Following Sunday night’s siege on a pro-democracy event by an angry anti-communist mob in Jakarta, a former aide to President Suharto during the New Order era has asked the military not to go forward with its plans to hold mandatory screenings of a controversial New Order propaganda film that many believe to be a primary cause for the country’s current anti-communist hysteria.
Sidharto Danusubroto, who is currently a member of the Presidential Advisory Board (Wantipres), has asked the Indonesian Military (TNI) to cancel their plans to screen the film Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (Treachery of the 30th September Movement / Indonesian Communist Party) for all members of the military.
The controversial 1984 film, sponsored by the New Order government, offers what historians believe to be a highly inaccurate version of the events leading up the assassination of six military generals as part of a coup plot by the (PKI) in 1965. It was shown annually on Indonesian television until Suharto’s downfall in 1998. The full movie can be streamed from Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddYExsNtX6w
TNI Commander General Gatot Nurmantyo ordered that the film be screened for all members of the military last week, saying that it was important for the younger generation to know the nation’s history and saying he had received permission from Interior Minister Tjahjo Kumolo.
“The goal is not to discredit anyone who is wrong, but to give a picture so that those bitter and black events do not happen again,” Gatot said as quoted in a press release from Monday as quoted by Kompas.
However, Presidential Advisor Sidharto Danusubroto asked the military to cancel the film’s screenings to help cool tensions after Sunday night’s siege on a pro-democracy event at the offices of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).
The PDI-P politician said President Joko Widodo was working on improving the nation’s economy and tackling poverty, but that events such as this film screening could create social unrest when the country needs political stability.
“That’s the priority. Don’t hold onto the past,” Sidharto said as quoted by Tempo.
Despite happening more than 50 years ago, the mass killings that took place in Indonesia from 1965-1966, which are estimated to have claimed the lives of 500,000 to 1 million people, remains a highly taboo topic in Indonesia. Activists and survivors who want to discuss the truth behind the genocide are often accused of communism themselves, as happened on Saturday when police shut down a private historical seminar held by the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) and then again by the angry mobs at Sunday’s pro-democracy event.
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