The Indonesian Holocaust

by Mukhtar Rana  

first published in the New Worker in April 2007

IN SEPTEMBER and October 1965 one million Indonesians were killed and another million were arrested and tortured by Suharto, an Anglo-American puppet military dictator. They put him in power and kept him in power for 35 years until the people pulled him down.

The Anglo-American rulers claim themselves to be champions of the freedom of nations, freedom of speech and so on but history proves that in practice the attack other countries to loot their natural resources and to put into power their puppets.

 Iraq has a tremendous store of oil, only less than Saudi Arabia. On the excuse of bringing democracy to Iraq Bush and Blair have joined hands and so far around about one million human beings have lost their lives: Iraqis, Americans and British, civilians and armed forces.

 Bush thinks that by setting up a puppet regime he will be able to force them to sign an oil agreement which will enable a lot of profit to go to the American companies to make up for the war expenses and more.

 But in the case of Indonesia the Anglo-American imperialists did not even have the excuse of bringing democracy. On the contrary, they conspired against the democratically elected President Sukarno and replaced him with a military dictatorship. And during this period one million Indonesian socialists were killed and another million were imprisoned and tortured.

 The BBC was used to fool the people of Britain. It is interesting that the BBC representative Roland Challis gave a true picture of what was happening but the die-hard imperialist mangers of the BBC did not broadcast his report. On the contrary, they broadcast the false report sent by the British MI6.

 When I asked the BBC to apologise for the wrongdoing they claimed it was not the fault of the BBC but more due to the interference of the Government.

 As a matter of fact hypocrisy is the hallmark of British rulers; they claim they are a democracy whereas they are a monarchy. They claim it is a constitutional monarchy but they keep the people in the dark about the constitution and it is not written down.

 But to my amazement the communist and socialist organisations in Britain never bothered to raise their voices in protest on behalf of the Indonesian communists (PKI)  one of the biggest communist parties in the world.

 I am not sure if this was due to rifts among socialist countries and parties more opposed to each other than to the imperialists of Great Britain. Or were these organisations just socialist or communist in name only?

Even if, as part of the pro-China communist sphere, the Indonesian communists were not as wonderful as themselves, they were still human beings. Or could it be that the socialist and communist organisations in Britain were racist?

 Imagine if one million British or other European nationals had been killed or arrested and tortured, what would have been the attitude of the British communist organisations.  But luckily Amnesty International has a factual report about the Indonesian holocaust.

 The Jewish holocaust in Germany was well campaigned and rightly so, it should have been campaigned and Germany had to apologise and compensate the victims.

 But the Indonesians are not Europeans nor so well off and not powerful enough to launch a similar campaign. Nevertheless they are fellow human beings and I humbly think we must do something to seek justice or the victims of the Indonesian holocaust and I am personally committed to it.

 And I am seeking the help of others who feel that justice should be done to the victims of the Indonesian holocaust, whether socialist or not.

 And the first step I would request would be to let us have a small committee of committed people who are prepared to take up this very important task in a country where the rulers have hypocrisy as their hallmark.

 I request you as a supporter in this to seek a meeting with Tony Benn because he was a member of the cabinet that played a bloody and cruel role in the Indonesian holocaust. I asked him about it and he said that he condemned the cruelty but his fellow Cabinet members kept him in the dark.

 I thought he should have responded as a Cabinet Minister when he learned of the cruelty. Why does he not mention it in meetings now?

 I will appeal to socialist and communist leaders and other human beings who believe in human rights to campaign for justice for the Indonesian holocaust.

 To our good luck the Al Jazeera television service broadcasts incidences of cruelty and condemns the people responsible. I hope we may be able to attract the Al Jazeera TV to the cause of the Indonesian holocaust.

 And I would like to cooperate with friends to launch a campaign to tell the BBC to tell the truth about Indonesia if necessary by picketing the BBC. I would like to invite communist and socialist leaders to express their opinion on the Indonesian holocaust.

 We need to support a human rights group in Indonesia now that is campaigning to put the Anglo-American puppet dictator Suharto on trial.

 I recently met a United Nations Human Rights Commissioner at a War on Want meeting; I asked her about justice for the victims of the Indonesian holocaust. She replied that Britain and the US are doing their best to sabotage any efforts to campaign for justice through the UN.

 Indonesia is full of natural resources that the imperialists have been plundering. It has perhaps the biggest stores of natural gas in the world.

 But the plundering has led to a series of environmental disasters in the region. The tropical rain forest has been raided for hardwood timber and now they are being cleared to make way for plantations of palm oil. A few years ago the burning off of the natural forest caused massive smog pollution throughout the region. Thousands of species of wildlife are being endangered.

In the past the leaders of the US were heroes like Washington and Lincoln and the fathers of the constitution. But now they are just the enemy of humanity whose main purpose is to lust after the natural resources of other countries and impose puppets over them even if they have to kill millions of opponents in the process, as they did in Indonesia.