ARI Working Paper Series

Indonesia has been haunted by the ‘spectre of communism’ since the action by military officers on 1 October 1965 in which the country’s top brass was murdered. The military attributed this ‘putsch’ to the communist party, PKI. The genocide that followed was triggered by an unprecedented campaign of sexual slander. Surprisingly this effective method of mass propaganda has been largely ignored by political scientists. Yet to this day accusations of communism continue to play a major role in public life. In this article I briefly introduce the military action, usually called a ‘putsch’, and the socialist women’s organization Gerwani (Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian women’s movement) members of which were accused of sexual debauchery. I then go on to describe the obstacles to my research on their history and their alleged involvement in the murder of the generals. I conclude by analysing the continued silence on the topic for present day analyses of Indonesian society.

Full text is not available, this working paper is withdrawn, as it has now been published as part of a published volume: ‘Sexual slander and the 1965/6 mass killings in Indonesia: Political and methodological considerations’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 41, No. 4, November 2011, pp 544-565.