Suharto: Covering Up Western Complicity

Media Lens
Feb. 19, 2008

The death of the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto, on January 27 could have unleashed a flood of revelations detailing British and American support for one of the 20th century's worst mass murderers. Instead, the media continued the cover up that has so far lasted more than forty years.

The 1965-6 massacres that accompanied Suharto's rise to power claimed the lives of between 500,000 and 1 million people, mostly landless peasants. A 1977 Amnesty International report cited a tally of "many more than one million" deaths.

In the words of a leaked CIA report at the time, the massacre was "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century". (Declassified US CIA Directorate of Intelligence research study, 'Indonesia - 1965: The Coup That Backfired,' 1968; http://newsc.blogspot.com/)

MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate mediaFebruary 12, 2008 Infamously, while assuring readers of US involvement, leading New YorkTimes commentator James Reston described these events as "a gleam oflight in Asia". (http://www.fair.org/extra/9603/reston.html) MaxFrankel, then the New York Times' Washington correspondent, wrote anarticle titled, "US Is Heartened by Red Setback in Indonesia Coup." Hecommented: "The Johnson administration believes that a dramatic new opportunityhas developed both for anti-Communist Indonesians and for United Statespolicies. Officials... believe the army will cripple and perhapsdestroy the Communists as a significant political force." (http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/indonesia-nyt.html)

The United States had been heavily involved, not just in bringingSuharto to power, but in arming, equipping and training his army. InMay 1990, Kathy Kadane of the Washington-based States News Servicereported admissions of US government officials that the US embassy inJakarta had drawn up lists of 5,000 suspected Communist leaders. These"zap lists" were given to the Indonesian military who used them totrack down and kill party members. One former embassy official toldKadane: "I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not allbad." (http://www.fair.org/extra/best-of-extra/indonesia-nyt.html)

Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA operations officer in the 1960s, describedthe terror of Suharto's takeover as "the model operation" for theUS-backed coup that later destroyed Chile's Salvador Allende. McGeheeindicated the key deception that had sparked Suharto's massacre:

"The CIA forged a document purporting to reveal a leftist plot tomurder Chilean military leaders... [just like] what happened inIndonesia in 1965." (John Pilger, 'Our model dictator,' The Guardian,January 28, 2007;http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2247948,00.html)

The British government was secretly involved in the slaughter. RolandChallis, BBC south-east Asia correspondent at the time, later revealed:

"British warships escorted a ship full of Indonesian troops down theMalacca Straits so they could take part in the terrible holocaust... Iand other correspondents were unaware of this at the time... There wasa deal, you see. In establishing the Suharto regime, the involvement ofthe IMF and the World Bank was part of it... Suharto would bring themback. That was the deal." (Ibid)

The "deal" involved opening up what Richard Nixon had called "therichest hoard of natural resources, the greatest prize in south-eastAsia". Suharto transformed Indonesia into an "investors' paradise".(http://www.fair.org/extra/9809/suharto.html) Foreign investment wasattracted by a law which protected property from nationalisation for 30years. The new regime also offered to return to their original ownersAmerican, British and Dutch firms which had been taken over bySuharto's predecessor, Sukarno. In November 1967, Nixon's "prize" wasdelivered at a three-day conference in Geneva. The Freeport company gotWest Papua's copper. A US/European consortium got much of the nickel.The Alcoa company got Indonesia's bauxite. America, Japanese and Frenchcompanies got the tropical forests of Sumatra.

The West, unsurprisingly, was delighted to do business with Indonesia'snew "moderate" leader, who was "at heart benign," the Economistdeclared.

Blood Red - Green Light

The United States and Britain were also key allies supporting Suharto'sDecember 1975 invasion of East Timor. The day before the attack, whilevisiting the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, secretary of state HenryKissinger and president Gerald Ford gave Suharto the green light toinvade.

