After a long, protracted stay in hospital, Suharto has died, to be buried in the enormous tomb he had constructed as a pseudo-king.
For some unaccountable reason, Suharto’s image in Indonesia seems to have been somewhat rehabilitated in his dotage. Australians will probably remember not only East Timor, but the hundreds of thousands who died during his bloody rise to power in 1965-66 – not to mention the billions of dollars his family looted from what remains a deeply impoverished country.
It will be interesting to see who Australia sends to his funeral.
Update: Richard Woolcott weighs in with the case for the defence. Mr Woolcott seems, in his retirement, to retain the diplomat’s guiding belief that maintaining lines on a map is the greatest achievement possible from a leader.
“It will be interesting to see who Australia sends to his funeral.”
How about our national leader who called him “Bupak” while the genocide in East Timor was happening. It’s the least Paulie could do for the family.
In agreeance with Enemy Combatant, but first he must walk down the street with his mum,to insure he can prove who he is by opening a bank account to buy the necessary flowers,red carpet treatment,and other distinguishing matters of importance,that accompany Keating where-ever he goes.Then when he applies for his passport under existing proofs of ID. he can pull out a photo of his mom!?
Whoever they send, send them with a hammer and a stake.
I prefer leaders like Suharto to die twitching on a gibbet, but I’ll take this.
Break out the Gado Gado.
Yes, RobertM
that period after the “Gesatapu” [GErakan SEptember TigA PUluh] attempted coup, and after all the tensions during and before Sukarno’s “year of living dangerously”, was bloody and horrific. Yet I think there really was a coup attempt on Sept 30th 1965, and I think part of the PKI leadership was involved [inc D.N. Aidit], claiming to be trying to forestall a move by a ‘Council of Generals’. If Soeharto’s colleagues were targets for assassination, one can understand harsh counter-measures.
No, I don’t think hundreds of thousands should have been slaughtered, but the coup perpetrators should have faced open trials. And as in Russia when Yeltsin banned the CP after the coup against Gorbachev failed in 1991, stern action against the PKI was justifiable, I think.
And it seems that our new Beloved Leader Rudd has issued condolences on behalf of all Australians!? Rudd is turning out worse than I expected.It simply isnt necessary for me as an Australian to be represented in this manner.I have a lot of respect for the present Indonesian Leadership,as much as there are still difficulties with the relationship.So every child born recently who cannot speak a word of English,the people in their death beds,those in jail and mental institutions,those overseas, who have never taken an interest in Indonesia,and dual citizens to boot without being part Indonesian,and others are all represented as one by… PM. Rudd!?I think this sort of Rudd condolences is the polar opposite of taking Indonesia and Indonesians seriously.It is very unlikely that large populations of Indonesians feel it is necessary for an Australian Leader to issue these type matters.Send a donation to a worthy Indonesian charity,for the improvement in relations since the pressure on Soeharto begun..maybe one that helps its military personnel when they cannot help themselves either.What a boring man Rudd is.
Ambigulous:
Some people still think Marxism and socialism are still viable or their crimes were “OK”. Go figure.
As for Suharto may he rot in whatever the muslim equivalent of christianity’s hell is.
Send DFAT.
The entire department.
I suggest we send Larry Adler, Ray Williams and the lot from AWB, with a wreath made of Fincorp Bonds origamied together.
The “Bapak” is a cultural thing that Keating was fully aware of, EC, and not bad in itself. But I agree with the underlying sentiment. PJK followed a long tradition of turning a blind eye as far as the Oz public was concerned. Behind the scenes we could have done a lot more but the Jakarta lobby had a lot of sway, for a long time, until the ET events caught up with us.
Then we had Dolly telling us the TNI (Terrorising Nationwide Industries) had nothing to do with the militias which was such a bald faced lie that it took the breath away.
To his credit PJK leveraged his relationship with Suharto for Australia’s benefit in Asean, but yes the ET thing was disgraceful, especially our lot a little earlier carving up ET oil with those murderous sods.
Good riddance to Mr KKN (Korrupsi, Kollusi dan Nepotisme). At long last, Indonesians have a “feast of democracy” which is real, and not the propaganda Suharto bombastically sprouted. A long way still to go rooting out corruption.
May his children sink into obscurity and ignominy and lose all the money they and their father stole.
I single out Tommy “Timor” and Tutut for special condemnation: Tommy for his blatant chicanery all over the place and Tutut for her smarmy face on TV spouting “Saya cinta Rupiah” (I love Rupiah) when her family had the prime responsibility for the currency going down the toilet in the first place. For her complaints against Camdessus and the IMF: “They don’t understand family values” [Question at the time: which friggen family, goblok!!!]
