The "Jakarta Method"

I had never heard of the term until I read Vincent Bevins’s latest book: The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anti-Communist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World (2020, PublicAffairs). Bevins is an American journalist who has worked in Brazil, the UK and Indonesia.

I have been to many parts of Indonesia and have even stationed myself in Jakarta for a couple of months, but nobody has ever mentioned this term to me, even though what did happen to Indonesia in the aftermath of Suharta takeover is known to all. Bevins says that some one million Indonesians lost their lives during that period, just because they were members of the Communist Party of Indonesia or who were identified to be sympathizers of its ideology.

Apparently, the seed of the slaughter was sown during Sukarno’s rule. And the US’s success in Indonesia was quickly adopted spread far and wide.

In 1961, Sukarno hosted a seemingly successful conference for non-aligned nations in Bandung. It was supposed to unite the newly independent countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to stand up to their former colonial masters and the US. Socialism appeared to be their rallying cause. But amongst them, many were already Communist countries. The ideology was gaining ground in many parts of the world, thanks to the developments in the USSR and its satellites in East Europe, and China. This awoken the US.

CIA immediately started to systematically and ruthlessly to undermine these fledgling governments. It openly funded their militaries and soon they seized power and turn their countries into military dictatorships. CIA sponsored their extermination of anyone, no matter who remotely he or she was, or said to be, associated with Communist or left-wing activities in these countries. Indonesia was its first target, hence the term the Jakarta Method.

Some one quarter of Indonesia’s population was said to be sympathetic to the Communist Party of Indonesia. Even though the Communists there were against armed struggle, the Suharta regime went on to liquidate some one million of them in cold blood. Many who were posted or studying overseas were cut adrift and some are still languishing in countries like the Netherlands and Brazil, even Cuba today.

Extermination exercises were conducted everywhere, many were totally ruthless. Bevins documents in good details some of these: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in Latin America, and Iran, Iraq, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and East Timur. In Africa, he lists only Sudan, but I believe many African dictatorships would not have happened without the US money and efforts.

Uncle Sam, you have so much blood on your hands! Yet you want more!