30 September Movement
Encyclopedia
The Thirtieth of September Movement ) was a self-proclaimed organization of Indonesian National Armed Forces members who, in the early hours of 1 October 1965, assassinated six Indonesian Army
generals in an abortive coup d'état
. Later that morning, the organization declared that it was in control of media and communication outlets and had taken President Sukarno
under its protection. By the end of the day, the coup attempt had failed in Jakarta at least. Meanwhile in central Java there was an attempt to take control over an army division and several cities. By the time this rebellion was put down, two more senior officers were dead.
In the days and weeks that followed, the army blamed the coup attempt on the Indonesian Communist Party
(PKI). Soon a campaign of mass killing
was underway, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists.
The group's name was more commonly abbreviated "G30S/PKI" by those wanting to associate it with the PKI, and propaganda would refer to the group as Gestapu (for its similarity to "Gestapo
", the name of the Nazi
secret police
).
At around 3:15 A.M. on 1 October, seven groups of troops in trucks and buses comprising soldiers from the Tjakrabirawa (Presidential Guard) the Diponegoro
(Central Java) and Brawijaya
(East Java) Divisions, left the movement's base at Halim Perdanakusumah Air Force Base
, just south of Jakarta to kidnap seven generals, all members of the Army General Staff. Three of the intended victims, (Minister/Commander of the Army Lieutenant General Ahmad Yani
, Major General M. T. Haryono
and Brigadier General D.I. Panjaitan
) were killed at their homes, while three more (Major General Soeprapto
, Major General S. Parman
and Brigadier General Sutoyo
) were taken alive. Meanwhile, the main target, Coordinating Minister for Defense and Security and Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Abdul Harris Nasution managed to escape the kidnap attempt by jumping over a wall into the Iraqi embassy garden, but his personal aide, First Lieutenant Pierre Tendean
, was captured by mistake after being mistaken for Nasution in the dark. Nasution's five-year old daughter, Ade Irma Suryani Nasution, was shot and died on 6 October. The generals and the bodies of their dead colleagues were taken to a place known as Lubang Buaya
near Halim where those still alive were shot, and the bodies of all the victims were thrown down a disused well.
Later that morning, around 2,000 troops from two Java-based divisions (Battalion 454 from the Diponegoro Division and Battalion 530 from the Brawijaya Division) occupied what is now Lapangan Merdeka, the park around the National Monument in central Jakarta, and three sides of the square, including the RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia) building. They did not occupy the east side of the square – location of the armed forces strategic reserve (KOSTRAD
) headquarters, commanded at the time by Major General Suharto. At some time during the night, D.N. Aidit
, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) leader and Air Vice-Marshal Omar Dhani
, the Air Force commander both went to Halim.
Following the news at 7AM, RRI broadcast a message from Lieutenant-Colonel Untung Syamsuri
, commander of Cakrabirawa
, Presidential guard, to the effect that the 30 September Movement, an internal army organization, had taken control of strategic locations in Jakarta, with the help of other military units . This was to forestall a coup attempt by a 'General's Council' aided by the Central Intelligence Agency
, intent on removing Sukarno on 5 October, "Army Day". It was also stated that President Sukarno was under the movement's protection. He traveled to Halim after learning that there were troops near the Palace on the north side of Lapangan Merdeka. Sukarno later claimed this was so he could be near an aircraft should he need to leave Jakarta. Further radio announcements later that day listed 45 members of the G30S Movement and stated that all army ranks above Lieutenant Colonel would be abolished.
HQ and tried to contact other senior officers. He managed to contact the Naval and Police commanders, but was unable to contact the Air Force Commander. He then took command of the Army and issued orders confining all troops to barracks.
Because of poor planning, the coup leaders had failed to provide provisions for the troops on Lapangan Merdeka, who were becoming hot and thirsty. They were under the impression that they were guarding the president in the palace. Over the course of the afternoon, Suharto persuaded both battalions to give up without a fight, first the Brawijaya troops, who came to Kostrad HQ, then the Diponegoro troops, who withdrew to Halim. His troops gave Untung's forces inside the radio station an ultimatum and they also withdrew. By 7PM Suharto was in control of all the installations previously held by the 30 September Movement's forces. Now joined by Nasution, at 9PM he announced over the radio that he was now in command of the Army and that he would destroy the counter-revolutionary forces and save Sukarno. He then issued another ultimatum, this time to the troops at Halim. Later that evening, Sukarno left Halim and arrived in Bogor
, where there was another presidential palace.
Most of the rebel troops fled, and after a minor battle in the early hours of 2 October, the Army regained control of Halim, Aidit flew to Yogyakarta
and Dani to Madiun
before the soldiers arrived.
mayor of Solo
issued a statement in support of the movement. Rebel troops in Yogyakarta, led by Major Muljono, kidnapped and later killed Col. Katamso
and his chief of staff Lt. Col. Sugijono. However, once news of the movement's failure in Jakarta became known, most of its followers in Central Java gave themselves up.
