As the International People’s Tribunal 1965, which
will be held in The Hague in mid-November, is nearing, arguments justifying the
atrocities against alleged communists and their sympathizers are being brought to
the fore. One of the most popular arguments is: it was either us or them.
Look at what
happened to Russia under Stalin and to Cambodia during the reign of Pol Pot,
some say. Those communist rulers killed millions of people in their own
countries! Would you have preferred Indonesia to be ruled by the likes of
Stalin or Pol Pot? The mass killings were necessary to save Indonesia, they
add, not realizing that this argument has been widely used by dictators all
over the world to justify campaigns of mass murder.
Pol Pot
during his lifetime stated several times: “I want you to know that everything I
did, I did for my country.” And what did he do, exactly? He conducted
bloody purges to get rid of people who opposed him and imprisoning or
outright murdering anyone suspected of disloyalty.
The argument
of national unity was also used by Stalin when he engineered a famine in
Ukraine during the years 1932-33, which killed millions.
The people
of Ukraine demanded to be independent, and Stalin was unwilling to let go of
their fertile lands, so he took the crops out of Ukraine by force.
Millions of people died of starvation and Stalin simply declared them
“enemies of the people.”
Thus, the
biggest genocide the Soviet leader was responsible for originally did not have
much do to with the challenge to communist ideology. Rather, it was about
power. The people of Ukraine had fought for their independence since the
time of the Russian tsars, long before the Communist Party took over. Stalin
also did not hesitate to crush the communist party in Ukraine and other
communist organizations that criticized him.
Pol Pot,
Stalin and Indonesia's own Suharto all used the excuse of saving their people
to efficiently eradicate their own enemies.
These
strongmen did what they did with the stated aim of preventing exactly the
same atrocity. That is why it is pointless to imagine what would have
happened if Indonesia would have seen the rise of someone like Pol Pot. If you
look at the degrees of authoritarianism and mass murder, we have actually been
ruled by someone much worse, and Suharto remained in power for much
longer than the Cambodian dictator.
In this
respect it is interesting that I met a Cambodian national in the early 1990s
who claimed that Pol Pot was not a mass murderer but a great patriot who loved
his country deeply. This man stressed: “If Pol Pot didn’t punish the
capitalists, we would have been crushed by someone like your President
Suharto!”
Pol Pot
could indeed have easily referred to Indonesia to support his bloody rule:
“Look at what happened to Indonesia, this could happen to us if we don’t
eradicate the people opposed to communism!” Genocide in this way becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy. And if you justify the anti-communist genocide in
Indonesia in this way, you also have to justify episodes of mass murder
elsewhere. How can anyone be sure that murdering someone is to only way to save
your own life?
And how can
anybody be sure that if communism had not been eradicated in Indonesia,
the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) would have been in power? In fact, the
Indonesian National Party (PNI) might have still been in power if Suharto did
not take over. Another possibility is that the Islam-based Masyumi Party would
have gained control, as this party came second (after the PNI) in the last
election before the New Order regime.
There are
many possibilities, but the rhetoric on the need to “to murder or be murdered”
has made it impossible for people to see these.
Many people
also fail to comprehend that if the communists in Indonesia were really on the
brink of starting a violent revolution, why was it so easy to murder them
en masse? Millions of people were slaughtered in cold blood, buried alive,
imprisoned, tortured and raped almost without anybody putting up serious a
fight.
The PKI was
one of the biggest communist parties in the world in the 1960s, with about
three million members. If these millions were really armed and ready
to revolt, as claimed, wouldn't they at least fight back in the face of their
complete annihilation?
It seems
however that the official discourse as propagated by the New Order regime has
prevented people from thinking clearly about this issue until today.
A prominent
leader of the Nazi Party, Hermann Goering, understood all too well
the power of fear in making people support mass murder.
“The people
don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
This is easy," he is quoted as having said. "All you have to do is
tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”
Many
Indonesians fell into this trap in 1965 and many still haven't managed to
escape it.
Soe Tjen
Marching, the British coordinator of IPT 1965, is currently working on a book
chronicling the lives of victims from the 1965 anti-communist purge.
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