When journalist Vincent Bevins (California, 38 years old) was sent to Jakarta in 2017, as a Southeast Asia correspondent for
The Washington Post
, he immediately realized that there was a part of the country's history overshadowed and that it was key to understanding the 20th century. : the assassination of at least one million people on the left (political, sympathizers or civilians) orchestrated between 1965 and 1966 by a faction of the country's military in collusion with the US CIA.
This strategy – which plunged the Asian country into a repressive military dictatorship for more than three decades, led by General Suharto, in power between 1966 and 1998 – was later exported, as Bevins explains in his essay The Jakarta Method
.
The anti-communist crusade and mass murder that shaped our world
(Edited by Captain Swing both in Spain and in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia or Chile).
Ask.
What is the Jakarta method?
Answer.
It could be defined as a methodology, based on radical anti-communism, that sought to silence leftist ideas in Indonesia.
In the country, as in many others in the global South, the concept of nation arises in opposition to centuries of colonialism, which could denote an almost instinctive disposition against the West.
The Jakarta method is to say that poor countries needed inspiration not to stray from the path.
Q.
How was it applied?
R.
Authoritarianism, violence and murder were valid tools to
correctly
guide the socioeconomic revolutions of those societies.
Considering them also threatening, leftism, indigenism, or feminism were included in the same narrative: everything was branded as communism.
Q.
Why was it tested in Indonesia?
R.
The country was in the front line of leadership of the Third World movement [understood as a new pole of power] with a leftist and anti-imperialist discourse, but not so much communist.
So, some people were not interested in seeing democratic socialist governments inspire other countries in the global South.
They wanted to stop it immediately.
The anti-communist excuse was used to violently impose an authoritarian and ultra-capitalist regime.
Q.
You also define it as a global phenomenon.
R.
The strategy was exported and has connections with more than twenty countries.
Its influence is present in the dictatorships of the 20th century in Latin America ―from Brazil to Chile, passing through Guatemala―, but also in the progressive tolerance of the United States to Franco's Spain.
There is evidence that the
Jakarta method
was the basis and inspiration for
Operation Condor
[the use of political repression, State terrorism, and assassination, promoted and endorsed by the US, in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay or Uruguay, among others].
Q.
What role did the CIA play?
R.
In that period is when the CIA -and the US Government- passes from adolescence to maturity.
After World War II, Washington appears on the global scene with power, money, and influence, but little real knowledge of the world.
The world order changes;
from the fifties, it is marked by US hegemony and global capitalism.
Q.
Does this radical anti-communism last until today?
A.
Yes. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has continued to be used as a political strategy due to its effectiveness.
Some dominant sectors of society have applied it to generate terror in the face of a supposed external enemy;
to discredit or criminalize the opposition;
or to delegitimize any dissent.
And criticism is essential in democratic systems;
its absence, like the questioning of the truth, degrades them.
In fact, in the English-speaking world there remains the idea not that there was, but still exists, a global communist conspiracy.
Q.
What is it due to?
A.
For centuries, elites in America, and elsewhere, feared a possible revolt from below.
Taking advantage of this, many radical far-right groups -and in some cases the right- have fueled this fear to establish the idea of a supposed communist conspiracy and decimate their adversaries.
The real international conspiracy is anti-communist.
This does exist, it has been maintained over time, it has had funds, and it has been outlining the actions that have worked in one country to apply them in others.
Unfortunately, in recent years it has become more common, as evidenced by Trumpism, Bolsonarism, or the rise of the extreme right in Europe...
Q.
In Madrid, in the last regional elections, the conservatives of the PP used the slogan: "Communism or freedom."
A.
It does not surprise me that, in moments of global crisis, this tactic is used in a similar way to how it was applied in the 20th century.
Q.
Do you relate it to contemporary polarization?
R.
Under the Jakarta prism, there is only good and evil;
right or wrong;
the hero and the villain.
There are no greys.
The communists were the enemy, defined as barbarians, and should be treated as such.
Q.
Could Putin's speech be framed in this strategy?
R.
Putin has combined rhetoric.
He spoke of "denazifying" Ukraine, but also of correcting "Bolshevik errors", in reference to the recognition of Ukraine as an independent Soviet republic from Russia, after the 1917 Revolution and following Lenin's premises.
It seems very cynical to me to twist facts, exaggerate or use fear and suffering to justify the imposition of more suffering.
Q.
If it has been so relevant, why hasn't this methodology been talked about more?
A.
It has been hidden.
In Indonesia it was illegal to mention communism, let alone investigate the murder of a million citizens for their leftist ideology.
That silence has suppressed an important part of the history of the 20th century, but it has also allowed the recycling of the methodology.
A recent example: Eduardo Bolsonaro presented a legislative project to literally criminalize communism in Brazil.
He cited Indonesian law as inspiration.
During the Cold War we were more aware of Vietnam, but what happened in Indonesia was key.
It is necessary to pay more attention to that time and understand its global consequences.
Q.
What were they?
A.
The Jakarta method created a world worse than it could have been.
Nothing assures us that as a society we will not mess it up again.
Therefore, it is essential to study the past... To ensure a better present and future.
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