Report from East Java
Mar 28th, 2011, in Featured, History, by Patung
A particularly striking part of “Report from East Java”, which was written by a military intelligence officer in November 1965, where he details the progress of the “crushing actions” against the Communist Party:
In Kediri some of the killings were “joint action”s [E] with the military (sometimes in civiele [D: civilian dress], sometimes officially as military). Killings of this kind may have a boomerang effect, in that they can also be utilized by the PKI itself. The effect upon economic life will also be felt. Small traders are now afraid to sell their wares. Peasant farmers are afraid to go to the rice fields. And many do not want to work on the Plantations, for example on the
tea and sugar plantations, because corpses are spread everywhere.By way of clarification, several events are explained below: In the Paree (Kediri) area there is a village in which the lurah [village headman] and Ansor together took the initiative to protect the [PKI] peasant farmers—who were only taggers-on—by giving them badges as members of Ansor or NU. They were gathered together, and coincidentally, there happened to be an operation by the military and Ansor going on. Seeing many people gathered together, the soldiers and Ansor asked the lurah who all these people were. The lurah, nervous and panicked, responded that they were PKI.
Before he had finished speaking, every one of the approximately 300 people was killed, and their families were not permitted to remove their bodies so that they were buried where they lay. This shocked the people, and within Ansor itself mutual mistrust arose.
Another event occurred in Wates, where approximately 10,000 members of the PKI and its Mass Organizations gathered together. They were going to make a “long-march” [E] to Madiun, destroying factories along the way.
This was discovered by the military, which initiated a “joint-action” [E] together with Ansor. When they were sommeer [sic] [D: called upon] to surrender they refused, and so they were crushed. The victims totaled 1,200.
In an incident in Ponggok, a soldier who was disseminating information was killed by the Pemuda Rakyat [People’s Youth]. In represaille [D: reprisal] the military attacked, killing about 300 people.
The wave of killings is still continuing, and many of those who are being killed are followers who did not know much. Many excesses have emerged, and it could happen that the PKI will join in so that they can attract “public opinion” [E] to their side.
The bolded bit I know off by heart now as it keeps coming into my head for some reason. The sting is in its tail, the last detail that they didn’t allow the families to recover the bodies, in the cultural-religious context it strikes as the most astonishing vicious spite; the dead people don’t know whether they get a proper burial or not, but it’s a kind of twisting of the knife in the people who are left.
No doubt many have seen it already, for those who haven’t the whole “Report”, which is fascinating, can be read here.
164 Comments on “Report from East Java”
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Odinius says:
Fair enough, Stevo…it’s just that we here at IM have individuals who crop up every few months in a new guise. You seemed awfully familiar with some old arguments here, for a newbie.
This is a bit of a diversion from the main topic, though:
What prompted me, on this occasion, was the possible suggestion that a communist regime may have worked out ok for Indonesia. This flies in the face of available evidence.
The real question has nothing to do with that, but whether a botched and easily neutralized coup attempt by a small number of officers and leaders of a legal political party should have led to the mass murder of that party’s rank-and-file, the overwhelming majority of whom knew nothing about it.
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Stevo says:
“The real question has nothing to do with that, but whether a botched and easily neutralized coup attempt by a small number of officers and leaders of a legal political party should have led to the mass murder of that party’s rank-and-file, the overwhelming majority of whom knew nothing about it.”
Well my answer Odinius: No it should not have.
You can sort of get a flavour of that in my previous comments, Stevo said: “I suspect many who died were not ideologically communist; they were probably just hungry or desperate. They did not deserve that.” & “I hate war and it saddens me that so many are lead into it by self serving politicos and religious leaders whos only real concern is furthering their own ends.”
And one last time………… I have never posted here (or anywhere much) before and had no idea about any of the regulars views on this issue. My appologies if the ideas I advance are familiar.
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Arie Brand says:
Well put Odinius (sans rancune)
The further argument was that if there had been no massacre a communist dictatorship would have come about and that that would have been at any case worse than the dictatorship people did get.
Both questionable assumptions that, if doubted, seem to justify inquiries about one’s ‘ideology’.
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nobody says:
Ever wonder why the 2 first country to beat back an almost communist take over, and wipe the communist to near extinction is Muslim: Indonesia and Afghanistan. In other places, communist succeeded in taking over and stay there: N.Korea, Vietnam, Cuba.. In Europe, the communist only fell when the USSR broke up.
