Suharto’s Purge, Indonesia’s Silence
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/opinion/suhartos-purge-indonesias-silence.html?_r=0This week marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of a mass slaughter in Indonesia. With American support, more than 500,000 people were murdered by the Indonesian Army and its civilian death squads. At least 750,000 more were tortured and sent to concentration camps, many for decades.
The victims were accused of being “communists,†an umbrella that included not only members of the legally registered Communist Party, but all likely opponents of Suharto’s new military regime — from union members and women’s rights activists to teachers and the ethnic Chinese. Unlike in Germany, Rwanda or Cambodia, there have been no trials, no truth-and-reconciliation commissions, no memorials to the victims. Instead, many perpetrators still hold power throughout the country.
The left cannot get over with anti-Communism.
They are really bitterly cling to that.
The comments are stupid.
Paw
Hardnuff September 30, 2015
The USA should start the truth & reconciliation ball rolling by acknowledging that it played a big part in this slaughter by financing the Terrorism in Indonesia, as well as Indonesia's terrorism in East Timor.
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, EfraÃn RÃos Montt
Nicaragua, Somoza family
Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah)
El Salvador, military Junta
Etc.
Too bad for the commies.
Rini
Bouvet Island September 30, 2015
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.
Typical leftist moron.
Here is a voice of reason.
David N.
Ohio Voter September 30, 2015
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.
Communism is very brutal and deadly. It is deadly to all living things.
Jamie Nichols
Santa Barbara September 30, 2015
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.
Commie.
Jon Harrison
Poultney, VT September 30, 2015
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.
Not the fan of the World Courts. How about bringing North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela to the World Courts for their atrocities?
George
Pennsylvania September 30, 2015
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!
You mean they brought peace and stability on top of prosperity. Commies cause nothing but trouble.
sad taxpayer
NY, NY September 30, 2015
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.
Indonesia is the Asian Tiger. It is one of the largest economies in the world.
Steve Bolger
New York City September 30, 2015
The US blockade of Cuba is responsible for Cuba's poverty today.
Wrong! Cuba was one of the most prosperous Latin American nation until Communism came and ruined a great nation.
Riley
St Louis September 30, 2015
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.
Commies belong into the ground.
TritonPSH
LVNV September 30, 2015
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 ! "
If you hate America, than leave!
