On the Front Lines of the Cold War

by Seymour Topping

  The September 30 Movement conspirators who had become committed to serving Sukarno by purging his army opponents conferred secretly for weeks in Jakarta. Two of Aidit’s aides participated, Supono and a mysterious “Sjam,” who was believed to be Tjugito, a member of the party’s Central Committee. Also drawn in were Mustafa Sjarif Supardjo, a brigadier general commanding a division in West Java, and Lieutenant Colonel Untung of Sukarno’s Palace Guard. The plotters decided to go forward in their move against the generals on the night of September 30. Two days prior, Foreign Minister Subandrio left for the island of Sumatra on what was described as a speaking engagement. He would be safely distant if the plot went awry.

  The command post for the purge of the generals was the Halim Air Force Base, which was under the personal command of Marshal Dhani. At about 10 P.M. on September 30, trucks loaded with troops arrived at the base, and shortly thereafter General Supardjo and Colonel Untung, who were charged by the conspirators with actually carrying out the coup, arrived by jeep. At about 3:30 A.M., seven squads made up of members of the Presidential Palace Guard and the Pemuda Rakyat, the Communist youth organization, under the command of Lieutenant Arief, set out in trucks to seize the seven senior army generals in their homes. Before leaving Halim, the squads were told in a briefing that a Council of Generals backed by the American CIA intended to overthrow Sukarno and the Great Leader’s revolution. They were to arrest the seven generals, telling them that they were wanted immediately at the presidential palace for a meeting with Sukarno. The generals were then to be brought back alive or dead to Halim before being taken to nearby Lubang Buaja—the Crocodile’s Hole—the area in which members of the Communist youth organizations had been undergoing military training.

  At about 4 A.M., the squads descended on the homes of General Nasution, the minister of defense, General Yani, the army’s chief of staff, and the other five generals. Although the generals had received warnings weeks before of the possibility of a move against them, the houses inexplicably had no special security arrangements. Sentries at the homes of Nasution and Yani were easily overpowered. Yani and two other generals who tried to fight off the attackers were killed, and three of the four other generals, among them Major General S. Parman, chief of intelligence, were taken alive. Those still alive and the bodies of the dead were taken in a truck to the Crocodile’s Hole. There, an apparently uncontrolled frenzy took place. The living generals were tortured and killed, and the bodies of all six were dumped at the site into the well, which was covered up with debris. Participating in the murderous orgy were members of Gerwani, the Communist women’s organization. What transpired was evident by the condition of the severely mutilated bodies, which were discovered and brought to the surface by frogmen on October 4. The body of Major General Suprapto, a deputy chief of staff, who was taken alive to Crocodile’s Hole, according to an official medical report, bore thirty wounds, including broken bones, bullet wounds, and knife thrusts. Some of the generals were said to have had their eyes gouged out.

  Despite the elimination of the six, the purge was, in fact, badly bungled and fatally so for the perpetrators. The key target of the death squads, Defense Minister Nasution, the top general, escaped. When the raiders broke into Nasution’s home, as his wife stalled them by slamming doors shut ahead of the intruders, the general slipped into the courtyard, climbed over a wall into the neighboring garden of the Iraqi ambassador, and despite a fractured ankle managed to limp away. In the melee the raiders shot Nasution’s sister and his five-year-old daughter, who was in her arms. The child died later in a hospital. The PKI was to pay an incalculable price for the murderous assault on the Nasution family. It was General Nasution before all others among the generals who pressed for the subsequent massive purge of the Communists. He was present when the frogmen brought up the remains of his murdered fellow generals.

  Sukarno arrived at Halim in the late morning of October 1 after spending some time at the house of Dewi, his Japanese wife. Awakened at 6 A.M. with news of the attack on Nasution’s house, he set out for Halim, stopping over at the home of another wife, Haryati, before going on to the air base. According to the testimony much later before a military court trying Major Sujono, the commander of the ground forces at Halim, Sukarno first went to the operations command center and then to a house which had been prepared for him. Soon after, General Supardjo, the military chief of the plotters, arrived at Halim and went to President Sukarno to report. Major Sujono said he and others stood outside the house and watched through a window. He said he saw the president pat Supardjo on the shoulder, apparently approvingly. Supardjo then emerged from Sukarno’s quarters and called out to Colonel Untung, saying: “The president has given his blessings and in a little while, a statement executed by the president himself declaring his support will be announced.” Later in the day an announcement was made on Jakarta Radio of the formation of a Revolutionary Council. The broadcast, made in Untung’s name, said that a number of generals had been purged to forestall a counterrevolutionary coup by the Council of Generals planned for Armed Forces Day, October 5. The broadcast did not cite any approval of the coup by Sukarno, who by that time must have been made aware that General Nasution had escaped.

