Since the Bali bombing, which mainly killed young Australian holidaymakers, Australia has been drawn even more directly into the “war against terror". But the media refuse look at the role of the west in installing the Suharto regime in Indonesia which was responsible for terror on a much greater scale than the Bali bombing.
In 1965 under the cover of preventing a coup by the Indonesian Communist Party, the Indonesian military took control, and there began the 30 and more years of Suharto dictatorship.
What remains hidden in our press to this day is the key role of the West in putting in place this regime. Behind the barrel of a gun the West installed a regime in Indonesia that would give it all it wanted – full access to all its resources and a compliant workforce.
Then it ensured that the truth about the events surrounding the military coup would never make it out to the rest of the world. In 1962 a CIA memo, now leaked, noted that John F Kennedy and Harold McMillan had agreed to “liquidate President Sukarno depending on the circumstances and available opportunities".
Why? Well, as Richard Nixon stated it in 1967, “With its 100 million people, 300-mile arc of islands, containing the regions richest hoard of natural resources, Indonesia is the greatest prize of South East Asia". It’s worth noting that this was not just 100 million people, but 100 million potentially low-paid workers, yet to be unionised.
The hands of governments and military of the West were drenched in the blood of well over one million Indonesians – the blood of 80,000 Balinese – of 200,000 East Timorese. The Suharto-lead military coup of 1965-1966 was fully backed by “our” governments – the coup that even the CIA has had to recognise is “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century” (despite playing a key role in allowing it to succeed).
Many commentators recognise it as the key practice run for the CIA for their murderous role in Chile only a few years later, and not surprisingly. US Officials compiled lists of those they wanted killed, known as death lists. The lists were then ticked off as each person was murdered – reports were sent directly from Suharto to US Officials.
The US Air Force flew in state of the art technology in communications equipment – which meant not only assisting in the massacre, but the ability to spy on exactly what was happening – which is exactly what they did. In Australia, the Prime Minister’s Department publicly stated that it would “consider any measure to assist the Indonesian army… to cope with the internal situation".
That is, it too would promote the lies about the Indonesian Communist Party and cover-up the actual role of, even assist, the Indonesian military in the massacres. Years later the UK continued to play a key role in the arming of the Indonesian military and supporting the regime. Under Thatcher, in one 12-month period, almost Aust $3 Billion in “Export Credit Guarantee Department” money would directly finance the sale of Hawk fighter-bombers in Indonesia.
These bombers were used to bomb villages throughout East Timor. A compliant media was key to all this. The UK being particularly skilled at war-time propaganda, were called upon to set up an office of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD), which opened in Singapore.
The IRD was a top-secret, cold war propaganda unit lead by Norman Reddaway, “one of Her Majesty’s most experienced liars". Out of this office came the stories of the supposed plot for a Sukarno led coup. As one BBC journalist described the role of the media in presenting the military coup, “It was a triumph for western propaganda".
In November of 1967, with the Suharto regime firmly in place, the spoils were handed out at a sale of surreal proportions. Time-Life Corporation sponsored a special conference in Geneva.
The attendees included representatives from all of the major corporations with interests in the great riches of Indonesia, including representatives for: oil, media, banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British Leyland, British American Tobacco, American Express, Siemens, Goodyear, US Steel. At this conference the entire Indonesian economy was literally carved up between the various corporations represented.
As Jeffrey Winters, professor at Northwestern University Chicago who has studied the conference papers stated, “You had these big corporate people going around the table, saying this is what we need: this, this and this, and they basically designed the legal infrastructure for investment in Indonesia". “The Freeport Company got a mountain of copper in West Papua (Henry Kissinger is currently on the board). An American and European consortium got West Papua’s nickel.
The giant Alcoa Company got the biggest slice of Indonesia’s bauxite. A group of American, Japanese and French companies got the tropical rainforests of Sumatra, West Papua and Kalimantan. A Foreign Investment Law, hurried onto the statutes by Suharto, made this plunder tax-free for at least five years".
Furthermore, during the reign of the Suharto regime, the World Bank funded the government to the tune of US $30bn. One of the major projects funded with this money was Indonesia’s infamous “transmigration scheme", which, for example, moved thousands of government sympathetic Indonesians into East Timor.
It has also been responsible for similar migrations into Aceh and West Papua. For these projects alone, an estimated Aust $1,300 M was spent. On top of this, around 20-30% of World Bank money went straight into the hands of individual government staff and politicians. Today the people of Indonesia continue to struggle for even basic trade union rights, meaning the companies such as Nike have swooped in for the profit – Nike workers in Indonesia earn only 4% of the retail price of the shoes they make.
Such an income does not even cover bare necessities – half their wages going to clean drinking water. Their labour camps of today are overcrowded, with overflowing sewers and crammed dormitories. And this is if you are “lucky enough” to have a job – 36 million struggle without work, and a total of 70 million on the island faced poverty immediately after the economic crisis of 1997.
Little has changed since then. And in recent weeks students have once again been out on the streets, protesting further price hikes. No wonder that many argue that globalisation was conceived of over the bodies of Indonesians.