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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
Domestic mass murder on a large scale is always the work of the state, at the hands of its own soldiery, police and gangsters, and/or ideological mobilization of allied civilian groups. The worst cases in the post-World War 11 era - Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia, China, East Pakistan, East Timor, and Indonesia - show much the same bloody manipulations. It is equally the case that the killer regimes do not announce publicly the huge numbers killed, and rarely boast about themassacres, let alone the tortures that usually accompany them. They like to create a set of public euphemismsendlesslycirculated through state-controlled mass media. In the age of the UN, to which almost all nation-states belong, in the time of Amnesty International and its uncountable NGO children and grandchildren, in the epoch of globalization and the internet, there are naturally worries about ‘face,’ interventions, embargos, ostracism, and UN-ish investigations. No less important are domestic considerations. National militaries are supposed heroically to defend the nation against foreign enemies, not slaughter their fellow-citizens. Police are supposed to uphold the law. Above all, there is need for political ‘stability,’ one element of which is that killing should not get out of control, and that amateur civilian killers should be quietly assured that ‘it's over’ and that no one will be punished.
1 The PRRI (Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia) was announced after Jakarta rejected an ultimatum demanding Sukarno's return to being merely a symbolic head of state, the formation of an anticommunist extra-parliamentary cabinet, etc. It was substantially aided, financially and militarily, by the CIA. Its stronghold was Sumatra, and its core leadership came from well-entrenched ‘native son’ officers, though various prominent leaders of parties (mainly Masjumi) were included to give the PRRI a better international reception. Not long afterward, a comparable movement appeared in Sulawesi, which allied itself with the PRRI. It should be added that regional discontent with Jakarta's policies and growing insubordination among Outer Island commanders had forced the central government to declare martial law for the whole country in March 1957. This declaration can be said to mark the start of the military's eventual domination of the country over most of the next forty years.
2 Among Batak purists, the Nasution clan was often suspected of mixed blood impurity, i.e. mix of Batak, Minangkabau, Indian, Atjehnese and Arab. This may explain why Effendy's street title was Effendy Keling (Indian). It is also possible that he was not born into the Nasution clan, but was adopted into it.
3 In late colonial times, the most feared urban gangsters in the Indies were Eurasian and Chinese, i.e. from marginalized social groups. During the Revolution, some of the Eurasians took the side of the Dutch, while Chinese gangsters were recruited into the Po An Tui, a pro-Dutch force which tried to protect Chinese from Sinophobic violence In the 1950s, over 200,000 Eurasians fled to The Netherlands, willingly or unwillingly. Still, as we have seen above, the two most feared killers under Suharto, Murdani and Yapto, were both Eurasians. Chinese gangsters still existed, but Baperki, the dominant political organization for Chinese Indonesians was, under the capable leadership of leftwinger Sjauw Giok Tjhan, mindful of the bad reputation of the Po An Tui, so that it did not have a serious gangster element. After October l. 1965, many Baperki members were killed, tortured, and imprisoned, and the organization was banned as ‘communist’. Hence, ‘on the streets’ Chinese had no organized protection bodies of their own. This situation opened the way for their fellow ‘foreign Asian’ business rivals, especially, in Medan, ‘Indians’ and Arabs’ of various kinds, to take over. If one looks at Joshua's list of the names of PP leaders and backdoor masterminds, one will be struck by the number of them who are, wholly or partially, of Punjabi, ‘Afghani,’ and Arab stock. All Muslims, of course.
4 In the middle 1980's I was contacted by a lady lawyer in Germany, asking me to provide professional testimony for a youngish Indonesian pleading for sanctuary. In written correspondence, the man said he had fled to Germany on the advice and with the help of his father, a middle ranking officer in the Army's military police. He had been a member of a gang, mostly sons of military men, which made its living by ‘guarding’ bars, discos, nightclubs. The gang strongly supported the Suharto government and help to make every election a ‘success.’ Then, out of the blue, came Petrus and he had to run for his life. I told him that since Petrus was aimed solely at gangsters, and this was widely known, the only way to get the German court to believe that they should grant him sanctuary was to admit that he was a gangster. The curious thing is that he could not bring himself to do so, insisting that he had always been loyal to the regime, and where required carried out its policies. This is a perfect example of left-hand bureaucratic consciousness. What, me?
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