The Press SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1965. Power In Indonesia

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1965. Power In Indonesia

Who really holds power in Indonesia is still far from established by the mass of conflicting news that has come out of the country since the abortive coup on September 30. It seems fairly certain that President Sukarno himself is responsible for the appeals to revive the old alliance of parties and factions; it is a fact that no-one is taking much notice of the pleas. The Army continues to hunt for Communists supposed to have supported the coup; newspapers have called for the banning of the Communist Party; and officials condone public demonstrations against the Communists and the Chinese. It is a fact that no Chinese delegation arrived at the conference, which opened in Djakarta last week, to promote the liquidation of foreign military bases. The Chinese Embassy in Djakarta was rebuked—by Army leaders?—for not lowering its flag during the funeral of the six murdered generals. Before the coup President Sukarno had appointed a new Army Chief of Staff with Communist sympathies: after the rebellion the President—presumably at the request of the Army—installed General Suharto, who is trusted by the generals. In addition to his appeals for unity, the President has taken at least two actions to protect the Communists. He posted Air Marshal Dani abroad. The Air Marshal declared support for the coup and then denied it. He is a Sukarno favourite. Since then, although President Sukarno has ordered the Army to stop demonstrations against the Communists, more restrictions have been placed on the party in Sumatra and central Java.

Appearances are probably not entirely misleading. The Army seems to have the President under its thumb. It claims to have saved him from the rebels; and this claim has evoked sufficient public support for a purge of the Communists. But the Army has not been able to induce him to ban the Communist Party or to expel Communists from his Cabinet. Indeed, it would be pointless to ban the party unless the Army were determined to fight a full-scale civil war. For all this, only meagre evidence has been offering to show that the Communist Party was directly behind the coup. The Communist newspaper came out in support of the coup but, by a regrettable piece of mistiming, appeared after the coup had been crushed. The subsequent silence of the party leaders and the annoyance shown by their Peking supporters have had all the air of guilty defiance. With memories of the squashing of the party in 1948 still vivid. China's disapproval has no doubt been directed more at the Army than at the President.

A particular mystery remains unsolved. If the September 30 coup was in fact a Communist plot, the launching of which was inspired by the apparent illness of the President, why did the party not rise in support once the news was out? Did Colonel Untung jump the gun? His action got no immediate support from Communist Party members. From the Communist point of view the showdown was premature. The generals had been perturbed at the growing influence of the party, and particularly at the President’s inclination towards arming workers and peasants as a “ fifth force ”. The conclusion that the generals, rather than the Communists, thought they had something to gain by advancing the time of the inevitable clash suggests that Colonel Untung’s claim to have protected the President from an Army coup had something in it. One report from Djakarta even suggests that President Sukarno himself, Mr Aidit, chairman of the Communist Party, and the Foreign Minister, Dr. Subandrio, whose position remains in doubt, conceived the plot themselves and enlisted the support of Air Marshal Dani to clear the way for a Communist take-over. When the six generals were kidnapped and taken to Halim air base, the rebel headquarters, the President, too, was there, for what he has since called “ protection ”. The absence of widespread Communist support remains unexplained. Whatever the origins of coup and counter-coup, facts and appearances combine to show the President as hardly more than a nominal leader being retained by the Army as a cover for its actions against the Communists.