  The plotters made two fatal blunders. One was the failure to capture Nasution and the other their apparent decision not to put General Suharto, commander of KOSTRAD, the Strategic Army Reserve, on the list of those to be purged immediately. Suharto returned to Jakarta the morning of October 1 from a fishing trip and became aware of what was transpiring from the radio broadcasts of the Revolutionary Council. He learned that Colonel Untung had brought two Communist-infiltrated battalions, the 454th and 530th paratroops from Central and East Java, into the city on the pretext of participation in the celebration of Armed Forces Day. Their mission was to seize the radio station, which they did, and take control of Merdeka Square in the center of the city. One phase of the plot went awry with a comic aspect. Only the senior officers of the two battalions knew of the plot, and they neglected to tell the troops of the agreed password for effecting liaison with the allied Communist groups. When the Communist youth units summoned to the capital arrived at Merdeka Square and shouted the password at Untung’s battalions, the puzzled troops responded by arresting the lot. The youth group was unarmed, since Colonel Untung had been unable to deliver arms, as promised.

  General Suharto acted decisively as soon he became apprised of what was transpiring in the capital and at the Halim Air Base, where Marshal Dhani had assembled his forces. Suharto went to his KOSTRAD headquarters and rallied loyal elements of the armed forces and police. He managed to persuade the 530th Paratrooper Battalion brought to Jakarta by Untung to defect to him while the colonel’s other battalion fled to Halim to join Dhani’s troops. Suharto located General Nasution, who was still being hunted by the death squads. He put Nasution under protective guard and offered him command of the army. When the injured defense minister declined, he took command himself. Later, he would nudge Nasution aside entirely as he took full political power. By 8 P.M. Suharto was in control of Jakarta and preparing to move against the Halim base. His problem became more complex when he learned that Sukarno was there. He contacted the base and asked that the president leave before he attacked. Sukarno delayed, uncertain as to where he should go. The plotters urged him to go Madiun, a city in the western part of the province of East Java where the 1948 Communist uprising took place, apparently thinking that with the presence of Sukarno they might be able to reorder their forces. Sukarno was dissuaded by others who felt he would be endangered, and when Sukarno’s wife Dewi arrived at Halim, he left with her in her car for his palace at Bogor. At dawn, Suharto’s commandos assaulted the base and after brief skirmishing occupied it. Before the base fell, Marshal Dhani flew off to Madiun, while the remnants of his troops fled hoping they could make their way to Central Java.

  On the morning of October 2, the official PKI newspaper, Harian Rakyat, committed a monumental blunder which prov
ided the army with public justification for its bloody purge of the Communist Party. The newspaper was circulated on the streets of Jakarta with an editorial registering approval of the Gestapu plot. Apparently, the paper had been printed and circulated before the editors became aware that General Suharto had already in effect put down the September 30 Movement. The editorial stated:

  It has happened that on the 30th of September measures were taken to safeguard President Sukarno and the Republic of Indonesia from a coup by a so-called Council of Generals. According to what has been announced by the September 30 Movement, which is headed by Lieutenant Colonel Untung of the Tjakabirawa battalion, the action taken to preserve President Sukarno and the Republic of Indonesia from the Council of Generals is patriotic and revolutionary . . . But, however, the case may be [that] this is an internal Army affair. On the other hand, we the people, who are conscious of the policy and duties of the revolution, are convinced of the correctness of the action taken by the September 30 Movement to preserve the revolution and the people . . . We call upon the people to intensify their vigilance and be prepared to confront all eventualities.

  The editorial effectively sealed the fate of the PKI leadership. Before his escape to Madiun, Dhani provided Aidit with a plane for a flight to Jogjakarta in Central Java. The PKI leader had arrived at Halim before midnight and had been present in the morning when General Supardjo briefed Sukarno. Aidit landed in Jogjakarta at 2 A.M. on October 2. Just before his arrival, Brigadier General Katamso, the army commander for the city, and Colonel Sugigsono, his deputy, were assassinated, and pro-PKI elements had taken control. Aidit told the local PKI leaders that Sukarno would arrive in the city soon to address a mass demonstration. Presumably, he expected Sukarno to proclaim his support for the September 30 Movement. But with the failure of the putsch in Jakarta, the Communists soon lost control of Jogjakarta to the army, and Aidit fled the city. In Surabaya, the big coastal city in East Java, another PKI stronghold, there was no Communist move of any consequence to take control. I was told there that a lieutenant and a squad of six men did go to the unguarded radio station, where they broadcast a “Revolutionary Proclamation.” When the surprised army commander in the city became aware of the Gestapu coup, he arrested the lieutenant, who was subsequently shot.

