Anti Communist Massacres

Jan 25th, 2008, in IM Posts, Opinion, by Guest Writer

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68 Comments on “Anti Communist Massacres”

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dewaratugedeanom Says:
February 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
@spew-it-all

Did John Roosa (Pretext for Mass Murder), or any of the other researchers, mention something about an eventual involvement or reaction from the PHDI (Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia) or its predecessor in Bali? The fierceness of the massacres in Bali raises the suspicion that some higher religious authority might have been backing or at least condoning.
Janma Says:
February 7th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Ida Bagus Oka told them it was a ‘holy war’ … that because of PKI the light and dark (sekala niskala) was out of balance, so it was their duty to kill them all….. this after quite a few months of the army and various others from Java trying to stir them up, apparently the balinese were quite hard to start up on the massacres but after started were hard to stop.
spew-it-all Says:
February 11th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Dewa,

I don’t think i remember that. The only scholar who focuses his work on Bali is Geoffrey Robinson. Roosa’s work is mainly centring the link between the failed coup and the mass murder.
It would be possible if any religious authority such PHDI took that position. At that time, people had to fiercely censure the PKI in order to prove to the public which position that they took.
Odinius Says:
February 11th, 2008 at 10:09 am
@Adrian…love “A Paradise Created.” Glad to see an “authentic Indonesianist” on here.

Keeping on the Bali theme, I I thought I should throw Geoff Robinson’s “The Dark Side of Paradise” into the mix. Pretty interesting findings there about 1965-7: 80,000 killed (the largest proportion of any province’s population), most of whom were either not or only loosely affiliated with the PKI and were targeted more for general leftism or anti-traditionalism in Hindu religious practice. And it happened relatively late in the game after the military sent Col. Sarwo Edhie’s to make sure Bali didn’t skip the bloodletting…
dewaratugedeanom Says:
February 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
The funny thing is that in 2002 the PHDI (Parisada Hindu Dharma Indonesia) has been accused on Denpasar’s official website http://www.visitdenpasar.com of trying to spread communism in Bali because they wanted to reform the caste system that still exists on the ceremonial level.
It seems that even in these days any attempt to modernise the social fabric in this country still can be discredited by sticking the label ‘communist’ to it.
Odinius Says:
February 12th, 2008 at 4:52 am
Wow, that’s interesting. Funny, I was in Wanosobo for the 2004 election and saw these massive banners saying “Wanosobo: proud and free of Communism.” WTF?! I figured red baiting was old hat after the wall fell and China rediscovered capitalism…
El Grinog Says:
January 16th, 2011 at 7:32 am
Indonesia has always followed the path of pigs and trash, when After America was discovered and west was on Ascension, they become Muslims .
The analogy Communist in Cambodia is bull shit, after all Chinese Supported and Americans from Thailand Supported the bloody regime, but who ousted them? The Communist Vietnamese, and look at China, with most vibrant economy, Perhaps better look at Cuba, its achievements the only South American Country that wins medals in Olympic, Not to Mention it Army in Angola defeated and DISMANTLED APARTHEID , at Battle of CUITO CANUVALE, nice of you never mention TUTU , TOMI and millions and billions that swallowed and let country in ruins being the School and laboratory for new world order when the entire resources were pocked by multi national,
grimaldo35 Says:
March 20th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Hello, I´m peruvian, but very interested in what happened in Indonesia 1965.
It´s clear that those killings were not spontaneous as some hypocrites pretend.
Militars were behind, training, transporting and arming anti communist civilians.
Some of those killers were bloodthirsty fanatics (just like Olympus) but some were manipulated or fooled by intense CIA directed campaing of disinformation, some others had to support the killings or to take part in order to avoid been targeted too.

Bamboo impaled headless corpses floating down Brantas River, corpses clogging small rivers, long streets decorated with PKI heads, that was clearly a crime against humanity.
Stalin and Mao are presented as “mass murderers” but most of their supposed victims died of starvation (even so more people died of starvation in India between 1949-1976 than in China during the same period).
Some ignorants still think there was a genocide in Cambodia . . . completely false.
Cambodia was destroyed before Pol Pot came to power, and people was dying of starvation and epidemics before, during and after Pol Pot. (Pol Pot killed and tortured some people he thought were Vietnam spies)
Was Pol Pot a monster like Suharto? yes, he was, but he´s been charged with too much deadths.
Olympus also say “they were communists so they were like the Khmer Rouge!, all communists are just like Pol Pot”. It´s like saying all right wing dictatorships are as brutal as the one of Suharto, completely false, absurd.
Pinochet was a son of bitch but he can not be compared with Suharto.
Fujimori is a corrupt fascist, but not as murdeous as Suharto.
Is really hard to find any right wing murderer as terrible as Suharto: Videla, Trujillo, Sygman Rhee, Chiang Kai Shek, any of them was able to turn rivers red or to decorate long streets with the bloody head of their victims.
Either way, if PKI had took power were them going to be like the Kmer Rouge? NO.
PKI was more like the Chilean Socialist Party of Salvador Allende. Like chileans PKI had no weapons and had opted a peaceful road to power.
If there´s any link between PKI and Khmer Rouge it´s that Pol Pot was in Peking (during cultural revolution) and was informed of the massacres of Indonesia. Pol Pot and Khieu Samphan decided to create a militarized party in order to avoid been massacred like PKI (by the way, Suharto sent militar advisors to Long Nol dictatorship).
So, PKI was absolutly innocent of any of the charges fascists put on them.
Which was the mistake of PKI and Aidit?
Like Salvador Allende, Aidit forgot that if you have no weapons at least for self defense, the fascist will anihilate you.
Allende thought that a highly civilized and constitutional society would avoid a militar coup, and Aidit thought that Sukarno could use his power to deffend the party in case of a militar attack, both were wrong, and paid with their lives (and the lives of their followers).