The Army’s Coup

The Army’s Coup

At a different time, in a different context, the movement might have become just another temporary disturbance in Indonesian politics. It could have been an uprising that suddenly erupted and then quietly disappeared without causing any major changes in the structure of power. By 1965 postindependence Indonesia had witnessed a number of

198 t Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States assassination attempts on the president, military mutinies, and guerrilla

insurgencies, including, for example, the October 17, 1952, affair during which Nasution’s army pointed tanks at the palace and demanded that Sukarno dismiss the parliament; Lieutenant Colonel Zulfiki Lubis’s mutiny in November 1956; the Darul Islam insurgency from 1949 to 1962; the PRRI rebellion in Sumatra from 1956 to 1958; and the Per- mesta rebellion in Sulawesi from 1957 to 1961. The killing of six generals and a mutiny of troops in Central Java in 1965 could have become just another temporary crisis for Sukarno to overcome. But the army would not let the movement remain just another “ripple in the wide ocean.” The event resulted in the end of Sukarno’s presidency because it oc- curred at a time when the army was ready and willing to seize power.

Sukarno did his best to downplay the significance of the movement. His speeches from late 1965 onward contained vigorous condemnations of the anti-PKI violence that he believed, on the basis of his own com- mission of inquiry, had led to the deaths of more than a half-million people. 86 The violence was out of all proportion to the slayings of six generals and the mutiny in Central Java. Sukarno kept calling for calm: “In a state of calm it is possible to place all problems in their proper per- spective.” He wished to investigate the incident, determine who was responsible, and punish them. But he knew that the army, using its control of the media, was refusing to allow an atmosphere of calm to prevail. The media was inventing all sorts of absurd lies to whip up the anti-Communist campaign. The CIA noted in early November that the army had “instituted psychological warfare mechanisms, control of media prerequisite to influencing public opinion and have harassed or halted Communist output.” 87

Sukarno complained about particular stories in the newspapers, such as the one that said one hundred women of Gerwani (the Indone- sian Women’s Movement) were using razors to slice up the genitals of the generals: “Does the journalist think we’re stupid? What’s his point? To stir up hatred! Does it make sense, I mean, does it make sense that a penis was sliced one hundred times by razors? . . . Is our nation of such low quality that the newspapers write about imaginary things?” 88 He was infuriated by the steady stream of anti-Communist propaganda: the death of his former prime minister, Djuanda, was due to poisoning by agents of the Chinese Communist government; an electric chair for executing people was found in a PKI house. 89 In November Sukarno held a special meeting at the Bogor Palace for both military officers and journalists in order to discuss the incessant absurdities in the press:

9. This cartoon appeared in an army-approved newspaper supportive of the anti-PKI campaign. Its violent imagery is similar to the cartoons that had appeared in the Com- munist Party newspapers. The labels are now reversed: the PKI is the evil character be- traying Sukarno’s ideals and collaborating with imperialist powers. The September 30th Movement is depicted as a snake imprinted with the labels “stab from behind,” “coun- terrevolutionary,” and “slander.” It is in league with the monster of Western imperialism and neocolonialism (nekolim) to the right. The warrior labeled “the people and the mil- itary” wields the sword of Sukarno’s “Five Charms of the Revolution.” The slogan at the bottom is “Never Forget Nekolim.” Justifying the anti-PKI violence in terms of the PKI’s own ideals (revolution, Sukarnoism, and anti-imperialism) shows how reluctant the army generals were to appear to contradict those principles, even as they were re- ceiving assistance from the United States and undermining Sukarno. Source: Kompas, October 20, 1965.

200 t Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States “Now, then, look at this! Over and over it’s the same thing. Yes, you

know what I’m referring to. It’s always Gestapu, Gestapu, Gestapu, Gestapu, Gestapu, razors, razors, razors, razors, razors, a grave for a thousand people, a grave for a thousand people, a grave for a thousand people, electric chair, electric chair, electric chair—over and over again, the same thing!” 90 Sukarno demanded that the journalists write only about true events and keep in mind their role in building the nation. But his pleas fell on deaf ears. In effect, the great orator was rendered voiceless: his speeches rarely entered the media. The army not only had the guns, it had the newspapers and radio.

