tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/suharto-8676/articles
Suharto – The Conversation
2024-02-11T19:05:52Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221858
2024-02-11T19:05:52Z
2024-02-11T19:05:52Z
Cute grandpa or authoritarian in waiting: who is Prabowo Subianto, the favourite to win Indonesia’s presidential election?
<p>Ambitious and mercurial, with a dark past, former army general Prabowo Subianto has spent a lifetime vying for the ultimate prize in Indonesian politics. Now, with a <a href="https://www.roymorgan.com/findings/9414-indonesian-voting-intention-january-2024">large lead in the latest polls</a> ahead of this week’s election, it looks as though the <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesias-presidential-election-may-go-to-run-off-despite-what-the-polls-say-222380">presidency is finally within his grasp</a>.</p>
<p>So, who is Prabowo and how will he change Indonesia if he wins?</p>
<h2>A rapid rise through the military ranks – and fall</h2>
<p>Prabowo Subianto Djojohadikusumo is a true Indonesian blueblood. His family claims to be descended from national hero <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diponegoro">Diponegoro</a>, a prince of the Mataram sultanate who led the Java War rebellion against Dutch colonial forces in the 19th century. </p>
<p>Prabowo’s grandfather was the founder of Indonesia’s first state bank and a prominent member of Indonesia’s independence movement. His father was a leading economist who served as minister of finance, minister of trade and minister for research in the government. His brother is a wealthy tycoon.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574271/original/file-20240208-28-x7de32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prabowo (standing right) with his siblings and grandparents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Prabowo, too, has long sought national prominence. An ambitious military officer serving mostly in the Special Forces (Kopassus), his marriage to a daughter of the authoritarian former president, Soeharto, fast-tracked his career. Prabowo rose to the rank of lieutenant general and, finally, the key position of commander of the powerful Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad) in the capital, Jakarta.</p>
<p>As Soeharto’s regime began to falter amid the financial crisis of 1997, Prabowo become involved in covert operations to defend Soeharto’s army-backed and repressive <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/asian-studies/soehartos-new-order-and-its-legacy">New Order</a> regime against its critics. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/soeharto-the-giant-of-modern-indonesia-who-left-a-legacy-of-violence-and-corruption-164411">Soeharto: the giant of modern Indonesia who left a legacy of violence and corruption</a>
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<p>Under his leadership, the Special Forces’ “Rose Brigade” was accused of abducting and torturing more than 20 student protesters, 13 of whom are still missing, presumed dead. Prabowo has admitted to the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/7/18/indonesia-candidate-admits-role-in-abductions">abductions</a>, but denies being involved in any killings. </p>
<p>Prabowo never faced trial, although several of his men were tried and convicted. The allegations against him meant he was, for years, denied a visa to enter the US.</p>
<p>Prabowo also denies a wide range of earlier accusations relating to human rights abuses committed by Special Forces under his command in East Timor and Papua, including alleged torture and killings. </p>
<p>He also denies accusations he was involved in engineering the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120310123501/http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2004/05/13/six-years-after-may-1998-tragedy-still-unresolved.html">violent rioting</a> in the capital in 1998 that contributed to the collapse of his father-in-law’s regime, likely the result of an <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/1998/08/25/indonesia-army-ousts-suhartos-son-in-law/">internal military struggle to become Soeharto’s successor</a>. It seems Prabowo hoped to climb high amid the chaos at the time. </p>
<p>After Soeharto resigned in May 1998, his newly installed successor, B.J. Habibie, refused Prabowo’s request to be made head of the army, instead effectively demoting him. Prabowo is said to have responded by arming himself with a pistol and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/98/0724/cs6.html">driving to the palace with truckloads of soldiers</a>, but was stopped outside the president’s office.</p>
<p>Soon after, Prabowo was <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/1998/08/25/indonesia-army-ousts-suhartos-son-in-law/">cashiered</a> for “misinterpreting orders”, although the precise details of his dismissal still remain mysterious. He went into voluntary exile in Jordan for some years and it seemed his career was over.</p>
<h2>Three unsuccessful bids for higher office</h2>
<p>But Prabowo remained an ambitious man. By 2009, he was a wealthy business figure and had co-founded his own political party, Gerindra. He had also rehabilitated himself enough to make a formal bid for power, running for vice president in the 2009 elections on a ticket with former president Megawati Soekarnoputri. They lost in a landslide.</p>
<p>In 2014, Prabowo tried again. This time he ran as a presidential candidate against Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. Prabowo campaigned as a nationalist “strongman”, riding his horse around stadiums of cheering uniformed supporters and promising a return to the authoritarian model of the New Order. He lost both the election and a challenge to the results in the Constitutional Court.</p>
<p>In 2019, he tried once again against Jokowi, this time turning to conservative Islamists to support him. He was a strange choice as their figurehead, given he had a Christian mother and brother and, although a Muslim himself, had previously shown little public piety. In his 2014 campaign, he had even promised to protect religious minorities against Islamists.</p>
<p>Prabowo’s use of identity politics proved deeply polarising, strengthening the hand of hardline Islamist groups in Indonesia and deepening tensions between religious communities for years to come.</p>
<p>But Prabowo lost this election, too. He accused Jokowi of cheating, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/24/indonesias-prabowo-challenges-election-result-in-court">sparking rioting</a> in Jakarta in which eight people died. He again contested the results in a highly publicised Constitutional Court challenge, which he also lost.</p>
<p>Prabowo then made the extraordinary decision to reinvent himself again. Dumping his supporters, he took the position of defence minister in the cabinet of his rival, Jokowi. The two former foes were photographed shaking hands and sharing jokes to seal their extraordinary deal.</p>
<p>For the next four years, Prabowo dutifully performed the role of loyal minister – even when Jokowi’s government moved against some of the Islamist organisations that had backed him in his last bid for the top job.</p>
<h2>Controversial political moves</h2>
<p>Now 72, Prabowo’s ambitions are undiminished, but his tactics have, once again, changed dramatically. </p>
<p>In his current run for president, Prabowo has selected Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his vice-presidential running mate. And Jokowi himself now backs him. (Although Jokowi has never explicitly endorsed Prabowo, Gibran’s candidacy makes Jokowi’s preferences crystal clear.)</p>
<p>Jokowi’s decision to join forces with Prabowo and his Gerindra party was driven by the fact he was prevented from running himself by the two-term presidential limit in the constitution. He therefore needed to find another way to maintain influence. Having his son as vice president would certainly suffice.</p>
<p>Jokowi is hugely popular, with approval rates still well over 70%. This means his decision to back Prabowo may – at last – deliver the presidency to the former general.</p>
<p>But building a new alliance with Prabowo has proved to be a seismic event in Indonesian politics, for two reasons.</p>
<p>First, according to the country’s election law, candidates for president and vice president must be at least 40 years old. The 36-year-old Gibran didn’t qualify.</p>
<p>Helpfully, the chief justice of the Constitutional Court was Gibran’s uncle and had been appointed by Jokowi. The court duly delivered a ruling that younger candidates could run if they had held elected office as a regional head. Gibran just happens to be mayor of the city of Solo (a position his father once held), so he was now eligible.</p>
<p>Uproar ensued, and the chief justice was demoted for his obvious conflict of interest. But, incredibly, the decision stood, and Gibran is running.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1755398254924308598"}"></div></p>
<p>Second, Jokowi is a member of the PDI-P party, which had twice nominated him for president. The party has its own candidate running for president, Ganjar Pranowo. </p>
<p>So, by backing Prabowo, Jokowi has effectively turned his back on his own party and may help defeat its candidate for the presidency.</p>
<p>His actions also pose a major threat to PDI-P’s prospects in the legislative elections (held at the same time as the presidential vote). To the PDI-P leader, former president Megawati, and many of her supporters, Jokowi is now a traitor and enemy who may inflict huge damage on their political prospects.</p>
<h2>Why this election matters</h2>
<p>Prabowo’s big lead in the polls is partly thanks to Jokowi’s support and the many government officials now openly backing him. However, Prabowo has undergone (yet another) spectacular reinvention in recent months that has helped as well. </p>
<p>His campaign team has heavily promoted him as a baby-faced <em>gemoy</em> (cute) grandpa, using viral memes, video clips and even huge screens with anime avatars of Prabowo and Gibran smiling and winking at passers-by.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="TiktokEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.tiktok.com/@aku_chandkelvin/video/7311218296395713797?q=prabowo%20gemoy\u0026t=1707360432315"}"></div></p>
<p>But Prabowo is not cute. In fact, he has repeatedly said Indonesia’s democratic system is <a href="https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/indonesia-presidential-election-prabowo-democracy-term-limits-opposition-4085111">not working</a> and the country should return to its original 1945 constitution. This would mean unravelling most of the reforms introduced since Soeharto fell, which are largely based on constitutional amendments. </p>
<p>Among other things, Indonesia’s charter of human rights would go, as would the Constitutional Court. The courts would no longer be independent, direct presidential elections would end, the two-term presidential limit would go and the president could again control the legislature.</p>
<p>Of course, these changes might not be easily done, but it is a chilling prospect if Prabowo wins. And that may happen because much of the electorate doesn’t seem to care all that much about the consequences of picking him.</p>
<p>The average age of Indonesia’s 205 million eligible voters voters is just 30, and more than half are millennials or Gen Z. This means many have no memory of Soeharto’s oppressive and abusive New Order that Prabowo seems to want to revive.</p>
<p>Young voters also seem untroubled by Prabowo’s dark past and the credible allegations of violence and human rights abuses made against him. Instead, they seem captivated by the cute Prabowo and cool Gibran imagery saturating social media, backed by the charisma of Indonesia’s most popular public figure, Jokowi.</p>
<p>If Prabowo does become president, as many now expect, Indonesia’s fragile democratic system may be the next thing he reinvents – or, more likely, dismantles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221858/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Lindsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>
The general has repeatedly said Indonesia’s democratic system is not working and the country should return to its original 1945 constitution, which could unravel many democratic reforms.
Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199418
2023-02-14T13:43:04Z
2023-02-14T13:43:04Z
When two elephants fight: how the global south uses non-alignment to avoid great power rivalries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509129/original/file-20230209-24-gfvsje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Indonesian military honour guard marks the 60th anniversary of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Achmad Ibrahim /AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An African proverb notes that “when two elephants fight, it is the grass underneath that suffers”.</p>
<p>Many states in the global south are, therefore, seeking to avoid getting caught in the middle of any future battles between the US and China. Instead, they are calling for a renewal of the concept of non-alignment. This was an approach employed in the 1950s by newly independent countries to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-non-aligned-movement-in-the-21st-century-66057">balance</a> between the two ideological power blocs of east and west during the era of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a></p>
<p>The new non-alignment stance is based on a perceived need to maintain southern sovereignty, pursue socio-economic development, and benefit from powerful external partners without having to choose sides. It also comes from historical grievances during the era of slavery, colonialism and Cold War interventionism. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/washington-wants-to-address-anti-west-sentiment-in-africa-blinken-is-doing-his-bit-188407">Washington wants to address anti-west sentiment in Africa: Blinken is doing his bit</a>
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<p>These grievances include unilateral American military interventions in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/U-S-invasion-of-Grenada">Grenada</a> (1983), <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-50837024">Panama</a> (1989) and <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/march-2013-us-invasion-iraq-10-years-later?language_content_entity=en">Iraq</a> (2003) as well as support by the US and France for autocracies in countries like Egypt, Morocco, Chad and Saudi Arabia, when it suits their interests. </p>
<p>Many southern governments are particularly irked by America’s Manichaean division of the world into “good” democracies and “bad” autocracies. More recently, countries in the global south have highlighted north-south trade disputes and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9168349/">western hoarding</a> of COVID-19 vaccines as reinforcing the unequal international system of <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-01-04/vaccine-apartheid-risks-rising-global-shortages-in-2022">“global apartheid”</a>. </p>
<p>A return of non-alignment was evident at the March 2022 UN General Assembly special session on Ukraine. Fifty-two governments from the global south did not support western sanctions against <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129492">Russia</a>. This, despite Russia’s clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which southern states have historically condemned.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-essential-reads-on-russia-africa-relations-187568">Five essential reads on Russia-Africa relations</a>
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<p>A month later, 82 southern states <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/04/1115782">refused to back</a> western efforts to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.</p>
<p>These included powerful southern states such as India, Indonesia, South Africa, Ethiopia, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. </p>
<h2>The origins of non-alignment</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.southcentre.int/question/revisiting-the-1955-bandung-asian-african-conference-and-its-legacy/">1955</a>, a conference was held in the Indonesian city of Bandung to regain the sovereignty of Africa and Asia from western imperial rule. The summit also sought to foster global peace, promote economic and cultural cooperation, and end racial domination. Governments attending were urged to abstain from collective defence arrangements with great powers. </p>
<p>Six years later, in 1961, the 120-strong Non-Aligned Movement <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Non-Aligned-Movement">emerged</a>. Members were required to shun military alliances such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact, as well as bilateral security treaties with great powers.</p>
<p>Non-alignment advocated “positive” – not passive – neutrality. States were encouraged to contribute actively to strengthening and reforming institutions such as the UN and the World Bank. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-how-we-look-at-africas-relationship-with-china-159747">Rethinking how we look at Africa's relationship with China</a>
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<p>India’s patrician prime minister, <a href="https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/former_pm/shri-jawaharlal-nehru/">Jawaharlal Nehru</a>, is widely regarded to have been the intellectual “<a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/non-alignment-was-coined-by-nehru-in-1954/articleshow/2000656.cms">father of non-alignment</a>”. He regarded the concept as an insurance policy against world domination by either superpower bloc or China. He also advocated nuclear disarmament.</p>
<p>Indonesia’s military strongman, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Suharto">Suharto</a>, championed non-alignment through “<a href="https://asean.org/opening-statement-his-excellency-mr-soeharto-president-of-the-republic-of-indonesia/">regional resilience</a>”. South-east Asian states were urged to seek autonomy and prevent external powers from intervening in the region.</p>
<p>Egypt’s charismatic prophet of Arab unity, <a href="https://www.presidency.eg/en/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A4%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%82%D9%88%D9%86/%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%B1/">Gamal Abdel Nasser</a>, strongly backed the use of force in conducting wars of liberation <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2008/6/20/arab-unity-nassers-revolution">in Algeria and southern Africa</a>, buying arms and receiving aid from both east and west.
