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Still on the coup subject, this one from the BRITISH sources (while Vincent Bevins in The Jakarta Method from the U.S. sources).
Decades-long article by The Independent (UK) yet still quite informative and offers lot of `new information' to readers about the fateful tragic history of this victimized nation and its inhabitants!
* * * * *
HOW WE DESTROYED SUKARNO
Foreign Office `dirty tricks' helped overthrow Indonesia's President Sukarno in 1966. Over the next 30 years, half a million people died.
[Note: 500,000 was much a conservative figure!]
In autumn 1965, Norman Reddaway, a lean and erudite rising star of the Foreign Office, was briefed for a special mission. The British Ambassador to Indonesia, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, had just visited London for discussions with the head of the Foreign Office, Joe Garner. Covert operations to undermine Sukarno, the troublesome and independently minded President of Indonesia, were not going well. Garner was persuaded to send Reddaway, the FO's propaganda expert, to Indonesia. His task: to take on anti-Sukarno propaganda operations run by the Foreign Office and M16. Garner gave Reddaway pounds 100,000 in cash "to do anything I could do to get rid of Sukarno", he says.
The first indication of British interest in removing Sukarno appears in a CIA memorandum of 1962. Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities".
Hostility to Sukarno was intensified by Indonesian objections to the Malaysian Federation. Sukarno complained the project was “a neo-colonial plot, pointing out that the Federation was a project for Malayan expansionism and continuing British influence in the region.”
In 1963 his objections crystallised in his policy of Konfrontasi, a breaking off of all relations with Malaysia, soon coupled with low-level military intervention. A protracted border war began along the 700-mile-long (app. 1,126 km) front in Borneo.
According to Foreign Office sources the decision to get rid of Sukarno had been taken by Macmillan's Conservative government and carried through during Wilson's 1964 Labour government. The Foreign Office had worked in conjunction with their American counterparts on a plan to oust the turbulent Sukarno. A covert operation and psychological warfare strategy was instigated, based at Phoenix Park, in Singapore, the British headquarters in the region. The M16 team kept close links with key elements in the Indonesian army through the British Embassy.
The Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) also worked out of Phoenix Park, reinforcing the work of M16 and the military psychological warfare experts.
(…)
The discrediting of Sukarno was of fundamental importance. Sukarno remained a respected and popular leader against whom Suharto could not move openly until the conditions were right. The constant barrage of bad international coverage and Sukarno's plummeting political position fatally undermined him. On 10 March 1966, Sukarno was forced to sign over his powers to General Suharto. Now perceived as closely associated with the attempted coup and the PKI, Sukarno had been discredited to the point where the army felt able to act. The PKI was eliminated as a significant force and a pro-Western military dictatorship firmly established.
It was not long before Suharto quietly ended the inactive policy of Konfrontasi resulting in a swift improvement in Anglo-Indonesian relations, which continue to be close to this day.
From: `Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948-77', by Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, to be published by Sutton on 7 December
[ … ]
www.independent.co.uk
~~~~
For way much deeper info of the British Foreign Policy Declassified, just follow MARK CURTIS.
Mark Curtis is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and has been an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Paris and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik, Bonn.
The covert war in Indonesia, 1957-58
By Mark Curtis | February 12, 2007
An edited extract from: Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses
Indonesian president Sukarno’s nationalist domestic policies and a foreign policy of non-alignment were see as a direct threat to Washington and London. The latter were especially concerned about the growing popularity and influence of the Indonesian Communist party (PKI) on the Sukarno government, notably in recent elections where the PKI had increased its share of the popular vote. The Foreign Office, for example, viewed with ‘anxiety’ the ‘trend of events in Indonesia’ especially the ‘electoral results’ showing that the PKI ‘has grown in strength to a disquieting degree’.
British planners were also concerned about the Sukarno government’s recent take-over of Dutch commercial interests. The Foreign Office wrote that ‘clearly a serious blow has been struk [sic] at the confidence of all foreign concerns trading in and with Indonesia’. The latter ‘is a country with a vast population and great potential wealth, and one in which United Kingdom interests are by no means negligible’.
In late 1957 dissident colonels in the Indonesian army were leading a challenge to rule by Jakarta in the outlying provinces in the country. By the end of the year Jakarta’s authority did not spread much beyond the island of Java and the north eastern area of Sumatra; elsewhere, local commanders were in practice operating their provinces independently. In January 1958 a rebellion against the central government broke out in Sumatra and Celebes. The causes were described by the British ambassador in Indonesia as the desire to end the Indonesian government’s inefficient economic policy and a demand for more self-government for the richer provinces. He also noted that ‘anti-communism’ has been included in the aims of the rebels and ‘in order to attract Western support, it has been made to appear one of the main purposes of the rebellion’.