Suharto’s creeping coup d’état against Sukarno worked so well be- cause the army high command had already drawn up a plan. Six gener- als in the high command became victims of the movement (an outcome certainly not envisioned in the plan), but the survivors, such as Suharto, Nasution, and Sukendro, were able to pick up the plan and put it into effect. While they no doubt faced some unexpected events and had to improvise at certain times, they had a definite strategy and set of goals. 91

Suharto and his fellow generals understood the principle that the method of taking power greatly determines the sustainability of the new regime. They were not witless officers who could only follow the usual pattern for military coups: rolling the tanks into the streets of the capi- tal, surrounding the palace, and capturing, perhaps killing, the presi- dent. They realized that the army did not have enough legitimacy and public support for a direct action against Sukarno. The army’s strategy after the defeat of the regional rebellions in 1957–58 had been to con- struct itself as a state within a state. Army officers had become factory and plantation owners, bureaucrats in the civil administration, labor union leaders, newspaper owners, and students of neoclassical econom- ics. The army had bided its time as it built up its capacity for govern- ance. It did not want to take state power only to lose it because of inter- nal disunity or widespread resistance.

The starting point for the army’s game plan was an action that could

be construed as a coup and blamed on the Communist Party. Taking the movement as their pretext, Suharto and his fellow officers created a hysterical, crisis-filled atmosphere wherein all non-Communists were led to believe that they were in mortal danger. Once begun, the psycho- logical warfare campaign took on a life of its own, as army personnel convinced themselves that the Communists, even poor farmers in inac- cessible villages, were hoarding Chinese-made weapons, digging mass graves, typing up lists of people to be killed, and practicing eye-gouging

Suharto, the Indonesian Army, and the United States t 201 army ensured that the campaign would appear to have popular support.

The army could appear as the savior of the nation, and the extermina- tion of Communists could appear to be a patriotic duty.

With the legitimacy acquired from the anti-PKI campaign, the army was then in a position to move against Sukarno. As a White House analysis in mid-February 1966 observed, Nasution and Suharto, after “eliminating the PKI,” were “using the political leverage they have gained against Sukarno.” 92 Student demonstrations (partly paid for by the U.S. embassy) provided the appearance of mass public discontent with his presidency. Reduced to a figurehead—nothing more than a sig- nature on documents, a photo on the wall, a uniformed mannequin at ceremonies—Sukarno was then discredited as a supporter of the PKI and the September 30th Movement.

The army, which was planning for the long-term stability of its rule, sought to ground its takeover of power in constitutional procedures. All of Suharto’s moves were legitimated with signed presidential instruc- tions: his promotion to commander of the army (October 2), his ratifi- cation as head of a new emergency military command called Kopkam- tib (November 1), and his formation of the Extraordinary Military Court, Mahmillub (December 4). Suharto even used a presidential in- struction as a justification for arresting fifteen members of Sukarno’s cabinet and appointing his own ministers. Sukarno, of course, protested that his order of March 11, 1966, was not a transfer of authority, but words alone could not stop Suharto’s forward march. 93 Suharto was scrupulous in stage-managing constitutional procedures, such as the session of Parliament that elected him acting president in March 1967 (a parliament stocked with handpicked delegates), so that the army’s take- over of state power would not appear to be what it was: a coup d’état.

This clever combination of elements—mass terror against a demon- ized enemy, civilian complicity in the anti-PKI violence, anti-Sukarno student demonstrations, psychological warfare methods through the mass media, charades of legalistic procedures—reflected a mature understanding of how to take state power. In comparison with other coups in the world, the Indonesian army’s was remarkably sophisti- cated. Suharto was able to stay in power for thirty-two years partly because he had carefully engineered the manner in which he seized power. The movement, elevated to the status of the nation’s greatest betrayal, a manifestation of absolute evil, was a convenient pretext for him to begin the army’s long-considered strategy for destroying the Communist Party, displacing President Sukarno, and founding an army