Loaded Gun

Between 1965 and 1968, Indonesia underwent a series of bloody communist massacres led by the military and a coup that replaced President Sukarno with General Suharto. For decades, the events appeared indigenous to Indonesia. However, in recent years declassified materials have indicated that other countries, namely the United States, were involved in the mass killings of hundreds of thousands of people. The United States encouraged the military’s actions prior to and during 1965, used propaganda to further antognize the targets of the killings, and provided supplies during the events. Given this information, the United States was in fact complicit in the purge of the late 1960s; American officials did not pull the trigger but loaded the gun. These conclusions raise further questions regarding the idea of complicity and how one can determine such an intangible concept. The consequences of these inquiries offer the chance to correct the historical record and identify the extent of American invovlement in Southeast Asian affairs during the Cold War.