Suharto and his associates immediately blamed the PKI as masterminds of the 30 September Movement. With the support of the Army, and fueled by horrific tales of the alleged torture and mutilation of the generals at Lubang Buaya, anti-PKI demonstrations and then violence soon broke out. Violent mass action started in Aceh, then shifted to Central and East Java. (see Indonesian killings of 1965–66
) Suharto then sent the RPKAD paratroops under Col. Sarwo Edhie to Central Java. When they arrived in Semarang
, locals burned the PKI headquarters to the ground. The army swept through the countryside and were aided by locals in killing suspected communists. In East Java, members of Ansor, the youth wing of the Nahdlatul Ulama went on a killing frenzy, and the slaughter later spread to Bali
. Figures given for the number of people killed across Indonesia vary from 78,000 to one million. Among the dead was Aidit, who was captured by the Army on 25 November and summarily executed shortly after.
involvement at an early stage. Later, the government of President Suharto would reinforce this impression by referring to the movement using the abbreviation "G30S/PKI". School textbooks followed the official government line that the PKI, worried about Sukarno's health and concerned about their position should he die, acted to seize power and establish a communist state. The trials of key conspirators were used as evidence to support this view, as was the publication of a cartoon supporting the 30 September Movement in the 2 October issue of the PKI magazine Harian Rakyat (People's Daily). According to later pronouncements by the army, the PKI manipulated gullible left-wing officers such as Untung through a mysterious "special bureau" that reported only to the party secretary, Aidit. This case relied on a confession by the alleged head of the bureau, named Sjam
, during a staged trial in 1967. But it was never convincingly proved to Western academic specialists, and has been challenged by some Indonesian accounts.
and Ruth McVey wrote an article which came to be known as the Cornell
Paper. In the essay they proposed that the 30 September Movement was indeed entirely an internal army affair as the PKI had claimed. They claimed that the action was a result of dissatisfaction on the part of junior officers who found it extremely difficult to obtain promotions and because of hostility toward the generals because of their corrupt and decadent lifestyles. They allege that the PKI was deliberately involved by, for example, bringing Aidit to Halim: a diversion from the embarrassing fact the Army was behind the movement.
Recently Anderson expanded on his theory that the coup attempt was almost totally an internal matter of a divided military with the PKI playing only a peripheral role; that the right-wing generals assassinated on 1 October 1965 were, in fact, the Council of Generals coup planning to assassinate Sukarno and install themselves as a military junta
. Anderson argues that G30S was indeed a movement of officers loyal to Sukarno who carried out their plan believing it would preserve, not overthrow, Sukarno's rule. The boldest claim in the Anderson theory, however, is that Suharto was in fact privy to the G30S assassination plot.
Central to the Anderson theory is an examination of a little-known figure in the Indonesian army, Colonel Abdul Latief. Latief had spent a career in the Army and, according to Anderson, had been both a staunch Sukarno loyalist and a friend with Suharto. Following the coup attempt, however, Latief was jailed and named a conspirator in G30S. At his military trial in the 1970s, Latief made the accusation that Suharto himself had been a co-conspirator in the G30S plot, and had betrayed the group for his own purposes.
Anderson points out that Suharto himself has twice admitted to meeting Latief in a hospital on the 30 September 1965 (i.e. G30S) and that his two narratives of the meeting are contradictory. In an interview with American journalist Arnold Brackman, Suharto stated that Latief had been there merely "to check" on him, as his son was receiving care for a burn. In a later interview with Der Spiegel
, Suharto stated that Latief had gone to the hospital in an attempt on his life, but had lost his nerve. Anderson believes that in the first account, Suharto was simply being disingenuous; in the second, that he had lied.
Further backing his claim, Anderson cites circumstantial evidence
that Suharto was indeed in on the plot. Among these are:
Anderson's theory, for all the exhaustive research it has entailed, still leaves open a number of questions of interpretation. If, as Anderson believes, Suharto did have inside knowledge of the G30S plot, this still leaves open several possibilities: (1) that Suharto had truly taken part in the plot and defected; (2) that he had been acting as a spy for the Council of Generals; or (3) that he was uninterested completely in the factional struggle of G30S and Council of Generals. Given that Suharto has since died these questions are unlikely to be answered easily.
newspaper beginning in 1997. These revelations have also come to light in journals on military and intelligence history.
The revelations included an anonymous Foreign Office source stating that the decision to unseat Pres. Sukarno was made by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
then executed under Prime Minister Harold Wilson
. According to the exposés, the United Kingdom had already become alarmed with the announcement of the Konfrontasi policy. It has been claimed that a CIA memorandum of 1962 indicated that Prime Minister Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy
were increasingly alarmed by the possibility of the Confrontation with Malaysia spreading, and agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities." However, the documentary evidence does not support this claim.
