Declassifying How London Incited and Helped Cover Up Massacre of Up to 3 Million People in Indonesia 

In the middle of the Cold War, a station and a bulletin controlled by a propaganda service in the United Kingdom were dedicated to attacking left-wing movements and called for their extermination.

The UK's Information Research Department (IRD), the country's secret propaganda service during the Cold War, promoted and later concealed the extermination of up to three million supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and of leftist movements in the 1960s, according to documents declassified and cited by The Guardian.

According to papers recently published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the operation - which began in early 1965 - envisaged that a group of British officials, led by Ed Wynne, would create a station and a newsletter run by alleged Indonesian dissidents.

The objective was to contain the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, who promoted an independence policy and applied a confrontational approach towards Malaysia, supporting the rebels in the neighboring country.

Sukarno relied on different, and sometimes opposing, political forces, including political Islam, the millions of PKI supporters, and a portion of the military, although most of the officers rejected such a coalition.

Propaganda against the Government

Given the circumstances of the Cold War and the role played by the Communist Party in Indonesia, undercover radio had chosen the president as the main target of its attacks. In addition, he criticized "as many characters in the hierarchy of the Government, the Army and the civil service as we can find," admits Wynne in a report.

Radio and written materials were aimed primarily at influencing the upper echelons of Indonesian society. The 28,000 copies of one of the newspapers reached "generals, right-wing media and even Sukarno himself," according to Wynne.

On September 30, 1965, when the propaganda campaign was "in full swing", a failed coup d'état organized by the pro-communist military took place. Despite having assassinated six generals, they could not achieve their ends and were crushed. In the days that followed, a right-wing group led by General Suharto, the second president of the Republic, came to power.

At the end of October of that year, massive killings of PKI members and all those suspected of having leftist leanings began. Tari Lang, daughter of the late human rights defender Carmel Budiardjo recalls that "anyone who was from the left was arrested" and not just members of the PKI. "

"Eliminate Communist Cancer"

With the start of the massacres, the propagandists did not reduce the intensity of their attacks against the political party. "We do not cry out for violence, but we demand on behalf of all patriots that this communist cancer be eliminated from the body of the state," they wrote in a special issue of the bulletin.

As for the PKI, they compared it to "a wounded snake" , stating that "now is the time to kill it before it has a chance to recover."

"Procrastination and half-measures can only lead to […] our final and complete destruction," claimed the propagandists, reiterating that PKI members "and everything they stand for" should be " eliminated forever ."

Cover up the extermination

It is estimated that during operations carried out by special commands or local military forces and gangs,  between 500,000 and three million people died.

Faced with the alarming events, British officials tried to " hide the fact that the butchers had the support of generals, " reveals an operational evaluation written by IRD official Norman Reddaway in 1966.

The propagandist also praised the work of the Wynne team, claiming to be "in tune" with the right-wing generals. "The news machine was our club, the newsletter, and our unorthodox operations our stiletto," Reddaway noted, adding that "the discrediting of Sukarno was a quick success."

Reports also state that Sukarno's move was costing them some £ 250 million a year, but they managed to counter it at minimal cost in a matter of months. " I am delighted that a good number of communists have been eliminated ," Reddaway acknowledged in another letter.

Oct 18, 2021 21:51 GMT

https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/407543-desclasificado-londres-incitar-masacre-indonesia