[January 1996 note from David Johnson of the Center for Defense Information:
Reproduced here is Dr. Ben Anderson's introduction to the translations of the official doctors' autopsy reports on the six generals killed on October 1, 1965 during the so-called left-wing September 30th Movement (GESTAPU) coup attempt in Indonesia. The coup was quickly suppressed by General Suharto and in subsequent months hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed by the Indonesian military and its allies. General Suharto eventually took over the government and ousted President Sukarno. The translations of the actual autopsies are not reprinted here, nor are the footnotes to Dr. Anderson's article. Contact David Johnson for further information.
As with most analyses of events in Indonesia in 1965 that conflict with official Indonesian government views, this important article is not widely known in Indonesia.
These official autopsy records indicate that, contrary to the widely disseminated inflammatory story at the time, the bodies of the generals were not mutilated or tortured. General Suharto's accusations of mutilation and torture of General Yani and the others by Communists were central to the Indonesian Army's extraordinarily violent campaign against its opponents. The Central Intelligence Agency has called this "one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century....One of the ghastliest and most concentrated bloodlettings of current times."
As former CIA employee Ralph McGehee has written in an article cleared by CIA censors, "Media fabrications played a key role in stirring up popular resentment against the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party]. Photographs of the bodies of the dead generals-- badly decomposed--were featured in all the newspapers and on television. Stories accompanying the pictures falsely claimed that the generals had been castrated and their eyes gouged out by Communist women. This cynically manufactured campaign was designed to foment public anger against the Communists and set the stage for a massacre."
It seems clear that leaders of the Indonesian Army knowingly misled the Indonesian public in order to destroy their opponents and seize power. The autopsies were ordered by General Suharto himself. U.S. Embassy officials led by Ambassador Marshall Green in 1965-66 collaborated in giving wide and vocal distribution to these false reports. For example, as early as October 5, 1965, Ambassador Green in a secret cable (now declassified) was recommending the following: "Spread story of PKI's guilt, treachery and brutality (this priority effort is perhaps most needed immediate assistance we can give Army if we can find way to do it without identifying it as solely or largely U.S. effort.)"
Indonesian government accounts of the 1965 events still to this day give prominence to allegations of "Communist" mutilation. Exhibits about the 1965 events feature pictures of alleged torturers.
In the absence of this falsified but effective propaganda campaign about "Communist" torturers it is quite possible that General Suharto and his collaborators might not have been able to launch their campaign of massive violence against the PKI in view of President Sukarno's strenuous efforts to prevent such violence.
A full and frank accounting of what happened in Indonesia in 1965 has yet to take place in Indonesia or elsewhere. Indonesians themselves are beginning to call for such an honest exploration of the central event in their history. For example, an editorial in "The Jakarta Post," on 2 October 1995 states: "After 30 years, we are also aware of the fact that the coup is still surrounded by plenty of mysteries. There are enough murky holes around it to fill several history books. Despite an official white book and a dozen or more accounts on the coup written mostly by foreign writers, there are many controversies that need to be explained. Therefore, we support the idea of a through study on this national tragedy. Perhaps, when we have acquired a better understanding of the coup, we can finally shake the trauma of conscience. Otherwise we are sure to be haunted by this one specter indefinitely."
On the American side, few officials have expressed concern or criticism of the massacres in Indonesia. One exception is Robert Kennedy who said in January 1966 while the killings were still going on: "We have spoken out against inhuman slaughters perpetrated by the Nazis and the Communists. But will we speak out also against the inhuman slaughter in Indonesia, where over 100,000 alleged Communists have been not perpetrators, but victims?"]

David Johnson
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