Sunday, August 20, 2023

Guatemala before the election

By Allan Nairn


As Guatemalans go to the polls there is an ad running on TV encouraging parents to give DNA samples to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) to help with the identification of human remains found near the US border. 

In the ad an anxious mother plays and replays a voice message from her son who says that he will contact her "as soon as I cross the frontier."

The presumption is that the call never comes. The loved one has "disappeared."

It is, as the print version of the ad says, the fulfillment of "your greatest fear."

When the CIA invaded in 1954 and ended Guatemalan democracy it also put an end -- for a time, at least -- to the hope of basic human equality.

Today an estimated 47% of Guatemalans under the age of five are malnourished. And the country's rich are very rich and determined to keep it that way.

The military dictators who ran the country, with US backing, until the mid 1980s pursued that end by killing anyone perceived to stand in their way.

Their mission culminated in one of the most intensive slaughters since the Spanish Conquest as the army, by one of its own counts, wiped out 662 indigenous highland villages. 

As one of the field commanders, Sergeant Miguel Raimundo, explained it to me at the time "the problem is that almost all the village people are guerrillas." (Allan Nairn, "The Guns of Guatemala, the merciless mission of Rios Montt's army," The New Republic [US], April 11, 1983).

He didn't literally mean armed guerrillas, for, as the then-dictator General Rios Montt told me: "For each one who is shooting there are ten who are working behind him."

Expanding on this, Rios Montt's chief aide, Francisco Bianchi, continued:"[T]he Indians ['Indios,' he called them] were subversives, right? And how do you fight subversion? Clearly you had to kill Indians because they were collaborating with subversion. And they would say, 'You're massacring innocent people.' But they weren't innocent. They had sold out to subversion." (Allan Nairn, "Guatemala Can't Take 2 Roads," The New York Times, op ed, July 20, 1982).

These mountain sweeps, which were developed as a tactic with the US military attache -- as he told me, were a followup to the urban assassinations which decapitated civil society.

Among the victims was Manuel Colom Argueta, the former Mayor of Guatemala City who was shot 45 times as a helicopter hovered overhead.

And in one of those bitter jokes that the gods of history sometimes like to play, it is Colom Argueta's niece-in-law, Sandra Torres, who in today's election is standing as the presidential candidate of that US-invasion-installed old order.

Opposing her, having recently come out of nowhere to take a presumed lead, is Bernardo Arévalo, the son of the first of the two democratic-era presidents who began the land and other reforms that Eisenhower, and United Fruit, found so intolerable.

Arévalo, born abroad while his father was in exile, now faces a depleted Guatemala where economic exile has largely replaced the massacre-era political variety and where the massacre regime has morphed into one known as the Pacto de Corruptos (perhaps best translated as the Covenant of the Corrupt) and where sons and daughters are willing to risk becoming bones to cross the border.

By conventional measures, Arévalo and his reformist party, Semilla ('seed'), are facing an uphill electoral climb since Torres has the money, a big political machine, government agencies that are all-but-openly buying votes for her, and a public prosecutor's office (Ministerio Publico, MP) that is attempting to dissolve Semilla -- moving against it as recently as three days ago.

And on top of that the MP is talking about starting mass arrests -- perhaps tomorrow -- aimed not just at Semilla but also at the national elections board (Tribunal Supremo Electoral, TSE), which in addition to doing shady contracts characteristic of the current Pacto has shocked many by committing the real crime of refusing to knock out Arévalo.

Semilla is one of the many mainly middle-class movements around the world which have shaken and sometimes toppled governments by protesting corruption.

It was born out of the protest movement that brought down President General Otto
Pérez Molina in 2015 not on the grounds of his '80s massacres but on the grounds that he was a thief. (It was Pérez Molina's own troops who described their massacres to me in the field, see references above and also "Titular de Hoy" our documentary with Jean-Marie Simon and Mikael Wahlforss [director], as well as Allan Nairn,"CIA Death Squad," The Nation [US], April 17, 1995 which reports that as army intel chief he was a CIA asset).

In this campaign, Arévalo is running as the "anti-system" candidate but focuses mainly on those parts of the system that involve its obscene, jaw-dropping corruption, while speaking very little of those centered on the distribution of wealth (this while proposing massive increases in health and education spending).

But, apparently, for most Guatemalans -- and for the Pacto rulers -- that is more than enough.

The most credible polls have him leading by roughly twenty points and, especially in the cities, there is something crackling in the air.