For his part, Ghana’s prophet of African unity, <a href="https://theconversation.com/kwame-nkrumah-why-every-now-and-then-his-legacy-is-questioned-120790">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, promoted the idea of <a href="https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/kwame-nkrumah-and-the-proposed-african-common-government.pdf">an African High Command</a> as a common army to ward off external intervention and support Africa’s liberation.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/non-aligned-movement-nam/#:%7E:text=The%20Non%2DAligned%20Movement%20was,to%20remain%20independent%20or%20neutral">Non-Aligned Movement</a>, however, suffered from the problems of trying to maintain cohesion among a large, diverse group. Many countries were clearly aligned to one or other power bloc. </p>
<p>By the early 1980s, the group had switched its focus from east-west geo-politics to north–south geo-economics. The Non-Aligned Movement started advocating a “<a href="http://www.un-documents.net/s6r3201.htm">new international economic order</a>”. This envisaged technology and resources being transferred from the rich north to the global south in order to promote industrialisation. </p>
<p>The north, however, simply refused to support these efforts.</p>
<h2>Latin America and south-east Asia</h2>
<p>Most of the recent thinking and debates on non-alignment have occurred in Latin America and south-east Asia. </p>
<p>Most Latin American countries have refused to align with any major power. They have also ignored Washington’s warnings <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-and-europe-deteriorating-relations-with-latin-america-china-by-ana-palacio-2022-07">to avoid doing business with China</a>. Many have embraced Chinese infrastructure, 5G technology and digital connectivity. </p>
<p>Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many of the region’s states declined western requests to impose sanctions on Moscow. The return of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Luiz-Inacio-Lula-da-Silva">Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva</a> as <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-big-challenges-for-lulas-presidency-of-brazil-197967">president</a> of Brazil – the largest and wealthiest country in the region – heralds the “second coming” (following his first presidency between 2003 and 2011) of a champion of global south solidarity.</p>
<p>For its part, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (<a href="https://asean.org/member-states/">ASEAN</a>) has shown that non-alignment has as much to do with geography as strategy. Singapore sanctioned Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. Indonesia condemned the intervention but rejected sanctions. Myanmar backed the invasion while Laos and Vietnam <a href="http://www.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2022/6/30/11206652fbb64821-c.pdf">refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression</a>.</p>
<p>Many ASEAN states have historically championed “declaratory non-alignment”. They have used the concept largely rhetorically while, in reality, practising a promiscuous “multi-alignment”. Singapore and the Philippines forged close military ties with the US; Myanmar with India; Vietnam with Russia, India, and the US; and Malaysia with Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. </p>
<p>This is also a region in which states simultaneously embrace and fear Chinese economic assistance and military cooperation. This, while seeking to avoid any external powers dominating the region or forming exclusionary military alliances.</p>
<p>Strong African voices are largely absent from these non-alignment debates, and are urgently needed. </p>
<h2>Pursuing non-alignment in Africa</h2>
<p>Africa is the world’s most insecure continent, <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/data">hosting 84%</a> of UN peacekeepers. This points to a need for a cohesive southern bloc that can produce a self-sustaining security system – <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/the-quest-for-pax-africana/">Pax Africana</a> – while promoting socio-economic development.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peace-and-security-in-africa-how-china-can-help-address-weaknesses-156219">Peace and security in Africa: how China can help address weaknesses</a>
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<p>Uganda aims to champion this approach when it takes over the three-year rotating chair of the Non-Aligned Movement <a href="https://www.newvision.co.ug/category/news/uganda-to-chair-non-aligned-movement-in-2023-117191">in December 2023</a>. Strengthening the organisation into a more cohesive bloc, while fostering unity within the global south, is a major goal of its tenure.</p>
<p>Uganda has strong potential allies. For example, South Africa has championed “strategic non-alignment” in the Ukraine conflict, advocating a UN-negotiated solution, while <a href="http://www.taiheinstitute.org/UpLoadFile/files/2022/6/30/11206652fbb64821-c.pdf">refusing to sanction its BRICS ally, Russia</a>. It has also relentlessly courted its largest bilateral trading partner, China, whose <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-massive-belt-and-road-initiative">Belt and Road Initiative</a> and <a href="https://www.escr-net.org/sites/default/files/brics-ndb-factsheet-final-1.pdf">BRICS bank</a> are building infrastructure across the global south.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
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<p>Beijing is Africa’s largest trading partner at US$254 billion, and <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/27880/trade-between-china-and-africa/">builds a third of the continent’s infrastructure</a>.</p>
<p>If a new non-alignment is to be achieved in Africa, the foreign military bases of the US, France and China – and the Russian military presence – must, however, be dismantled.</p>
<p>At the same time the continent should continue to support the UN-led rules-based international order, condemning unilateral interventions in both Ukraine and Iraq. Pax Africana would best be served by:</p>
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<li><p>building local security capacity in close cooperation with the UN; </p></li>
<li><p>promoting effective regional integration; and </p></li>
<li><p>fencing off the continent from meddling external powers, while continuing to welcome trade and investment from both east and west.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adekeye Adebajo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If a new non-alignment is to be achieved in Africa, the foreign military bases of the US, France, and China - and the Russian military presence - must be dismantled.
Adekeye Adebajo, Professor and Senior research fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191508
2022-09-30T03:26:14Z
2022-09-30T03:26:14Z
How former political prisoners of Indonesia’s 1965 mass killings grapple with memories of their bloody past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487166/original/file-20220928-21-pm6956.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Kristina Flour)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does it mean to have knowledge about a violent historical event that, for the most part, has never made it into national history books?</p>
<p>I asked this important question during <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_10">my research in Central Java, Indonesia</a>, where I sought to understand the experiences and perceptions of children and other family members of individuals who were victims of the 1965-1966 anti-communist violence.</p>
<p>I published the results of this study in a chapter of a book titled “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4"><em>The Indonesian Genocide of 1965</em></a>”. The 1965 killings in Indonesia not only resulted in the death and imprisonment of <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesians-should-be-able-to-talk-about-1965-massacres-without-fear-of-censorship-49729">more than half-a-million people</a>, but also forced its survivors to grapple with knowledge of this bloody past throughout a lifetime of silence, acceptance – and ultimately, resilience.</p>
<h2>A genocide that silenced generations</h2>
<p>In 1965, the “treacherous” Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) launched an attempted coup that was crushed by the “heroic” Indonesian military – or at least, this was the version the state taught Indonesian students throughout President Suharto’s <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/archipel/1677?lang=fr">authoritarian New Order regime (1966-1998)</a>, and even well into the 21st century.</p>
<p>As schools taught young Indonesians this narrative, histories that ran counter to it were being suppressed. These included the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2020.1768064?journalCode=ctwq20">complex history of the leftist movement</a> in Indonesian politics, but also the bloody, terrifying events following <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/bki/176/2-3/article-p373_6.xml">the army’s rise to power in 1965</a>, when at least hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed or imprisoned without trial for their alleged affiliation with the PKI. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/55-years-of-impunity-how-indonesia-is-going-backwards-after-the-1965-genocide-147086">55 years of impunity: how Indonesia is going backwards after the 1965 genocide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This violent history remained <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesians-should-be-able-to-talk-about-1965-massacres-without-fear-of-censorship-49729">unspoken and unspeakable</a> in the public sphere during the New Order period.</p>
<p>Many Indonesians even self-censored out of fear – particularly the victims of the violence, and their children and family members. Former political prisoners, those who had most directly experienced the violence, for instance, were subject to various forms of surveillance and discrimination following their release from prison. </p>
<p>Survivors passed along this supposed guilt to their offspring. The state also ostracised these accused “<a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_10">communist children</a>” along with their parents. Many families of victims fell into silence. In many cases, former political prisoners, including those I talked to in my research, tried to protect their children by hiding and never speaking of their past ordeals and sufferings.</p>
<p>During the New Order period, the safest response to anything connected with 1965 was “<em>I didn’t/don’t know anything</em>”. Then, the downfall of Suharto’s authoritarian regime and the dawn of the Reform Era in 1998 emboldened some former victims of state violence to challenge the official version of what had happened in 1965. </p>
<p>Amid the emergence of democracy, the rise of <a href="https://theconversation.com/agar-terekam-dan-tak-pernah-mati-membawa-ingatan-65-ke-ruang-virtual-168080">new mediums and platforms</a> of expression, and rising interest <a href="https://theconversation.com/generasi-muda-tumpuan-baru-untuk-urai-benang-kusut-peristiwa-65-169039">among the younger generation</a>, they sought to expose the suppressed facts about the mass killing and imprisonment of suspected communists.</p>
<p>Some former political prisoners and other victims of 1965 began to speak out – including through memoirs such as by journalist and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33853410-cahaya-mata-sang-pewaris">former political prisoner Putu Oka Sukanta</a>, forming advocacy organisations with other former political prisoners such as <a href="https://ypkp1965.org/blog/category/sejarah/"><em>Yayasan Penelitian Korban Pembunuhan</em></a> (the Foundation for Victims of the 1965/1966 Killings), and even creative outlets such as the <a href="https://medium.com/ingat-65/salam-harapan-dan-perdamaian-dari-paduan-suara-dialita-a7e39f868a46"><em>Dialita Choir</em></a>.</p>
<p>In some cases, they finally started talking to their children and grandchildren about what they had experienced. Suddenly it became possible, with unevenness and still some risk, to state, “<em>I knew/know</em>”. </p>
<h2>Grappling with knowledge of the past</h2>
<p>Even though more and more former political prisoners chose to speak out, however, there still seemed to be an air of mystery and ambiguity regarding what kind of knowledge former political prisoners and their family members possess. </p>
<p>Did the knowledge involve, as many anticommunists had accused, some sinister inside knowledge of the many treacherous actions of the PKI? Or was it more related to the general knowledge of the history of the Indonesian Left prior to 1965?</p>
<p>Was the knowledge about the terrible state-sponsored violence that impacted so many millions of Indonesians in 1965-1966? Or was it more personal stories and past trauma that children and grandchildren of former political prisoners had acquired from their elders?</p>
<p>Whatever they were, anticommunists label this knowledge as “dangerous”, causing <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_15">a great deal of anxiety</a> among those Indonesians who defend the state and fear a “communist resurgence”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/monster-monster-di-balik-bayang-marxisme-kultural-di-barat-dan-hantu-komunisme-di-indonesia-146106">Monster-monster di balik bayang: Marxisme Kultural di Barat dan Hantu Komunisme di Indonesia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What’s clear is that the content of this knowledge and these memories seemed to matter much less to the former political prisoners themselves, or their children and grandchildren. Instead, those that I talked to in my study choose to focus on how to use this knowledge of the past to <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71455-4_10">better their lives, escape stigma and promote justice and accountability</a> in Indonesia.</p>
<p>Sumanto, an elderly man who was imprisoned for six years for his involvement in the leftist youth organisation <em>Pemuda Rakyat</em> in the mid 1960s, told me he was comfortable describing his own sufferings to young, unrelated activists and human rights organisations for the purpose of addressing historical wrongs. </p>
<p>But with his own children at home, he had avoided telling specific stories.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I place more of an emphasis on making sure that my children have a good work ethic […] so that they can take responsibility for themselves, and not become dregs of society. If they can take responsibility for themselves, then they can help other people.” – Sumanto.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Two children of former political prisoners in their mid-20s told me that hearing their fathers’ specific stories of imprisonment had spurred them to seek more “objective” historical sources on 1965.</p>
<p>And, in a humorous tone, Siti, one daughter of a journalist who was abducted in 1965 described how her son used his knowledge of their specific family history to mischievously challenge his high school history teacher.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My younger child was eager to be taught history lessons, even before they were taught. He waited impatiently to take his classes so that he could ask the teacher: ‘Ms. Teacher, Mr. Teacher, do you know my grandfather?’ [laughs]” – Siti.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These observations suggest that, at a time when there is an <a href="https://theconversation.com/monster-monster-di-balik-bayang-marxisme-kultural-di-barat-dan-hantu-komunisme-di-indonesia-146106">ongoing backlash by conservative forces</a> in Indonesia against reckoning with the history of 1965, we should not see these various forms of “knowledge” practised by survivors and their children as a stain.</p>
<p>They are instead a mark of resilience and a spur towards future action in a struggle for <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-indonesia-resolve-atrocities-of-the-1965-66-anti-communist-purge-57885">justice and accountability</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Baca juga:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-indonesia-resolve-atrocities-of-the-1965-66-anti-communist-purge-57885">How should Indonesia resolve atrocities of the 1965-66 anti-communist purge?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Conroe has previously received funding from the IIE Fulbright Award, U.S. Department of State (2004-2005)</span></em></p>
The 1965 killings in Indonesia not only led to the death and imprisonment of many, but also forced survivors to shoulder knowledge of this history through silence, acceptance, and resilience.
