A FILE released by the United States government last week among those
pertaining to the assassination of former president John F Kennedy has
revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considered murdering
Indonesia’s founding father Sukarno.
Classified as “top secret” and
dated from 1975, the document details an investigation by the CIA
Commission into plans by its agents to launch assassination plots
against various world leaders – particularly communists and those
aligned with the Soviet Union.
The then-Deputy Director of Plans at the CIA Richard Bissell attested to
discussions of killing Indonesia’s revolutionary hero and first
president, the left-leaning Sukarno, which “never progressed as far” as
recruiting somebody to assassinate him.
Bissell reportedly said that the CIA had “absolutely nothing” to do with
Sukarno’s death, who died of kidney failure in 1970, still under house
arrest at Bogor Palace by the country’s New Order military regime.
Sukarno and Fidel Castro in Havana, Cuba in 1960. Source: Wiki Commons
Nevertheless, along with Sukarno the CIA had discussed plans to
assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Dominican dictator Rafael
Trujillo and Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.
For decades, Sukarno presided over what he called “guided democracy”
which involved balancing the political aspirations of the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI) and the country’s anti-communist military and
Islamic groups. Espousing a postcolonial nationalism for Indonesia, he
frequently rallied against what he called “American imperialism.”
A CIA report from 1964 noted
that Sukarno’s anti-Western rhetoric and tactics “combined with
Communist single-mindedness, seem likely ultimately to bring Indonesia
under Communist control.”
However, “no assassination plans would have been undertaken without
authorisation outside the Agency, and no such authorisation was
undertaken … against Sukarno,” added Bissell in the newly released
document.
Sukarno’s daughter Sukmawati Sukarnoputri said to the Sydney Morning Herald that
“America should not only apologise to Indonesia, America should
apologise to all the countries they disturbed, if they will admit to it.
They never want to admit to it, especially the CIA.”
The revelation comes less than two weeks after separate, newly declassified documents showed
that the US government had actively supported the mass killings of
between 500,000 to a million Indonesians accused of being communists in
1965 and 1966.
Amid the Cold War, the massacres led to the ousting of Sukarno and
ascendency of right-wing General Suharto who would come to rule the
country for 32 years.
US-Indonesian relations are already under strain, particularly since the
Southeast Asian nation’s military chief General Gatot Nurmantyo was
prevented from boarding a flight to Washington DC earlier this month due
to what US officials later called an “administrative error.”
Sukarno declaring the independence of Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia on Friday, 17 August 1945. Source: Wiki Commons
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