Both the people and the Pacto are in agreement that this election is big.

It is shaping up as something like a referendum on the old regime, the first chance for a national turn since the US high crime of '54.

Until days ago there was some doubt if this election would happen at all but now that the voting is underway the battle moves to its next phase.

If Arévalo wins he won't be due to be sworn in until January 14, 2024, and Pacto members have made it clear that they will do what's needed to prevent that.

Merely winning the vote will not be enough; to take office he must first win big, and then many thousands will have to be ready to take to the streets if circumstances demand.

Guatemala has many little-known heroes. A generation of them fell in the hills.

Others, leaving home for the sake of their families, risk disappearing at today's frontier.

By tomorrow, the shape of their struggle -- and possibilities -- should become more clear.

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Monday, January 11, 2021

Trump's an ogre; but so's the thing that made him.

By Allan Nairn

As many, including some corporations, have pointed out, Trump, Republicans and the right incited violence. They should be punished. But it should also be pointed out that violence is at the core of how the US and world system --and much of business -- works.

As the bard of US and corporatist violence, Thomas L. Friedman, memorably put it in the New York Times: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. 

An immediate priority is to turn back the fascistic, racist surge of the Trumpists.  

But equally urgent is the need to alter and abolish the system that produced them. 

While they were mounting a frenzied assault on the very idea of US democracy, it is also the case that the state of that democracy is such that both their hero Trump and many of the liberals they want to murder are in broad agreement on a series of abominable principles, including the idea that it is tolerable that there are billionaires while others starve, and that the US has the right to invade and kill whomever.

It's great that empowered people have the ability to hold free elections, but its only great to the extent that they're not lording it over the disempowered.

When US voters choose a president they are handing that person the ability & self-assumed right to kill anyone in the world, 98% of whom aren't US voters. 

"No annihilation without representation" -- as minimalist a demand as that might be, is still unthinkable as a consensus precept in US politics. 

Barely anyone blinks when a US-sponsored army (Indonesia's) assassinates a pastor like West Papua's Yeremia Zanambani , or a CIA death squad executes Muslim schoolboys in Omar Khail, Afghanistanor the corporate-free-market-preserving F-15s like those lovingly invoked by Thomas Friedman massacre weddings and funerals in Yemen through the dropping of Raytheon bombs.

Beyond the old Hobbes, Max Weber conception of the state as the entity with a legitimated monopoly on the use of violence, the US system -- although legitimated only within the US, domestically -- extends that writ across the globe, and, even domestically, applies it differentially, killing or sparing people, to an important extent, based on race and wealth.

In a system that is a constantly struggled-over mix of one-person-one-vote and one-dollar-one-vote, US rich people & top officials become de-facto demi-gods with global, life-and-death reach. 

It's one reason why Trump was such a shock. It was, in a sense, the big reveal. Here, made flesh, was the ugly soul of the machine. He's an ogre; but so's the thing that made him.

-----


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“Americans Are Now Getting a Mild Taste of Their Own Medicine” (Transcript of January 7, 2021 appearance on Democracy Now!,the day after the Trump attack on the US Capitol)


World leaders reacted in horror over the storming of the U.S. Capitol, with the U.N. secretary-general calling on political leaders to demand their followers refrain from violence. Leaders of the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, France, Germany, NATO and the European Council called for a peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden. Investigative journalist Allan Nairn looks at what steps Trump may take next, and says despite protestations from President-elect Joe Biden and others that the insurrection was “not who we are,” the U.S. has a long track record of disrupting democratic processes elsewhere. “What has shaken the U.S. population so badly, this assault on the Capitol yesterday, is really nothing by comparison to what U.S. operations have done in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, to other democratic movements and elected governments over the years,” says Nairn.


Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

World leaders reacted in horror over the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called on U.S. political leaders to demand their followers refrain from violence. Leaders of the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, France, Germany, NATO and the European Council called for a peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden.

In statement, Venezuela’s government condemned political polarization and the spiral of violence, adding, quote, “With this unfortunate episode, the United States is experiencing what it has generated in other countries with its policies of aggression.”

For more, we’re joined by award-winning journalist Allan Nairn, activist, investigative journalist.