On 15 February, the rebels proclaimed in the city of Padang a Republic of Indonesia; following which the Jakarta government began military operations to crush the rebellion. By June the government had virtually succeeded, Padang had been recaptured and the dissidents, although still in control of large areas of Sumatra, were forced to resort to guerilla warfare. Their rebellion finally petered out and they eventually surrendered in 1961.
The US and Britain covertly supported this rebellion in its early phase, ideally wanting to see Sukarno overthrown, but if not then because of what Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd understood as the rebels’ ‘nuisance value’. This meant using the rebellion to press the Jakarta government to adopt policies of London’s and Washington’s pleasing. Like the Yemenis, therefore, whose brutal civil war Britain covertly sponsored for nearly a decade knowing that their clients could not win but only destablise the central government, the Indonesians were used as tools by London and Washington. When their clients outlived their usefulness, as they did as soon as Jakarta had won the main war against them, London and Washington dropped their clients and re-engaged with Jakarta.
This was a US-led covert programme to which Britain leant important aid. The British files of this period are heavily censored but some light can be shed on the covert British role, while for the US role an excellent book by Audrey and George Kahin serves as a guide.
A prime mover in the British covert operation was Sir Robert Scott, Britain’s Commissioner General in Singapore. In December 1957, Scott lamented ‘the effects of the developing crisis in Indonesia in terms of dislocation of economic interests’ and that Indonesia ‘may pass under communist control’. Referring to the ‘anti-communist elements in Sumatra and the other outlying provinces’, he told the Foreign Office that:
‘I think the time has come to plan secretly with the Australians and Americans how best to give these elements the aid they need. This is a bold policy, carrying considerable risks… The action I am recommending will no doubt have little influence with President Soekarno. They are not designed to; I believe it should be one of our aims to bring about his downfall.’
[...]
Decades-long article by The Independent (UK) yet still quite informative and offers lot of `new information' to readers about the fateful tragic history of this victimized nation and its inhabitants!
* * * * *
HOW WE DESTROYED SUKARNO
Foreign Office `dirty tricks' helped overthrow Indonesia's President Sukarno in 1966. Over the next 30 years, half a million people died.
[Note: 500,000 was much a conservative figure!]
In autumn 1965, Norman Reddaway, a lean and erudite rising star of the Foreign Office, was briefed for a special mission. The British Ambassador to Indonesia, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, had just visited London for discussions with the head of the Foreign Office, Joe Garner. Covert operations to undermine Sukarno, the troublesome and independently minded President of Indonesia, were not going well. Garner was persuaded to send Reddaway, the FO's propaganda expert, to Indonesia. His task: to take on anti-Sukarno propaganda operations run by the Foreign Office and M16. Garner gave Reddaway pounds 100,000 in cash "to do anything I could do to get rid of Sukarno", he says.
The first indication of British interest in removing Sukarno appears in a CIA memorandum of 1962. Prime Minister Macmillan and President Kennedy agreed to "liquidate President Sukarno, depending on the situation and available opportunities".
Hostility to Sukarno was intensified by Indonesian objections to the Malaysian Federation. Sukarno complained the project was “a neo-colonial plot, pointing out that the Federation was a project for Malayan expansionism and continuing British influence in the region.”
In 1963 his objections crystallised in his policy of Konfrontasi, a breaking off of all relations with Malaysia, soon coupled with low-level military intervention. A protracted border war began along the 700-mile-long (app. 1,126 km) front in Borneo.
According to Foreign Office sources the decision to get rid of Sukarno had been taken by Macmillan's Conservative government and carried through during Wilson's 1964 Labour government. The Foreign Office had worked in conjunction with their American counterparts on a plan to oust the turbulent Sukarno. A covert operation and psychological warfare strategy was instigated, based at Phoenix Park, in Singapore, the British headquarters in the region. The M16 team kept close links with key elements in the Indonesian army through the British Embassy.
The Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD) also worked out of Phoenix Park, reinforcing the work of M16 and the military psychological warfare experts.
(…)
The discrediting of Sukarno was of fundamental importance. Sukarno remained a respected and popular leader against whom Suharto could not move openly until the conditions were right. The constant barrage of bad international coverage and Sukarno's plummeting political position fatally undermined him. On 10 March 1966, Sukarno was forced to sign over his powers to General Suharto. Now perceived as closely associated with the attempted coup and the PKI, Sukarno had been discredited to the point where the army felt able to act. The PKI was eliminated as a significant force and a pro-Western military dictatorship firmly established.