As for Ibu Tien [Ibu "Tien" percent], Suharto’s wife, popular opinion has it that she copped a bullet in the head when trying to stop 2 of her sons having the mother of all rows over rival “businesses”, that’s why the coffin was closed at her funeral. That woman profited from imported powdered milk, including infant formula milk. Given that many infants must have died because many found the price a little too high, one wondered often at that time about her version of “the milk of human kindness”
To her credit, minimally, she did keep a bit of a lid on her brood, but after she died, there was no-one, not even the Bapak, to rein them in.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely: this guy, his greedy wife and his brood of vipers wielded monstrous power, for the sole benefit of themselves and their cronies.
TURUN SUHARTO
CraigMc[2]:
Do you want me to sharpen that stake for you? Will my club hammer do or do you want a sledge?
H&R [6] and Marks [7]
Amen!!
Everyone:
Think how prosperous and powerful Indonesia might have become if Guus Dur had taken over ten years earlier.
Biggles
C.O.D Chronic failure of the rectum due to incessant severe & prolonged licking with a wet and pointed instrument.
It will be interesting to see who Australia sends to his funeral.
I suggest Doc Neeson. “Am I ever going to see your face again?” No way, etc. etc.
And Kylie Minogue, backed by the entire staff of DFAT singing her old classic, – the tune that the Jakarta lobby clearly knew off by heart – “Better The Devil You Know”.
I am delighted this kleptocrat is dead. May he rot in hell. While he doesn’t quite come up to the level of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot he’s pretty bad when it comes to attempted genocide and massive human rights abuses. I am still utterly disgusted with PJK and Gareth Evans for their craven support of Indonesian human rights abuses on ET and elsewhere in Indonesia. It is a dark and unfdorgiveable blot on Labor’s record. I have long held the Keating and Evans because of this, should have been tried as accessories to crimes against humanity.
As for Woolcott, is it too much to ask him to personally revive the tradition of sati at Suharto’s funeral?
To be fair, Australia’s ability to substantially influence Suharto’s rule was about zero.
But, whether we had to live with him or not, the amount of self-delusion about Suharto’s true nature that went on over the years is pretty nauseating.
I’d like to see Woolcott attend a special funeral, attended only by himself and invited media, where he can solemnly intern a shoebox full of charred t-bones and pretend they’re the remains of his hero Suharto. He did it for the Balibo 5 – surely their murderer deserves no less.
But what could they do? Be hostile and alienate a disgruntled and populaous neighbour? Invade the place and institute ‘democracy’. I agree that Australia is far too servile in regards to human rights in this region. However inter-State relationships are very much based on realpolitik. What should be is often immaterial. It’s what can be that counts.
but it would make it difficult to find people to run the government (perhaps things would improve).
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If you were to charge every Western leader for dealing with nasty people they’d all be in prison. This would probably be a good thing in and of itself
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The question as I see it is how do you move the world in the direction of human rights and democracy. There is no simple answer, that works. Just ask the neocons. Or actually don’t. The poor dumb bastards still think they’re winning.
Adrien: that’s fine as far as it goes. Opening up diplomatic relations with China – despite the fact that their rulers aren’t very nice people – was the right thing to do.
But let’s stop pretending that Suharto was anything other than an odious, kleptocratic, and sometimes brutal pig.
I was pretending anything of the sort.
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Odious, kleptocratic, and sometimes brutal pig? Sounds like the job description for any head of state/CEO, local cop or boarding school,teacher.
But at least to Rudd’s credit, the quote from him re the death is quite restrained. No praising to the skies at all.
Oopp that’s I wasn’t pretending anything of the sort.
Good move. Keating is going to the funeral to represent Australia.
This underlines the importance and closeness of our relationship with Indonesia (former PM) while not compromising either Rudd or his Foreign Minister, given Suharto’s questionable human rights record. Plus it is well known that Keating and the former dictator had a close personal relationship.
Just sending the Ambassador would have probably looked insulting. Face is all important in Asia.
“Good move. Keating is going to the funeral to represent Australia.”
As is Robert McLelland. Stephen Smith is in the US.
Robert: To be fair, Australia’s ability to substantially influence Suharto’s rule was about zero.
Adrien: But what could they do? Be hostile and alienate a disgruntled and populaous neighbour?
