Armando Siahaan

(JG Illustration)

The Forgotten History of 1965

Countries and their citizens often have to face unpleasant truths about sordid episodes of the past. Germans have had to deal with the slaughter of millions of people of Jewish descent and others deemed undesirable under the leadership of Adolph Hitler. The Japanese still struggle to fully acknowledge their history of aggression and exploitation in Asia during the first half of the 20th century. And Chinese party officials remain reluctant to acknowledge the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989.

Here in Indonesia, there is yet to be full official recognition of the dark years of 1965 to 1966. Under the reign of Suharto, from 1966 to 1998, the only major event recognized from those two bloody years was a failed coup in 1965 in which six generals were killed. Textbooks of the era record the night known as the September 30th Movement, but make no mention of the mass killings of suspected Indonesian Communist Party members that followed.

“There has not been great public knowledge about the 1965 mass killings in Indonesia,” said Katherine McGregor, a historian from the University of Melbourne. “Maybe at a community level people know, but not at the national level.”

The magnitude of the anticommunist massacre was unprecedented in Indonesia’s history. Historians generally agree that the number of people killed during this systematic slaughter ranged from 500,000 to one million. The killings largely took place in Java and Bali, but also elsewhere in the country, and were carried out with extreme brutality.

Throughout the 32 years of Suharto’s dictatorship, the story was untold or became distorted, and generations grew up with little or no knowledge of the slaughter. In 1966, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the existence of communism in Indonesia were legally banned. Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of Communist Party members and sympathizers were arrested and forced into exile.

Propaganda tools, such as the film “Pengkhianatan G30SPKI” (“The Betrayal of the September 30th Movement by the Indonesian Communist Party”) and the Lubang Buaya Monument that marks the place the generals were buried, were exploited by Suharto to demonize and depict the Communist Party as brutal, barbaric and “evil.” These became part of official history, according to Adrian Vickers, a professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney.

And despite the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia still gives prominence to the generals’ murders over the massacre.

“It’s very difficult to move beyond a certain frame of reference that was created by the New Order regime,” Vickers said. “We need to change the terms of history.”

Suggesting a strong unwillingness to face up to the country’s dark past, the government has yet to officially recognize the 1965 mass killings.

Asvi Warman Adam of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences said that the national school curriculum has yet to include a section on the event. The New Order version is intact, emphasizing the sole culpability of the Indonesian Communist Party for the September 30th Movement.

In the latest version of “Sejarah Nasional Indonesia” (“Indonesian National History”), from state-owned publishing company Balai Pustaka, which is used as a reference for history textbooks, the mass killings are omitted, Asvi said, as well as any hint of human rights violations by the Indonesian Armed Forces .

“The book only mentions that the Indonesian Armed Forces crushed the Communist Party and that subsequently the government established a fact-finding commission that reported directly to the current president,” Asvi said. “But it didn’t mention what was reported.”

In 2008, the National Commission on Human Rights created a team to conduct a formal inquiry into whether there was sufficient evidence of human rights violations linked to the 1965 mass killings. But the head of the team, Nurkholis, has said that progress is relatively slow due to the logistics of interviewing witnesses and continued opposition from the military and Muslim groups.

“Unless the government plays a more active role in unraveling the truth, history will remain untold,” Asvi said.

However, some people have no doubt the truth should be revealed.

“It’s about historical justice,” said the University of Melbourne’s McGregor.

“It’s about acknowledging the suffering of the people in the past and trying to resolve a great moment of crisis and tragedy in Indonesian history.”

Young Perspectives

Gladys Samantha, 21, university student

Gladys Samantha knows little of the significance of 1965 in Indonesian history.

“I’m very weak when it comes to Indonesian history,” she said, adding that, in general, history has never been considered an important subject for Indonesian students. “I don’t think we even have a history major here [at Atma Jaya University],” she said.

She finally recalled that 1965 was the year the Indonesian Communist Party killed members of the Indonesian Armed Forces. “It’s G30SPKI, right?” she said.

But she had never heard of the mass killings that took place after the alleged coup.

“It’s either not properly publicized or someone is trying to cover the truth behind it,” she said. “How could I not know about a historical event that big?”

She didn’t advocate taking legal action against the perpetrators. “The idea of an investigation is impossible because it happened too long ago. What we need is for the government to circulate more information about this historical event for educational purposes.”

Ivana Kusumadewi, 21, law student

“Nineteen sixty-five was the year when the Indonesian Communist Party killed high-ranking Indonesian military officers,” Ivana Kusumadewi says.

Ever since high school, she has referred to the Communists as “evil.”

Ivana said her grandmother hid her aunt immediately after she was born in 1965 because she feared the baby might be shot by the Communists.

Ivana knew nothing about the mass killings that ensued but, basing her argument on her education and family accounts, she thought a purge of Communists was acceptable.

