On this day in 1965, the September 30th Movement assassinated six Indonesian Generals, beginning a period of West-backed mass murder of alleged communists, religious minorities, and ethnic Chinese people. At least 500,000 were killed.

The assassinations were blamed on the Communist Party on Indonesia (KPI) by the army and various civic and religious groups, and the resulting campaign of mass murder and arrests, backed by several Western powers, led to the ousting of Indonesian nationalist President Sukarno, the deaths of anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million people, and the installation of Suharto, a brazenly corrupt anti-communist, as President.

Blaming the KPI for the assassination of the generals, Suharto’s forces began purging insitutions of alleged Sukarno and PKI loyalists, arresting and summarily executing many important PKI figures. As leftists, real or alleged, were violently removed from civil and military institutions, reactionaries began directing violence towards ordinary civilians.

The campaign of repression was both widespread and brutal; victims were tortured, impaled, beheaded, and rivers were left congested with masses of corpses. The most conservative estimates suggest 500,000 people were killed in total, while higher estimates range from 2-3 million.

Western powers, including the U.S., Britain, Australia, and Sweden, both supported and directly aided the anti-communist pogroms. In 1962, three years before the killings began, both the U.S. and British governments that it would be necessary “to liquidate Sukarno”.

The U.S. trained more than 1,200 anti-communist military officers, providing them weapons and economic assistance. During the massacres, the U.S. supported the Indonesian military’s actions, even providing the government with lists of suspected communists to target.

British Foreign Office documents declassified in 2021 revealed that British propagandists secretly incited anti-communists, including army generals, to eliminate the PKI, and used “black propaganda”, propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit, due to Sukarno’s hostility to the formation of former British colonies into the Malayan federation from 1963.

Western media and politicians repeated false propaganda from Suharto’s Indonesian government downplaying the violence while also celebrating the violent repression taking place. Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt wrote in the NY Times “With 500,000 to 1 million Communist sympathizers knocked off, I think it is safe to assume a reorientation has taken place” The NY Times also published a racist article saying the murders were to be expected in “violent Asia, where life is cheap”.

American oil tycoon H. L. Hunt called Sukarno’s ousting the “greatest victory for freedom since the last decisive battle of World War II.” Time magazine described the suppression of the KPI “The West’s best news for years in Asia” and praised Suharto as “scrupulously constitutional.”

The politicide ended in 1966. Sukarno died under house arrest in 1970. Suharto would rule as head of the Western-backed military “New Order” regime for over 30 years, while amassing a personal fortune. The massacres continue to be downplayed in the official Indonesian historiography.

In his 2020 book “The Jakarta Method”, journalist Vincent Bevins argues that the massacre provided the blueprint for American campaigns of suppression of leftist movements around the world. To this day, no Western government has apologized for their involvement in the Indonesian politicide.

The Jakarta Method pdf

Indonesia’s Red Slaughter - Jacobin

The Killing Season; The Army and the Indonesian Genocide reviews – the truth about one of the 20th century’s worst massacres - the guardian

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  • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    1 小时前

    Refusing to rewatch Star Trek Voyager is my personal trekkie equivalent of using “liberal” as an insult as a leftist. No, I don’t hate it because I’m sexist against Captain Janeway or Kate Mulgrew (who are both awesome), it’s strictly because I loathe Neelix.

  • SevenSkalls [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    5·
    6 小时前

    Got into a two hour conversation about Israel and Palestine yesterday. She ended it with saying we’ll have to agree to disagree and she’ll always support her Jewish friends, who of course support Israel and have been there.

    She also didn’t believe a lot of the things I said, saying it’s hard to break through the propaganda. Or when I said something bad Israel did, she said surely Hamas does the same thing because it’s a horrific war where both sides do bad things. She also didn’t think Israel kills as many innocents or children as I said they did, or doesn’t care about killing them. She also said antisemitism is a big problem, she heard her anti-Zionist friend say something antisemitic before, and that they deserve a place to feel safe because they get kicked out of every country they’re in. She also didn’t seem to believe that Israel is a Jewish supremacist state, believing their line about being a democracy and having lots of Palestinian citizens, parties, and politicians, etc.

    I’m not sure how I’ll break through, but I doubt it’ll be in one conversation. My partner also started off very centrist and seems pretty solidly pro-Palestinian now, but I don’t know how I’ll do that with this friend. The main problem is she seemed so much more uncomfortable talking about politics, so not sure it’ll corn up as much. I think I also came off to much like a debate bro than having a conversation, and probably had too many quotes and sources and dates and names. I’m afraid it made her think she’s dumb, which probably caused the shut-down and retreat without actual changing of mind.

    Hopefully it gave her some stuff to think about, but it’s been awhile since I’ve met someone out of my bubble I’ve had to convince and I want to flex those muscles with her. Otherwise, idk how we’ll stay friends.

    Anyone know any good sources, books, or documentaries? I was thinking of asking if maybe we could watch NAZA together. Haven’t seen it yet, but it seems like it might at least break through the “Israel cares about citizens and collateral damage” line, and it involves Jewish people so maybe it won’t set off her antisemitism alarms. The main problem seems to be she only listens to her Jewish-Zionist friends and has read their histories. She took a Jewish studies class, which I’m sure only showed one side, too.

  • Wmill [they/them, fae/faer]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    15 小时前

    Feels like everyone at my job wanted me to have the promotion but things had been in motion to hire my new boss for idk how long. Now I don’t know how to feel about it all, been doing his job for 2 month been doing well even building amazing rapport with vendors but still got my job. My plan was do this until union but I feel my prospects of union are slim with how many people trying out so did I blow my chance or was there never one to begin with.

    All this book learning I been doing my new boss admits isn’t worth much but what else am I supposed to do, can’t get a job without experience can’t get experience without a job. Entry level jobs for HVAC are over saturated, can’t start as a helper if no one is hiring. I don’t think my book learning is a waste of time, if anything it’s prob why my new boss got out of HVAC. I can’t blame him he’s got a family he wants to spend time with.

    Just feeling a lot of things before bed, tomorrow more work and another night this week of PLC learning.

  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    14 小时前

    It seems like drone warfare is here to stay, but it would be cool if we could go back to wooden ships of the line. Warfare would be better with intricate rope and pulley systems involved imo.