Andrew Conroe, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Trinity College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/101410
2018-08-15T23:03:01Z
2018-08-15T23:03:01Z
When Canada did – and didn’t – stand up for human rights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232096/original/file-20180815-2924-1fl15tf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The leaders of the 18 Asia-Pacific economies pose for a family photo in Vancouver in 1997. Indonesia's Suharto is sixth from the left. Protests against human rights violations were kept hidden from Suharto during the summit. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Justin Trudeau’s government is under fire not only from Saudi government officials, but also from some Canadians who have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/saudi-arabia-tweet-sanctions-canada-twitter-1.4777825">implictly criticized</a> Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland for being too aggressive in advocating for the release of Saudi human rights activists. </p>
<p>A tweet from the minister expressed her support for the activists, while her department followed up the next day with another seeking the “immediate release” of Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1025030172624515072"}"></div></p>
<p>None of it was anything unusual: Western diplomats call for the “immediate release” of political prisoners all the time. </p>
<p>Canada’s <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/national/opinion-canadian-arms-sales-to-saudi-arabia-human-rights-and-raif-badawi">Parliament unanimously called for the “immediate release” of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi</a> (Samar’s brother) in 2015. That followed a similar <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-stands-firm-on-support-for-saudi-blogger-raif-badawi/article23755574/">unanimous motion for Badawi’s “immediate release” by the Quebec National Assembly</a>. </p>
<p>The same U.S. State Department official who <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-us-sidesteps-getting-involved-in-escalating-saudi-canada-dispute/">now asks Canada and Saudi Arabia to sort out their dispute</a> called on Russia earlier this year to <a href="https://twitter.com/statedeptspox/status/1004124328731045888">“immediately release” Ukrainian prisoners</a>. Navi Pillai, then-United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2014/07/472742-saudi-arabia-un-concerned-harsh-sentences-against-human-rights-defenders">urged Saudi authorities in 2014</a> “to immediately release all human rights defenders.” Saudi Arabia imposed no sanctions on the U.N. – instead it stayed in, and soon afterwards sought and won a seat on U.N. Human Rights Council.</p>
<p>“Saudi Arabia must immediately free women human rights defenders held in crackdown,” <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23270&LangID=E">nine U.N. experts added</a> in June 2018 — again prompting no Saudi attack on the UN or its Human Rights Council (of which the Saudi kingdom remains a member). </p>
<h2>Nothing remarkable</h2>
<p>So there’s little remarkable in Freeland’s anodyne call on Twitter for the “immediate release” of two Saudi activists. It is typical diplomatic language, and actually falls short of what the United Nations human rights system has said on several occasions. </p>
<p>What is remarkable is that <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-saudi-arabias-bold-move-has-nothing-to-do-with-canada/">Saudi government reaction</a> has allowed Canada to be portrayed as a human rights champion even as it continues to <a href="https://www.opencanada.org/features/latest-saudi-behaviour-another-reason-cancel-arms-deal/">arm Saudi Arabia</a> and thus implicitly accepts Saudi human rights violations. </p>
<p>The incident recalls other times when authoritarian regimes have reacted with anger to Canadian words on human rights. Some lessons might be drawn from these past incidents. </p>
<p>There were similar clashes between Canada and Indonesia back in the 1990s, a time when Indonesia’s military regime was a lightning rod for human rights concerns in ways similar to Saudi Arabia today. </p>
<p>In 1991, Indonesian soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters in East Timor, now Timor-Leste. They had invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and had occupied it ever since, at the cost of more than 100,000 dead. The <a href="https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/school-of-humanities-and-social-sciences/timor-companion/santa-cruz">massacre at the Santa Cruz cemetery</a> in the Timorese capital, Dili, prompted a wave of protest in Canada. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231749/original/file-20180813-2909-1nsqvmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children hold photos of the victims of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre during the 19th commemoration in Dili, East Timor, in November 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jordao Henrique)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Barbara McDougall, foreign minister in Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=yWkWnQRy7WsC&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=mcdougall+freezes+aid+indonesia&source=bl&ots=7CnQEze3hy&sig=ptVgYUO7Qg9vcIU2cmnamkCKCp4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib7MLvmuPcAhXnxlkKHfm7COYQ6AEwAHoECAAQAQ#v=onepage&q=mcdougall%20freezes%20aid%20indonesia&f=false">froze three planned aid projects to Indonesia</a> and stopped permitting Canadian arms sales to the Suharto regime. </p>
<p>When the Netherlands also froze its aid, Indonesia responded with fury. It <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/12686/">rejected any future Dutch aid</a> and forced the dissolution of the Dutch-led consortium that co-ordinated foreign aid to Indonesia in favour of a more compliant Consultative Group on Indonesia. </p>
<p>Indonesian anger also targeted Canada, as Canadian foreign affairs files reveal. Ottawa was “treating us like a child,” complained one Indonesian cabinet minister. Another accused Canada of a “colonial mentality.” The Canadian Business Association in Jakarta warned against “meddling in the internal affairs” of Indonesia. </p>
<h2>McDougall stood firm</h2>
<p>Yet <a href="http://etanaction.blogspot.com/2016/11/25-years-after-santa-cruz-massacre-did.html">despite lobbying by Canadian businesses</a> and by Trade Minister Michael Wilson, McDougall declined to grant new aid or permit arms sales to Indonesia. Canadian diplomats worked quietly to maintain open channels with Indonesian counterparts, and McDougall stood firm. Opposition parties agreed and even called on her to go further. Canada maintained its position and bilateral relations continued relatively smoothly. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=782&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231751/original/file-20180813-2903-1pei01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=983&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson (right) shares a laugh with Barbara McDougall after presenting her with the Order of Canada during a investiture ceremony at Rideau Hall in October 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Jonathan Hayward)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Public protests in Canada, however, continued to spark Indonesian government rage. In 1994, Guelph University held an arms-length review of its regional development project in Indonesia. When the review handed down a critical comment on human rights in Indonesia, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=JMfP-kb7QiAC&pg=PA196&lpg=PA196&dq=guelph+university+indonesia+sulawesi+timor&source=bl&ots=FqcJOt8UZ-&sig=V_Skj13vq66KgmVfdSkAZq4aiYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj54OH4nePcAhXLslkKHSYZC_EQ6AEwAnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">the Indonesian government immediately pulled the plug</a>, giving project staff six weeks to get out of the country.</p>
<p>When a Timorese refugee in Canada, <a href="https://greenvillage-timor.org/about-bella/">Bella Galhos</a>, started to campaign for Timorese human rights from her new home in Ottawa, Indonesian diplomats tried to pressure her through her family. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231755/original/file-20180813-2906-1cx0of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bella Galhos at a news conference in Ottawa in September 1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Benjamin Parwoto, Indonesia’s ambassador to Canada, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=fMJADwAAQBAJ&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=bella+galhos+parwoto&source=bl&ots=QcXuaX4ulX&sig=AVp3mF0mFLZMvhSS3-IkMEqPlGY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwio--2snuPcAhWjzlkKHQxXCHMQ6AEwDXoECAYQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">visited Galhos’s mother in Dili</a> accompanied by a military escort, making what appeared to be threats. </p>
<p>Galhos went public and Parwoto was raked over the coals in the Canadian media and summoned for a tongue-lashing by Lloyd Axworthy, foreign minister in Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government. </p>
<p>Through this diplomatic clash, Canadian diplomats remained firm that they would advocate for the safety of a Canadian resident’s family. Galhos’s family was a valid topic of Canadian concern, not an Indonesian internal affair. The parallel to current events is clear: Canada spoke out for Samar Badawi in part due to previous advocacy for her brother Raif, whose wife, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ensaf-haidar-raif-badawi-saudi-canada-relations-1.4775315">Ensaf Haidar, lives in Quebec</a> with their children. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231752/original/file-20180813-2921-1q9aagu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ensaf Haidar is seen in this photo standing in front of a poster of her husband, Raif Badawi, in June 2015 in Montreal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In these early 1990s cases, Canada’s government stated concerns on human rights grounds and did not back down when Indonesian officials responded with anger and threats. It did not use tweets, a form of communication that did not yet exist, but it did use the 1990s equivalent — written statements made available to the media and the public. </p>
<p>Canada emerged with less credit in 1997, when it was scheduled to host the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at the University of British Columbia. </p>
<h2>The APEC protests</h2>
<p>Chrétien and Axworthy were keen to make sure the summit succeeded, and pressed hard for Gen. Suharto to attend. Yet <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/we-were-at-this-tipping-point-apec-protests-at-ubc-continue-to-shape-politics-20-years-later-1.4417358">activists in Canada</a> continued to make Indonesia’s human rights record a public controversy. They plastered the streets of Vancouver and other cities with posters of Suharto’s face and the slogan “Wanted: for crimes against humanity.” </p>
<p>This enraged Indonesian diplomats, who called the posters “soft terrorist tactics” and threatened a boycott of APEC and other damage to Canada-Indonesia relations. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5CWNKp0Uyyw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC News.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cost to obtain Suharto’s presence included a promise to spare the Indonesian president the sight of protesters. When activists armed with arrest warrants tried to carry out a citizens’ arrest of Suharto, they were promptly arrested by RCMP officers. </p>
<p>The RCMP later used pepper spray to stop protesters from scaling a fence that marked off the APEC meeting zone, and forcibly cleared the roads leading out of the meeting area at summit’s end, using force to keep Ottawa’s promises that Suharto would not witness any protesters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=692&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=692&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231754/original/file-20180813-2900-swzpjw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=692&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A demonstrator is assisted after getting pepper spray in her eyes when police used the spray to break up a demonstration at the APEC Summit in Vancouver in November 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dan Loh)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/police-behaviour-at-apec-97-poses-fundamental-questions-that-go-far-beyond-who-got-pepper-sprayed-and-why/article767820/">police crackdown on protests at APEC</a> saw Canada’s government painted as an enemy rather than a defender of free speech. </p>
<p>Faced with Indonesian anger and threats, Canada had surrendered to Indonesian demands. It emerged looking weak and won no favours from Indonesia in return. </p>
<p>When Axworthy considered offering Canadian “good offices” to mediate the East Timor dispute, the Indonesian foreign minister refused on the grounds that “Canadian NGOs are the most ferociously anti-Indonesian in the world and he is skeptical, therefore, of the Canadian government’s ability to resist domestic political pressure and maintain its neutrality.” </p>
<h2>Public pressure advances human rights</h2>
<p>The comparison of these 1990s cases suggests that when confronted with threats, Canada best serves its interests by standing firm. It also suggests that public expressions of diplomatic concern, rather than “quiet diplomacy” alone, are a useful tool for rights advocacy. </p>
<p>Indonesia felt the growing pressure so much so that, by 1998, it allowed a <a href="https://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/school-of-humanities-and-social-sciences/timor-companion/countdown">referendum in East Timor</a> to resolve the issue one way or the other — a Timorese demand that Indonesia’s government had refused for many years. In that referendum, the Timorese opted massively for independence. </p>
<p>The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is now southeast Asia’s most democratic state and makes <a href="https://www.asiapacific.ca/canada-asia-agenda/15-years-after-independence-whatever-happened-east-timor">useful and creative diplomatic contributions </a> to this day. Public debate in Canada and other countries over human rights in Timor and Indonesia helped make this possible. </p>
<p>If there is a lesson from Canada-Indonesia clashes, it is that Canadian rights advocacy, both private and public, can be useful — and that Canada should not surrender to threats from authoritarian states to abandon advocacy. </p>
<p>Ironically, Canada’s words on human rights in Timor and Indonesia were stronger than those offered recently by Freeland on Saudi Arabia — and unlike Freeland’s words, were sometimes backed by concrete actions. </p>
<p>The Saudi incident, in fact, has displayed a stark gap between Canada’s strong words on human rights, in the Badawi case and others, and the lack of teeth behind those words — shown best by Canada lecturing others on human rights while trying to sell arms arms that in turn will be used to violate these very human rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canadas-checkered-history-of-arms-sales-to-human-rights-violators-91559">Canada’s checkered history of arms sales to human rights violators</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Webster receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
Canada’s clashes with Indonesia in the 1990s over human rights abuses contain lessons for the current Canadian-Saudi Arabian diplomatic dispute.