“It was wrong for the Communists to kill the generals,” she said. “It was better to crush and eliminate the Communists than have them commit more murders.”

Asked if the country should teach the full story, she simply said: “What for? The Suharto era has ended.”

She then seemed to have second thoughts, perhaps triggered by her law studies.

“Wouldn’t [the massacre] be a human rights violation?” she asked. “As long as there is reason for a further struggle, then perhaps we need to address the issue. But since not a lot of people know, I think it’s impossible to take further action on it.”

Charles Sihombing, 20, English student

Although Charles Sihombing knows that 1965 is generally known for the attempted Communist coup, he believes the history of the era has been distorted.

Charles said he learned from books, newspaper articles and personal accounts that 1965 was when an alliance was formed to take over Sukarno’s government. “The movement was driven by the people of the [subsequent] New Order regime,” he said.

He had heard of the mass killings but did not know how many people were slaughtered and believes that Suharto’s government distorted the truth.

“The government was scared that citizens would know about their dark past. So they killed the Communists to clear their name. By erasing history, people wouldn’t know about their wrongdoings.”

He believes the distorted version of history remains intact.

“It is important to discover more about this history because it is one way for us to learn about who we are,” he said.

As to what should happen to any perpetrators if they were caught, he said: “I’m certain they’re already carrying a heavy moral burden.

“If we can find a criminal case against the killings, then we should punish [those responsible].”

Marhara Tua, 21, IT analyst

Asked what he knew about the 1965 mass killings, Marhara Tua responded, “Is that the G30SPKI?” referring to the September 30 Movement of the Indonesian Communist Party.

After being told the slaughter was a different, though related, event, he said: “Then I know nothing about it. Is that even part of the curriculum? I think I only learned about G30SPKI in school.”

However, after further explanation, Marhara said he could understand the actions of the Indonesian Armed Forces.

“I think the killings were a reasonable eye-for-an-eye act,” he said. “After all, they killed our national heroes in the first place.”

After a little further thought he softened. “They should’ve instead been detained for life.”

Tosan Anda Andika, 23, graduate student

When he was young, Tosan Anda Andika learned through history textbooks and films that the Communist Party was evil.

With the advent of the reform era in 1998, he began to hear that the events of 1965-66 were part of a coup masterminded by Suharto. “I learned from my parents, friends and some of the professors in college,” he said.

But he still knew nothing about the 1965 mass killings. “I think most Indonesians also don’t know about this. If the number [of deaths] was that big, then it should be considered genocide.”

Tosan said that whoever was responsible for the killings did an extremely good job of keeping the truth hidden.

He said he understood why the government still kept quiet on the matter years after Suharto stepped down: “If the government reveals the truth about the case, the international community will find out and that could be a problem. So reopening an old case could actually be a burden.”

However, he believes the story should be told. “They should put this in the national curriculum from the earliest age, and not even just at the college level,” he said. “Our history should be corrected, straightened out and taught to the people.”

Gunther Tampubolon, 28, business developer

Gunther believes that the G30SPKI movement was an attempt by Suharto to topple Sukarno, and that the incident was used to frame many innocent people as Communists. He has a friend whose grandfather was falsely accused of being a PKI member, so he knows something about the anti-Communist purge.

“[My friend] told me that his family had so many problems because of their Communist affiliation,” he said. “They couldn’t have identity cards, work as civil servants or enter the military.”

During his formal education, Gunther said, he was never made aware that more than 500,000 people were killed for suspected ties to communism.

“I don’t think it was the right thing to do,” he said, adding that it was the result of the inevitable collision between Sukarno and Suharto. But he said he did not think now was the right time for the government to redress the injustice.

“We’re already going through so many problems as a country,” he said. He said given that Indonesia is a country with a strong religious background, reopening the case might create social upheaval “I don’t think this is something that needs to be blown up. Maybe when our country is much more stable.”

Muhamad Fajar, 24, recent graduate

Muhamad Fajar is an avid reader of history and said he learned about the events of 1965 through the works of Robert Cribb, Ben Anderson and, most recently, John Roosa.

“There have been a lot of studies available about the 1965 mass killings,” he said. He also knew that the estimates for the number of deaths ranged between 100,000 and one million. “It depends on whom you ask.”

Acknowledging our dark past is not easy, he said, especially because the 1966 ban on communism is still part of the Constitution. “Even after we entered the reform era, there was still discrimination against the Indonesian Communist Party.”

He found it difficult to place blame for the failure to educate the public about the killings. “A lot of the perpetrators have died,” he said.

“The New Order regime created jargon and symbols about the Communists that still influence the people and the government today.”
But ultimately, he said, revealing the past is secondary to the greater importance of reconciling victims and the perpetrators.

“It involved the death of possibly one million people with no explanation,” he said.

“The government should focus on reconciliation in the future.”

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