How Suharto won the West

No single American action in the period after 1945,8221; wrote the historian Gabriel Kolko...

No single American action in the period after 1945,8221; wrote the historian Gabriel Kolko, 8220;was as bloodthirsty as its role in Indonesia, for it tried to initiate the massacre.8221; He was referring to Suharto8217;s seizure of power in 1965-6, which caused the violent deaths of up to a million people.

To understand the significance of Suharto is to look beneath the surface of the current world order: the so-called global economy and the ruthless cynicism of those who run it. Suharto was our model mass murderer 8212; 8220;our8221; is used here advisedly. 8220;One of our very best and most valuable friends,8221; Thatcher called him8230;

Here lies a clue as to why Suharto, unlike Saddam Hussein, died not on the gallows but surrounded by the finest medical team his secret billions could buy. Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA operations officer in the 1960s, describes the terror of Suharto8217;s takeover in 1965-66 as 8220;the model operation8221; for the US-backed coup that got rid of Salvador Allende in Chile seven years later8230; Roland Challis, BBC south-east Asia correspondent at the time, told me how the British government was secretly involved in this slaughter. 8220;British warships escorted a ship full of Indonesian troops down the Malacca Straits so they could take part in the terrible holocaust,8221; he said8230;

The deal was that Indonesia under Suharto would offer up what Richard Nixon had called 8220;the richest hoard of natural resources, the greatest prize in south-east Asia8221;. In November 1967 the greatest prize was handed out at a remarkable three-day conference sponsored by the Time-Life Corporation in Geneva. Led by David Rockefeller, all the corporate giants were represented: the major oil companies and banks, General Motors, Imperial Chemical Industries, British American Tobacco, Siemens, US Steel and many others. Across the table sat Suharto8217;s US-trained economists who agreed to the corporate takeover of their country, sector by sector. The Freeport company got a mountain of copper in West Papua. A US/European consortium got the nickel8230; America, Japanese and French companies got the tropical forests of Sumatra8230;

Shortly before the death of Alan Clark, who under Thatcher was the minister responsible for supplying Suharto with most of his weapons, I interviewed him, and asked: 8220;Did it bother you personally that you were causing such mayhem and human suffering?8221;

8220;No, not in the slightest,8221; he replied. 8220;It never entered my head.8221;

8220;I ask the question because I read you are a vegetarian and are seriously concerned with the way animals are killed.8221;

8220;Yeah?8221;

8220;Doesn8217;t that concern extend to humans?8221;

8220;Curiously not.8221;

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Excerpted from John Pilger8217;s 8216;Our Model Dictator8217; in the Guardian, January 28