People was recruited in mosques all around the muslim world to go to Afhanistan “to fight off the godless communist”..So what the girl said is just a common sense in this part of the world, it is just more difficult being a communist in living a muslim majority country. Given the recent (and much supported) fatwa against secularism and pluralism from MUI, it wont seem to change anytime soon.
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I just heard my name was being bandied about here.
Stevo may be a sensible bloke, but he ain’t me.
I really don’t have time to come by for re-run debates with people who won’t change their prejudices, and I see by his absence from Ross’s Right Angle that Timdog feels the same way about me.
Though I do appreciate his expertise in the lore of these islands. -
I assume you were misty eyed about the story not the withdrawn comment. Yea its mongrel when people start being people not some collateral but necessary damage for the greater good. On day, when I am not so subject to arbitrary libel law, I will tell you about the magnificent velvet resort run for the defenders of freedom, human rights and democracy.
Personally, it never ceases to amaze that the greatest advantage and keystone of any democracy being the rights of the individual are so quickly sold out by those who claim some moral high ground in some sort mcarthyisk version of democracy.
Of course, the “shoot em down in the street” still holds current with some dank and ignorant corners of the Indonesian blogsphere even now. When ever the most poorly educated street kid could tell you that even the current mayhem could be neutralized by legally targeting the puppet masters and the very worst thing you could do would more wanton shootings.
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I first thought many of the replies to my posts were a deliberate attempt to inflame me to intemperance. Which is all good fun, so no problem there.
I now see that by making the assumption I am a regular in disguise, I have also been attributed with a variety of thoughts that I never actually touched upon in my posts.
However Oigal actually had this to say about his fellow man: “Yea its mongrel when people start being people not some collateral but necessary damage for the greater good.”
I know he thinks this himself, because at no point did I suggest that was the case.
Its good to see him finally breaking free of those liberal platitudes. Next he will be beating on Homos and denying the Holocaust. These are all topics he returns to, regardless of what was actually said.
(Example slightly dramatized for effect)
Stevo: I like kittens and vegan food.
Oigal: You racist, bigot ! How can you say that about black homosexual nazi holocaust survivors who attend Klan rallies every Saturday? You pig !!!
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timdog says:
Don’t take it personally Mister Ross…
My stock of time fluctuates over the course of the year, and just right now I can’t really imagine what it is that people do with their lives that allows them time for “blogging” and endless commenting on forums…
Until this thread I haven’t commented on IM for weeks and weeks, and haven’t really been reading it either; naturally no time for RRA either. And I need to disengage again shortly, as there’s a looooong list of sh*t to do…Before I go, Stevo, I wasn’t, at the early stage of this thread, paying any attention to the idea of “would Indonesia have been better off under communism?” (and I don’t think anyone else was either). The issue was BB’s man-down-the-pub theorising on the lines of “It didn’t really happen, not like people say it did”, his silly, silly lines about “international leftists” (or something like that) “exaggerating the numbers because they were embarrassed about what the communists had done elsewhere”, and then, above all else, his callous “taste of their own medicine” line…
By taking issue with this the rest of us were then apparently tagged “commie sympathisers” and subjected to paranoid fantasies about a conspiracy of silence in tourist guidebooks to Vietnam, and the slaughters of 65-66 somehow being better known than the cultural revolution and the horrors of the Khymer Rouge – a general descent into incoherence (very uncharacteristic of BB, as I have already said).
If we weren’t “tearing into” the idea that Indonesia would have been great under communism, perhaps it’s because no one was suggesting that it was; we were discussing something else. -
“Yea its mongrel when people start being people not some collateral but necessary damage for the greater good.”
Eeer before we start a flame war, Perhaps I should clarify, that’s an oz saying..”its a mongrel” as in its a sh*tty feeling, I was not inferring in this case that anyone was a mongrel (verb vs noun).
And yes, I confess I have attributed you with many things that have been exposed by he who’s name shall not be spoken…
although damn now you are channeling ASSMAD…
But don’t feel bad on this site I have been..Gay, Communist, Bigot, Indonesian, European, Monkey (Thanks Patrick), a teacher (God forbid), Jaksa Bum, Redneck, Pimp, Groper, Drunk, Capitalist exploiter etc etc also a various times I am apparently the alter ego of other posters here.
Curiously, I guess all of the above may well suit at various times, well ok the gay one is stretching it a bit although as I still cannot come at the Indonesian habit of holding other men’s hands, call that a bit of cultural imprinting. But nor do they raise abject fear in like they do some here.