In media coverage immediately following Ford's death in December 2006,we found a single sentence in the entire UK press describing hiscomplicity in the East Timor genocide. Christopher Hitchens wrote inthe Mirror:

"It was Kissinger and Ford who gave permission to the Indonesiangenerals for their illegal annexation of East Timor, which turned intoa genocide." (Hitchens, 'The accidental president,' Mirror, December28, 2006)

Philip Liechty, CIA desk officer in Jakarta at the time of the invasion, gave an idea of the operative ethics:

"We sent the Indonesian generals everything that you need to fight amajor war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. We sent themrifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food, helicopters. You name it;they got it. And they got it direct... No one cared. No one gave adamn. It is something that I will be forever ashamed of. The onlyjustification I ever heard for what we were doing was there was concernthat East Timor was on the verge of being accepted as a new member ofthe United Nations and there was a chance that the country was going tobe either leftist or neutralist and not likely to vote [with the UnitedStates] at the UN." (Quoted, John Pilger, Hidden Agendas, Vintage,1998, pp.285-6. See our media alert for more detail:http://www.medialens.org/alerts/02/020601_east_timor.html)

The US supplied 90% of the weapons. Britain supplied armoured cars andadvanced fighter-bombers used against East Timorese targets. The resultwas the death of 200,000 people out of a total of 700,000 - one of theworst genocides in history by proportion of population killed.

A month after Indonesia invaded, as tens of thousands of people werebeing massacred, a US State Department official told a major Australiannewspaper that "in terms of the bilateral relations between the US andIndonesia, we are more or less condoning the incursion into EastTimor... The United States wants to keep its relations with Indonesiaclose and friendly. We regard Indonesia as a friendly, non-alignednation - a nation we do a lot of business with". (The Australian,January 22, 1976; http://www.fair.org/activism/east-timor-context.html)

In December 1975, the British ambassador in Jakarta informed theForeign Office: "it is in Britain's interest that Indonesia shouldabsorb the territory as soon and as unobtrusively as possible, and thatif it should come to the crunch and there is a row in the UnitedNations, we should keep our heads down and avoid taking sides againstthe Indonesian government". (Quoted, Mark Curtis, The Ambiguities ofPower, Zed Books, 1996, pp.219-220) US reporter Allan Nairn happened to witness, and narrowly survived, onemassacre of unarmed protestors in the East Timor capital, Dili, inNovember 1991:

"The soldiers marched straight up to us [Western journalists]. Theynever broke their stride. We were enveloped by the troops, and whenthey got a few yards past us, within a dozen yards of the Timorese,they raised their rifles to their shoulders all at once, and theyopened fire. The Timorese, in an instant, were down, just torn apart bythe bullets. The street was covered with bodies covered with blood. Andthe soldiers just kept on coming. They poured in, one rank afteranother. They leaped over the bodies of those who were down. They wereaiming and shooting people in the back. I could see their limbs beingtorn, their bodies exploding. There was blood spurting out into theair. The pop of the bullets, everywhere. And it was very organized,very systematic. The soldiers did not stop. They just kept on shootinguntil no one was left standing."

Burying The Dead - British Media Performance

How much of this information has been communicated by the mainstream media since Suharto's death?

Jonathan Head wrote on the BBC website of Suharto:

"His accession to power coincided with the escalation of the VietnamWar, when the United States was desperate for reliable allies in theregion and willing to turn a blind eye to his human rights record."(Head, 'The lasting legacy of Suharto,' BBC online, January 27, 2008;http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7183191.stm) As we have seen, this was about far more than just turning a "blindeye". In fact, the United States played a key role in bringing Suhartoto power, and in providing weapons for his genocidal army. The M-16guns Suharto's troops used were American - the Hawk jets that bombedEast Timor were British. But East Timor was not so much as mentioned inHead's high-profile BBC report. When challenged by a reader, Headreplied:

"I think it is entirely inappropriate to rank Suharto alongside Sadaam[sic] Hussein. There was never anything like the pervasive terror herethat existed in Iraq. I in no way wish to diminish the enormoussuffering of many Indonesians under his rule." (Email forwarded toMedia Lens, January 28, 2008)

In 1998, Jim Naureckas of FAIR (www.fair.org) responded to the argument that Suharto could not be compared to Saddam Hussein:

