because of its bulk and documentation but also because it offers new hypotheses and insights on the still murky origins of the 1965 coup in Indonesia and on the role of the Indonesian Communists in that milestone event.' Without doubt the most striking aspect of the study is Dr. Dake's controversial thesis that it was Indonesian President Sukarno himself who initiated the supposed coup against his against his own regime, with the collaboration of the Communist Party (PKI) leadership, in order to eliminate certain top army commanders. The latter presumably were opposed to the developing Sino-Indonesian axis and to the steady, radicalizing, leftward trend of domestic Indonesian policies, a drift in which the positions of Sukarno and of the PKI were becoming more and more indistinguishable from each other.

Much of the evidence for this thesis is derived from the interrogation by Indonesian military security officers of Colonel Banbang Setjono Widjanarko, Sukarno's own aide de camp, who, according to Dake, was "continuously in the presence of the Indonesian President, notably in 1964 and 1965." Early on the morning of August 4, 1965, according to Widjanarko's testimony released some five years later, Sukarno met with Lieutenant Colonel Untung (an officer of the President's palace guard generally acknowledged to be a principal plotter of the coup) and asked him to "take action against the disloyal generals." As is known, in the first

1 The author's background includes training as an attorney and an early career as a civil servant. After 1960 he turned to journalism and writing. He also serves as a media adviser in The Hague.

hours of the coup, on the night of September 30, 1965, six top army generals were slain by Untung's men and by PKI youth and women's front members. Dake claims to have declarations attesting to the Untung-Sukarno dialogue of August 4 from three witnesses "who were present in the palace the same morning." In an interview with Dake in 1972, Indonesia's senior soldier, General A. H. Nasution, affirmed that Untung consented to the scheme. The author surmises that most of the top PKI leadership, which had already developed its own revolualready developed its own revolutionary momentum, were not told details but probably suspected a good deal about Sukarno's intentions. PKI chairman D. N. Aidit, however, is said to have been however, is said to have been directly involved in the planning of the supposed coup; as early as twelve days after the UntungSukarno conversation, according to Dake, Aidit knew that "the link between the Communist and presidential conspirators had been laid," and coordination between Untung's group and the PKI coup organizers went into high gear, moving along parallel paths and in a "remarkable rivalry cum cooperation" toward a common climax. On the evening of September 30, in Dake's scenario, Sukarno was informed of Untung's decision to strike that very night; the presidential plot unfolded, and with it, Sukarno's own eventual undoing.

What is one to make of this new construction of the causes of the coup? Let it be noted first that Dake's main contention is not altogether news: as early as midOctober 1965, the American American press reported that the US government had what it considered "incontrovertible proof," based on confessions of those involved in

the affair, that Sukarno had been in league with the PKI in the coup attempt. But Washington was said to be reluctant to publicize this evidence since, in the post-coup power struggle then developing in Djakarta, it was uncertain whether Sukarno might not still come out on top.2

Even if one accepts the theory propounded by many observers that Sukarno had at least some and perhaps a good deal of foreknowledge of the coup, it is not easy to accept the WidjanarkoDake construction. For one thing, Widjanarko's statement, as Dake notes, was not issued until October-November 1970, while Widjanarko was in jail, and was made before interrogating officers of the military security command (Kopkamtib). Along with the question of why it took five years for Widjanarko to speak up, there is the problem of determining the degree of voluntariness of his testimony or indeed of many similar statements made by prisoners in today's Indonesia, where tens of thousands remain in detention for alleged complicity in the 1965 coup or even for mere sympathy with the now-banned PKI. The continuing public discussion in Indonesia itself, for a number of years now, about the need to follow "the rule of law," paralled by disquiet over the military's extraordinary judicial powers, underscores the skepticism aroused by the testimony of coup suspects and witnesses. And while General Nasution enjoys a well-deserved reputation for integrity and probity, even Dake's staunchest supporters might wish that Untung's presumed assent to Sukarno's re

2 See Chalmers M. Roberts' report in The Washington Post (Washington, DC), Oct. 13, 1965.

quest to take action against the recalcitrant generals (as recorded by Dake, pp. 388-89) rested on a base somewhat broader than Nasution's word to Dake alone.