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I think this is a great site and very entertaining at times. This thread is actually rather tame, compared to some of the others I have browsed through on IM. It may need a few total nutters to give their carefully fermented overview of the topic. I think its safe to say I don’t consider you one of the dreaded commies. (which sort of rules out any chance of us dating)
Thanks for the tip on the finer points of Australian linguistics. I was surprised to learn they actually spoke a form of English there !
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I was surprised to learn they actually spoke a form of English there !
We had to break away from the plum in mouth language of the imperial oppressors..
and here’s some more although its like strawberrys to swineThe Call uv Stoush! … It’s older than the ‘ills.
Lovin’ an’ fightin’ – there’s no more to tell
Concernin’ men. an’ when that feelin’ thrills
The blood uv them ‘oo’s fathers mixed it well,
They ‘ave to ‘eed it – bein’ ‘ow they’re built –
As traders ‘ave to ‘eed the clink uv gilt.An’ them whose gilt ‘as stuffed ’em stiff wiv pride
An’ ‘aughty scorn uv blokes like Ginger Mick –
I sez to them, put sich crook thorts aside,
An’ don’t lay on the patronage too think.
Orl men is brothers when it comes to lash
An’ ‘aughty scorn an’ Culcher does their lash. -
of course Ned Kelly put it better when it came to the English and the inbred crown
I have no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police who some calls honest gentlemen but I would like to know what business an honest man would have in the Police.
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I was pullin ya leg mate. Go play with your mate Patrick. I want to know what he has to say on this topic. I am impressed with his pragmatic and rational thinking.
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I am impressed with his pragmatic and rational thinking.
Laugh..that’s just plain funny…I am outta here
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Stevo,
I concur this thread got off track a bit and perhaps you are just misunderstood. In summary then;
In your view, for the sake of the greater society sometimes individuals must suffer. For the good of the majority of the people in the long term it was better that direct and unfortunately sometime brutal steps had to be taken. This was necessary to save the people from falling into a godless regime and away from the kind of society you believe is best.
I was just wondering how that perspective is different from say, the FPI or those who want an Islamic state by any means.
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Ross,
I almost commented on your post about non-halal meat at Carrefour, wondering if you also felt all Western grocery stores should carry halal and kosher meat. But then I thought, “of course he doesn’t,” and decided not to bother posting anything.
That’s why I tired of it…got really sick of asking you to apply the same standard of respect for minorities to the West that you demand for Indonesia. Without that consistency, I have a hard time taking any of the demands seriously–even the ones I agree with.
If that changes, I’ll make my way back over there.
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Stevo said:
“The real question has nothing to do with that, but whether a botched and easily neutralized coup attempt by a small number of officers and leaders of a legal political party should have led to the mass murder of that party’s rank-and-file, the overwhelming majority of whom knew nothing about it.”
Well my answer Odinius: No it should not have.
You can sort of get a flavour of that in my previous comments, Stevo said: “I suspect many who died were not ideologically communist; they were probably just hungry or desperate. They did not deserve that.” & “I hate war and it saddens me that so many are lead into it by self serving politicos and religious leaders whos only real concern is furthering their own ends.”
And one last time………… I have never posted here (or anywhere much) before and had no idea about any of the regulars views on this issue. My appologies if the ideas I advance are familiar.
Fair enough, once again. But for the record, I never thought you were Ross–I thought you were someone impersonating Ross.
Glad you agree on the massacres. Given that two political parties–PSI and Masyumi–had recently been banned for sedition, this was the logical reaction. Arrest the leaders, put them on trial and ban the PKI. Not mass murder the rank-and-file.
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ET says:
nobody said
So what the girl said is just a common sense in this part of the world, it is just more difficult being a communist in living a muslim majority country. Given the recent (and much supported) fatwa against secularism and pluralism from MUI, it wont seem to change anytime soon.
I wonder what would be the lesser evil, a secular communist regime with a chance of development for the better or a muslim theocracy with no freedom at all.
Not such a difficult choice if you ask me.
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Communism (and other all-encompassing ideologies, for that matter) is kind of like a religion in a lot of ways. Sure it’s not metaphysical, but most of the rest is the same. Like any major religion, there are different sects, different interpretations of key texts and different degrees of orthodoxy and fanaticism.
The extreme end of communism–the Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot side–was as bad as anything else you can imagine, and appreciably worse to live under than any modern theocracy (Taliban included, believe it or not). But there were many places where communism was much gentler, easier to navigate, more free and less, well, militant.
Which road was the PKI on? Towards Maoism or Titoism?