"'Suharto is no Saddam,' the New York Times' 'Week in Review' assuredus on March 8. How so? The Indonesian dictator's rule is no lessautocratic than Saddam Hussein's. Like Hussein, Suharto has attemptedto annex a smaller neighbor - in fact, his ongoing occupation of EastTimor has been far bloodier than Hussein's assault on Kuwait. WhileHussein's rule has been brutally repressive, Suharto is directlyresponsible for one of the greatest acts of mass murder in post-WorldWar II history: the genocide that accompanied his rise to power in1965." (http://www.fair.org/articles/suharto-itt.html)

BBC News online invited readers to 'Have Your Say':

"Mr Suharto was accused of embezzling $600m (£303m) of state fundsduring his 32 years of power, but the criminal charges were dropped in2006 on account of his ill health. A civil case brought by stateprosecutors seeking $1.5bn in damages and funds allegedly stolen fromthe state was never settled.

"What are your memories of the former strongman? What is his legacy?Should the charges against him have been dropped"

The charges of mass murder apparently do not exist.

A Daily Telegraph news report accepted that Suharto was "one of the20th century's biggest killers and greatest thieves... It began withthe massacre of at least 500,000 communists in 1965. Two hundredthousand were killed when he annexed the former Portuguese colony ofEast Timor in 1975." (Marianne Kearney and Thomas Bell, 'Suharto deathrevives memories of the million killed under his rule,' DailyTelegraph, January 28, 2008)

But what of US-UK support for his killing, motivated by corporate greed for Indonesia's natural resources?

"His friends among western governments, attracted by his strong anti-communism, helped protect him in office."

As ever, media reporting promotes the alleged concern to save the worldfrom the former bete noire, "communism" (a role currently being playedby al Qaeda) - just as a sincere concern to save the world from SaddamHussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction was the motive forinvading Iraq, not control of oil.

A single letter in the Guardian made the point that is unthinkable for mainstream journalists:

"The collusion of the British with Suharto's murderous regime is notsome throwback to cold-war realpolitik, but an integral and ongoingdimension of a foreign policy in thrall to the avaricious interests ofbig business. In 1967, following Suharto's western-backed coup, oilcompanies and multinational corporations divided up Indonesia's vastnatural resources. Now, 40 years later, they are doing the same inIraq, with the British government trying to push through an oil lawwhich, if passed, would allow Shell, BP and Exxon to take control ofmost of Iraq's oil reserves, depriving ordinary Iraqis of billions ofdollars. Plus ca change." (Stefan Simanowitz, Letters page, TheGuardian, January 29, 2008)

A Daily Telegraph obituary observed:

"Suharto, however, had made a serious mistake in 1975 when he tookadvantage of civil war in East Timor to overthrow the forces of thedominant Fretelin guerrilla movement. In the face of widespreadinternational disapproval, he proceeded to annex the country toIndonesia." ('Obituary of General Suharto,' Daily Telegraph, January28, 2008)

In fact, there was no "widespread international disapproval" - whilethe Timorese buried their dead, Western politicians and journalistsburied the story. In 1979, when Indonesia's killings were reachinggenocidal levels, there was not a single mainstream press article onthe crisis in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Dissidentjournalist Amy Goodman reported the details:

"ABC, NBC and CBS 'Evening News' never mentioned the words East Timorand neither did 'Nightline' or 'MacNeil Lehrer' between 1975, the dayof the invasion, except for one comment by Walter Cronkite the dayafter, saying Indonesia had invaded East Timor - it was a 40 secondreport - until November 12, 1991." (Amy Goodman, 'Exception to theRulers, Part II,' Z Magazine, December 1997)

In its January 28 obituary, the Telegraph also referred to "Westernrevulsion" at the 1965-6 massacres. Presumably they had in mind theexultation and joy expressed on both sides of the Atlantic. ('Obituaryof General Suharto President of Indonesia,' Daily Telegraph, January28, 2008)

The Independent chose to focus on lesser crimes - how Suharto had usedhis power to enrich himself and his family. The dictator had clung ontoo long, the paper lamented:

