Skip to content
March 22, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas

Primary Menu
  • News
  • Opinion
  • About us
    • About us
    • Who we are – Becoming a Volunteer
    • Editorial guidelines for contributors
    • Our Sources
      • Venezuelan Sources
      • International Sources
    • Contact us
  • Categories
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Security and Defense
    • International
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Europe
      • Oceania
      • US/Canada
    • Latin America and ALBA-TCP
      • South America
      • Central America and the Caribbean (+Mexico)
    • Ideology-Commune-Labor
    • Health-Education-Sport-Culture-Technology
    • Solidarity and Social Movements
    • OT Specials
  • Support Us
Light/Dark Button
YouTube Channel
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • The Forgotten Holocaust: The 1965-66 Massacre Against Indonesia’s Communists
  • Asia
  • International
  • Opinion

The Forgotten Holocaust: The 1965-66 Massacre Against Indonesia’s Communists

October 2, 2021

By Nikos Mottas – Sep 30, 2021

Without any doubt, the WWII Holocaust and the 1915 Armenian genocide consist the two largest mass slaughters of the 20th century. They are crimes which must never be erased from the collective memory of the peoples, no matter how many decades will pass.

However, there are also less known sides of History, the “forgotten” holocausts to which the bourgeois historiography has given little importance, either by downgrading them as insignificant details of world history or by distorting their true dimensions.

A major example of such a “forgotten” holocaust is the mass slaughter of the communists in Indonesia by Suharto’s dictatorship during the 1965-66.

The criminal called General Suharto was the man who, with the tolerance and silence of the US and British governments, was responsible for one of the most barbaric bloodshed of the previous century: the mass slaughter of more than 1,000,000 people, mostly communists, members and supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia [1].

If we want to have a comprehensive image of the social and political conditions that led to the 1965-66 massacre, we must refer to the historical background of developments in Indonesia after the end of Second World War. These developments are related to the role of the British and Dutch imperialists, the conditions under which the independence of the Republic of Indonesia took place, the formation of the class struggle in the country and, of course, the position of Indonesia in the post-WWII imperialist plans which led to the active involvement of the US in the domestic political processes.

In the mid of 1960s, the sharpening of the intra-bourgeois contradictions (with the steady interference of US-British governments) led to a series of military coups and counter-coups that ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the elected president Sukarno. In the morning of October 2, 1965, numerous military vehicles were patrolling at the streets of Jakarta in order to capture the insurgents and lead them to prison. A day earlier, a failed coup attempt had been organised by the commander of the presidential guard Colonel Untung. From his side, in a message transmitted via radio, the Colonel had justified the coup attempt by arguing that its role was to prevent a conspiracy planned by the CIA and army officials to overthrow President Sukarno.

RELATED CONTENT: Manufacturing Consent for War: 70 Years of CIA Coups, Assassinations, False Flag Operations and Mass Murder

The army crushed the failed coup’s insurgents, with a general called Suharto playing a decisive role. This man would subsequently override Sukarno’s leadership thus becoming the new powerful leader of the country. Suharto and his imperialist allies pointed the Communist Party of Indonesia as the source of the failed coup—after all, the well-organised and popular Communist Party had played a leading role in the anticolonial struggle and had significant influence in Sukarno’s policies.

Indonesian Army massacred thousands of communists and Communist Party supporters and sympathisers after overthrowing the Sukarno government in 1965. File photo.

The rise of General Suharto—a man who had the support of the US imperialists—in Indonesia’s leadership led to unprecedented violent persecutions against communists, including mass killings, executions, tortures and every kind of barbaric act. Even the CIA had admitted in a subsequent report that the 1965-66 events were “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century” [2]. Of course, both the CIA and the British intelligence services played an active role in the massacre by supporting the Suharto regime. Information about the role of the governments of the United States, Britain and Australia in the anticommunist holocaust of Indonesia were unveiled years later.

On May 17, 1990, based on testimonies by personnel who had worked at the US embassy in Jakarta during the 1960s, an article by the States News Service of Washington DC reported that the US embassy had provided Suharto regime lists with over 5,000 names of communists and supporters of the Communist Party [3].

RELATED CONTENT: Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was Reportedly Obsessed with Killing Assange

The role of the imperialists in the Indonesia massacre has been confirmed by academics and researchers. For example, Professor Brad Simpson of Princeton University and author of Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and US-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968, has said that the US and British governments did “everything in their power” to ensure that the Indonesian army could carry out the mass killings [4]. The massacre against the communists in Indonesia was followed by an organised plan for the entry of foreign monopoly capital in the country. According to the documentary The New Rulers of the World (2001) by Australian journalist and researcher John Pilger, the dictatorial regime of Suharto proceeded to business deals with known monopoly and banking groups such as General Motors, Daimler-Benz, Chase Manhtattan Bank, Siemens, Standard Oil, etc.