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Berlian Biru says:
“a general descent into incoherence”
So incoherent was I that I sparked a rather quiet thread into quite a kerfuffle and prompted you to reply to my posts on nearly a dozen occasions. God forbid that I should ever develop some fluency or we’ll never get away from our keyboards.
OK so to sum up let’s meet on agreed ground shall we;
Communism has proven itself almost without exception to be a form of government that abuses human rights and liberty on vast and industrial scales, leading to mass imprisonment, torture, exile and of course genocide. In short communism is not a good thing.
Countries that resist communism, like countries that resist Nazism, will have to take extraordinarily severe measures.
Indonesia chose to resist communism, communism in Indonesia was extremely sophisticated and very well developed and the measures required to extirpate it were brutal in the extreme but ultimately successful. Undoubtedly these brutal methods were often carried on in Indonesia into the post communist age.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the anti-communist purges, many of those people killed, like many of those killed in the fight against Nazism, were unconnected with the struggle. The number of deaths was appalling. The final death toll will probably never be known but range from a conservative 80,000 put out by the Indonesian government to millions put about by people with a particular axe to grind (on the right and the left).
Now have I said anything so far that anyone objects to?
OK I might get a little bit more controversial here so let’s see what actually separates us;
On the whole there is very little interest in the post-coup purges in present day Indonesia. Most people are aware of what happened but, not to put too fine a point on it, they really don’t actually care that much. They regard it as a dark period in history and like most Asians view ancient history as anything that happened more than thirty years ago (a wild generalisation I admit but merely a personal view). They are too busy getting on with building a modern, hopefully democratic republic to overly concern themselves with something that has as much relevance to their own lives as the stories of Diponegoro. We may lament this lack of historical curiousity but it is unlikely we will change it.
Indonesia is very little known about outside of SE Asia, we have discussed this many times. The history of Indonesia is largely a blank page and few if any people in the west care about it. The only fact about Indonesian history that does seem to have a wider knowledge in the west (and it is still only marginal) is that Suharto slaughtered lots of communists in 1965. The people who know about this fact are generally political commentators or bloggers and when it comes up a plethora of links to the dreadful events (usually out of context to what preceded it) and wild conspiracy theories involving the US, British and Australian governments and semi-shady organisations invariably fly off the computer monitors. It sometimes seems that about the only thing anyone knows about Indonesia in the west are the events of 1965.
We have many times discussed in this forum the negative image that Indonesia has abroad. The perception that Indonesia is a nation that is at base dark and sinister, with dreadful violence and fascistic tendencies is never far from the surface. We all know this image to be nonsense but it is my opinion that the few people who write or comment about Indonesia in the west generally do so through the prism of what they know about 1965 and therefore tend to judge Indonesia in a way that comparable nations such as Vietnam and China are not. It is a personal opinion but one based on a wide reading of books, websites and other western sources of opinion on Indonesia.
If you disagree with my analysis, fine, but that doesn’t turn me into some loud mouthed, incoherent saloon bar bore, it just means we don’t share opinions, try to keep it civil chaps.
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“This was necessary to save the people from falling into a godless regime and away from the kind of society you believe is best.”
No……………
It was to prevent the deaths and oppression of millions of people under a totalitarian socialist regime.
“I was just wondering how that perspective is different from say, the FPI or those who want an Islamic state by any means.”
It’s not different. Both are totalitarian and intolerant. Religion is often used by those with purely political intentions.
I agree with you on most points Odinius, but I am troubled by the suggestion that communism might have been ok for Indonesia.
“But there were many places where communism was much gentler, easier to navigate, more free and less, well, militant.”
This is like saying genocide is not always so bad, as there are some survivors. E.g. Many Jewish folk were not caught up in events unleashed by the German Socialist workers party. Does this make mass murder and genocide, sometimes, ok?
Sure Tito was not as bad as many others. But it is another thing entirely to suggest it was the best way of running the country. Interestingly it all fell to bits when Tito died and the people expressed their true desires.
Overwhelmingly communism has resulted in poor outcomes.
To say otherwise is just plain silly.
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Odinius said
But there were many places where communism was much gentler, easier to navigate, more free and less, well, militant.
Indeed. I wouldn’t mind living in countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cuba or present day China rather than in places like Iran or Afghanistan. And this doesn’t make me a sympathizer with communism at all.
North Korea of course is in a different league and could well be lumped together with the latter two: the axis of evil. -
rustyprince says:
Berlian,
I just accidentelly deleted a long message on the HP aimed primarily at you, its why I usually send incoherent/unedited messages which Ross takes objection to.