  On November 21, Aidit was captured near Solo, forty miles northwest of Jogjakarta, and executed the next day. When I traveled through East Java in July, I interviewed the army commander, General Sumitro, and asked him about the execution of the Communist leader. He would only say for the record, “You can be sure of one thing. Aidit is dead.” I was given, however, by members of his staff details of Aidit’s last hours. On November 21, 1965, at 9 P.M., the Indonesian military police ripped open a bamboo cupboard in the corner of a shabby bungalow near a railroad track, on the outskirts of Solo. They confronted a crouching fugitive, who arose, faced the guns, and said: “I am Aidit.” The Communist leader was interrogated briefly by a military police major and then asked to write a statement. He wrote until nearly 3 A.M. and then told the major: “I want to go to Jakarta. Can you help me?” The major replied that he was agreeable but they would first have to go to Sema-rang, the regional military headquarters. From there they could go by plane to Jakarta. Aidit was then put in a jeep and driven northwest on the road to Semarang. In the hills near Boyolali, the major halted the jeep at a desolate spot and told his prisoner to get out. Aidit was said to have exclaimed: “What is this? This is not legal!” Before he was shot, Aidit was said to have shouted: “Long Live the PKI.” He was buried in an unmarked grave. The details of Aidit’s execution and his last testament were not officially published.

  When General Suharto assumed full executive control of the country on March 11, he promulgated a ban on the Communist Party. It was only a gesture for the record, since the massive purge of the Communists had already begun in late October. Commando units were then sent knifing through the Communist strongholds in Central and East Java. General Sumitro, the East Java commander, told me that Suharto had issued a detailed order in mid-November that the Communist Party should be destroyed “structurally and ideologically.” Staff officers had visited the area commanders in early December to make sure the instructions had been understood and executed. “Most local commanders did their utmost to kill as many cadres of the Communist party as possible,” the general said. Recalling the 1948 Communist uprising at Madiun, which was also crushed by the army, Sumitro repeated what I had heard from army officers throughout Java: “They tried it at Madiun, and again in Jakarta, and we are not going to let them try it again.” Sumitro added: “The PKI was able to make a coup in Jakarta, but they did not move all over the country because they had no weapons. If Aidit had been allowed to organize his Fifth Force and equip it, he would have moved to take over in Central and East Java.”

  Whatever the degree of complicity and intentions of the PKI in the September 30 Movement and in the Gestapu killings, and whatever Aidit may have planned, the end effect was that it gave the army the rationale for carrying out the total destruction of its long-standing political enemies. In Jakarta, the army executed members of the PKI’s Politburo and Central Committee. Njoto, the deputy chairman, was arrested by military police as he was leaving Subandrio’s home in Jakarta and later shot, as was the third ranking member of the Politburo, Mohammed H. Lukman. Among others executed, accused of being ringleaders in the attempted coup, were General Supardjo, Colonel Untung, and Marshal Dhani. Foreign Minister Subandrio was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted, and he spent the next twenty-nine years in prison.

  Estimates of the number of people killed in the aftermath of Gestapu ranged from 500,000 to 1 million. My own estimate was 750,000, based on authoritative surveys conducted by university student organizations in October 1966 and checked by my Australian assistant, Frank Palmer, with Suharto’s aides and army sources. But it will never be known precisely how many thousands of members of the PKI, their sympathizers, and families were killed. My estimate includes thousands murdered in criminal sectarian violence, many of them members of the large Chinese community, which was despised by many Indonesians. Many murders were committed by Indonesians who exploited the purge-incited chaos to exact vengeance in personal vendettas or simply for material gain.

  Foreigners resident in Indonesia for decades were unable to make sense of the nature of the violence in all its hideous aspects. They spoke to me of how it seemed to be completely at variance with the gentle nature of the people, particularly the Balinese. Some said the populations may have been inflamed by highly colored stories of sexual mutilation of the slain generals. One of Indonesia’s most distinguished writers, recalling his own moment of blood anger, said: “There is a devil in us and when it gets loose, we can run amok en masse.” Many who participated in the killings of Communists justified their acts by saying, “It was them or us.” I heard stories in cities and towns alleging that graves had been dug by the Communists before September 30 to receive the victims of an impending coup d’état. Lists were said to have been seized from Communist Party files naming army officers, religious leaders, local officials, and foreign missionaries to be executed. Boxes of instruments to pluck out eyes in the torture of prisoners were said to be found in the possession of Communists. Some of the stories seemed to have been spun out of a need to rationalize the mass killings. I did not come upon any persuasive evidence that the Communists possessed large stocks of weapons or were planning an immediate general uprising.

  As I traveled through Java and Bali, there seemed to be no end to the killing. Many Indonesians whose relatives and friends had been slain were intent on collecting blood debts. The jails were jammed with people charged by the army with association with the PKI. The attorney general, Major General Sugiharto, told me he hoped to release about 120,000 detainees, many held in overcrowded prisons on bare subsistence rations, by the end of the year. At Solo in Central Java, Colonel Wibhawa said he had arrested 10,000 people in his region alone and
was “still mopping up.”

  Army leaders told me that most of the killing of Communists was done by the aroused population. But in my tour of the former centers of Communist influence, I found either that most executions were carried out directly by the military or that the army incited the populations to do the killing. At some centers near Solo the military was staging executions without trial of selected Communists. The military executed its condemned by shooting, but the population was left free to behead victims or disembowel them with knives, swords, and bamboo spears, often with prior rituals of extreme cruelty. In the Banyumas region of southern Central Java, the politically inspired killings had evolved into guerrilla class warfare, with debtors eliminating their creditors, and rural tenants killing landlords.