To weaken the regime, the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) coordinated psychological operations in concert with the British military, to spread black propaganda
casting the PKI
, Chinese Indonesians, and Sukarno
in a bad light. These efforts were to duplicate the successes of British Psyop campaign in the Malayan Emergency
.
Of note, these efforts were coordinated from the British High Commission in Singapore
where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC
), Associated Press
(AP), and New York Times filed their reports on the Indonesian turmoil. According to Roland Challis, the BBC correspondent who was in Singapore at the time, journalists were open to manipulation by IRD because of Sukarno's stubborn refusal to allow them into the country: "In a curious way, by keeping correspondents out of the country Sukarno made them the victims of official channels, because almost the only information you could get was from the British ambassador in Jakarta."
These manipulations included the BBC reporting that Communists were planning to slaughter the citizens of Jakarta. The accusation was based solely on a forgery planted by Norman Reddaway, a propaganda expert with the IRD. He later bragged in a letter to the British ambassador in Jakarta, Sir Andrew Gilchrist
that it "went all over the world and back again," and was "put almost instantly back into Indonesia via the BBC." Sir Andrew Gilchrist himself informed the Foreign Office on 5 October 1965: "I have never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change."
In the 16 April 2000 Independent, Sir Denis Healey
, Secretary of State for Defence
at the time of the war, confirmed that the IRD was active during this time. He officially denied any role by MI6, and denied "personal knowledge" of the British arming the right-wing faction of the Army, though he did comment that if there were such a plan, he "would certainly have supported it."
Although the British MI6 is strongly implicated in this scheme by the use of the Information Research Department (seen as an MI6 office), any role by MI6 itself is officially denied by the UK government, and papers relating to it have yet to be declassified by the Cabinet Office
. (The Independent, 6 December 2000)
Similarly, he asks why, if the movement was planned by military officers, as alleged in the "Cornell Paper", was it so poorly planned. In any case, he says, the movement's leaders were too disparate a group to find enough common ground to carry out the operation.
He claims that US officials and certain Indonesian Army officers had already outlined a plan in which the PKI would be blamed for an attempted coup, allowing for the party's suppression and the installation of a military regime under Sukarno as a figurehead president.Once the 30 September Movement acted, the US gave the Indonesian military encouragement and assistance in the destruction of the PKI, including supplying lists of party members and radio equipment.
As to the movement itself, Roosa concludes that it was led by Sjam
, in collaboration with Aidit, but not the party as a whole, together with Pono, Untung and Latief. Suharto was able to defeat the movement because of he knew of it beforehand and because the Army had already prepared for such a contingency. He says Sjam was the link between the PKI members and the Army officers, but that the fact there was no proper coordination was a major reason for the failure of the movement as a whole.
Indonesian Army
The Indonesian Army , the land component of the Indonesian Armed Forces, has an estimated strength of 328,517 regular personnel. The force's history began in 1945 when the Tentara Keamanan Rakyat "Civil Security Forces" served as paramilitary and police.Since the nation's independence struggle,...
generals in an abortive coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
. Later that morning, the organization declared that it was in control of media and communication outlets and had taken President Sukarno
Sukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo was the first President of Indonesia.Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967...
under its protection. By the end of the day, the coup attempt had failed in Jakarta at least. Meanwhile in central Java there was an attempt to take control over an army division and several cities. By the time this rebellion was put down, two more senior officers were dead.
In the days and weeks that followed, the army blamed the coup attempt on the Indonesian Communist Party
Communist Party of Indonesia
The Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
(PKI). Soon a campaign of mass killing
Indonesian killings of 1965–66
The Indonesian killings of 1965–1966 were an anti-communist purge following a failed coup in Indonesia. The most widely accepted estimates are that over half a million people were killed...
was underway, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists.
The group's name was more commonly abbreviated "G30S/PKI" by those wanting to associate it with the PKI, and propaganda would refer to the group as Gestapu (for its similarity to "Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
", the name of the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
).
Kidnappings of generals
Kodam IV/Diponegoro
Komando Daerah Militer IV/Diponegoro or KODAM IV/Diponegoro is a military area command of the Indonesian Army. It covers the provinces of Central Java and Yogyakarta on the island of Java. It is named for the Java War hero Prince Diponegoro...
(Central Java) and Brawijaya
Kodam V/Brawijaya
Kodam V/Brawijaya, is a military area command of the Indonesian Army, as the 5th Kodam, which oversees the entire East Java Province...
(East Java) Divisions, left the movement's base at Halim Perdanakusumah Air Force Base
Halim Perdanakusuma International Airport
-Accidents and Incidents:*On 24 June 1982, British Airways Flight 009, a Boeing 747-200 flew through a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, causing the failure of all four engines. The crew diverted the aircraft to Jakarta and it landed safely.-References:* -External...
, just south of Jakarta to kidnap seven generals, all members of the Army General Staff. Three of the intended victims, (Minister/Commander of the Army Lieutenant General Ahmad Yani
Ahmad Yani
General Ahmad Yani was the commander of the Indonesian Army, and was killed by members of the 30 September Movement during an attempt to kidnap him from his house.-Early life:...