David Webster, Associate Professor of History, Bishop's University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84856
2017-10-26T14:24:53Z
2017-10-26T14:24:53Z
Arms trade activists not guilty – but the UK will keep selling to Saudi Arabia
<p>Two anti-arms trade activists, Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse, have been <a href="https://twitter.com/SamWalton/status/923544594406629376">found not guilty</a> of criminal damage after they were accused of breaking into the BAE Systems plant in Warton, Lancashire, with the intention of disarming warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Their protest has strong echoes of a case in 1996, when four women broke into the same plant and used a hammer to damage a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2012743.stm">Hawk jet</a>. Known as the “Ploughshares Four”, those women made legal history when they were <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/pounds-15m-hawk-attack-women-freed-1331285.html">acquitted despite having admitted criminal damage</a>. The court accepted that their action was lawful because it prevented the greater crime of genocide by the regime of former Indonesian president <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/27/obituaries.johngittings">Haji Mohamed Suharto</a> against the people of East Timor, which was then under an <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers/disarming-war-hawk-ploughshares-story">illegal Indonesian occupation</a>.</p>
<p>The trial of the Ploughshares Four put defence exports firmly on the political agenda. When Labour came to power in 1997, arms sales became a litmus test for the credibility of a so-called <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/04/98/labour_-_one_year_on/84778.stm">ethical foreign policy</a>, spearheaded by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/aug/08/guardianobituaries.labour">Robin Cook</a>. New Labour <a href="http://www.acronym.org.uk/old/archive/19fosec.htm">claimed</a> that: “Britain is, again, leading by cleaning up the arms trade” – and government licences were to be denied where there was a clearly identifiable risk that proposed exports might be used for internal repression.</p>
<p>In practice, things proved far less clear-cut. Although the government eventually <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/09/indonesia">admitted</a> that British-made weapons had been used to put down demonstrations in Indonesia, it never accepted that Hawk aircraft had been used in East Timor. Eyewitness accounts disseminated by Nobel Peace laureate <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1996/ramos-horta-facts.html">José Ramos-Horta</a> were not considered objective evidence.</p>
<p>There is no such ambiguity when it comes to today’s Saudi-led campaign in Yemen and, on that front, the current government has made its position perfectly plain. </p>
<h2>Legitimate targets</h2>
<p>In 2015, the then-foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/11500518/UK-will-support-Saudi-led-assault-on-Yemeni-rebels-but-not-engaging-in-combat.html">confirmed</a> that British-made aircraft were being used in the Yemen conflict. For campaigners, this is <a href="https://www.caat.org.uk/campaigns/stop-arming-saudi/a-shameful-relationship.pdf">shameful</a>; like Indonesia under Suharto, Saudi Arabia has a poor human rights record and is one of the FCO’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-rights-and-democracy-report-2016">human rights priority countries</a>. Yet, as in the Indonesian case, the UK government nevertheless sees a strong defence relationship with the Saudis as vital to British interests. When giving evidence to the Defence Select Committee this week the defence secretary Michael Fallon indeed lamented that criticisms by MPs of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/25/michael-fallon-urges-mps-prioritise-arms-sales-human-rights">‘not helpful’ in securing lucrative arms sales</a>. </p>
<p>Arms sales to Saudi Arabia have galvanised protest for many years. Nevertheless, the <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-12-19/debates/B8EBA03B-5FFC-44CF-8989-883F62F675D4/Yemen">admission</a> by Fallon, that a “limited number” of British-made BL755 cluster bombs had been dropped on Yemen brought a new potency to those objections.</p>
<p>The bombs were old, manufactured in 1986 before they were outlawed by the <a href="http://www.clusterconvention.org/">2008 Ottawa Convention</a>. As the Blair government discovered there is a particular problem with equipment exported under previous administrations, for which governments try to avoid responsibility. Fallon further insisted that the bombs had been dropped against “legitimate military targets”, ignoring the objection that cluster bombs pose an <a href="https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-use-of-cluster-munitions-by-saudi-arabia-in-yemen-and-the-responsibility-of-the-united-kingdom/">indiscriminate risk to civilians</a> long after they have been dropped, whatever the original target.</p>
<p>The Saudi-led coalition action in Yemen is quite different to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. While the UK did not recognise Indonesia’s claim to sovereignty over East Timor, it accepts that Saudi Arabia’s intervention is in accordance with international law because Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, the legitimate president of Yemen, had requested it. To critics, however, this does not justify the extent of civilian casualties. The objection, therefore, is not primarily that British-made jets are being flown over Yemen, but that they are being used to violate international humanitarian law. </p>
<p>The question was the subject of a <a href="https://www.caat.org.uk/resources/countries/saudi-arabia/legal-2016/2017-07-10.judgment.pdf">judicial review</a> which sought to establish whether the UK government was obliged by law to halt export licences where there is “a clear risk that the arms might be used in the commission of a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law”. The contrast with the Ploughshares verdict could not be greater, but it is a matter of debate as to which verdict is perverse.</p>
<h2>Litmus test</h2>
<p>20 years on from the Ploughshares case, Britain is still very successful at selling arms abroad. In the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-defence-and-security-export-figures-2016">latest figures</a> published by the Department of Trade and Industry, the UK is said, to be the second largest global defence exporter on a rolling ten-year basis. But while the government continues to pursue its defence relationships with major arms buyers such as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-agreement-strengthens-uk-saudi-arabia-defence-relationship">Saudi Arabia</a>, the issue of British arms sales is at the heart of the debate over what values should drive Britain’s foreign policy. </p>
<p>At Labour’s 2017 conference, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry evoked her predecessor Cook by calling for a UN-led investigation into alleged violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi coalition and for a “radical revolution in values”. <a href="http://labourlist.org/2016/10/john-woodcock-the-crisis-in-yemen-must-not-be-ignored/">Not all Labour MPs are on board</a> – but nor were they in Cook’s day.</p>
<p>The ethics of foreign policy are far from simple, but the imperative to clarify them isn’t going away. As the current foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, recently told parliament:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is because the world looks to Britain, and it is because the work of the UK overseas is so vital for global security and stability, that it is absolutely vital that we resist the temptation to run down our defences and abrogate our responsibilities to our friends and partners around the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most are unlikely to disagree with that statement. But arms sales are still a key indicator of the ethical health of British foreign policy – and the question is whether arming a friendly state like Saudi Arabia counts as “responsible”. The implication of today’s verdict at Burnley Crown Court is that it is not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Robertson-Snape does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The UK has never ironed out the ethics of its role in the arms trade. Will the debate ever be resolved?
Fiona Robertson-Snape, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Staffordshire University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67985
2016-12-02T07:06:50Z
2016-12-02T07:06:50Z
Thailand’s future under King Rama X: lessons from three Asian countries
<p>Thailand’s crown prince has <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38168912">become King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun</a> or Rama X, the tenth monarch of the Chakri dynasty, succeeding his father who died on October 13. But great uncertainly remains about Thailand’s future – and that of the monarchy – both within the country and <a href="https://kyotoreview.org/issue-13/the-future-of-the-monarchy-in-thailand/">among international observers</a>. </p>
<p>Much attention has focused on the personality of the <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/thailand-succession-playboy-prince-must-work-hard-improve-his-tainted-reputation-1586226">unpopular Crown Prince</a>. While the international media has noted his <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/scandal-sex-and-crop-tops-the-scandalplagued-life-of-playboy-prince-vajiralongkorn/news-story/c66430cb5f508259c4d5270347ea72bd">erratic personal life</a>, of much greater concern is his reputation for <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21678277-purge-prominent-people-causing-alarm-thailand-never-saw-it-coming">ruthlessness</a>, which could harm the overwhelming respect for the monarchy in Thailand.</p>
<p>Despite the superficial appearance of a modern constitutional monarchy (carefully crafted by palace propaganda), Thailand’s monarchy is, in reality, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149942.The_King_Never_Smiles">deeply conservative</a>. Can it modernise itself after the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and survive a changing world?</p>
<p>Thai royalists like to claim that no other country can be compared to Thailand. But there are at least three comparable cases in Asia’s recent history that may shed light on Thailand’s possible political future.</p>
<h2>Mao Zedong’s China</h2>
<p>The first is China, following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. The <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674058156">last decade of Mao’s premiership</a> in China – like the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-15641745">last ten years of King Bhumibol’s reign</a> in Thailand – was a period of great political turmoil. </p>
<p>Although ideologically from opposite ends of the political spectrum, both leaders played crucial roles in establishing the regimes that came to dominate their country: the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/chinese-rev">Communist Party of China</a> and the <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/08/08/thailand-returns-to-military-monarchy/">military-bureaucracy-monarchy power bloc in Thailand</a>. </p>
<p>Both figures were the subject of <a href="http://share.nanjing-school.com/dphistory/files/2013/06/Extended-Essay_February_Cesar-Landin-2403vg5.pdf">totalitarian personality cults</a> spread <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/world/southeast-asia/king-bhumibol-the-personality-cult-surrounding-thailands-father-of-the-nation">by the mass media</a> and <a href="http://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/cult-of-mao/">the education system</a>. Both were politically untouchable. </p>
<p>In both countries, conformity to the <a href="http://www.chaipat.or.th/chaipat_english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4103&Itemid=293">idiosyncratic ideas</a> of the ruler took the place of rational political debate. In both cases, ideologically extreme groups took advantage of the power vacuum created by the ageing and weakening of the ruler to seize power, ostensibly to protect his legacy: the <a href="http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/gangoffour/Gangof4.html">“Gang of Four” and the Red Guards</a> in China, and in Thailand, <a href="http://www.academia.edu/25820151/2016_Thailand_s_Hyper-royalism_Its_Past_Success_and_Present_Predicament">hyper-royalist street movements and an arch-royalist clique</a> within the military. </p>
<p>Yet shortly after Mao’s death in 1976 the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/special_report/1999/09/99/china_50/gang.htm">Gang of Four were swiftly overthrown</a> and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/prof_dengxiaoping.html">Deng Xiaoping manoeuvred his own rise to power</a>. As Deng consolidated his authority, Mao’s supporters within the CCP were eventually sidelined. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/09/27/china-under-deng-xiaopings-leadership/">Deng brought</a> an end to the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, strengthened relations with the West, and began the process of reforming China’s economy and opening the country up to the world. </p>
<h2>Suharto’s Indonesia</h2>
<p>Another comparison is with Thailand’s regional neighbour, Indonesia. The two countries share many similarities. Both King Bhumibol and the former military dictator General Suharto came to power during the acutely polarised politics of the Cold War in Southeast Asia. And military dictatorships were established in both countries. </p>
<p>King Bhumibol and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/903024.stm">Suharto were fervent anti-communists</a> and played key roles in the <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/10/14/what-is-king-bhumibols-legacy/">suppression of communism</a>. Both cultivated <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8258058a7a7d44d0873dfcd301a2660e/thai-king-bhumibol-was-bridge-close-relations-us">close relations with the United States</a>, which <a href="http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/doc427.pdf">supported their regimes</a> financially, militarily, and diplomatically. And both were crucial to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012700506.html">adoption of policies of economic liberalisation</a> and the <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/10/14/what-is-king-bhumibols-legacy/">capitalist transformation of their countries</a>. </p>
<p>Suharto, who increasingly acted in the manner of a Javanese sultan, styled himself the “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/27/AR2008012700506.html">father of development</a>”, while King Bhumibol was lauded in North Korean-style state propaganda as the “<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149942.The_King_Never_Smiles">development king</a>”.</p>
<p>When Bhumibol came to the throne in 1946 the finances of the <a href="https://silkwormbooks.com/products/thai-capital-after-1997-crisis">Thai royal family were in dire straits</a>. Today, Thailand’s monarchy is the <a href="http://www.richestlifestyle.com/richest-royals-in-the-world/">the wealthiest in the world</a>, surpassing the Arab oil monarchs and the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth II.</p>