Allan, as we watched what happened unfold yesterday in the U.S. Congress, and the difference between what happened with this mob of white supremacists, of what many are calling domestic terrorists — the difference in how the Capitol Police, some of them taking selfies with them, dealt with them versus what we saw in Lafayette Park, what happens with Black Lives Matter activists, or just African Americans in general, your response?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Trump, I think, lost his chance to actually seize full power on election night when he failed to stop the vote count. But yesterday he proved that he does have a street mob and that many in law enforcement are ready to stand back and let them rampage, I think, in part, because many in law enforcement see themselves as being on the same team.

The Capitol was under siege from the outside, from the crowd, but at the same time, it was also under siege intellectually from the inside. You had about a third of the Congress that was toying with the idea of abolishing presidential elections.

And Biden said, “This isn’t who we are.” But, in fact, this is consistent with a lot of deep traditions of the U.S. rulers, restricting the franchise, which the Founders always sought to do and which the U.S. right today sees as their only hope for political survival, and also the basic bipartisan U.S. principle of the current establishment that no election is sacrosanct.

Any election can be overturned, as long as it’s a foreign election. The U.S. has supported coups consistently, nonstop, through every administration. Obama and John Kerry — after the Egyptian Army staged a coup and overthrew the elected president, Kerry said they were acting to restore democracy. Trump, when he was president, along with General Kelly, his chief of staff, supported the stealing of an election in Honduras, where the candidate, Nasralla, was winning the vote count, and where, just shortly before, the U.S. had supported a coup to overthrow the elected president of Honduras, Zelaya. That was under Obama.

More recently, Trump supported a coup in Bolivia to overthrow the president, Evo Morales. And after that, Elon Musk, the second-richest man in the world, worth $184 billion, he tweeted this just on July 24th. He said, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” And I think that’s a pretty good statement of U.S. foreign policy. But now Trump, in a sense, is bringing that foreign policy home.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Allan, could you talk about the response from — I mean, the widespread condemnation of what happened from leaders around the world? And, in particular, one comment that stands out is the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, on Twitter, writing, “From inflammatory words come violent actions – on the steps of the Reichstag and now in the Capitol,” in reference to the 1933 Reichstag fire that the Nazi Party used as a pretext to seize power.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, it’s always been the case that the U.S. establishment was willing to use terror and kill civilians overseas, either to do things like seize oil, seize political power, or basically on whim. The presidency of George W. Bush was a prime example of that.

But Trump brought a unique aspect. He had this — he has this unique ability to unleash the beast in white America, to reach into people’s souls and bring out the worst aspects. And he also has the ability to create a fascistic atmosphere. He’s a product of the American elite. He’s an oligarch himself. But he takes a different approach from the respectable presidents, who have been the soft, friendly face of ruthless American power. And in a way, I think, he is kind of exposing the American system for what it is, in many respects, through his behavior and through the way he talks. But the movement that he has incited is a unique threat. And it has to be stopped.

But at the same time, I think it would be a huge mistake for people who are anti-fascist to respond to that by embracing the establishment, embracing authoritarian measures. You know, imagine how the laws are going to be rewritten now. Imagine how security procedures are going to be rewritten now. It’s almost a guarantee that it’s going to be much harder now to hold demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and in the vicinity of the Capitol. It’s going to be harder for movements legally, for movements like the Black Lives movement, for example, to go out on the streets again. There are sure to be more restrictions. And there are sure to be more restrictions on speech, through the newly empowered corporate censors, like Facebook and Twitter and so on, and perhaps through the government itself.

I think we have to be clear-eyed, and don’t let this Trumpist movement coopt the idea of rebellion. Rebellion against injustice is a good thing. The problem is that they — and the U.S. system is indeed unjust and murderous. But they are rebelling against the aspects of the U.S. system that happen to be good: the democracy, the tolerance, the chance for a democratic space in organizing. That’s what they’re rebelling against, on behalf of evils, like racism, like madness, like blind obedience to the leader, Trump. But we have to be careful and stand against both that, but also the establishment, which is still the main power in the United States and that is now in the middle of gutting the American poor, the American working class. That has to be rebelled against, just as we resist these fascistic forces. And it’s not easy to do both at the same time, but it’s necessary.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Allan, I mean, barring the successful invocation of the 25th Amendment, Trump is still in power for the next almost two weeks. Could you talk about some of the concerns you have about what might happen, what he might do in these 13 days?