, Major General M. T. Haryono
M. T. Haryono
Mas Tirtodarmo Haryono was a soldier in the Indonesian Army who was killed during an attempt to kidnap him from his home by members of the 30 September Movement in the early hours of October 1, 1965.-Early life:...
and Brigadier General D.I. Panjaitan
Donald Izacus Panjaitan
Donald Izacus Panjaitan was an Indonesian general who was killed during a kidnap attempt by members of the 30 September Movement.-Early life:...
) were killed at their homes, while three more (Major General Soeprapto
Soeprapto
Lieutenant General R. Soeprapto was the second deputy commander of the Indonesian Army, and was kidnapped from his home in Jakarta by members of the 30 September Movement in the early hours of October 1. He was later killed at Lubang Buaya.-Early life:Soeprapto was born in Purwokerto, Central Java...
, Major General S. Parman
Siswondo Parman
Lieutenant General Siswondo Parman was a soldier in the Indonesian Army, and was kidnapped from his home in Jakarta by members of the 30 September Movement in the early hours of October 1. He was later killed at Lubang Buaya.-Early life:Parman was born in Wonosobo, Central Java...
and Brigadier General Sutoyo
Sutoyo Siswomiharjo
Sutoyo Siswomiharjo was an Indonesian general who was kidnapped and later murdered during the attempted coup by the 30 September Movement.-Early life:...
) were taken alive. Meanwhile, the main target, Coordinating Minister for Defense and Security and Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Abdul Harris Nasution managed to escape the kidnap attempt by jumping over a wall into the Iraqi embassy garden, but his personal aide, First Lieutenant Pierre Tendean
Pierre Tendean
Pierre Andreas Tendean was a victim of the 30th September Movement and is an Indonesian national hero.-Early life:...
, was captured by mistake after being mistaken for Nasution in the dark. Nasution's five-year old daughter, Ade Irma Suryani Nasution, was shot and died on 6 October. The generals and the bodies of their dead colleagues were taken to a place known as Lubang Buaya
Lubang Buaya
Lubang Buaya is the site of the murder of seven army officers during the 1 October coup attempt of the 30 September Movement...
near Halim where those still alive were shot, and the bodies of all the victims were thrown down a disused well.
Takeover in Jakarta
Kostrad
Kostrad is the Indonesian Army's Strategic Reserve Command. Kostrad is a Corps level command which has up to 35,000 troops...
) headquarters, commanded at the time by Major General Suharto. At some time during the night, D.N. Aidit
Dipa Nusantara Aidit
Dipa Nusantara Aidit was a senior leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia . Born Ahmad Aidit on Bangka Island, he was nicknamed "Amat". Aidit was educated in the Dutch colonial system...
, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) leader and Air Vice-Marshal Omar Dhani
Omar Dhani
Air Marshal Omar Dani, , was commander of the Indonesian Air Force from 1962 until 1965. He was a leading leftist figure in Indonesia during the Sukarno era....
, the Air Force commander both went to Halim.
Following the news at 7AM, RRI broadcast a message from Lieutenant-Colonel Untung Syamsuri
Untung Syamsuri
Lieutenant Colonel Untung bin Syamsuri was one of the leaders of the 1965 coup attempt in Indonesia known as the 30 September Movement....
, commander of Cakrabirawa
Cakrabirawa
The Cakrabirawa regiment were the crack presidential bodyguard unit of former Indonesian President Sukarno. The group was disbanded in 1966 during the upheavals of the transition to the New Order....
, Presidential guard, to the effect that the 30 September Movement, an internal army organization, had taken control of strategic locations in Jakarta, with the help of other military units . This was to forestall a coup attempt by a 'General's Council' aided by the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, intent on removing Sukarno on 5 October, "Army Day". It was also stated that President Sukarno was under the movement's protection. He traveled to Halim after learning that there were troops near the Palace on the north side of Lapangan Merdeka. Sukarno later claimed this was so he could be near an aircraft should he need to leave Jakarta. Further radio announcements later that day listed 45 members of the G30S Movement and stated that all army ranks above Lieutenant Colonel would be abolished.
The end of the movement in Jakarta
At 5.30AM, Suharto was woken up by his neighbor and told of the disappearances of the generals and the shootings at their homes. He went to KOSTRADKostrad
Kostrad is the Indonesian Army's Strategic Reserve Command. Kostrad is a Corps level command which has up to 35,000 troops...
HQ and tried to contact other senior officers. He managed to contact the Naval and Police commanders, but was unable to contact the Air Force Commander. He then took command of the Army and issued orders confining all troops to barracks.