<p>But following Suharto’s resignation in May 1998, amid the economic disaster of the Asian Financial Crisis, <a href="http://www.insideindonesia.org/how-the-new-order-collapsed">the New Order military dictatorship collapsed</a>. Indonesia went through a process of <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/18855">rapid and far-reaching political reform</a> that transformed the country. For all its problems, Indonesia today is <a href="http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/10/26/how-is-indonesias-democracy-doing/">perhaps Southeast Asia’s most democratic nation</a>.</p>
<p>But the chairman of a communist party and the president of a newly formed nation are modern political offices. The Thai king, by contrast, is conceived of, on the one hand, as the descendant of an ancient caste of <a href="http://www.sjonhauser.nl/naresuan-the-great.html">warrior-kings</a>, and on the other as a <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6222-thailands-theory-of-monarchy.aspx">future Buddha</a>. The military and religious legacy of the Thai institution of monarchy <a href="http://www.royalty.nu/Asia/Thailand/">dates back to the 13th century</a>. </p>
<p>While Mao and Suharto are gone, the Chinese Communist Party and the Indonesian presidency remain. Yet, it is by no means certain that Thailand’s monarchy can survive King Bhumibol’s passing in the same way.</p>
<h2>The Shah of Iran</h2>
<p>The third comparison is Iran after the Shah. At first glance, Buddhist Thailand might not appear to bear comparison with Islamic Iran, yet there are, in fact, startling similarities.</p>
<p>Both countries had old monarchies which, unlike many in Asia, <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-was-Thailand-never-colonized">survived the colonial era unscathed</a>. The kingdoms they ruled, though formally independent, were dominated by the European imperial powers – especially the British Empire. In the aftermath of World War II, the monarchy in each country was weak, parliamentary democracies were evolving, and the political forces of the Left were on the rise.</p>
<p>The Cold War changed everything. With US assistance, reactionary forces in each country crushed the emerging democratic regimes – famously in the case of Iran <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-role-1953-iranian-coup">with the assistance of a CIA and Mi6-sponsored coup</a> that overthrew the democratically-elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, and restored the autocratic Shah. </p>
<p>Iran and Thailand became key US allies in the <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/how-the-shah-entangled-america-8821">struggle against communism in the Middle East</a> and <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8258058a7a7d44d0873dfcd301a2660e/thai-king-bhumibol-was-bridge-close-relations-us">Southeast Asia</a> respectively. The US bolstered the authority of these monarchies as symbols of conservative stability.</p>
<p>In both countries <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/the-truth-about-thailands-social-media-surveillance/">networks of surveillance</a> and <a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1913&context=jil">repression were set up</a> to eliminate threats to the regime.</p>
<p>With democratic and leftist forces murdered, imprisoned, or in hiding, and farmers’ organisations, unions, and political parties banned or co-opted by the state, the two monarchs threw their authority behind policies of rapid economic development that transformed and polarised their societies. </p>
<p>Here the similarities end. </p>
<p>Shah Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in a massive revolution in 1978-9 that ended the two-and-a-half millennia-old Iranian monarchy and <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2013/07/revolutionary-iran-history-islamic-republic">established the Islamic Republic of Iran</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the victory of communist forces in Indochina and a home-grown Thai communist insurgency, Thailand’s <a href="http://www.cfr.org/thailand/mixed-legacy-king-bhumibol-adulyadej/p38398">King Bhumibol and its monarchy survived</a> – until now.</p>
<h2>Tipping point</h2>
<p>In all three Asian countries the passing of authoritarian rulers – Mao, Suharto, and Shah Reza Pahlavi – was followed by sweeping political and social change. </p>
<p>Thai society has been <a href="http://www.mei.edu/content/map/political-polarization-transition-and-civil-society-thailand-and-malaysia">acutely polarised for a decade</a>. The long duration of the conflict may encourage the perception that the country will just muddle through the succession, and that some political compromise will eventually be reached – as had been the case during previous periods of political turmoil during the late king’s reign.</p>
<p>But if the dramatic experiences of the three Asian countries discussed here following the passing of their powerful rulers provide any example, it would be short-sighted not to consider that a more far-reaching transformation than a royal succession might not also be in store for the Kingdom of Thailand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67985/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Jory does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It would be short-sighted to believe that a more far-reaching transformation than a royal succession might not also be in store for the Kingdom of Thailand.
Patrick Jory, Senior Lecturer, Southeast Asian History, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67313
2016-10-25T16:01:17Z
2016-10-25T16:01:17Z
When politics and academia collide, quality suffers. Just ask Nigeria
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142750/original/image-20161022-1751-7vjem6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When governments and students collide, university systems wobble.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African universities’ academic year lies in limbo as student protests rage on. The debate about free education won’t end any time soon and students are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-must-fall-fees-or-the-south-african-state-67389">demanding</a> that “fees must fall”. What many don’t seem to realise is that something else is on the verge of toppling: academic standards.</p>
<p>It’s just a matter of time before universities reach the tipping point into decline. All of the hard work that’s been done to set high standards and establish a good research <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/best-universities-in-africa-2016">reputation</a> on the African continent and further afield could be undone.</p>
<p>This is not hyperbole. It’s backed up by universities’ experiences elsewhere in Africa. Once student protests and the politicisation of academia become the norm, quality suffers. Nigeria offers particularly chilling evidence of this, as I’ll explain in this article.</p>
<p>South Africa must urgently come up with sustainable, reasonable solutions for dealing with student protests before it is too late to save the country’s universities from a quality crisis.</p>
<h2>Students are political animals</h2>
<p>No matter what happens in the coming weeks and months, I can say with certainty that student protests are here to stay. </p>
<p>Students constitute a vibrant part of civil society, a natural element of a democratic society such as South Africa’s. Today, the students’ concern is access to decolonised, free and quality education. Later students may turn their attention to something that doesn’t directly relate to their own welfare but that of society at large.</p>
<p>History tells us that students can topple governments. They can drive regime change. In Indonesia, for example, the student movement played <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=RWrm7tPzs1AC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">an instrumental role</a> in Suharto’s political manoeuvres and <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/suharto-takes-full-power-in-indonesia">eventual takeover of power</a> from President Sukarno in the late 1960s. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20080117160839331">The students</a> led protests against Sukarno’s government, even fighting his loyalists on the country’s streets. This eroded public trust in the government, paved the way for impeachment and ushered Suharto into power. Later, students turned on the man they’d supported. Throughout the three decades of his rule, they took Suharto on about corruption and the state of the economy. Eventually students occupied the Indonesian parliament grounds in May 1998 demanding Suharto’s resignation. <a href="http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20080117160839331">He resigned a few days later</a>.</p>
<p>This makes sense. Universities are training grounds for future leaders – and that includes political leaders. It’s rather duplicitous to praise students when they demonstrate excellence in science, technology or business that promises a great future, but simultaneously condemn them for political engagement. </p>
<p>It is better to nurture them in the discipline and art of political engagement. They should be groomed for this sort of leadership. Formal classes – at all levels of education, actually – provide an opportunity through which democratic principles and values can be taught. </p>
<p>Other groupings like civil society organisations and political parties could get involved too. They could work with students both in and outside classrooms to impart lessons in political engagement and strategy. These engagements would benefit individuals and society as a whole, grooming a new, disciplined body of leaders.</p>
<h2>The contagious effect of student protests</h2>
<p>This work is urgent.</p>
<p>The longer that student protests remain unresolved, the more intractable their unintended consequences will become. </p>
<p>One looming crisis point is the future of South Africa’s academics. Some, especially those who are internationally competitive, may decide to take their services to countries with less volatile academic environments. </p>
<p>This could have negative consequences for the country in the long term. In fact, <a href="https://www.idrc.ca/en/article/brain-drain-and-capacity-building-africa">statistics and studies</a> show that Africa is experiencing an <a href="https://www.enca.com/africa/extent-africa%E2%80%99s-brain-drain-frightening-mbeki">alarming exodus</a> of critical human capital that it needs for technological, scientific, and socioeconomic progress. The current protests and consequent suspension of classes or closures of universities will only exacerbate the situation in already-strained sectors such as health. </p>
<p>The flip side is that some academics see a genuine cause in students’ protests. This group is likely to stick it out and even to echo students’ demands. They risk being accused of fomenting trouble against the state; branded as elements that seek to disturb the peace and even dislodge the governing party from power. </p>
<p>Such a view of academics is not new to Africa. Take Nigeria, for instance. </p>
<h2>Nigeria’s struggles</h2>
<p>In the years following its <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/places/nigeria">independence from Britain</a>, Nigeria enacted pieces of legislation that systematically suppressed free and independent thinking. In his first reign over Nigeria between 1983 and 1985 General Muhammadu Buhari <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=V0FYXwY2sc8C&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=National+Association+of+Nigerian+Students+banned+buhari&source=bl&ots=X7gSWg7023&sig=2BTiFnFJWS6m0txz4gHYazSFtlE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJu4nNtu7PAhWhKsAKHY5tB84Q6AEINjAF#v=onepage&q=National%20Association%20of%20Nigerian%20Students%20banned%20buhari&f=false">banned</a> the National Association of Nigerian Students. He oversaw the arrests and detention of university students and sympathetic lecturers after students protested about the removal of subsidies on food and accommodation for students. </p>
<p>Buhari’s government also <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=SsCaOl0eXa4C&pg=PA173&dq=Nigerian+Medical+Association+buhari+dismisses&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI3vP7tu7PAhUFKsAKHfNyBFEQ6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=Nigerian%20Medical%20Association%20buhari%20dismisses&f=false">dismissed</a> many academics in Health Sciences faculties across the country for participating in a strike called by the Nigerian Medical Association. </p>
<p>Institutions of higher learning, often because of anti-government protests, were <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=TbCRKwiUPtAC&pg=PA157&lpg=PA157&dq=Oyebade+nigeria+universities+closures&source=bl&ots=OHiCYnL2wz&sig=1bjFOrOQJTsF5cIN1qFKMykgQQw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjU4-Cht-7PAhXpAMAKHcgIBEgQ6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=Oyebade%20nigeria%20universities%20closures&f=false">often closed</a> during the 1990s.</p>
<p>The government created the National Universities Commission and tasked it with ensuring Nigerian universities were adequately funded as well as allocating grants from the Federal Government to federally controlled universities. Through a set of decrees passed from 1974 to 1988, the NUC <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ773123">ate away</a> at university senates’ autonomy.</p>
<p>Government also appointed “sole administrators” in the place of vice chancellors to oversee public universities. A 1975 decree gave the Federal Government and head of state total power to appoint and remove vice chancellors.</p>
<p>These measures were at least partly based on government suspicions that universities were breeding grounds for secessionist ideas. The government’s interventions robbed Nigerian universities of financial, academic and administrative autonomy. They also contributed to <a href="http://search.proquest.com/openview/21841be9e1e07d88c7fa98f7fcf499b6/1.pdf?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=48673">an exodus</a> of academics from the country’s universities – and from Nigeria itself.</p>
<h2>Politics is dangerous</h2>
<p>The politicisation of academia, then, definitely contributes to a decline in academic standards. This is a situation South Africa must work hard and fast to avoid. Yet, South Africa seems utterly reluctant to look elsewhere on the continent for lessons or learn from others’ experiences.</p>
<p>Two things are needed now: serious engagement and real leadership. Meetings, no matter how heated they get, offer an important space to improve relationships, gain understanding and develop a common approach towards decisively tackling the issue. </p>
<p>The department responsible for higher education must take the lead. Universities, students, the business community, industry and civil society all have a role to play too if South Africa is to find sustainable solutions. After all, this crisis has implications for the whole of society, now and for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67313/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Changwe Nshimbi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The politicisation of academia definitely contributes to a decline in academic standards. This is a situation South Africa must work hard to avoid. It can learn from others on the continent.