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, one deep tradition of the American establishment, and especially the corporate press, is to rally around the flag whenever an American president launches a new war. So, if Trump wanted to and if he could get the military to go along, he could do something like bomb Iran, for example. And he, in fact, recently sent a U.S. warship toward Iran, just to be prepared for that possibility, if his whim pulls him in that direction. He had previously been calling for his law enforcement authorities to do things like arresting Biden, arresting Hillary Clinton. He wasn’t able to pull that off, but, clearly, you know, there’s still a lot — there’s still a lot he could do.

But even after Trump is gone, Elon Musk will still be there. He’ll still have his money. The American oligarchs will still be there. The U.S. security establishment will still be there, ready to do to capitols around the world what Trump’s mob just did to the U.S. Capitol.

Although I have to say, what has shaken the U.S. population so badly, this assault on the Capitol yesterday, is really nothing by comparison to what U.S. operations have done in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, to other democratic movements and elected governments over the years. You know, just days before this, remember, the U.S. Congress, by an overwhelming margin, passed the defense authorization bill to pump more money toward the Pentagon and overseas special operations, and, through other measures, is backing those operations of the CIA, basically dedicated to, whenever the order comes down, being ready to go in and overthrow democracy. So, Americans are now getting a mild taste of their own medicine, in a sense.

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.

ALLAN NAIRN: And we have to recognize that and fight against it, stop it.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, activist and award-winning journalist,, thanks so much for joining us.

That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. And remember, wearing a mask is an act of love.

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Tuesday, November 3, 2020

After letting COVID-19 spread, Trump tries to use it to suppress votes. It's time for a real, equal democracy that ends state murder and mass preventable death.

The Republicans are working harder to stop votes from being cast and counted than they are to stop the spread of the deadly virus Covid-19.

They assess that the threat to them of Covid-19 is low enough that they can ignore it, even use it, but that the thing that truly endangers them is to let the wrong Americans vote.

While they are working with great vigor to mobilize their own supporters, they are striving still more fiercely to disenfranchise the other side.

While Republican lawyers work overtime to have counts stopped and legal, filled-out ballots destroyed, President Donald Trump, working the street side, tries to scare opposing voters away.   

Building on his party’s surgical, race-centered efforts to shut polling places and make voting a trial, Trump has called on his armed tough guys to show up outside the hostile voting venues that—despite best efforts—still remain.

And in a cynical but shrewd bank-shot, Trump is trying to leverage his stack of Covid-19 dead and to turn it into an advantage with the help of judges and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

While dilettanteishly fighting Covid-19 and then languidly opting to let it run wild, Trump was taking careful note of the fact that, contrary to his own reassurances, the Democrats were telling their base that coronavirus-infused particles could indeed kill you.

In his opponents' decision to tell their public this medical truth, Trump appeared to sense naive, contemptible, electorally exploitable vulnerability.

Trump anticipated that his followers, taking him at his repeated word, would be ready to storm the polling booths in person, but that due to this instance of loser honesty by his foe, the Democrats, Trump opponents would end up preferring, on the whole, to vote by mail.

The response was audacious and brilliant: impede the mail where the bad guys live, while at the same time getting his judges to toss legal ballots that were—thanks to his intervention—delayed.

Through his oligarchic henchman—the big party donor DeJoy—Trump commandeered the U.S. Postal Service, gleefully endeavoring to flip this great institution (where many African-Americans work) from a constitutionally mandated public service into a Republican dirty tricks op.

Clearly alluding to this gambit when he spoke November 1 on ABC, Trump aide Jason Miller predicted Trump would win in part because of what he called "media and Democratic suppression for their voters on election day"—ie. media and Democratic Party candor on the pandemic that led their voters to, like suckers, trust the U.S. Postal Service.

If this vast, brazen scheme succeeds it will be a nightstick blow to the head of democracy, but if it doesn't—or perhaps even if it does—it may, and must, inspire deep change.

It's long past time for the US to stop pretending to be some pompous version of a managed democracy, and to give everyone the unimpeded right to cast a cleanly counted, equally-weighted vote.

But beyond the oft-discussed legal and political changes needed to ensure one-person-one-vote, we must also alter and abolish the economic system that imposes the rule of one-dollar-one-vote.

If the Democrats win it will be in no small part because they out-monied the Republican money-men, enabling them to sell Biden with the cash of Bloomberg and the college-plus suburbanites whom they proudly tout as their grass-roots replacement for the alienated working class and poor, that vast, multi-ethnic cadre that has fled the party or elected not to vote.