The very least they could have done was cut off the supply of arms and military training. Many of the weapons sold and donated by Australia to Indonesia were specifically designed for use against “lightly armed combatants”, which effectively meant civilians.
When Woolcott says historians will be “objective” he means they’ll ignore the slaughter of over a million people, but that’s not surprising, he certainly did, when he wasn’t supporting and facilitating it.
Sorcerer
‘Face is all important in Asia.’ True. But head?
Yes I think it is false to conclude that Australia did not play a part in Suharto’s human rights abuses, the worst instance of which was 1966 murder (CIA assisted ) of half a million communists. That Keating can go to bapak’s funeral shows where John Howard comes out with dignity in comparison.
True enough.
Everyone:
[i] One good thing that might emerge from discussions of issues that these celebrations have rekindled is that …. a groundswell could well develop to ditch the entire failed monsterously-expensive DFAT system and replace it with a lean-and-mean, expanded system of small consulates that would better serve Australia’s cultural, commercial, security and humanitarian needs and at a fraction of the cost in money, embarrassment and discarded opportunities.
[ii] What exactly do our anti-treason laws have to say about unnecessary and obsequious assistance, by public servants, to a corrupt and brutal foreign regime at a time other than during a declared war?
[iii] Without insulting Indonesian national sovereignty in the slightest, there were a thousand-and-one ways Australia’s moral cowards could have stood up to Suharto whilst giving the Indonesian people our respect, our friendship and our encouragement. I fear that younger rising Indonesian will exact a dreadful price from Australia for having crawled and grovelled to Suharto.
Peter Kemp [9]:
I like the term “Mr KKN”; how apt. The Indonesian people are well rid of this Son of Satan.
“I fear that younger rising Indonesian will exact a dreadful price from Australia for having crawled and grovelled to Suharto”
Where on earth does anyone get the impression anything has changed..
… and Muslim extremists. The fundamentalism Muslim uprising in Aceh has pretty much gone the way of the IRA because the Indonesian army was able to do something other than monster students spraying grafitti. While I disagree with Greg Sheridan and others that Communism was a real threat to Indonesia (including the self-defeating remark about the size of the KPI c.1965), Australia is better off because Indonesia did not shatter into numerous mini-states.
I’m not convinced that the Indonesians lacked the ability to reverse-engineer a standard rifle/grenade/landmine and mass-produce their own, making the surplus available to their equally odious Burmese neighbours or even to aggrieved gunlosers in northern Australia, in return for hard currency.
Every cloud, and all that.
I fear that younger rising Indonesian will exact a dreadful price from Australia for having crawled and grovelled to Suharto
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Oh come on. I tend to agree with Feral Sparrowhawk’s notion re selling arms to the bloodthirsty. But realpolitik is nastier than Ice Hockey. Australia simply doesn’t have the military might to fuck with the Indonesians. Can’t do it. Of course Indonesia is a Sumatran Empire and many ‘Indonesians’ want to get out. Of course Indonesia is a corrupt autocracy where you have to pay off three hundred people with the same surname if you wanna open a fruit stand. Of course the police and the military are a bunch of gangsters.
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But there is a limit to what we can do. Pro-democracy Indonesians must understand that. They also have to understand that democracy does not mean the government will be populated by the country’s rose petals. Often democratic politicians are cast from the same mildew as the dictators. The difference being that we can chuck ‘em out. That’s not the same as making ‘em do the right thing.
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We’d also be wise to consider the unintended consequences of doing the right thing. Paleoconservatives do have a point there. There young Indonesians who blame us for something entirely other.
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And at the end of the day it’s fundamentally you’re own responsibility. If you wanna be free. You’ve got to fight for it. Which is real easy to say coming from someone who inherited it and never had to fight for any of his rights.
On 7.30 Report after the Little Shaitan’s funeral, Dolly seems to have finally realised he’s just another backbencher, his poncy arrogance was almost gone and he only equivocated and lied 60-80% of the interview. Maybe some enterprising reporter can now delve into his activities in Brussels on his first assignment in the mid 70s…
The Murderer is dead, long live the Murderer. Needs work. Whether he did enough in his Nationalist Robber Baron role to endow the world with a stable nation state remains blah blah blah. Seeing his family purged of their ill gotten gains by a prosecutor not afraid to put Epsom salts in their noodles would be kind of satisfying.