Chris Changwe Nshimbi, Research Fellow & Deputy Director, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66339
2016-10-06T06:49:42Z
2016-10-06T06:49:42Z
For reconciliation, Indonesians need to embrace a new understanding of the 1965 ‘anti-communist’ purge
<p>Over half a century after a bloody “anti-communist” purge, Indonesians remain divided about the events of 1965-1966, thanks to the 32-year hardline rule by former President Suharto, who both initiated the massacre and ensured that remained absent from official histories.</p>
<p>In the early hours of October 1 1965, six army generals and a high-ranking officer were abducted and murdered in a military-style secret operation. Within hours, Major General Suharto, then chief of Indonesia’s Army Strategic Reserve Command, led a counter operation to crush the <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/September-30th-Movement">September 30th Movement</a>, which had claimed credit for the abductions. </p>
<p>Despite the secret nature and scope of the operation, Suharto named the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as the main perpetrator, and initiated a purge that would end in the deaths of an estimated <a href="https://works.bepress.com/robert_cribb/2/">200,000 to 800,000 people</a> by the time it ended in 1966. </p>
<h2>Hidden from history</h2>
<p>Boosted by this success, Suharto was eventually made president in 1967 and sustained his “New Order” rule by preserving the spectre of communist threat. <a href="https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/article/view/3292">Government propaganda demonised the Communist Party of Indonesia</a>, painting members as traitors. </p>
<p>Former political prisoners who had been involved in organisations associated with the Communist Party and their families remain subject to <a href="http://www.insideindonesia.org/tapol-troubles">surveillance and discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>For decades, official national history was silent about the murders and the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people. The Suharto regimes’s version of history, which highlighted the generals’ deaths but not the purge that followed, dominated school textbooks, annual commemoration days, monuments and films. </p>
<p>This New Order perspective on the 1965 tragedy went unchallenged and became deeply embedded in the ritual of national remembrance.</p>
<h2>Coming to light</h2>
<p>But official history was unable to suppress local memory. In many villages and sites throughout Indonesia, <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/05/03/activists-report-122-mass-graves-of-1965-victims-across-java-and-sumatra.html">people knew about the existence of mass graves</a>, and locations where mass killings occurred. </p>
<p>These recollections could finally be voiced after Suharto gave up power in 1998 in the face of widespread student protests against corruption in the wake of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis">1997 Asian financial crisis</a>. Different narratives of the 1965 tragedy began finding their way to public awareness. </p>
<p>Several <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mutes-Soliloquy-Pramoedya-Toer/dp/0786864168">former political prisoners wrote</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Memoar_Pulau_Buru.html?id=_Vrc03rQPfAC">shared their experiences</a> of arrest and unlawful incarceration. Some even provided <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1900758.Tuhan_Pergunakanlah_Hati_Pikiran_dan_Tanganku">their own interpretation</a> of what actually happened on and after October 1st 1965.</p>
<p>And a number of local and international documentaries – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svYdHm5073E">Mass Grave</a> (2002), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367028/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl">Shadow Play</a> (2003), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326187/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3">40 Years of Silence: An Indonesia Tragedy</a> (2009) and <a href="http://theactofkilling.com/">The Act of Killing</a> (2012) – sparked international interest in the events of 1965-66. </p>
<p>These stories and films have stimulated public debate and discussion about the 1965 tragedy. Indonesians born after the purge became aware of these alternative narratives as they began reading and searching for more information about the massacre. Their reaction has been mixed: some became angry, some were confused, and others didn’t care.</p>
<h2>Differing perspectives</h2>
<p>Since 1965, the story of the massacre has been retold and remembered from various lenses. But perspectives from both the Suharto era and the current one remain incomplete.</p>
<p>While the New Order regime focused blame on the Indonesian Communist Party for abducting and killing the six generals, and was silent about the massacre that followed, recent emphasis has only been on human rights violations.</p>
<p>It highlights the mass killings, illegal incarcerations and the impunity of the perpetrators but is less open about acknowledging the events and national situation before killings.</p>
<p>Both perspectives are incomplete, reflecting a certain interest or agenda. And, after more than 50 years, the 1965 tragedy remains the most contested and controversial event in modern Indonesian history. </p>
<p>There’s no consensus on how to deal with this past violence but if Indonesia is to at least attempt to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, reconciling the views of the two sides is essential.</p>
<h2>Reaching reconciliation</h2>
<p>Since the fall of the New Order, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14672710902809351">there have been personal and group-level efforts to begin a dialogue</a> between the descendants of those who were politically in conflict with each other in 1965: former political prisoners and anti-communist groups. </p>
<p>These dialogues illustrate a commitment from both the sides involved to build mutual trust while trying to find ways to achieve reconciliation.</p>
<p>In April, a <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/04/19/1965-symposium-indonesias-way-to-face-its-dark-past.html">historic government-sponsored symposium</a> was held in Jakarta for two days. It attempted to investigate the 1965 tragedy using a historical approach – one that looks at both the local and international picture at the time of the massacre – with the goal of coming up with recommendations for dealing with this troubled chapter of the nation’s past. </p>
<p>This was the first time the various opposing camps were hosted in this manner. But it remains to be seen whether the current administration will follow up the symposium’s recommendations, or indeed make any indication of next steps.</p>
<p>Healing the national wound left by the 1965 tragedy and reconciling the Indonesian population will require a narrative that prioritises not just explaining what happened from one of two polar perspectives. Rather, it needs an honest, and – as much as possible – objective narrative that can help people to understand the nature of the tragedy, along with its terrible consequences. </p>
<p>Only then can lasting peace and reconciliation prevail.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66339/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yosef Djakababa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For decades, Indonesia’s official national history was silent about the murders and incarceration of hundred thousands of people. Moving beyond that will require a new understanding of what happened.
Yosef Djakababa, Lecturer at the International Relations Department, Universitas Pelita Harapan
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66338
2016-09-30T06:58:00Z
2016-09-30T06:58:00Z
Backgrounder: what we know about Indonesia’s 1965 ‘anti-communist’ purge
<p>International audiences were introduced to Indonesia’s 1965-66 massacre of “communists” by the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/awards?ref_=tt_awd">multi award-winning</a> 2012 documentary <a href="http://theactofkilling.com/">The Act of Killing</a>. While the details of what happened remain buried in the depths of time, here’s what we do know. </p>
<p>On September 30 1965, a group of left-wing soldiers calling themselves the <a href="https://global.britannica.com/event/September-30th-Movement">September 30th Movement</a> abducted six army generals and a first officer from their homes. A couple of hours later, the movement made a radio announcement that they had taken action to protect the country’s inaugural president, Sukarno, from right-wing generals who they claimed were planning a coup.</p>
<p>Reacting to the vacuum in the army high command, Major General Suharto took the army leadership. He cajoled and intimidated the movement’s troops in central Jakarta to surrender without much of a fight, and then stormed the movement’s headquarters at the Halim Airforce base. </p>
<p>In less than 48 hours, Suharto had roundly defeated the 30th September Movement. At about the same time, the abductees’ bodies were found in an old well in an area known as Lubang Buaya (Crocodile Hole) in east Jakarta. </p>
<p>The army accused the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) of being behind the movement, and of aiming to overthrow the government. This triggered the largest anti-communist purge and mass killings in modern-day Indonesia. Thousands of Indonesians suffered from years of incarceration and torture under the New Order, the regime built by Suharto when he became president in 1967. </p>
<h2>An orgy of violence</h2>
<p>After taking control of the situation, as well as media outlets, <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/3938.htm">Suharto launched an operation to destroy the PKI</a> and its followers. He dispatched the army’s Special Forces unit to arrest, imprison and kill Indonesians suspected of being members of the communist party. </p>
<p>On the third week of October 1965, an orgy of violence — including arrests, torture and murder — began in Central Java, followed by East Java in November, and continued in December to the island of Bali. </p>
<p>Similar efforts took place in other parts of Indonesia, but mostly on a smaller scale. <a href="https://works.bepress.com/robert_cribb/2/">Between 200,000 to 800,000 Indonesians</a> are thought to have been killed during the anti-communist purge. Many more were imprisoned, exiled, discriminated against and stigmatised. </p>
<p>Under the New Order regime that Suharto subsequently created, former political prisoners had their ID cards marked. And their children were not allowed to enter civil service or the military. </p>
<p>The PKI was indeed destroyed. And the country’s inaugural president, Sukarno was gradually removed from power as the army became the dominant political power in Indonesia. Suharto became de facto president by March 1966 and was appointed acting president by the parliament a year later. </p>
<p>From 1966 to 1998, the pro-Western Suharto dictatorship ruled supreme and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Terrorism-Political-Identity-Indonesia/dp/041537152X">suppressed memory of the massacre</a>. </p>
<h2>Power struggle</h2>
<p>The bloody events of 1965 did not happen suddenly; both domestic and international factors were involved. </p>
<p>Locally, there had been increasing tension among Indonesia’s political elites since <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.cow/indoneln0001&div=1&src=home">the country’s first general election in 1955</a> (after its declaration of independence in 1945). Out of the approximately 30 political parties that participated, the PKI was one of the major winners, coming fourth in election results.</p>
<p>This PKI gain dismayed and worried many members of the political establishment, especially anti-communist politicians, and the right-wing army leadership. </p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, this situation had created something of a “political triangle” in which three different parties wanted to take control of the country’s leadership: the elected President Sukarno, the PKI and the army. </p>
<p>What happened in 1965 can been seen as the climax of the tension that been building up since the first general election of the Indonesian republic.</p>
<h2>The global stage</h2>
<p>Internationally, Indonesia was something of a front for the Cold War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were interested in having the largest country in Southeast Asia in their <a href="http://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations/AAI3049945/">sphere of influence</a>, especially as Indonesia is quite rich in natural resources. </p>
<p>In this sense, the 1965 destruction of the PKI and Western nations’ support for General Suharto’s New Order government can be seen as part of efforts to prevent Indonesia from joining the Soviets. </p>
<p>After Suharto came to power in 1967, only the government’s side of the story was allowed in describing the events of 1965. Even though only a handful of PKI leadership were involved in the kidnapping, the New Order regime painted the murders of the army generals in 1965 as an attempted communist take over.</p>
<p>The government was <a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Terrorism-Political-Identity-Indonesia/dp/041537152X">silent on the massacre</a> of suspected communists and their sympathisers that followed. And any other version of events was disallowed; former political prisoners were not permitted to tell their stories, and anyone who tried to give a different version of events was <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/29/dispatches-censorship-back-indonesia">pressured or threatened by the government</a>. </p>
<p>Only after President Suharto resigned in 1998 following student protests triggered by the <a href="http://www.wright.edu/%7Etdung/asiancrisis-hill.htm">1997 Asian financial crisis</a> were Indonesians free to talk about what actually happened. Unfortunately, that freedom did not last very long. </p>
<p>Forces connected to Suharto have re-emerged and <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/behind-indonesias-red-scare/">dominated public discourse on the events of 1965 and 1966</a>. These included several radical anti-communist groups and military or police groups that had benefited from the Suharto government. They often attack forums that discuss topics related to the 1965 events and display anti-communist banners in public places. </p>
<p>Moves to suppress stories deviating from the New Order’s narratives are taking place to this day. To counter them, a growing number of young Indonesians are holding forums on 1965 events despite the risk of being attacked. They also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/30/it-is-50-years-since-the-indonesian-genocide-of-1965-but-we-cannot-look-away">publish writings on 1965-related issues</a> in the media and through the internet. </p>
<p>These young people are standing up in the belief that in order for the country to heal the wounds opened by this traumatic event and move forward as a true democracy, it must acknowledge its dark history, however painful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baskara T. Wardaya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
While the details of exactly what happened during Indonesia’s 1965-66 massacre of ‘communists’ remain buried in the depths of time, here’s what we do know.
