least have a couple of houses in Bali, one in the Blue Mountains, one on the South Coast. Maybe you do. Can I stay there ? As a poet, ukuele player and dangdut singer, I need alot of inspiration.
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January 30th, 2008 at 5:58 amYes, story of my life really, lost opportunities…
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January 30th, 2008 at 6:15 amForgot to say, I actually like economic history (and am a fan of Furnivall, but then he was a socialist…)
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January 30th, 2008 at 6:22 amAdrian,
Just a question for you, do you think Roosa’s appraisal on the coup and massacres is interesting? He found the link between the coup, the killings and the establishment of New Order.
One scholar of Ohio university, Yohanes Sulaiman, wrote about the killings in Bali and Java. Nevertheless, his analysis is kind of mediocre emphasising the impact of land reform and hostility the came out of it. In term of source, he draws heavily from Sulistyo’s book. So not really surprising if he arrived at similar conclusion to Sulistyo. If you haven’t read this, i’ll be happy to share.
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January 30th, 2008 at 6:33 amYes, I think John’s book (Pretext for Mass Murder) is probably the closest we’ll come to a definite answer as to ‘what happened?’ And it’s not necessarily an answer that former members of the PKI will like either, but then the mark of good scholarship should be that you offend the prejudices of people on both sides.
There have been a number of other studies of the killings besides the one you mentioned, but as yet no startling new insights. Robert Cribb is working on something now, and he’s a person whose judgement and scholarship I trust. Degung Santikarma’s work on Bali is also significant, and I’m hoping he’ll publish more soon.
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January 30th, 2008 at 7:16 amIt would be understandable if the former of the PKI members would not like the conclusion drawn by Roosa.
As for Cribb, there are three questions that he raised in his book. Limited sources, ethics, the link between event at national level and local factors. Oral history seems to partly sort the first problem, i think. The second one is the most difficult as question on ethics regarding the large scale of atrocity is still puzzling for many. Most scholars presumably tried to deal with the third one.
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January 30th, 2008 at 9:41 amFolks,
Any library in Jakarta with all of these books ? The academic tones tend to be expensive. That dusty, musty second hand bookshop at TIM might have a couple here and there…
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January 30th, 2008 at 3:12 pmJanma said
Paid the fabric bill, went to ubud and bought my piece of land”¦. free! Woo Hoo!
Can WNA buy land in Indonesia???
Achmad said
It’s all so much clearer in hindsight, the prerogative of the historian.
And of the financial analyst.
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Junarto Says:
January 30th, 2008 at 5:15 pmUnder protection of Sukarno regime, PKI itself did a lot of killings and repression against any parties or mass organization which oppose its line.
If Communist won “the battle of 1965″, the situation should not have been better.
The heroes, the victims, and the culprits will be different.
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Janma Says:
January 30th, 2008 at 5:44 pmWho said I am WNA?
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January 30th, 2008 at 6:26 pmDewa,
Financial analysts have to make calls on the present and future and have very vigorous metric measurements of their predictions. They’re held accountable for what they say by people spending alot of money. Anyone with a buy recommendation on Enron before it tanked probably didn’t do too well for a while.
There are ways to get land in Bali for foreigners.
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January 30th, 2008 at 8:11 pmThey’re held accountable for what they say by people spending alot of money.
Well, maybe I didn’t spend enough money.
There are ways to get land in Bali for foreigners.
I know, but it always involves third parties. ‘HGB atas milik’ and stuff like that. Never straight, always kinky. I heard hair-raising stories but this is way off topic.
Your view on “Anti Communist Massacres” :
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