Re the training and arms sales;
“The very least they could have done was cut off the supply of arms and military training. Many of the weapons sold and donated by Australia to Indonesia were specifically designed for use against “lightly armed combatants�, which effectively meant civilians.�
Suharto got an A++ for bloodily and effectively suppressing an opposition, civilian or otherwise, during the sixties. He and his cronies continued to display a mastery of this discipline for decades. Whatever training or arms Australia provided must have seemed like sissy behavior compared to the takeover and its aftermath and wherever used probably saved lives.
It had two useful purposes. Firstly it satisfied the yanks that we were trying to get along. Suharto was their new best buddy for a while and every one likes it when friends get along. Secondly, put brutally, it is useful having a fair few people trained by your army in any nearby totalitarian regime, the regime tends to murder them before invading. Best early warning system ever.
the things you have to do, being a country must suck.
First of all we do have. But it is not in our interest to do so. It would exhaust us as it would destroy them. On that point we understand each other equally. We get along very well with that understanding.
Secondly it is the Javanese empire, not the Sumatran. Get your basic geography right.
Oigal [31]:
On the Australian side – nothing much has changed; we still supply brown-nosers by the container-load..
On the Indonesian side – generational change … added to some of what what Adrien [@ 33] and Dylwah [@35] said. Our motives or excuses for supporting Suharto the way we did won’t matter one iota to younger Indonesians – we did, and that’s that …. then we turned around and double-crossed them by taking one of their provinces off them.
Thirdly, most Indonesians don’t have surnames.
Adrien [33] your link:
Nasty photo. Apt point.
GregM [38]
Third point: mostly true – but I think we all understood what Adrien meant.
This remark by Robert “For some unaccountable reason, Suharto’s image in Indonesia seems to have been somewhat rehabilitated in his dotage.” is interesting but no one here has tried to explain it.
Suharto’s record is much more complex than just corruption and brutality – I guess most Indonesians would, apart from their natural politeness and respect, credit Suharto with providing a competent and stable government that rescued Indonesia from the mess that Sukarno had made.
Russell[40]:
It’s just a basic human thing. Adoring “The Strong Leader” and ascribing to him all sorts of magical deeds and marvellous qualities is usually encouraged – even if covertly – by whoever is in power at the moment as a way of amusing the Lower Orders and diverting them from their present troubles; used wisely, it can help the current rulers retain power.
Usually, the worse the former Strong Leader, the greater the adulation. For example: The very articulate Menzies is seen now as the man who gave us the illusions of stability and prosperity and not as the divisive dunderhead who derailed the economy. Or, Stalin, the great warrior – who just happened to send Hitler an open invitation to come in an kill millions of good Russians and whose miserable hide was saved only by massive Allied intervention, the raw courage of individual Russians and by the inexplicable decision of the Imperial Japanese not to strike North; the rehabilitation of Stalin is very handy for the Russia’s current power-holders. And the same goes for Tojo and Kaiser Wilhelm II and all the rest. Now it’s the turn of Saddam Hussein and Suharto.
So, stick around: if you want your ingrown toenails cured or your lucky numbers for next month’s lottery [hang on, isn't that harum?], just take yourself to Suharto’s Grand Mausoleum and all will be well for you …. don’t dawdle though, just in case the boys from Bamayan turn up to redecorate the place in their own inimitable way.
Graham Bell: “…the inexplicable decision of the Imperial Japanese not to strike North…”
If I remember rightly, the Japanese actually studied and considered that option pretty carefully, and even sent a few experimental patrols into Soviet turf, to probe their defenses. (Some Japanese writer even did a novel about it later, I think.) They seem to have concluded, whether rightly or wrongly, that it wasn’t a good cost/benefit risk, at least until after they’d consolidated their other positions. I think it turned on a consideration of respective armored units to infantry/raw manpower ratios. Whether they judged accurately I cannot tell, but it wasn’t inexplicable.
Like all reasonably-managed autocracies, provided you’re in with the majority group and keep your mouth shut, life is not too bad under them. It’s just if you’re not, or start to ask rude questions, that you start to run into trouble.
To draw a parallel, most Chinese I met seem quite happy with their lot at the moment – which is fine, because the ones I met are all educated city types who are doing very well out of the economic expansion.
Greg M
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1. I disagree. It’s debatable. Our armed forced are dwarfed in number by the Indonesians (I think something like 10 to 1). But we have a technological superiority. I doubt however we could defeat Indoenesia in a war fought to effect a change of regime and political culture. If you don’t believe me take a meeting in Baghdad sometime. There’s some people trying to do that there; they’ve got some muscle so I’ve been told. And they’re finding the going a bit tough. If you can lay out a plan whereby Australia takes on Indonesia and is able to defeat their military and institute democracy well we’d love to see it.