Because of poor planning, the coup leaders had failed to provide provisions for the troops on Lapangan Merdeka, who were becoming hot and thirsty. They were under the impression that they were guarding the president in the palace. Over the course of the afternoon, Suharto persuaded both battalions to give up without a fight, first the Brawijaya troops, who came to Kostrad HQ, then the Diponegoro troops, who withdrew to Halim. His troops gave Untung's forces inside the radio station an ultimatum and they also withdrew. By 7PM Suharto was in control of all the installations previously held by the 30 September Movement's forces. Now joined by Nasution, at 9PM he announced over the radio that he was now in command of the Army and that he would destroy the counter-revolutionary forces and save Sukarno. He then issued another ultimatum, this time to the troops at Halim. Later that evening, Sukarno left Halim and arrived in Bogor
Bogor
Bogor is a city on the island of Java in the West Java province of Indonesia. The city is located in the center of the Bogor Regency , 60 kilometers south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta...
, where there was another presidential palace.
Most of the rebel troops fled, and after a minor battle in the early hours of 2 October, the Army regained control of Halim, Aidit flew to Yogyakarta
Yogyakarta (city)
Yogyakarta is a city in the Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia. It is renowned as a centre of classical Javanese fine art and culture such as batik, ballet, drama, music, poetry, and puppet shows. Yogyakarta was the Indonesian capital during the Indonesian National Revolution from 1945 to...
and Dani to Madiun
Madiun
Madiun is a city in the western part of the province of East Java Indonesia, an agricultural centre. It is the capital of the regency of the same name....
before the soldiers arrived.
Events in Central Java
Following the 7AM radio broadcast, troops from the Diponegoro Division in Central Java took control of five of the seven divisions in the name of the 30 September movement . The PKICommunist Party of Indonesia
The Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
mayor of Solo
Surakarta
Surakarta, also called Solo or Sala, is a city in Central Java, Indonesia of more than 520,061 people with a population density of 11,811.5 people/km2. The 44 km2 city adjoins Karanganyar Regency and Boyolali Regency to the north, Karanganyar Regency and Sukoharjo Regency to the east and...
issued a statement in support of the movement. Rebel troops in Yogyakarta, led by Major Muljono, kidnapped and later killed Col. Katamso
Katamso
Brig. Gen. Katamso was the commander of Military District 072 in the Diponegoro Area Military command of the Indonesian Army in Central Java. He was kidnapped and killed by members of the 30 September Movement....
and his chief of staff Lt. Col. Sugijono. However, once news of the movement's failure in Jakarta became known, most of its followers in Central Java gave themselves up.
Anti-communist purge
Indonesian killings of 1965–66
The Indonesian killings of 1965–1966 were an anti-communist purge following a failed coup in Indonesia. The most widely accepted estimates are that over half a million people were killed...
) Suharto then sent the RPKAD paratroops under Col. Sarwo Edhie to Central Java. When they arrived in Semarang
Semarang
- Economy :The western part of the city is home to many industrial parks and factories. The port of Semarang is located on the north coast and it is the main shipping port for the province of Central Java. Many small manufacturers are located in Semarang, producing goods such as textiles,...
, locals burned the PKI headquarters to the ground. The army swept through the countryside and were aided by locals in killing suspected communists. In East Java, members of Ansor, the youth wing of the Nahdlatul Ulama went on a killing frenzy, and the slaughter later spread to Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
. Figures given for the number of people killed across Indonesia vary from 78,000 to one million. Among the dead was Aidit, who was captured by the Army on 25 November and summarily executed shortly after.
A PKI coup attempt: The "official" (New Order) version
The Army leadership began making accusations of PKICommunist Party of Indonesia
The Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
involvement at an early stage. Later, the government of President Suharto would reinforce this impression by referring to the movement using the abbreviation "G30S/PKI". School textbooks followed the official government line that the PKI, worried about Sukarno's health and concerned about their position should he die, acted to seize power and establish a communist state. The trials of key conspirators were used as evidence to support this view, as was the publication of a cartoon supporting the 30 September Movement in the 2 October issue of the PKI magazine Harian Rakyat (People's Daily). According to later pronouncements by the army, the PKI manipulated gullible left-wing officers such as Untung through a mysterious "special bureau" that reported only to the party secretary, Aidit. This case relied on a confession by the alleged head of the bureau, named Sjam
Kamaruzaman Sjam
Kamaruzaman Sjam, , also known as Kamarusaman bin Achmad Mubaidah and Sjam, was a key member of the Communist Party of Indonesia who was executed for his part in the 1965 coup attempt known as the 30 September Movement....
, during a staged trial in 1967. But it was never convincingly proved to Western academic specialists, and has been challenged by some Indonesian accounts.
The plotters
The reason given by those involved in the 30 September movement was that it was to prevent a planned seizure of power by a "Council of Generals" (Dewan Jenderal). They claimed to be acting to save Sukarno from these officers allegedly led by Nasution and including Yani, who had planned a coup on Armed Forces Day – 5 October.Internal army affair
In 1971, Benedict AndersonBenedict Anderson
Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson is Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government & Asian Studies at Cornell University, and is best known for his celebrated book Imagined Communities, first published in 1983...
and Ruth McVey wrote an article which came to be known as the Cornell
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
Paper. In the essay they proposed that the 30 September Movement was indeed entirely an internal army affair as the PKI had claimed. They claimed that the action was a result of dissatisfaction on the part of junior officers who found it extremely difficult to obtain promotions and because of hostility toward the generals because of their corrupt and decadent lifestyles. They allege that the PKI was deliberately involved by, for example, bringing Aidit to Halim: a diversion from the embarrassing fact the Army was behind the movement.