There are other problems as well. According to Dake, three witnesses, "Suratni, Sukardi and Jacob Amanda," confirmed Widjanarko's version of the critically important Sukarno-Untung conversation on August 4, 1965. But Dake does not identify these three witnesses further or explain whether they are in a position to support Widjanarko's testimony directly or through hearsay. One wonders whether Sukarno, had he in fact decided to persuade Untung to "take action" against top army commanders, would have done so in circumstances reveal-❘ ing his intentions to no less than four different persons (his aide Widjanarko, as well as "Suratni, Sukardi and Jacob Amanda”). Again, Dake indicates that Second Deputy Premier Johannes Leimena was present at a September 23, 1965, meeting with Sukarno at the presidential palace when the question of the obstreperous generals came up; yet Dake's references to what Leimena reportedly said about Sukarno's planned purge of his army opponents are contradictory.'

3 Thus Dake notes (p. 405) that, according to Nasution, Leimena had indicated to investigators in 1969 that he, Leimena, knew Sukarno wanted to get rid of a number of generals; but in conversation with Dake himself, Leimena was a good deal vaguer, saying "I did not know whether Sukarno wanted to get them out of the way. I was preoccupied with other thoughts during the meeting."

The Widjanarko testimony has now been published: See Rahadi S. Karni, Ed., The Devious Dalang, Sukarno and the So-called Untung Putsch. Eyewitness Report by Bambang S. Widjanarko, Introduction by A.C.A. Dake, The Hague, Interdoc Publishing House, 1974.

One may also note that Indonesia's top army commanders were apparently not agreed on Sukarno's responsibility for the coup even before the Widjanarko❘ testimony. As early as February 13, 1967, in a lengthy statement over Radio Djakarta, General Nasution-who barely escaped the coup assassins himself-laid sole responsibility for the coup attempt on Sukarno. But on March 7, 1967, General Suharto-then the acting head of state and later President-declared in an address to the Consultative Assembly that while Sukarno's behavior at the time of the coup was suspicious, "we cannot mark Bung Karno down as a direct instigator, or the mastermind, or even an important figure of Gestapu/PKI, unless there are indeed still facts we haven't been able to find until this very day." To be sure, these statements were made before the Widjanarko testimony. But publicly, at least, Suharto has not seen any reason to change his mind in light of that testimony (nor, as Dake points out, have his advisers) although since 1970 there have been times when he might well have found it politically advantageous to do so.

Dake, no doubt aware of the controversial nature of his main thesis, has tried to anticipate criticisms that can be made of his heavy reliance on the Widja

4 A particularly regrettable example is a review of Dake's book by Peter C. Hauswedell in The China Quarterly (London), October-December 1973, pp. 789-93. In it, Hauswedell refers to a photograph in Dake's book in which Dake appears with General Nasution, remarking that the photo "suddenly" makes "the thrust of Dake's story" somehow "much clearer." Thus he seems to insinuate that a personal relationship influenced Dake's account. He makes no comment, however, about another photo on the same page showing Dake with Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik.

narko testimony. However, his defense-presented in the concluding pages of his book-is not very persuasive. (One might immediately add that some of the criticisms of Dake have been less than fair and thus not very persuasive either.")

Of passing interest, Dake's provocative view of the coup contrasts with the assessment of a fellow Dutch journalist and specialist on Indonesia, Willem Oltmans, one of the very few Dutch friends and confidants of Sukarno in the post-coup period. In an account of his experiences published in 1973, Oltmans writes that after the coup-in the course of the spectacular demise of the PKI-the profusion of "authentic and false reports, telegrams and documents" comprised such a "dense witches' brew" that it became an "almost inhuman task" to analyze developments. An interesting example of the crosscurrents at work was a conversation that took place in Oltmans' presence in October 1966, in which Sukarno (then rapidly losing power to Suharto) sought to draw out a Suharto associate about the United States' alleged involvement in Indonesia's internal affairs but also indicated that he was aware of Sovietbacked efforts to disseminate false information implicating the US in the coup. Even so, Oltmans

5 Willem O. Oltmans, Den Vaderland Getrouwe: Uit het dagboek van een journalist (Faithful to One's Native Land: The Diary of a Journalist), Utrecht and Antwerp, A. W. Bruna Publishers, 1973.

• Oltmans reports (ibid., pp. 317-18) that during this conversation, when he touched on the possibility "that the Soviets through their information services had circulated false documents in order to discredit the Americans," Sukarno angrily seized his arm and exclaimed: "Fellow, don't you think I know that?" The remark (continued on p. 58)

notes Sukarno's “unshaken conviction" that it was the Indonesian army and not the PKI which executed the the coup."