But beyond the political clout of sums like the extra trillion dollars US oligarchs gained during Trump and Covid-19 , lie the material harms of this skewed system that include mass preventable death.  Domestically, that includes the fallout of our failure to treat food, shelter, and healthcare as among one's rights, but internationally it includes the routine US practice—starting long before Trump was born—of being willing to cause the mass death of foreign civilians, on whim, for interest, or for fleeting gain.

Perhaps due to Trump and the mortal consequences of the rightist revolution he dragged to power, the notion is finally starting to broadly dawn that certain things—like flirting with extinction, and brutality, are unacceptable, and if you allow them there's a chance that they'll come home to hit you too.

Covid-19 is somewhat like that, but so are many deep parts of the US and world system.  Let Trump be the occasion to start rooting them all out, once and for all.  


A version of this piece appeared at Common Dreams 


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Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Breaking News: Rapat strategis Prabowo merencanakan penangkapan massal lawan-lawan politik dan kaum Islamis; upaya di balik layar untuk menyenangkan AS, termasuk perintah Prabowo untuk menggagalkan gugatan melawan Freeport-McMoRan dan janji untuk “menghancurkan” FPI, HTI, PKS; Partai Demokrat juga ditarget; rencana mengembalikan Angkatan Darat ke perannya seperti zaman “Orde Baru”

April 15, 2019

Oleh Allan Nairn
Jakarta


Prabowo Subianto, seorang pensiunan jenderal yang sekarang sedang mengincar jabatan presiden Indonesia telah menyusun rencana untuk melakukan penangkapan massal baik terhadap lawan-lawan politik maupun para sekutunya hari ini.

Menurut notulensi rapat strategis yang digelar Prabowo bersama rekan-rekan jenderal lingkaran dalamnya dan sejumlah orang lainnya yang tergabung dalam tim inti pada akhir Desember 2018, Prabowo--seorang 'anak didik' Amerika Serikat yang telah lama terlibat dalam kasus pembunuhan massal, penculikan, dan penyiksaan, juga berencana mengembalikan Angkatan Darat Indonesia ke posisinya seperti di era kediktatoran Suharto.

[For full scrollable text of Notulensi Rapat see link, and bottom of this piece]

Menurut notulensi rapat tersebut, Prabowo--yang pernah berbicara ngalor-ngidul di hadapan saya tentang upaya merebut kekuasaan dan soal "[dijuluki] diktator fasis"--rupanya telah mempersiapkan "Malam Belati Panjang" (Night of the Long Knives) versinya sendiri, untuk mengonsolidasikan kekuasaan di tangannya sekaligus menjilat Washington.

Dalam pertemuan yang diadakan pada 21 Desember 2018 di kediaman Prabowo di Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta, Prabowo dan dan tim membuat penugasan-penugasan khusus tak hanya untuk "mengadili sebanyak-banyaknya lawan politik," tapi juga "melumpuhkan" kelompok-kelompok Islamis yang kini menyokong kampanyenya. Rencana ini akan dilaksanakan setelah Prabowo menjabat presiden.

Selama ini Prabowo berkampanye melawan apa yang dikecamnya sebagai "antek asing". Namun notulensi rapat menyebutkan ia diam-diam berjanji untuk "bekerja sama dengan Amerika Serikat" dengan cara "menangkap ulama-ulama radikal" dan "serdadu-serdadu [Islamis]" yang membantunya berkampanye saat ini.

Meski ihwal besar yang diserang dalam kampanye Prabowo adalah perampasan kekayaan nasional oleh asing, di belakang layar Prabowo telah campur tangan--seperti yang dikatakan wakil ketua partainya kepada saya--untuk menyokong aktor utama perampas kekayaan itu, yakni Freeport-McMoRan, perusahaan tambang raksasa asal AS.

—-

Freeport--beserta tambang emas dan tembaganya yang telah menduduki Papua secara de facto--telah berulang kali kepergok menyuap pejabat dan satuan-satuan militer serupa Kopassus-nya Prabowo. Freeport juga telah menyebabkan kerusakan lingkungan. Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan Indonesia melaporkan kerusakan ini diperkirakan mencapai Papua Barat, sebuah wilayah pendudukan secara de-facto. Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan Indonesia pada 2017 memperkirakan kerusakan akibat kerusakan lingkungan ini mencapai $13 miliar.

Beberapa tahun belakangan, perusahan yang beroperasi secara global itu dikendalikan oleh kawan Presiden Donald Trump, Carl Icahn.

Lawan Prabowo yang berasal dari kalangan sipil, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), belakangan sebagian menasionalisasikan Freeport--sebuah langkah yang disikapi dengan keberatan oleh AS. 

