Tawfiq Chahboune on Indonesia Holocaust Killer

Holocaust Day and deniers still deny as citizens are hacked to death today in Kenya, Tawfiq over at SU examines a killer.

There is something fitting but faintly uncomfortable in that the former dictator of Indonesia, General Suharto, died today. For today is International Holocaust Memorial Day, and it would be distasteful to celebrate any death, even that of Suharto’s, one of history’s supreme monsters. Remembering his crimes, however, is very necessary.

Famously, the liberal Clinton administration warmly praised the genocidal dictator as “our kind of guy”. (Incidentally, note how our governments and press refer to friendly dictators as “President”, while unfriendly ones are called “dictator”.) Having helped to overthrow the democratically elected Sukarno government, the U.S. and U.K. aided Suharto’s forces, which used jihadis as proxies, as they massacred approximately 1 million communists, socialists and peasants. The Left was annihilated, as was democracy for a generation. This is known as “supporting democracy”.

For those who choose to forget the grotesque details, the following example is instructive. Some ten thousand civilians were massacred in Bali by jihadi death squads linked to Suharto’s forces. The death toll may have been double that number, but, predictably, no one kept count. Later, when comparatively few Australian tourists were blown to bits by the forces of jihadism, the wailing and beating of breasts commenced. The wrong people had been massacred by our previous “kind of guys”. This is known as “blowback”, but to the ideologues a more exacting definition of the so-called “War on Terror” would be hard to find.

With extensive U.S. and U.K support, Suharto’s forces then invaded neighbouring East Timor and proceeded to massacre approximately one third of the population – a Nazi-like death rate. This is known as “supporting human rights”. The enthusiasm that this genocidal slaughter evinced in the U.S. and U.K. was depraved but unremarkable given the definition. Again, the right people were being massacred and, as ever, the liberal “Left” found the excuses required to put the necessary glow on a dark episode. Others simply chose not to draw attention to the slaughter by “our kind of guys”. These very same commentators now claim that they were “mistaken” and it was time to move on to a new future and not bang on about “history”.

Slowly, very slowly, solidarity movements grew with the East Timorese. The strongest of these were the ones in Australia. They had a role in changing Australian policy towards Indonesia, or rather East Timor. This was a phenomenal achievement given that Australia had been the only country in the world to recognise Indonesia’s territrorial claim to East Timor. Concurrently, however, the worst possible thing happened for the: Suharto started losing his grip on power. The economy was spiralling out of control and the Nazi-like massacres did not achieve the desired results as Indonesians started to revolt.

Convinced that Suharto’s time was up and that he was incapable of “restoring order”, the U.S. had no choice but to “support democracy”. Since another Nazi-like genocide was out of the question – on the grounds that it would not have the desired results – and Indonesia’s democrats were to overcome the odds and overthrow Suharto, the U.S. sided, albeit unwillingly, with the democrats. Up until this crucial point, our passionate PM of the day, Tony Blair, however, was not convinced that a further slaughter would not be efficacious and personally intervened to aid Suharto in his last rape and genocidal slaughter of East Timor. You see, Mr Blair is very “passionate” about human rights and freedom. He said so and therefore proof to the contrary is irrelevant. Unsurprisingly, the Western powers then congratulated themselves on helping overturn a psychopathic dictatorship and aiding democracy. Since you’ll be hearing a very different ”history” in the days to come from well-trained foreign and political editors, this “minority report” may come in handy.

PS. You’ll soon also hear great fairy stories about how Paul Wolfowitz, a former ambassador to Indonesia, was a strong opponent of Suharto and a leading voice for democratic reforms. This is all news to Indonesia’s democrats and human rights activists, who remember him as an apologist for a totalitarian and vicious regime, as well as being extremely and unnecessarily close to the most hardline thugs in the military. This is known as “anti-Americanism”.