"long-contemplated

There is, fortunately, much more in Dake's volume than his controversial thesis of Sukarno's culpability. His treatment of the PKI's rise to power in the "Guided Democracy" era is admirably comprehensive and balanced. Particularly to be praised is his exhaustive analysis of the involvement of People's China in the events leading to the 1965 climax and the new light he throws on the smuggling of Chinese arms into Indonesia before the coup. It has been difficult for some observers to accept the fact of such covert Chinese arms shipments, even though the Indonesian government and military have repeatedly claimed that such arms. were found, and even though well before the coup the Thai and Malaysian press carried reports (with which Dake unfortunately does not appear to be familiar) that such Chinese arms shipments

is particularly interesting in light of the recent revelations of the Czech defector, Ladislav Bittman, concerning the efforts of Czechoslovak intelligence to carry on a Soviet-inspired campaign of political warfare in Indonesia in the first half of 1965, aimed at discrediting the US through allegations of CIA activity in the country. (The Deception Game: Czechoslovak Intelligence in Soviet Political Warfare, Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Research Corporation, 1972, pp. 106-22).

It may be noted that Oltmans was instrumental in bringing about the publication of letters allegedly written by Sukarno to his wife, Mme. Ratna Sari Dewi, during the critical first few days after the 1965 coup. The letters suggest that Sukarno viewed the coup not as the work of the PKI but rather as the result of an ideological struggle within the army leadership. They first appeared in the Dutch daily, NRC Handelsblad (Rotterdam), Sept. 22, 1973. The authenticity of the letters, as well as the bona fides of their writer, has been questioned.

were taking place.' Equally incisive is Dake's description of the Communists' "revolutionary offensive" in the months leading up to the coup, in the form of an intensive political and press campaign implementing the PKI slogan that "the revolution should be brought to a peak" and interacting with Sukarno's own policies. Together with what is now known of PKI plans leaked at the close of 1964 (indicating that during 1965 the party intended to further its infiltration of government services and to develop land reform, educational, and other campaigns specifically in preparation for a coup), Dake's book thoroughly refutes occasionally-heard variations of the notion that the PKI's involvement in the 1965 coup was "an almost desperate defensive move," presumably against the army, rather than the culmination of a political offensive.'

COMPARED TO THE amount that has been written on the PKI, the literature on the Huk movement of Central Luzon and on Philippine communism in general is rather meager. Thus, Eduardo Lachica had to rely much more heavily than did Dake on personal, "in-the-field" research and contacts to do his study of the Huks. The lack of documentary

7 Le Démocrate (Bangkok), Sept. 12, 1965, and Sabah Times (Kota Kinabalu), Sept. 14, 1965. See also The New York Times, Oct. 11, 1966, and May 18, 1971, on official Indonesian claims of the discovery of Chinese arms.

Quotations from Harold Crouch, "Another Look at the Indonesian 'Coup,' Indonesia (Ithaca, N.Y.), April 1973, p. 5. Crouch's conclusion is based on a misinterpretation of selective testimony in the trials of captured PKI figures like Njono and Sjam in the late 1960's and ignores all other PKI tactics in the months before the coup.

material, as well as Lachica's journalistic style, gives his narrative an impressionistic and sometimes superficial quality." But the book has a lively immediacy and is extremely informative, especially in its discussion of the roots of the Maoist New People's Army (NPA) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (Marxist-Leninist). What may perhaps be called the extremely personal character of the Huk movement represented, e.g., by the undisciplined gyrations of Huk figures like Alibasbas, Sumulong, "Freddie" (Efren Lopez) and "Dante" (Bernade Buscayno), and the background and views of sterner Maoist ideologues like Sison-is captured in these pages as nowhere else thus far.

Lachica has been wise in treating the Huk phenomenon historically, depicting it as a kind of independent variable in the development of Philippine communism that has interacted with the latter but has distinctive dynamics. This approach has posed an unforeseen liability, however, in that time has rapidly overtaken the concluding perspective of the study. Lachica's chapter on "The Failed Revolution," recounting the breakdown in the alliance between some of the Huk organizations and the Maoist ideologues and the seeming ineffectiveness of student unrest in Manila, offers a rather dismal outlook for the

Like Dake, Lachica is a journalist. The dust jacket of the Philippine edition of Lachica's book, published in 1971 under a slightly different title by Manila's Solidaridad Publishing House, describes him as a veteran reporter for the Philippines Herald and presently the Tokyo correspondent for the Asian News Service. The book grew out of the reports of a journalistic "task force" sent to investigate the Huks in Central Luzon early in 1969.