Baskara T. Wardaya, Lecturer in History, and director of PUSDEMA (Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies), Universitas Sanata Dharma
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/47640
2015-09-30T00:39:52Z
2015-09-30T00:39:52Z
Behind the coup that backfired: the demise of Indonesia’s Communist Party
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95820/original/image-20150923-32052-1xay1cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C870%2C567&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indonesia's Communist Party had been part of the national political fabric since the 1920s and had contributed both major leaders and influential ideas to the nationalist movement. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PKI-1925-Commisariate_Batavia.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1965, at the height of the Cold War, a communist victory in Indonesia seemed plausible. At the time, the Indonesian Communist Party was the third-largest in the world with three million members.</p>
<p>In that year, however, the systematic destruction of Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI) began. The Indonesian army destroyed the party after a group calling themselves the “30th September Movement” kidnapped six generals in a botched attempt to weaken the army.</p>
<p>The movement involved a handful of top PKI leaders, but it was used as a pretext not only to ban the party but to conduct a massacre of party members that claimed half-a-million lives.</p>
<p>To this day, half a century later, communism is banned in Indonesia. The murders, torture and imprisonment of party members and their associates have never been accounted for.</p>
<h2>Events of October 1</h2>
<p>On October 1, 1965, Indonesians awoke to hear a radio announcement telling them that a “30th September Movement” had taken action to prevent a military coup and to secure the Indonesian president Sukarno’s position. </p>
<p>The movement’s leader, Lieutenant Colonel Untung, was commander of the presidential guard. He assured listeners that the president was safe, that “a number of generals” had been arrested and that a “Revolutionary Council” would shortly take responsibility for government. </p>
<p>People roughly knew who those arrested generals were. The army’s high command, led by General Ahmad Yani, in alliance with the defence minister, General A.H. Nasution, was locked in a political stand-off with Sukarno and the PKI, led by D.N. Aidit. </p>
<h2>Who was behind the 30th September Movement?</h2>
<p>The events of October 1 became a pivotal moment in Indonesia’s history. For decades, Indonesia observers treated the events of that day as a whodunnit. They assembled a list of suspects, assessed the meagre evidence against each of them, sought to divine their potential motives and came to a conclusion. </p>
<p>Not only Aidit and Untung featured in the line-up, but also Sukarno and General Suharto, who crushed the movement and replaced Sukarno as president. Sundry other characters such as the air force commander and the Chinese intelligence agency were also mentioned in these conspiracy theories. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95822/original/image-20150923-32048-r39pgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">PKI leader D.N. Aidit had outlined his pre-emptive strike plans to prevent a military coup to Chinese leader Mao Zedong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADN_Aidit_speaking_at_PKI_election_meeting_1955.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After years of uncertainty, <a href="http://www.history.ubc.ca/citation/pretext-mass-murder-september-30th-movement-and-suhartos-coup-detat-indonesia">recent findings</a> show the 30th September Movement was the product of months of planning by Untung, the PKI leader Aidit and a handful of others. </p>
<p>The movement aimed to throw the army high command off balance, discredit the generals as apparent enemies of Sukarno, and shift Indonesian politics to the left so that the PKI could come to power rapidly, though probably not immediately. </p>
<p>The movement happened at a precarious time in Indonesian politics. By 1965, the only significant powers at the centre of Indonesian politics were the president, the PKI and the army. Under Sukarno’s “Guided Democracy” presidential authority was supreme and all political players had to circle around him. But Sukarno’s failing health meant the system could not survive indefinitely. </p>
<p>The great uncertainty at the time was whether the party and the army would wait until Sukarno faltered before attempting to secure power, or whether either would seek an early advantage by launching a coup.</p>
<p>We may never know whether Yani, the army chief, had indeed planned a coup for later in October 1965, though we can be sure that the army high command had a range of contingency plans. </p>
<p>By presenting the movement as a defensive action by Sukarno loyalists, Aidit hoped to shelter the party from any rebuke for breaching the uneasy political stalemate. In August 1965, he outlined these plans to his friend, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. </p>
<p>Untung’s desire to protect the president was sincere, but he became a stooge for Aidit. </p>
<h2>Enter defiant Suharto</h2>
<p>The disappearance of the generals did not throw the anti-communist forces in the army off balance. Instead, the relatively unknown General Suharto, commander of the army’s strategic reserve, took swift action. </p>
<p>Claiming military necessity, Suharto assumed army command. Within 24 hours, he cajoled and intimidated the movement’s troops in central Jakarta to surrender. He then seized the movement’s headquarters at Halim air force base, just south of the capital. There, a few days later, the bodies of the six kidnapped generals were found dumped in a narrow well.</p>
<p>Sukarno attempted to maintain political balance between the army and the party. On the afternoon of October 1, he appointed General Pranoto, one of the few senior generals not known to be anti-communist, as interim army commander. </p>
<p>Suharto, however, refused to give up his authority. In effect, the anti-communist Suharto replaced the anti-communist Yani, thwarting Aidit’s hope for a decisive shift to the left. </p>
<h2>Army propaganda against the PKI</h2>
<p>The murder of six generals was a shock to Indonesians. </p>
<p>There was little evidence of PKI involvement – the documents establishing Aidit’s role in the planning were discovered only decades later – but in the tense political environment people found the idea of a communist pre-emptive strike against its opponents plausible. </p>
<p>Suharto and his group quickly built on this shock. They falsely reported the generals were tortured and sexually mutilated by young communist women before being killed. </p>
<p>In the space of a few weeks, the military propaganda machine unfolded a story that the whole of the PKI was complicit in a massive conspiracy.</p>
<p>The propaganda claimed the murder of the generals was just the first step in a planned communist seizure of power that would include the murder of the party’s enemies on a far greater scale. Party members throughout the country were said to have been planning to murder their neighbours.</p>
<p>Rubbish pits were reinterpreted as makeshift graves, prepared in advance for the bodies of the PKI’s victims. Simple household utensils were reinterpreted as instruments of torture. These accusations underpinned the murder of perhaps half-a-million PKI members and associates over the course of six months.</p>
<h2>Persistent conspiracy theories</h2>
<p>Despite documents revealing Aidit’s role, some observers still support alternative theories for two reasons.</p>
<p>First, admitting Aidit’s role is sometimes seen as sailing perilously close to the Suharto regime’s justification of the massacres. However, there is a vast difference between acknowledging Aidit’s secret plans and subscribing to Suharto’s false claim that hundreds of thousands of communists were in on the plot. </p>
<p>Other theories also persist because there are niggling fragments of evidence that do not fit with a simple Aidit-Untung plot. For instance, Sukarno is reported to have warned a visiting Indian businessman to leave the country quickly because something was about to happen. </p>
<p>To understand these fragments we need to appreciate one of the cardinal laws of conspiracy: if there is one conspiracy, then there is probably more than one. </p>
<p>High stakes and tense circumstances typically push many political players to conspiratorial thinking. Sukarno, factions of the army, local and foreign intelligence bodies and perhaps even different factions in the PKI might all had their own plans, some of which have left us with perplexing evidence.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, there are two especially intriguing mysteries concerning the events of October 1 1965. </p>
<h2>Did Western intelligence dupe Aidit?</h2>
<p>First, did Aidit have real evidence of a planned generals’ coup later that month or was he deliberately deceived?</p>
<p>Western intelligence agencies deeply feared the PKI would come to power as Sukarno declined. They imagined a premature PKI grab for power would <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/06/indonesian-communist-party-suharto-massacre-purge/">provide the pretext to defeat the party</a>.</p>
<p>Did they find a channel to feed misleading information to Aidit that led him to plot the coup as a countermeasure? </p>
<p>We may discover the answer when Western intelligence files are finally opened – not likely to be in the lifetime of any of us. However, Jakarta was such a pungent stew of rumour and speculation in 1965 that it would be difficult to show that a Western intelligence intervention had decisively influenced PKI thinking.</p>
<h2>Did Suharto know?</h2>
<p>Second, did Suharto know more about the 30th September Movement plans than he ever admitted? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95823/original/image-20150923-32068-fiwrap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Suharto as the commander of army’s strategic reserve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suharto_as_the_commander_of_Kostrad.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That Suharto was not among the generals who were kidnapped is not significant. He was generally considered non-political and would hardly have been involved in planning a coup.</p>
<p>We also need not take seriously the argument that Suharto’s highly effective seizing of the initiative after the disappearance of his commanding officers speaks to inside knowledge.</p>
<p>Military commanders are trained to react decisively, and a characteristic of conspiracies is that they often work to the advantage of those who react to them, rather than those who plot. Plotters typically find it hard to adapt their carefully laid plans to changing circumstances, whereas responders can improvise. </p>
<p>However, there is an important fact linking Suharto to the coup plotters. One of the movement’s leaders, Colonel Abdul Latief, was a close friend of Suharto. He spoke to Suharto on September 29 and again just hours before Untung’s forces set out to arrest the generals.</p>
<p>At his trial 13 years later, Latief claimed that at the first meeting, in Suharto’s home, he and Suharto briefly discussed the likelihood that senior generals were planning a coup. The second meeting took place in a Jakarta hospital, where Suharto was seeing to his son Hutomo, who had scalded himself with hot soup. </p>
<p>He claimed to inform Suharto that action was under way. “Having reported to him,” Latief testified:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I obtained moral support because there wasn’t any reaction from him.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Latief’s account of Suharto’s impassiveness rings true. Both before and after 1965, Suharto’s modus operandi was to keep his cards close to his chest and to move decisively at the last minute. </p>
<p>Latief’s information to Suharto may have been oblique and ambiguous, and it is uncertain what Suharto could or should have done at that moment. But Suharto was probably mentally prepared for action on the morning of October 1 in a way that none of his colleagues were.</p>
<h2>Tragic end</h2>
<p>The subsequent ease with which the communist party was destroyed showed how fragile it was in comparison with the army. A tattered economy along with old antagonisms between communism and Islamic groups, too, would have presented a PKI government with extraordinary difficulties.</p>
<p>A communist Indonesia was unlikely. That makes it all the more tragic then that the coup provided the pretext for the murder of half-a-million people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Cribb receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>
The killing of six army generals on October 1, 1965, became a pretext to destroy Indonesia’s communist party.
