The American nation cannot, must not,
and will not permit the establishment
of another Communist government.
In 1965 and 1966,
the Indonesian military intentionally killed
approximately 1,000,000 innocent civilians
with the active, enthusiastic participation
of the United States government.
My name is Vincent Bevins,
and I wrote "The Jakarta Method,
"Washington's Anticommunist Crusade
"and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped our World."
Journalist Vincent Bevins explains
how a US-sponsored disinformation campaign
was used around the world with deadly results.
The Jakarta Method
is the intentional mass murder
of leftists or people accused of being leftist,
and this was employed throughout the world in the cold war.
And the most important part of this story,
though not the first event in the tale,
is the US-backed mass murder
of approximately 1,000,000 innocent civilians
in Indonesia in 1965.
This massacre was one of the most important turning points
of the cold war.
One of the biggest successes for the West and its allies,
and it was such a big success
that it inspired movements elsewhere around the world,
specifically in Latin America,
to copy the tactics employed there,
and they use the word Jakarta
to denote what they were going to do
to their own leftists or accused leftists,
which was to kill them.
What happened in Indonesia
began on October 1st, 1965, with a military coup.
Some members of the Indonesian military
that believe, or say that they believe,
that their superior officers
are organizing a right-wing coup,
kidnap some of them, and six generals end up dead.
This is all very mysterious.
But what we know very well is that immediately afterwards,
a general named Suharto takes control of the country,
ignoring direct orders from President Sukarno
and immediately gets the full backing of the United States,
materially and ideologically,
as he begins to spread a horrible story
that the Indonesian Communist party was responsible for this
and had engaged in horrible torture of these six generals.
Declassified documents show the US government
was not just aware of what was happening, it helped.
The United States government
immediately gave communications materials to Suharto
that he used to coordinate his message around the country,
basically, "I'm in charge.
"The PKI, the Indonesian Communist party,
"is to blame for this, and they must be crushed."
And also the United States
successfully pressured western media outlets including BBC,
and ended up getting the the supportive outlets
like the New York Times and Time magazine
to spread this story
that the Indonesian Communist party,
specifically the women's wing of the party,
which was at the time,
one of the largest feminist organizations in the world,
had taken these six generals
and performed a bizarre
kind of tantric, satanic torture ritual
in which they literally castrated these Indonesian men
and threw them into a well.
The coup was just beginning,
in the weeks and months that followed,
leftists and members of the Communist party were targeted.
This propaganda story,
spread with the enthusiastic help of the United States,
was used to justify the mass arrest of the Indonesian left
and people accused of being on the Indonesian left.
At least 1,000,000, perhaps two or 3,000,000 people,
were arrested, and then,
over the next five to six months in the middle of the night,
some of these prisoners would be taken out,
executed, and thrown into rivers
In Indonesia,
anticommunist riots shake the country.
The violence took place
in different waves across Indonesia.
In general, it moved west, and then towards the east,
across the Island of Java,
the most populous island in the country,
but then arriving in Bali,
which probably experienced the most horrific violence
and the largest number of people killed
compared to the total population.
So we think that probably at least 5% of the population
of Bali was killed in 1965 and 1966,
and this mass murder not only made the emergence
of a tourist industry on this beautiful island possible,
the victims are still often buried on the sand
underneath the very hotels where Australian surfers
or American eco tourists
are staying and sipping on coconuts, right.
So this history is quite literally buried
in this part of the world.
They still are finding bones in the sand
just feet away from where people are posing
for Instagram bikini shots.
What happened in Indonesia
would soon be replicated in other countries.
Small countries
in which outside alien hands
have planted the seeds of subversion.
It was very well understood at the time
by US foreign policy officials
that Indonesia was far more important than Vietnam.
And this was,
for the other side of the world's political spectrum,
the side of the radical anticommunist
and the US allied dictators,
this was an inspirational achievement.
This was something
that they could do in their own backyards,
and not only would it work,
as it clearly worked in Indonesia,
they would get the full backing of the United States,
as they attempted to launder
their own reputations afterwards.
Frankly, Mister Ambassador,
we like the trained man
who would be able to plan and implement operations
in an area where we think is vitally important.
Because of this,
we are also requesting that your team of advisors
include a senior officer
who was thoroughly experienced in psychological operations.
Very well, sir,
I think we can provide you with an expert on the subject.
In the early 1970s, in both Brazil and Chile,
you see right-wing forces in both countries
using the word Jakarta, (foreign word) in Spanish,
or (foreign word) in Portuguese,
to signify something that they were going to do
to their own left-wing problem.
In Brazil,
you had something behind the scenes
called (speaks foreign language),
or just Operation Jakarta,
which was a similar program to eliminate the left.
And in Santiago, the capital of Chile,
you had this quite chilling terror campaign,
which consisted of graffiti
showing up on the homes of leftists or accused leftists
that said simply, Jakarta is coming.
And for anybody paying attention
in the cold war at the time,
it was very obvious what that meant.
It meant we're going to kill you,
just like the Indonesians killed their own Communists.
In 1973, this is exactly what happened.
Jakarta, very tragically, did come to South America,
with the success of the US-backed coup
that overthrew Salvador Allende
and installed Augusto Pinochet.
Thousands of leftist and accused leftists were killed,
and then Brazil and Chile got together
to form a international mass murder network,
called Operation Condor,
which identified and eliminated their enemies,
especially on the left, but not only on the left.
I find that in at least 20 countries,
US allies employ the intentional mass murder of civilians
in the construction
of a US-backed authoritarian capitalist regime,
and I find that this tactic, this Jakarta Method,
was such an important part of the way
that the cold war was won,
that it profoundly shaped the world that we live in today.
On a rainy day in Washington,
pomp and ceremony attend the formal reception
of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
President Marcos begins his state visit
with high praise for President Johnson's firm stand in Asia.
Countries like Brazil, Philippines, Indonesia,
all throughout Central America,
still have these intensely violent
and intensely effective anticommunist myths,
often based on explicit lies,
going back well into the beginning of the 20th century,
and Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil,
is a great example.
He came to power on the explicit promise
that he would resuscitate
the ideology of Brazil's dictatorship,
and he had said very explicitly out loud on television,
that it would it would require
the murder of 30,000 innocent Brazilians
in order for the country to move forward.
The Jakarta Method
even influenced domestic politics in the US.
One very often overlooked part of this story is
that young Barack Obama moved to Indonesia
in the late '60s because of this mass murder.
His stepfather was called back to Jakarta,
as were many Indonesians that were living abroad
during this turbulent time,
and he and his mother went with him.
That's why Barack Obama lived for a time in Indonesia,
that's where these rumors that he was a Muslim came from,
just because he was living in a Muslim country at the time.
I think that Barack Obama's early life
was profoundly shaped by this experience
and living in a country that had just been torn apart
by this kind of horrible violence.
The violence made possible
by the Jakarta Method can't be undone, but Bevin says,
it's tempting to think about what might have been.
The world that we live in was shaped
by a specific type of horrible violence,
and if the world is like this,
because of that type of horrible thing
that we would wish never happened
and we would hope never happened again,
that leads me to think what a world would be like
that was not shaped by this violence.
What possibilities for human history could lay before us,
if we rejected this kind of terrible repression
as a way to get what we want politically.
This is Inside Edition digital.