The killing of the several generals on September 30, 1965, followed by the transfer of power from Sukarno to Suharto, remains a mystery in Indonesian history. Academic studies that cast doubt on the official version have gradually lifted the veil over the dark events of 1965, though many questions remain unanswered.

One such question concerns the role of Subandrio. The Foreign Minister from 1957 to 1965 was arrested five months after the upheaval. He was not a member of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), the organization persistently linked to the September 30 event. He was a Sukarno loyalist and one of the President's most trusted officials at the time. Politically, Subandrio was an adherent of the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI) – the party founded by Sutan Sjahrir before Bung Karno banned it in 1960.

Though he was no military man – holding only the honorary rank of air vice marshal – Subandrio was dragged before the Extraordinary Military Tribunal. Over the 25-day trial, the military prosecutors failed to prove allegations that he conspired with the PKI to overthrow Sukarno's government. Yet, he was sentenced to death, a ruling later commuted to life imprisonment following an appeal from the Queen of the United Kingdom. Subandrio was released in 1995 and passed away nine years later at the age of 90.

Subandrio's story is typical of the New Order regime's efforts to suppress an important episode in the republic's history. Under Suharto, the military created a narrative that President Sukarno's loyalists had sought to overthrow the legitimate government. The New Order used the September 30 Movement as a pretext to silence anyone deemed politically opposed to it or threatening its power.

The accusation that the PKI was the mastermind behind the September 30 Movement was never supported by valid evidence. Yet those accused of being affiliated with the party were killed, imprisoned, exiled, stripped of their citizenship, and denied political and economic rights, restrictions that persist to this day. The state still designates Marxism-Leninism, the political-economic ideology embraced by the PKI, as a prohibited doctrine. The government also launched smear campaigns to reinforce the alleged crimes of those involved in the events of 1965.

In 1987, for example, the New Order regime spread disinformation about hundreds of millions of American dollars in so-called revolutionary funds. Given his position, Subandrio was considered the person most likely to know about the state funds allegedly kept in a Swiss bank. In interviews with the media, Subandrio said the revolutionary funds were a fictional story fabricated by the New Order to discredit the Old Order government by accusing it of hiding state wealth. To this day, in the modern era, the revolutionary funds have never been established as fact. Neither has Subandrio's role in the events of 1965.

Uncovering his story is not easy. As with the special September 30 editions published each year, the writers of this year's special edition on the September 30 Movement have had to piece together information from various documents, fragments of statements he made in interviews during his lifetime, and history books that recount his life. Subandrio's family and descendants have been reluctant to share stories about their father and grandfather. Fear and a paucity of knowledge have left Subandrio's tale shrouded in an ever-deeper fog.

The reign of the New Order cast a dense haze over the history of 1965. Yet scholarly studies have gradually peeled back layer after layer of the dark mysteries surrounding those events. Research emerging after the 1998 Reformasi has debunked the New Order's dogma that the PKI was the sole mastermind behind the tragedy.

The state's resistance to uncovering the events of 1965 makes reconciliation with the victims difficult. Yet reconciliation requires the truth to be disclosed first. Indonesia has failed to follow the example of Germany and South Africa, which managed to escape the trap of their dark histories and then focus on building the future.

The Ministry of Culture's current effort under Prabowo Subianto's administration – preserving the New Order's version of the 1965 events within its project to rewrite Indonesian history – only pushes the truth further into the dark. Yet, as the legendary author Pramoedya Ananta Toer once wrote: a nation that fails to understand its own history renders itself a stranger in its own country.

– Read the complete story in Tempo English Magazine

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/2121009/the-mystery-of-subandrios-role-in-the-september-30-movemen