Indonesia: A Forgotten Genocide by Proxy

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41651047

This is another ghost from the past, another story that has for the most part been flushed down the memory hole. The BBC retains some value in that it will at least provide some coverage to stories like this but for real investigative journalism one must turn elsewhere. As is so often the case, their coverage allows them to retain journalistic credibility... but then functions as a 'move-along, nothing to see here' piece.

The BBC has become quite proficient in producing what I call the False Expose, journalism that tackles controversial topics and presents itself as 'digging deep' and getting the 'real story'. They're going to uncover all the mysteries, controversies and cover-ups, but then by the end of the story... what we're left with is a slightly bruised version of the official story. The expose turns into a whitewash and it begins to function as a cover-up.

There are some fine newspapers on the Continent and of course there are still investigative journalists in the alternative media and/or operating independently. If the BBC ever represented that kind of journalism, it doesn't anymore.

The story of Sukarno, the Non-Aligned Movement and the US backing of Suharto and his genocide are not only ancient history to most, it involves a part of the world and a larger story that most people don't know anything about. They have no context to locate or understand such a story.

Most academics in the West if they tell this story at all will resort to the Ken Burns tactic... good men made some bad decisions, things got carried away, lessons from previous engagements weren't learned, leaders let fear guide them and made some poor judgments... all the usual euphemisms and means of glossing over what was happening.

It was murder on a massive scale. The US had their proxies and they supported them. Indonesia had a large communist party and its leadership had angered Washington. During the height of the Vietnam War they didn't want to face another defection or another insurgency and so they decided to nip the problem in the bud. Suharto was their guy and remained a US favourite until his fall from power in the 1990s. It was butchery, the US knew it, encouraged it and in many cases all but ordered it. They gave logistical support and diplomatic cover. They provided lists of names and intelligence. Did Suharto get carried away? Establishment journalists will probably admit that... but see that falls on Suharto, not the Western intelligence agencies and military figures working with him or the American politicians backing him. The fact that he engaged in wanton slaughter and hundreds of thousands of innocent people with no connections to communism were killed... well, you can't blame any of that on the Americans. Their sin (if any) was that they didn't pay close enough attention.

The truth is that it was wholesale slaughter with hundreds of thousands and perhaps well over a million dead. It was an outsourced genocide perpetrated in such a way that the US could maintain a gossamer thin veil of plausible deniability.

Dissenters in the state department were told to keep silent. They knew what was happening. They wanted to get the story out but were silenced. The State Department is often an outsider when it comes to Deep State operations. The ambassadors within the region also knew what was happening. In fact the episode is reminiscent of the Pakistani genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1971. The US also knew about it and all but supported it. They were less enthusiastic about killing East Bengalis, in that case they merely wanted to support Islamabad as Pakistan was facilitating the rapprochement with China. Additionally when India under the despised Indira Gandhi began to get involved the Nixon administration wanted to oppose her.

US diplomat Archer Blood and others tried to expose what was happening and protested the policies of the US government. But these people were marginalised and silenced.

It is yet another case of the master criminals in Washington masking their deeds, using proxies and maintaining the facade of moral integrity... even while they hide a blood-soaked butcher knife behind their backs.