It was not long before Suharto quietly ended the inactive policy of Konfrontasi resulting in a swift improvement in Anglo-Indonesian relations, which continue to be close to this day.
From: `Britain's Secret Propaganda War 1948-77', by Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, to be published by Sutton on 7 December
[ … ]
How we destroyed Sukarno
Foreign Office `dirty tricks' helped overthrow Indonesia's President Sukarno in 1966. Over the next 30 years, half a million people died.
www.independent.co.uk
~~~~
For way much deeper info of the British Foreign Policy Declassified, just follow MARK CURTIS.
Mark Curtis is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and has been an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Paris and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik, Bonn.
The covert war in Indonesia, 1957-58
By Mark Curtis | February 12, 2007
An edited extract from: Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses
Unpeople: Victims of British Policy: Curtis, Mark: 9780099469728: Amazon.com: Books
Unpeople: Victims of British Policy [Curtis, Mark] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Unpeople: Victims of British Policy
www.amazon.com
Indonesian president Sukarno’s nationalist domestic policies and a foreign policy of non-alignment were see as a direct threat to Washington and London. The latter were especially concerned about the growing popularity and influence of the Indonesian Communist party (PKI) on the Sukarno government, notably in recent elections where the PKI had increased its share of the popular vote. The Foreign Office, for example, viewed with ‘anxiety’ the ‘trend of events in Indonesia’ especially the ‘electoral results’ showing that the PKI ‘has grown in strength to a disquieting degree’.
British planners were also concerned about the Sukarno government’s recent take-over of Dutch commercial interests. The Foreign Office wrote that ‘clearly a serious blow has been struk [sic] at the confidence of all foreign concerns trading in and with Indonesia’. The latter ‘is a country with a vast population and great potential wealth, and one in which United Kingdom interests are by no means negligible’.
In late 1957 dissident colonels in the Indonesian army were leading a challenge to rule by Jakarta in the outlying provinces in the country. By the end of the year Jakarta’s authority did not spread much beyond the island of Java and the north eastern area of Sumatra; elsewhere, local commanders were in practice operating their provinces independently. In January 1958 a rebellion against the central government broke out in Sumatra and Celebes. The causes were described by the British ambassador in Indonesia as the desire to end the Indonesian government’s inefficient economic policy and a demand for more self-government for the richer provinces. He also noted that ‘anti-communism’ has been included in the aims of the rebels and ‘in order to attract Western support, it has been made to appear one of the main purposes of the rebellion’.
On 15 February, the rebels proclaimed in the city of Padang a Republic of Indonesia; following which the Jakarta government began military operations to crush the rebellion. By June the government had virtually succeeded, Padang had been recaptured and the dissidents, although still in control of large areas of Sumatra, were forced to resort to guerilla warfare. Their rebellion finally petered out and they eventually surrendered in 1961.
The US and Britain covertly supported this rebellion in its early phase, ideally wanting to see Sukarno overthrown, but if not then because of what Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd understood as the rebels’ ‘nuisance value’. This meant using the rebellion to press the Jakarta government to adopt policies of London’s and Washington’s pleasing. Like the Yemenis, therefore, whose brutal civil war Britain covertly sponsored for nearly a decade knowing that their clients could not win but only destablise the central government, the Indonesians were used as tools by London and Washington. When their clients outlived their usefulness, as they did as soon as Jakarta had won the main war against them, London and Washington dropped their clients and re-engaged with Jakarta.
This was a US-led covert programme to which Britain leant important aid. The British files of this period are heavily censored but some light can be shed on the covert British role, while for the US role an excellent book by Audrey and George Kahin serves as a guide.
A prime mover in the British covert operation was Sir Robert Scott, Britain’s Commissioner General in Singapore. In December 1957, Scott lamented ‘the effects of the developing crisis in Indonesia in terms of dislocation of economic interests’ and that Indonesia ‘may pass under communist control’. Referring to the ‘anti-communist elements in Sumatra and the other outlying provinces’, he told the Foreign Office that:
‘I think the time has come to plan secretly with the Australians and Americans how best to give these elements the aid they need. This is a bold policy, carrying considerable risks… The action I am recommending will no doubt have little influence with President Soekarno. They are not designed to; I believe it should be one of our aims to bring about his downfall.’
[...]
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