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2. True. Realized my fuck-up but I’d posted already. Lazy, sorry.
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3. A pedantic response to an obviously glib point. I didn’t mean it literally. I meant that Indonesia has a tributary culture in which certain elite families dominate and corruption results. Absence of clear property rights, rule of law and all the other impediments to the development of an open market economy. Am I right?
Sorry about the stroppy reponse Adrien. However I should point out that Indonesia is now a democracy with an elected Parliament and an elected president, chosen in what are generally considered to be free and fair elections. We hardly need to organise regime change to introduce democracy for them. There has also been significant reform reducing the power of the military including removing the police force from army control, removing military seats from Parliament and scaling back the “dual function”. Meanwhile their civil society culture is developing with the judiciary taking steps towards more independence and less corruption. They are heading in the right direction.
As to us fighting a war against them, well God forbid, because if we won the country could easily fall apart, leaving a dozen or more East Timors to our immediate north and a vengeful Java. I don’t think however that the size of the military, most of which is dedicated to performing garrison duty across the archipelago, is the relevant consideration. Their navy is the poor cousin, made especially so by B J Habibie’s harebrained idea of blowing their budget in the early nineties buying the obsolete East German navy off the newly united German government, which had it earmarked for scrap, without considering the suitability , or lack thereof of a navy built to operate in the Baltic Sea for operations in the tropics. No navy and you don’t control much in an archpelagic nation.
I don’t have as bleak an assessment as you do of Indonesia’s capacity to develop into a transparent civil societybut they are heading in the right direction, albeit with a hell of a long way to go, and I’d never expect them to achieve the levels of business and public sector probity of say New Zealand or Norway.
Greg – I believe I made any assessment of Indonesia’s capacity to develop into a strong democracy, bleak or otherwise. I simply objected to the notion that Australia would be blamed for the past authoritarian iniquities of Suharto et al and that we had the ability to make it into a democracy.
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I have noted, gladly, that Indonesia’s coming along nicely as a democracy. Thumbs up and smilety faces all ’round.
Whoops, that’s I don’t believe I made any assessment….
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PS If I did I was being slack like just now.
Indonesia, as I’ve often argued, demonstrates well that (imperfect) democracy has a better chance of taking root and developing over time when driven by forces largely indigenous to a particular nation rather than by some arrogant Western presumption that you can export democracy via war or other means.
j-p-z [42}
Yeah, alright, not absolutely inexplicable. The Imperial Japanese did get an awful fright when the combined Mongolian and Soviet force gave them a bloody nose in 1939 but those Black Dragon Society blokes who wanted to grab the raw materials of Siberia before striking South were proved right - eventually.
Mark [48]:
Yep.
GregM [45]:
Imperfect but a democracy nonetheless – and if we hadn’t been so enthusiastic about propping up Suharto, it would have become a democracy on it’s own efforts generation earlier.
Graham, I don’t think anything Australia did had much consequence in propping up Suharto and therefore delaying democracy in Indonesia. Indonesia has its own peculiar logic and we are small players in the complex puppet play that is their society. We have been very lucky with the way events have developed in Indonesia.
GregM [50]:
Pig’s what?? Of course Australia did. That sounds to me like a variation of the Nurenburg Defence.
You seem to have ignored the influence of former Colombo Plan students and of Radio Australia inside Indonesia – that influence was never measured in raw numbers alone.
Indonesian Lurkers:
An invitation …. Silahkan menulis …. we would like to read your points of view.
I’m not sure just claiming we did means we did – I’d be inclined to agree with GregM.
It may or may not be relevant but I did a number of Indonesian history honours subjects at Uni and was taught by Robert Cribb who’s probably one of the best informed Australian students of Indonesian history, culture and politics. That was a long time ago, and I’m not claiming any great expertise, but I was interested to read what he had to say in the Fin today.
Graham Bell,
I would not be so quick to say that it may have been “a democracy on it’s own efforts generation earlier”. The PKI was a very large organisation, very well funded and led by ideologues trained in China. Given the record of other nations with a similar profile I would not be so quick to rush to judgement on that. Even today as you drive (or, more likely with the traffic get driven around) Jakarta there are plenty of examples of “Communist Realist” sculpture.
To me his record was, at best, mixed – and if the ends can justify the means then perhaps Indonesia today is a good example.