Recently Anderson expanded on his theory that the coup attempt was almost totally an internal matter of a divided military with the PKI playing only a peripheral role; that the right-wing generals assassinated on 1 October 1965 were, in fact, the Council of Generals coup planning to assassinate Sukarno and install themselves as a military junta
Military junta
A junta or military junta is a government led by a committee of military leaders. The term derives from the Spanish language junta meaning committee, specifically a board of directors...
. Anderson argues that G30S was indeed a movement of officers loyal to Sukarno who carried out their plan believing it would preserve, not overthrow, Sukarno's rule. The boldest claim in the Anderson theory, however, is that Suharto was in fact privy to the G30S assassination plot.
Central to the Anderson theory is an examination of a little-known figure in the Indonesian army, Colonel Abdul Latief. Latief had spent a career in the Army and, according to Anderson, had been both a staunch Sukarno loyalist and a friend with Suharto. Following the coup attempt, however, Latief was jailed and named a conspirator in G30S. At his military trial in the 1970s, Latief made the accusation that Suharto himself had been a co-conspirator in the G30S plot, and had betrayed the group for his own purposes.
Anderson points out that Suharto himself has twice admitted to meeting Latief in a hospital on the 30 September 1965 (i.e. G30S) and that his two narratives of the meeting are contradictory. In an interview with American journalist Arnold Brackman, Suharto stated that Latief had been there merely "to check" on him, as his son was receiving care for a burn. In a later interview with Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
, Suharto stated that Latief had gone to the hospital in an attempt on his life, but had lost his nerve. Anderson believes that in the first account, Suharto was simply being disingenuous; in the second, that he had lied.
Further backing his claim, Anderson cites circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence
Circumstantial evidence is evidence in which an inference is required to connect it to a conclusion of fact, like a fingerprint at the scene of a crime...
that Suharto was indeed in on the plot. Among these are:
- That almost all the key military participants named a part of G30S were, either at the time of the assassinations or just previously, close subordinates of Suharto: Lieutenant-Colonel Untung, Colonel Latief, and Brigadier-General SupardjoSupardjoSupardjo was a Brigadier General in the Indonesian Army. He was one of the leaders of the 30 September Movement, a group that killed six of the army's top generals and launched a failed coup attempt on 30 September 1965....
in Jakarta, and Colonel Suherman, Major Usman, and their associates at the Diponegoro Division’s HQ in Semarang. - That in the case of Untung and Latief, their association with Suharto was so close that attended each others' family events and celebrated their sons' rites of passage together.
- That the two generals who had direct command of all troops in Jakarta (save for the Presidential Guard, who carried out the assassinations) were Suharto and Jakarta Military Territory Commander Umar WirahadikusumahUmar Wirahadikusumahwas the fourth Indonesian Vice President; he served from 1983 to 1988.-Early life:Umar Wirahadikusumah was born on 10 October 1924 to Raden Rangga Wirahadikusumah and Raden Ratnaringrum...
. Neither of these figures were assassinated, and (if Anderson's theory that Suharto lied about an attempt on his life by Latief) no attempt was even made. - That during the time period in which the assassination plot was organized, Suharto (as commander of Kostrad) had made a habit of acting in a duplicitous manner: while Suharto was privy to command decisions in Confrontation, the intelligence chief of his unit Ali Murtopo had been making connections and providing information to the hostile governments of Malaysia, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the United States through an espionage operation run by Benny Moerdani in Thailand. Murdani later became a spy chief in Suharto's government.
Anderson's theory, for all the exhaustive research it has entailed, still leaves open a number of questions of interpretation. If, as Anderson believes, Suharto did have inside knowledge of the G30S plot, this still leaves open several possibilities: (1) that Suharto had truly taken part in the plot and defected; (2) that he had been acting as a spy for the Council of Generals; or (3) that he was uninterested completely in the factional struggle of G30S and Council of Generals. Given that Suharto has since died these questions are unlikely to be answered easily.