"Had Suharto stepped down earlier, Indonesia might have agreed that hisachievement of three decades of economic growth out-weighed hisfailings." ('Suharto: Former dictator of Indonesia,' The Independent,January 28, 2008)

As Allan Nairn notes, the idea that Suharto's record can be defended ongrounds of increased prosperity - he may have presided over vastmassacres but he also presided over rapid economic growth - is "Pravdathinking". The argument being, after all, "the same one once used tojustify Stalin". (http://newsc.blogspot.com/)

What of US-UK complicity in Suharto's "failings"? The Independent notedthat his coup "was particularly welcome to the United States, deeplyembroiled in nearby Vietnam and very willing to back anti-Communistmilitary dictatorships. American aid was offered and accepted..."

Again, we are to understand that the goal was to stave off 'theCommies'. Nothing more was said about US-UK involvement in the killingsin Indonesia or East Timor.

To its credit, the Guardian shamed the Independent's performance simplyby publishing John Pilger's honest analysis of US-UK complicity inSuharto's crimes: 'Our model dictator - The death of Suharto is areminder of the west's ignoble role in propping up a murderous regime.'(January 28, 2007;http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2247948,00.html) The Financial Times found that Suharto's "achievements" were punctuatedby "severe shortcomings". (John Aglionby and Shawn Donnan, 'Corruptautocrat who fostered stability,' Financial Times, January 28, 2008)

It is interesting to consider the language used. In 1998, the US mediaanalyst Edward Herman compared press descriptions of the Suharto andPol Pot regimes:

"When Pol Pot died in April 1998, the media were unstinting incondemnation, calling him 'wicked,' 'loathsome,' and 'monumentallyevil' (Chicago Tribune, 4/18/98), a 'lethal mass killer' and 'warcriminal' (L.A. Times, 4/17/98), 'blood-soaked' and an 'egregious massmurderer' (Washington Post, 4/17/98, 4/18/98). His rule was repeatedlydescribed as a 'reign of terror' and he was guilty of 'genocide.'..."

"Although Suharto's regime was responsible for a comparable number ofdeaths in Indonesia, along with more than a quarter of the populationof East Timor, the word 'genocide' is virtually never used inmainstream accounts of his rule." (Herman, 'Good and Bad Genocide,'FAIR, September/October 1998; http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1433)

The FT identified one of the "severe shortcomings": "Suharto drewinternational condemnation after he ordered the 1975 invasion of EastTimor". In fact, the "international condemnation" was restricted to asmall, US-based student protest, which grew over three decades tobecome a global mass movement. As we have seen, Western governments andmedia did not give a damn.

A single, cryptic comment on US-UK involvement followed: "Suhartosought a more intimate relationship with the US, which remained astrong ally."

Pilger's article aside, it would be impossible to guess from this mediaperformance the central role US-UK political and military supportplayed in the rise and massacres of president Suharto.

In December 2006, we reviewed, with near-identical results, mediacoverage of the death of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. A Guardianobituary commented on Pincohet's overthrow of Allende:

"The coup, in which CIA destabilisation played a part..." (MalcolmCoad, 'Augusto Pinochet,' The Guardian, December 11, 2006;www.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1968953,00.html)

And that, as we noted at the time, was that! No more information wasprovided. (See:http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/061219_born_in_usa.php)

When former US president Ronald Reagan died in 2004, close to nothingwas said about his crimes in Central America. (See:www.medialens.org/alerts/04/040610_Reagan_Visions_1.HTM andwww.medialens.org/alerts/04/040615_Reagan_Visions_2.HTM)

When Bill Clinton's presidency has been reviewed, his responsibilityfor suffering and death has been a non-issue. (See link here.

And, as discussed, Gerald Ford's complicity in Suharto's crimes was also blanked.

It is crucial that the truth of US-UK violence not be admitted orseriously explored. Within that silence the myth of benevolence can becultivated - and this is the key illusion allowing the West to attack,invade and kill with impunity, freed from decisive public opposition.We always 'had to'. We always 'meant well'. We always 'have hopes for abrighter future'.