To agree with another commenter, though, it was a pity that Megawati and Gus Dur did not get to power a decade before they did. The communist threat was eliminated decades ago. Once this was gone any possible rationale for a brutal autocracy was gone.
To agree with you on one thing though, Graham – Kalau ada orang Indonesia yang baca-baca ini, silahkan menulis. Saya mau baca tulisan engkau. Juga ada banyak orang Australia yang ingin baca tulisan oleh orang Indonesia tentang Presiden Suharto, kalau sukanya atau tidak.
For an insight into Australia’s relationship with Indonesia in the mid 60’s
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/stories/2007/1933479.htm
as an Aussie, terima kasih Graham Bell & Andrew Reynolds for inviting comments from Indonesians: it might add matters of direct pertinency to our speculations here
John Roosa http://insideindonesia.org/content/view/1042/47/ in Inside Indonesia has written well-informed article that’s a lot more convincing than Woolacott’s.
Mark [52] and GregM [50]:
You already know who taught me about Indonesia at university but there were quite a few other influences on my points of view as well.
Australia might well have been a rather small player in the wild wayang – though the fleeting vision of McMahon, Whitlam and Fraser, each as a dalang in the flickering light, is funnier than a cagefull of monkeys. However, Australia did have quite a bit of influence at that time; influence out of all proportion for its size. Small player? You mean small like Hanuman perhaps? [No, just kidding on that last point]
The thing is, we failed miserably on using whatever influence we did have to help bring about beneficial change in Indonesia. We were so obsessed with cult of Anti-Communism that it blinded us to everything else – including failing to realize what it was that attracted people to PKI. We deluded ourselves into believing that Communism could be beaten only with guns and by grovelling to scoundrels like Suharto – to the total exclusion of all other means of reducing the threat and the power of Communism.
Andrew Reynolds [53]:
Oversimplifying very complex situations in the ’60s and ’70s, Indonesia was perhaps a bit more like Italy than like Viet-Nam – there were very powerful religious and nationalist forces in the country which made a complete Communist takeover unlikely, regardless of how much China – or the USSR and its satellites – invested in revolution.
Pembaca Indonesia:
Kami menunggu ….
“The thing is, we failed miserably on using whatever influence we did have to help bring about beneficial change in Indonesia.”
Graham, our opportunitity to help Indonesia pre-1965 was greatly affected, in a negative way, by the decisions of Sukarno, who went increasingly batty as his reign went on and made it ever more difficult to divert Indonesia from the path to ruin.
Our diplomats had some interesting and innovative ideas for economic development, thereby reducing the PKI’s influence in a non-violent way. But it was all screwed up by Sukarno, who made it politically almost impossible for Australia to be supporting Indonesia.
First he went on the campaign to grab West New Guinea (as we referred to the place). Canberra was opposed to that, partially out of pro-colonial feelings for the Dutch. But we also knew that the Dutch would leave one day, whereas once WNG was taken over by Indonesia it would never escape. (And what right anyway did the Javanese have to the place?)
Secondly, Sukarno’s foolish campaign against North Borneo — konfrontasi. Given that we were firmly on the side of Malaysia, and indeed providing troops, we didn’t have much flexibility to be helping Indonesia at the same time.
Finally, Sukarno’s total mismanagement of the economy and severing of economic ties with the rest of the world.
Frankly, a lot of blame for the horrors of 1965-66 is on the head of Sukarno. He didn’t instigate the massacres, but they might well have been avoided without the gross mistakes of his presidency.
Paulus [58]:
Many of the serious problems did indeed start under the ever-brilliant rule of Bung Karno …. but there was no need for Australia to exacerbate them. Our surrender [in reality it was our surrender] of all the territory in New Guinea west of the Menzies Line was a stupid thing to do and probably did us harm throughout the developing world; there was no shortage alternatives that would still have enchanced Indonesia’s prestige and ambitions …. and increased beneficial relations between our two countries.
Konfrontasi against Malaysia could have been avoided if we hadn’t gone so hysterical over the possibility of co-operation – perhaps even political confederation – of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines [eventually what came to be called Mafilindo]. Yellow Peril joins Communist Takover in the view of those Australians in power who imagined the PKI, CTs and the Huk holding a victory parade up Pitt Street. Anyway, the world got ASEAN and we all seem better off for it.
Our own diplomats and experts may indeed have had innovative ideas for economic development but they were screwed up as much by our own politicians, businessmen, public servants, commentators and by our American friends as by Soekarno himself.
If Sukarno was so bad – what the hell were we doing crawling to a monster like Suharto?