Imperialism tries to erase its bloody past in order to safeguard its future
The massacre of the communists in Indonesia by the authoritarian Suharto regime, with the support and tolerance of the US-British imperialists, consists one of the darkest pages of the 20th century. It consists a deliberately “forgotten” holocaust that the bourgeois propaganda tries to downgrade as a “collateral damage” of the Cold War. They try to downgrade the historical significance of the 1965-66 massacre of Indonesia’s communists because it is one more example that exposes imperialist brutality.

Imperialism tries to erase its bloody past in order to safeguard its future. For that reason, the imperialists distort history in every possible way. Because they know the actual power that the working class, the proletariat in every country, has. That is why the working people, the people, must know their history and fight against distortion and oblivion, in order to have a powerful weapon in the struggle against the big enemy of humanity which is the rotten exploitative system that generates barbarity, poverty and wars.

 

NOTES:
[1] The Communist Party of Indonesia, the first one established in Asia (1920), reached during the 1960s a significant party strength with approximately 3,000,000 members, especially in the Java region. However, opportunist political choices by its leadership led to the subsequent weakening of the party ties with broader masses. Despite its organisational strength and the extraordinary large number of its members, the CPI could not avoid the trap that had been set by both its domestic enemies and their imperialist allies.

[2] Blumenthal, T.L.H. McCormack (Ed.), The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Infuence or Institutionalised Vengeance? International Humanitarian Law Services, Martinus Nijhoff.

[3] CIA Tie Asserted in Indonesia Purge, The New York Times, July 12, 1990.

[4] The 1965-1966 Indonesian Killings Revisited, Conference at the National University of Singapore, 17-19 June 2009.

 

 

Featured image: General Suharto, who became the president of Indonesia after overthrowing the government of President Sukarno in 1965 and massacring thousands of communists, with US President Richard Nixon at the White House, May 1970. The US actively supported the 1965 coup. Photo: Richard Nixon Foundation

(In Defense of Communism)

Want More?

Don't want to be a victim of the Algorithm?

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER WITH ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VENEZUELA

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

scorinoco
+ posts
  • scorinoco
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/sahelicot92/
    President Maduro greets producers of CLAP program in Guatire Industrial Zone, Miranda state, Venezuela. Photo: Presidential Press.
    March 20, 2023
    President Maduro: Venezuela Produces 95% of Products Distributed in CLAP Program
  • scorinoco
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/sahelicot92/
    Ansarullah resistance movement supporters rally in Yemen. Photo: AFP.
    March 18, 2023
    Yemen: Fragile Truce May End at Any Moment as Saudi Aggression, Siege Rage
  • scorinoco
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/sahelicot92/
    100 bolívar bills. File photo.
    March 18, 2023
    Studies: Use of Bolívars Increasing in Daily Transactions in Venezuela
  • scorinoco
    https://orinocotribune.com/author/sahelicot92/
    US soldiers in a Syrian oilfield. File photo.
    March 18, 2023
    US Congresswoman: It is Time to Withdraw US Troops From Syria
Tags: British imperialism CIA covert operation General Suharto historical analysis Indonesia Indonesia 1965 coup Indonesian holocaust of communists Massacre President Sukarno Suharto dictatorship US Imperialism

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Continue Reading

Previous Previous post:

Venezuela’s Great Housing Mission Reaches 3,700,000 Homes Milestone

Next Next post:

Venezuela’s CNE: Mock Election to be Held on October 10 (21N)

Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter

We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our Privacy Policy.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

NEWS: Most Viewed 72 Hours

Calendar

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb    

Categories

OPINION: Most Viewed 72 hours

We are on Telegram


Receive our news directly in your cellphone or PC, join us on our TELEGRAM channel: https://t.me/OrinocoTribune1

 

Download TELEGRAM, click the link above and then press the JOIN button.

We are on Discord


Now we are also on Discord you will be able to follow our every move and interact with our team.

Join us by clicking here



All our work is free to use and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

We are on Reddit

If you are more into REDDIT, join our Orinoco Tribune Community.

 

Just click below and then click JOIN
https://www.reddit.com/r/OrinocoTribune/

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Copyleft, No rights reserved.

Support us, DONATE NOW!