Suharto with CIA support
Professor Dale Scott alleges that the entire movement was designed to allow for Suharto's response. He draws attention to the fact the side of Lapangan Merdeka on which KOSTRAD was situated was not occupied, and that only those generals who might have prevented Suharto seizing power (except Nasution) were kidnapped. He also alleges that the fact that the generals were killed near an air force base where PKI members had been trained allowed him to shift the blame away from the Army. He links the support given by the CIA to anti-Sukarno rebels in the 1950s to their later support for Suharto and anti-communist forces. He points out that training in the US of Indonesian Army personnel continued even as overt military assistance dried up. Another damaging revelation came to light when it emerged that one of the main plotters, Col Latief, was a close associate of Suharto, as were other key figures in the movement, and that Latief actually visited Suharto on the night before the murders (Wertheim, 1970)British psyops
The role of the United Kingdom's Foreign Office and MI6 intelligence service has also come to light, in a series of exposés by Paul Lashmar and Oliver James in The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper beginning in 1997. These revelations have also come to light in journals on military and intelligence history.
The revelations included an anonymous Foreign Office source stating that the decision to unseat Pres. Sukarno was made by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
then executed under Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
. According to the exposés, the United Kingdom had already become alarmed with the announcement of the Konfrontasi policy. It has been claimed that a CIA memorandum of 1962 indicated that Prime Minister Macmillan and President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
were increasingly alarmed by the possibility of the Confrontation with Malaysia spreading, and agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities." However, the documentary evidence does not support this claim.
To weaken the regime, the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) coordinated psychological operations in concert with the British military, to spread black propaganda
Black propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...
casting the PKI
Communist Party of Indonesia
The Communist Party of Indonesia was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world prior to being crushed in 1965 and banned the following year.-Forerunners:...
, Chinese Indonesians, and Sukarno
Sukarno
Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo was the first President of Indonesia.Sukarno was the leader of his country's struggle for independence from the Netherlands and was Indonesia's first President from 1945 to 1967...
in a bad light. These efforts were to duplicate the successes of British Psyop campaign in the Malayan Emergency
Malayan Emergency
The Malayan Emergency was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army , the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party, from 1948 to 1960....
.
Of note, these efforts were coordinated from the British High Commission in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
), Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
(AP), and New York Times filed their reports on the Indonesian turmoil. According to Roland Challis, the BBC correspondent who was in Singapore at the time, journalists were open to manipulation by IRD because of Sukarno's stubborn refusal to allow them into the country: "In a curious way, by keeping correspondents out of the country Sukarno made them the victims of official channels, because almost the only information you could get was from the British ambassador in Jakarta."
These manipulations included the BBC reporting that Communists were planning to slaughter the citizens of Jakarta. The accusation was based solely on a forgery planted by Norman Reddaway, a propaganda expert with the IRD. He later bragged in a letter to the British ambassador in Jakarta, Sir Andrew Gilchrist
Andrew Gilchrist
Sir Andrew Graham Gilchrist, KCMG was a Special Operations Executive operative and later a UK ambassador.-Early career in Foreign Office and SOE:...
that it "went all over the world and back again," and was "put almost instantly back into Indonesia via the BBC." Sir Andrew Gilchrist himself informed the Foreign Office on 5 October 1965: "I have never concealed from you my belief that a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change."
In the 16 April 2000 Independent, Sir Denis Healey
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC is a British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.-Early life:...
, Secretary of State for Defence
Secretary of State for Defence
The Secretary of State for Defence, popularly known as the Defence Secretary, is the senior Government of the United Kingdom minister in charge of the Ministry of Defence, chairing the Defence Council. It is a Cabinet position...
at the time of the war, confirmed that the IRD was active during this time. He officially denied any role by MI6, and denied "personal knowledge" of the British arming the right-wing faction of the Army, though he did comment that if there were such a plan, he "would certainly have supported it."
Although the British MI6 is strongly implicated in this scheme by the use of the Information Research Department (seen as an MI6 office), any role by MI6 itself is officially denied by the UK government, and papers relating to it have yet to be declassified by the Cabinet Office
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for supporting the Prime Minister and Cabinet of the United Kingdom....
. (The Independent, 6 December 2000)
Sukarno's plot
In a book first published in India in 2005, which draws extensively on the evidence presented at the trials of the conspirators, Victor Fic claims that Aidit and the PKI decided to mount a preemptive strike against the senior army generals to forestall an army takeover. He alleges that Sukarno had met with representatives of the Chinese government and had agreed to retire in exile in China. Following the purge of the generals, the president would appoint a Mutual Cooperation (Gotong Royong) cabinet and then retire on grounds of ill-health. Should he not agree to do so, he would be "dispatched" under the protection of the PKI.Incompetent plotters; the army takes advantage
In a 2007 book on the 30 September Movement, Professor John Roosa dismisses the official version of events, saying it was "imposed by force of arms" and "partly based on black propaganda and torture-induced confessions." He points out that Suharto never satisfactorily explained away the fact that most of the movement's protagonists were Army officers. However, he does concede that some elements of the PKI were involved.Similarly, he asks why, if the movement was planned by military officers, as alleged in the "Cornell Paper", was it so poorly planned. In any case, he says, the movement's leaders were too disparate a group to find enough common ground to carry out the operation.