Ok its all about nuance, Vietnam wasn’t like the Shining Path/Stalin/Kmhmer Rouge and its frankly idiotic to bracket them in this way. And yes your right Indonesia is an Asian breath of fresh air since that dangerous kleptomaniac departed.Your point about the silence, dearth of folklore suggesting the Purge of Communists was grossly overexaggerrated by lefties deserves thought thus its with gratitute that Ari responds in an erudite manner with evidence of the victimisation of PKI relatives that followed for a decade afterwards. But please excuse me but I think I missed your reflective response to Ari. And that’s my point Berlian, its all about nuance and not myopia in the prism of ideology. Also Ari’s parrallels with Myanmar do have similiar echoes to The New Order. And just who are these Lefties who applaud any of the mass murderers I previously mentioned?
On an aside I wonder should we blame captitalism for 3 million Irish diseapparing in the 1840s.
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“On an aside I wonder should we blame captitalism for 3 million Irish diseapparing in the 1840s.”
If you believe a method of raising finance for business ventures was responsible for causing blight to infect the potato harvest in 1844-85 and again tragically in 1847 thus wiping out the one source of food in an otherwise barren and infertile but hugely overpopulated remote fringe of western Europe then you know very little about demographics, agriculture, economics, politics, health or history.
Capitalism is merely a tool of business, it is not a system of government or disease control in plants.
“I wouldn’t mind living in countries like Vietnam, Laos, Cuba or present day China rather than in places like Iran or Afghanistan.”
Indeed and I’d rather eat a cowpat than a dog turd but that is hardly a ringing endorsement of the nutritional qualities of bovine excrement.
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Should we perhaps list the various and usually ultra right wing murderous regimes propped up and linked in various and often very shaky rational as saving us all from the communist hordes. Troubles is it just doesn’t make sense anymore than claiming a little mass murder is better than a big mass murder. Although I keep coming back to the more recent East Timor where nearly a quarter of the population was decimated over 20 years to save them from the hordes. One has to wonder at the scales some use.
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Oh incidentally, you oft quoted Pol Pot was no where near as successful portionally in killing off Cambodians as those saving the Timorese from the hordes. Still they were saved fro the leftist and look how that worked out for them for the next 25 years.
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Berlian – I’ve read that there were sufficient supplies of grain on the island of Ireland to compensate for the diseased spuds but the dominant ideology of libertarian capitalism supported from the legislature in Westminister placed profit before people. In roughly the same period the viable communities in the Scottish Highlands were cleared to make way for sheep. One good spinoff from this zealous capitalism was that when the British Exchequer saw that slavery was benefiting its rivals in the America’s and that its merchant fleet were holding a declining share of the ‘trade’ they were quickly able to jettison their previous convictions. But make no mistake about it the primary motivation was mercantilist and nothing so quaint as basic humanity.
Finally, I think Java has a population density at the moment of a multiple around ten of Irelands at the time of the famine. Any Malthusian concerns about its future? -
Oigal, after Vietnam ousted the ultra xenophobic Kmher Rouge and ended Pol Pot’s vision of the Tonle Sap Basin cleansed of all but a million of the purest, most courageous Khmers who would constitute the element to reclaim the glory of 12th century Angkor, well who do you think steps in but to recognize the Kmher Rouge as the legitimate govt? yes our glorious ‘freedom lovin’ Western powers. Thus we have the USA leading scanctions against Vietnam and Britain’s SAS training the tropical nihilists. So I genuienely ask can the Kmhmer Rouge not be considered an instrument of the imperialist Western ‘freedom lovers’?
And again Berlian just who are these lefties who defend Shining Path/Mao/Stalin and lesser known meglomaniacs who misused the noble but, unfortunately, I grant incongrous ideas of social equality? Alas given the base greed ingrained in our DNA a balance is the best these fine aspirations can ever achieve. -
Oigal would you like to explain what you meant by this statement?:
“Troubles is it just doesn’t make sense anymore than claiming a little mass murder is better than a big mass murder.”
On the face of it you appear to suggest that one dead is just as bad a tens of millions. That’s taking all or nothing thinking to a whole new level!
Comment on “Report from East Java”.
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“Who said they were?”
Well not me thats for sure!
So what is the reason for you banging on about Burma and other military regimes? Are you suggesting people are some how less dead/oppressed if assaulted by your particular ideology?
Whats your angle?