Philippine Communists and their partners and makes one acutely aware that the author ended his book at the close of 1970. Less than two years later Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos proclaimed nationwide martial law in the face of allegedly continuing disturbances in Manila and of the growing insurgency of the NPA (which, Marcos claimed in his

(September 1972 announcement

of martial law, was now "in control of 35 municipalities out of 37" in Isabela Province, was entrenched in rural sanctuaries in Luzon's mountains, and was attempting to expand into Albay, Sorsogon and Quezon provinces).10

In light of the ferment in Manila and in parts of the Luzon countryside in 1971-72, and (if the newest "red scare" is to be believed) in light also of the intrusion of NPA activists and Maoist ideologues into the Muslim insurrection in Mindanao," Lachica's contentions that "there is little evidence of popular support for radical politics" in the Philippines, or that Maoist appeals are doomed because of the hostility of the Filipinos for the Chinese, or that the Huks "cannot expand beyond the Pampanga areas," make for somewhat surprising reading. Lachica's assertion that the Huks do not pose a widening threat in the Philippines, being presumably content to stay within their own "native society," seems to be belied, at least in part, by the in

10 President Ferdinand Marcos' address, Radio Manila in English, Sept. 23, 1972, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report (Washington, DC), Sept. 25, 1972. See also Justus M. van der Kroef, "The Philippine Maoists," Orbis (Philadelphia), Winter, 1973, pp. 892-926, and "Communism and Reform in the Philippines," Pacific Affairs (Vancouver), Spring 1973, pp. 29-58. 11 SEATO, Trends and Highlights (Bangkok), March 1, 1973, p. 17.

corporation of some Huk elements into the NPA since 1971 and by the concomitant expansion of NPA operations well beyond Luzon.

12

thought to be fairer and swifter than the government's version." 12 It may be noteworthy that since the proclamation of martial law by President Marcos, both the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (Marxist-Leninist), and its rival pro-Moscow faction, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), have continued to stress the plight and revolutionary importance of "impoverished tenants" and "the peasant masses." " Lachica himself notes the failures of various government reform programs, including land reform, in the struggle against the Huks.

A final criticism is in order. It is difficult to understand Lachica's conclusions that "industrialization" should be the strategy of modernization in the Huk country of Central Luzon, and, simultaneously, that the government, by "letting Central Luzon alone"i.e., withdrawing its counterin

Lachica has a clear eye for what he calls the "ecology of dissidence" in the background of the Huk problem-i.e., the pattern of "us-against-them" antagonism reflecting the hostility of the Central Luzon peasantry toward the Philippine constabulary and toward the "city-slicker land-reformists," who in the peasant view do not really understand agrarian conditions. Because of this antagonism, the long campaign of terrorism conducted against the authorities by the seemingly indestructible Huk organization won over substantial peasant support. Not everyone would agree, however, with Lachica's assessment of the underlying economic issues. He maintains that while poverty and widespread tenancy are factors "contributing" to the persist-surgency units could encourage ence of the Huk phenomenon, their importance should not be overstressed: in substantiation, he argues that the town and countryside of Pampanga Province, where both Huk activity and tenancy rates are at a peak, "do not show widespread and abject poverty." It is, in fact, probably impossible to measure the relative weight of economic, social, and psychological factors involved in the Huks' appeal; but certainly economic issues were important in building up their reputation among the Luzon peasantry as protectors of the poor against heavy-handed landlords and as implementers of a rough, Robin Hood-style justice, "which people

12 Ben Kerkvliet, "Agrarian Conditions in Luzon Prior to Martial Law," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (Boston), September 1973, p. 38.

Pampanga and Tarlac to become "more peaceful." Lachica cannot be unaware of the urban features of some Huk operations (e.g., extortion, vice, and labor rackets)– features which laissez-faire security policy, combined with industrialization, would hardly seem likely to mitigate. In this connection, it is relevant and interesting to note a recent report that the NPA is now concentrating its activities in the urban "industrial" areas. According to Philippine Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, new NPA "front organizations" have been established in business, civic, and even religious circles in the cities, with the aim

13 See the Philippine Maoists' publication, Ang Bayan, Oct. 1, 1972, reprinted in Indonesian Tribune (Tirana) No. 4, 1972, pp. 27-32. See also a PKP Resolution of Feb. 10, 1973, published in Information Bulletin (Prague), No. 13, 1973, pp. 17-36.