He claims that US officials and certain Indonesian Army officers had already outlined a plan in which the PKI would be blamed for an attempted coup, allowing for the party's suppression and the installation of a military regime under Sukarno as a figurehead president.Once the 30 September Movement acted, the US gave the Indonesian military encouragement and assistance in the destruction of the PKI, including supplying lists of party members and radio equipment.
As to the movement itself, Roosa concludes that it was led by Sjam
Kamaruzaman Sjam
Kamaruzaman Sjam, , also known as Kamarusaman bin Achmad Mubaidah and Sjam, was a key member of the Communist Party of Indonesia who was executed for his part in the 1965 coup attempt known as the 30 September Movement....
, in collaboration with Aidit, but not the party as a whole, together with Pono, Untung and Latief. Suharto was able to defeat the movement because of he knew of it beforehand and because the Army had already prepared for such a contingency. He says Sjam was the link between the PKI members and the Army officers, but that the fact there was no proper coordination was a major reason for the failure of the movement as a whole.
Blamed people
| Name | Birth and Death dates | Position or context |
|---|---|---|
| Colonel Abdul Latief | 27 July 1926 – 6 April 2005 | Commander, 1st Battalion, 5th (Jaya) Military Area Command. |
| Dipa Nusantara Aidit Dipa Nusantara Aidit Dipa Nusantara Aidit was a senior leader of the Communist Party of Indonesia . Born Ahmad Aidit on Bangka Island, he was nicknamed "Amat". Aidit was educated in the Dutch colonial system... |
30 July 1923 – 25 November 1965 | Chairman of the PKI |
| Brig. Gen. Mustafa Sjarif Supardjo | 23 March 1923 – | Commander 4th Combat Command, West Kalimantan |
| Kamaruzaman Sjam Kamaruzaman Sjam Kamaruzaman Sjam, , also known as Kamarusaman bin Achmad Mubaidah and Sjam, was a key member of the Communist Party of Indonesia who was executed for his part in the 1965 coup attempt known as the 30 September Movement.... |
30 April 1924–1986 | Special Bureau |
| Lt. Col. Untung Syamsuri Untung Syamsuri Lieutenant Colonel Untung bin Syamsuri was one of the leaders of the 1965 coup attempt in Indonesia known as the 30 September Movement.... |
3 July 1926 – September 1967 | Commander 1st Battalion Tjakrabirawa. |
| Flight Maj. Soejono | 1920– | Commander of the guard at Halim Airforce Base |
| Pono (Supono Marsudidjojo) | September 1919 – | name="ROOSA150">Roosa (2007) p150 |
Secondary sources
- Fic, Victor M. (2005). Anatomy of the Jakarta Coup: 1 October 1965: The Collusion with China which destroyed the Army Command, President Sukarno and the Communist Party of Indonesia. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia. ISBN 978-979-461-554-6
- Hughes, John (2002), The End of Sukarno – A Coup that Misfired: A Purge that Ran Wild, Archipelago Press, ISBN 981-4068-65-9
- Lashmar, Paul and Oliver, James. "MI6 Spread Lies To Put Killer In Power" The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
. (16 April 2000) - Lashmar, Paul and Oliver, James. "How we destroyed Sukarno" The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
. (6 December 2000) - Nugroho Notosusanto & Ismail Saleh (1968) The Coup Attempt of the "30 September Movement" in Indonesia, P.T. Pembimbing Masa-Djakarta.
- Rafadi, Dedi & Latuconsina, Hudaya (1997) Pelajaran Sejarah untuk SMU Kelas 3 (History for 3rd Grade High School), Erlangga Jakarta. ISBN 979-411-252-6
- Ricklefs, M.C. (1982) A History of Modern Indonesia", MacMillan. ISBN 0-333-24380-3
- Roosa, John (2006). Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement & Suharto's Coup D'État in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-22034-1
- Scott, Peter Dale (1985) The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno Pacific Affairs 58, pp 239–164
- Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia (1975) 30 Tahun Indonesia Merdeka: Jilid 3 (1965–1973) (30 Years of Indonesian Independence: Volume 3 (1965–1973)
- Sekretariat Negara Republik Indonesia (1994) Gerakan 30 September Pemberontakan Partai Komunis Indonesia: Latar Belakang, Aksi dan Penumpasannya (The 30 September Movement/Communist Party of Indoneisa: Bankgrounds, Actions and its Annihilation) ISBN 9790830025
- Sundhaussen, Ulf (1982) The Road to Power: Indonesian Military Politics 1945-1967, Oxford University Press. ISBN 019 582521-7
- Wertheim, W.F. (1970) Suharto and the Untung Coup – the Missing Link", Journal of Contemporary Asia I No. 1 pp 50–57
External links
- United States Department of StateUnited States Department of StateThe United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
documents on U.S. Foreign Relations, 1964–1968: Indonesia- Coup and Counter Reaction, October 1965 – March 1966: Documents 142–164
- Coup and Counter Reaction, October 1965 – March 1966: Documents 165–183
- Coup and Counter Reaction, October 1965 – March 1966: Documents 184–205