Robert Cribb, Professor, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/41753
2015-05-15T02:54:25Z
2015-05-15T02:54:25Z
How will a 40% cut in Australian aid affect Indonesia?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81772/original/image-20150515-28633-heu4ks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Joko Widodo is not crying over cuts to Australian aid for Indonesia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Eka Nickmatulhuda</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian government has announced it will cut aid to Indonesia <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/about-us/corporate/portfolio-budget-statements/Pages/budget-highlights-2015-16.aspx">by A$220 million</a>, or 40%, compared to the allocation in last year’s budget. President Joko Widodo responded with a straightforward <a href="http://news.liputan6.com/read/2231843/jokowi-hak-australia-potong-bantuan-masak-mau-nangis-nangis">statement</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the authority of Australia, not ours. Should we cry for that? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some people might connect the Australian decision with the execution of Bali duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in April. This theory is understandable for two reasons. First, the deliberations for the budget were carried out at the time when the Australian public was still discussing the executions. Second, Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, once warned Indonesia of the “consequences” of the death penalty decision. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-fair-budget-not-for-the-poor-losing-australian-aid-in-record-cuts-41609">cuts in Australian aid</a> have been nearly across the board in Southeast Asia. Countries such as Vietnam, Myanmar, the Philippines and Laos are experiencing 40% cuts too. Aid for Cambodia, which has agreed to accept refugees currently on Nauru, remains the same. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, in regards to Indonesia, how will this aid cut impact on the country’s development and Indonesia-Australia relations?</p>
<h2>Indonesia’s reaction</h2>
<p>Widodo’s response to the aid cut sounds like a soft statement, but it may also imply that “aid is for their interests, not ours”. </p>
<p>Some people in Indonesia might have expected Widodo to have made a stronger statement. Something like President Suharto’s response to the Netherlands in the 1990s for linking human rights to development aid. Suharto told the Netherlands to stop the aid after Indonesia’s former colonial ruler had suspended it following killings by the Indonesian military in Santa Cruz, East Timor. </p>
<p>Widodo, having held government offices for more than 10 years as mayor of the Central Java town Solo and governor of Jakarta, has first-hand experiences working with projects supported by foreign aid. During his governorship, he asked the central government to stop the aid from the World Bank. </p>
<p>The amount of aid is not significant, but the “talks” consume a lot of time and energy, and often offend the recipients’ dignity as a state official and as a nation. </p>
<h2>Indonesia’s policy on foreign aid</h2>
<p>Indonesia treats foreign aid as complementary to the national budget. Foreign aid is only added to the projects that are being financed by the national budget. Without foreign aid, projects will still continue using this budget. </p>
<p>The present budget aid cuts by Australia might affect some ministries’ projects in Indonesia, such as the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Public Works. If the cuts include projects that have been agreed between Indonesia and Australia, such as those with the Ministry of Health (maternal health and sanitation) and Ministry of Public Works (rural infrastructure and water), these projects may be affected in the short term. </p>
<p>The ministries should restructure their budget allocations. Mostly, this will not be a big issue for the ministries, since the aid funds are only for expanding the reach of the government projects.</p>
<p>Since 2003, the Indonesian government has passed a number of regulations, such as
Law of Finance (No. 17/2003), Law of National Treasury (No. 1/2004) and the National Development Plan (No.25/2004) to create integrated budget, finance and development planning mechanisms and frameworks. </p>
<p>These laws limit the size of foreign aid to Indonesia. In Indonesia’s budget, the government limits foreign aid to be no more than 3% of the national annual budget. This is to ensure that Indonesia’s development does not depend on foreign aid and, most importantly, that the country’s development policies are not dictated by foreign donors.</p>
<p>Since the dismissal of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI), a consortium of countries providing aid in Indonesia under the World Bank’s co-ordination in 2007, Indonesia has prioritised foreign co-operation with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Japan. </p>
<p>Although Australia is claimed to be the second-biggest donor to Indonesia in the last few years (after Japan), Indonesia has yet to see it as a priority in this co-operation. Australia is relatively new as a large donor to Indonesia, starting in 2009. Its aid predictability is also not guaranteed; that is a concern for Indonesia after learning from the experience of the CGI process (“pledging big, less actualisation”).</p>
<h2>Biggest losers</h2>
<p>Australian aid cuts in Indonesia will affect two main actors. First, the companies (mainly from Australia) that implement the projects in Indonesia. Second, the consultants who have long been acting as “aid rent seekers” in Indonesia. Both actors in fact significantly reduce the flow of aid funds to the beneficiaries.</p>
<p>Civil society organisations in Indonesia have long discussed and criticised the pool of consultants who are quite powerful in influencing donors and the Indonesian government.</p>
<p>After the dissolution of CGI as a donors’ forum, agencies such as Multi Donors Trust Fund, Decentralisation Support Facility and the most recent one, the National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM) Support Facility (PSF), were established. These agencies are mainly used by consultants – some former consultants of the World Bank – for rent-seeking activities. The consultants act as intermediaries in aid negotiations, mostly for saving their jobs in the country.</p>
<p>Australian aid also supports these agencies. Support for the PNPM Support Facility from Australia was the biggest. </p>
<p>The budget cuts will affect these agencies more than the people of Indonesia. The government of Indonesia will go on using its own budget and the people of Indonesia might not be aware of Australia’s decision. </p>
<p>The implementation of the 2014 Village Law and the establishment of a special Ministry for Village Development will ensure the promotion of, and more effective budget allocation for, rural development. With the expansive development programs of the present government, Indonesia will prioritise co-operation with China, Japan and Korea and might leave Australia on the backburner.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Don K. Marut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Australia has cut aid to Indonesia by 40%. That may cause diplomatic displeasure, but the country has restructured its development programs in recent years to be less dependent on foreign money.
Don K. Marut, Lecturer in International Relations, Binus University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/22163
2014-01-27T19:42:21Z
2014-01-27T19:42:21Z
The Act of Killing: Oscar nod lifts the lid on Indonesia’s dark past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39704/original/gqjxkwhs-1390433918.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A still from the film, The Act of Killing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2012 FINAL CUT FOR REAL APS, PIRAYA FILM AS AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA LTD</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Academy Award nominations rarely enter into the domain of politics, and certainly have not delved into Indonesian politics in the past. This year, however, is different.</p>
<p>US-British director Joshua Oppenheimer’s film The Act of Killing has already won numerous <a href="http://dogwoof.com/blog/post/dogwoof_films_win_at_cinema_eye_awards/17944">international awards</a> and has now been <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-act-of-killing-oscar-nomination-for-what-must-be-the-bravest-film-crew-of-the-year--but-no-one-knows-their-names-9073035.html">nominated</a> for an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.</p>
<p>The film has received <a href="http://moviecitynews.com/2014/01/the-top-tens-of-2013-155-lists-and-counting/">rave reviews</a> from film critics, as well as one off-beat (and frankly misleading and illogical) <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-act-of-killing">paean</a> from Slovenian Marxist philosopher, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek">Slavoj Zizek</a>.</p>
<p>Confronting, controversial, The Act of Killing aims to explain the politics of the past in Indonesia. The documentary presents two connected aspects of Indonesia: the anti-communist killings of 1965-1969; and the role of gangsters in present-day politics.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tQhIRBxbchU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Troubled times</h2>
<p>In 1965, Indonesia was the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/12/world/cia-tie-asserted-in-indonesia-purge.html">front line of the Cold War</a>, with the largest communist party outside of the USSR and China, pitted against an alliance of the army and anti-communist political parties and civil society groups, including Muslim organisations.</p>
<p>A “coup” – actually an attempted purge by leftists against rightist generals – on September 30, 1965, resulted in a series of actions by military officers in which one of them, Suharto, took power.</p>
<p>Suharto initially led a military counter-action against what became known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_September_Movement">30th September Movement</a>, the leftist military, by which the Communist Party of Indonesia was first made illegal, and then wiped out.</p>
<p>Finally Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, was forced to surrender power to Suharto, who went on to rule for another three decades. Internationally, Suharto was hailed as the “saviour” of his country, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/soehartos-unsung-legacy/2008/02/01/1201801032980.html">praise continued</a> by Australian leaders such as Paul Keating.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39727/original/syctz3fs-1390439914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno (left) with his successor, Suharto (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Billy Simpson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The abolition of the Communist Party of Indonesia was carried out through the mass murder of members, affiliates, and anyone accused of being linked to communism. Conservatively estimated at 500,000, and probably more like 1 million, the number of those slaughtered included many by-standers.</p>
<h2>Meet the killers</h2>
<p>The Act of Killing, which centres on the stories of several men hired to murder communists during the purge, is often called “surreal”, especially because of the weirdness of some of the scenes of cross-dressing and kitsch Hollywood-recreations. </p>
<p>Most surreal is Joshua Oppenheimer’s chief narrative device of getting one of the killers to re-enact his actions. The old killer has the help of members of his gang, a local branch of the Indonesian paramilitary organisation Pemuda Pancasila (the Five-Principles Youth).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39715/original/xv9nd2dv-1390437720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this still from The Act of Killing, an ageing killer demonstrates his garrotting technique.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2012 FINAL CUT FOR REAL APS, PIRAYA FILM AS AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA LTD</span></span>
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<p>Pemuda Pancasila was founded in the 1960s as an anti-communist group in the north Sumatran city of Medan. Its success in carrying out the killings there led it to become a national paramilitary body, deployed by the regime of President Suharto as part of his dual approach of both terrorising the population and bringing development to the nation. The organisation runs on stand-over tactics and the supervision of local criminal activities, such as gambling.</p>
<p>Pemuda Pancasila survived the change of power when Suharto was forced out of office in 1998, and the film shows how well-placed Pemuda Pancasila is today.</p>
<p>In one scene, then Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, addresses a gathering of the organisation held in Medan, praising them as representatives of the spirit of free enterprise in a play on their role as <em>preman</em>, the Indonesian word for gangster, but which, deriving from the Dutch <em>vrijman</em>, also means “free man”.</p>
<p>On one level, The Act of Killing is a portrayal of how deeply entrenched criminality is in the Indonesian ruling class, receiving support from politicians at all levels, and indeed serving as the provider of political representatives and leaders at regional and national levels.</p>
<p>As Oppenheimer <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323848804578610091596141774">says</a> of his film: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s about how a traumatic past remains alive in the present and continues to traumatise society and therefore enable corruption and a regime of fear.</p>
</blockquote>
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<span class="caption">A still from The Act of Killing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2012 FINAL CUT FOR REAL APS, PIRAYA FILM AS AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA LTD</span></span>
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<h2>An open wound</h2>
<p>Is it any wonder that Indonesia has never come to terms with the mass killings that began in the latter months of 1965? Attempts at setting up a national reconciliation process were begun soon after the fall of Suharto in the late 90s, but only from one side. The initiative came from survivors from the left and from young people, often from religious groups, eager to sweep aside the dictator’s legacy. The military and those implicated in the killings have shown no reciprocal interest.</p>
<p>The attempts at reconciliation have been stymied from above. The current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has declared that he does not want to dwell on the past. His declaration is hardly surprising, since his late father-in-law, General Sarwo Edhie, was one of the main organisers and leaders of the killings.</p>
<p>One of the most surprising aspects of The Act of Killing is that it does not explain the role of the military in leading the killings, even passing up the opportunity to focus on Sarwo Edhie when one Medan murderer points out the general’s picture on his wall.</p>
<p>This problem of representing responsibility for the killings leads to misunderstandings for viewers unfamiliar with Indonesian history.</p>
<p>Viewers such as Zizek who have not read up on the events come away with the idea that Pemuda Pancasila were responsible for killings outside Medan. In fact, the sites of the most intense killings were in East Java and Bali, where those responsible were the military, in conjunction with a Muslim body and militias from the Nationalist political party. </p>
<p>Zizek, in his review, also states the 1965 killings were primarily anti-Chinese. The killings were focussed on communists, but in Medan that included a left-wing organisation with chiefly Chinese membership, as well as an excuse for the Pemuda Pancasila to mobilise anti-Chinese racism for economic ends.</p>
<p>The Act of Killing arrived in Indonesia at the point at which activists were losing hope of anything being achieved. The national Human Rights Commission had just handed down a report on the killings, to have it rejected by the Attorney General on spurious grounds; Indonesia’s Constitutional Court had ruled that a truth and reconciliation commission was unlawful; and series of actions by both government and civil society groups had led to censorship of history books and the school curriculum.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scene from The Act of Killing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2012 FINAL CUT FOR REAL APS, PIRAYA FILM AS AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA LTD</span></span>
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<p>The film was not the first outside-made film to focus on the killings. Anthropologist Rob Lemelson’s film <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40_Years_of_Silence:_An_Indonesian_Tragedy">40 Years of Silence</a> movingly portrays the continued effects of the killings on the families of victims and former political prisoners.</p>
<p>The Act of Killing is more confronting than 40 Years of Silence because it focuses on the perpetrators, and through its portrayal of one, Anwar Congo, a not-too-bright, Hollywood-loving gangster, even <a href="http://www.undertheradarmag.com/interviews/director_joshua_oppenheimer_on_his_documentary_the_act_of_killing">crosses over the line</a> of sympathy with the killers.</p>
<h2>Official silence</h2>
<p>Indonesian government officials have tried to avoid discussion of The Act of Killing (and they haven’t made the mistake of banning it, as some promoters of the film mistakenly suggest). They were probably adopting the standard official procedure when faced with a major problem: ignore it and hope it will go away. The publicity led last week to one Presidential spokesman <a href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-reacts-to-act-of-killing-academy-nomination/">complaining</a> that the film was bad for Indonesia’s image, and trying to use a “two wrongs make a right” logic of drawing attention to issues like oppression of Aborigines in Australia.</p>
<p>The Act of Killing’s primary role in Indonesia has been to stimulate debate. The many private (“guerrilla”) showings, and a special issue of the national magazine Tempo based on the film, have reopened discussions of events.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A still from the film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">©2012 FINAL CUT FOR REAL APS, PIRAYA FILM AS AND NOVAYA ZEMLYA LTD</span></span>
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<p>The reactions of Indonesian audiences have been varied. According to some reports, the experimental nature of the narrative, the length, and the surrealistic imagery has left mass audiences cold. Ariel Heryanto, a leading Indonesian cultural studies scholar, has already <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eNP6BnCWN8">commented</a> on this lack of strong reaction. As one Indonesian commentator observed to me, the film was not really made for Indonesian audiences.</p>
<p>Regardless of the content – and the film does have ethical and representational flaws – the main impact of the film is its symbolic value in Indonesia. The Act of Killing shows that the legacy of the mass murders of 1965 should not just go away. The killings need to be confronted as part of a conversation that is both national and international.</p>
<p>The Academy Awards have already made a contribution to such a conversation.</p>
<p><br>
See <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/oscars-2014">further Oscars 2014 coverage</a> on The Conversation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Vickers receives Australian Research Council grants, and has received funding from the Getty Foundation.</span></em></p>
Academy Award nominations rarely enter into the domain of politics, and certainly have not delved into Indonesian politics in the past. This year, however, is different. US-British director Joshua Oppenheimer’s…
Adrian Vickers, Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.