Namun, dalam sebuah wawancara on-the-record, wakil ketua Gerindra memberi tahu saya bahwa Prabowo--secara diam-diam--telah ikut campur atas nama Freeport.

"Artinya dia tidak anti-asing itu," kata Waketum Gerindra Arief Poyuono menekankan sikap Prabowo kepada saya. Ia menyatakan Prabowo "marah" dan ikut campur dalam kapasitas pribadi untuk menggagalkan gugatan para pekerja Freeport melawan Freeport. Gugatan ini diajukan ke pengadilan oleh Poyuono.

Menurut pengakuan Poyuono, setelah terjadi sebuah kecelakaan kerja di Freeport, Poyuono bertindak dalam kapasitasnya sebagai pimpinan sebuah serikat buruh untuk mengajukan gugatan hukum tanpa berkonsultasi dengan Prabowo. Tapi setelah Prabowo mengetahui hal itu, Poyuono menarik gugatan tersebut. "Saya cabut," katanya.

"Prabowo marah sama saya," kata Poyuono. "'Eh, Jangan,' katanya, 'itu nggak boleh,' kata Poyuono menirukan Prabowo. 'Jangan begitu, mereka [Freeport] sudah investasi banyak!'"

Poyuono menambahkan pandangan Prabowo terhadap Freeport "sangat positif" dan mengatakan bahwa Prabowo menganggap nasionalisasi parsial Freeport oleh Jokowi sebagai langkah yang "terlalu kasar".

Poyuono adalah satu dari tiga orang sipil yang disebut-sebut hadir dalam rapat strategis di rumah Prabowo pada 21 Desember.

Selain Prabowo, ada enam purnawirawan jenderal dan tiga purnawirawan laksamana yang hadir dalam rapat tersebut.

Di antara perwira yang datang, ada Glenny Kairupan dan Yunus Yosfiah yang masing-masing terlibat dalam teror bumihangus dan pembantaian massal pasca-referendum Timor Timur yang diadakan PBB dan pembunuhan lima jurnalis Australia dan Selandia Baru (peristiwa Balibo).

Pernyataan-pernyataan Poyuono kepada saya saya tentang Prabowo dan Freeport--juga tentang Prabowo dan Trump, (Poyuono mengaku Prabowo telah mencoba bertemu Trump dan memujinya "bagus", serta menggunakan taktik kampanye Trump)--konsisten dengan pokok-pokok berulang (repeated allusions) dalam catatan rapat yang mengacu pada hasrat Prabowo untuk menyenangkan Washington--sebuah niat yang berada di urutan kedua setelah keinginan Prabowo menyingkirkan lawan-lawannya.

Meskipun Prabowo baru-baru ini bersumpah di muka publik tidak akan menggunakan kekuatan koersif negara untuk kepentingan politiknya sendiri, catatan rapat strategis tertutup justru menggambarkan rencana-rencana detail Prabowo untuk memanfaatkan negara demi kepentingan politik pribadi. 

Mandat untuk "mengadili sebanyak-banyaknya lawan politik" akan diserahkan kepada Jaksa Agung baru Prabowo (partai-partai yang disasar adalah yang anti-Prabowo dan pro-Jokowi: PDIP, Nasdem, Golkar, PKB, dan PPP) dan nampaknya juga kepada Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK) yang kelihatannya independen. Dalam catatan rapat tersebut, tiga pimpinan KPK saat ini ditulis akan "diserang" dan "dijatuhkan" sebagai" target utama dalam operasi pengendalian KPK."

Secara terselubung, ada "agenda penyerangan terhadap lawan politik" yang akan dilancarkan oleh BIN (Badan Intelijen Negara)--mitra CIA di Indonesia yang mungkin dikenal karena telah meracuni dan membunuh pahlawan HAM sekaligus teman saya, Munir, pada 2004. (Pembunuhan ini diperintahkan oleh seorang jenderal, Hendropriyono, yang kini menjadi penasihat Jokowi).

Begitu Prabowo mengambil alih kekuasaan, cara-cara ekstra-legal BIN akan digunakan untuk menghadapi koalisi partai-partai yang sekarang berkampanye untuk Prabowo, tentu dengan Gerindra (partai politik Prabowo) sebagai pengecualian. 

Salah satu dari sekian target adalah pimpinan Partai Demokrat Jenderal Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), seorang mantan presiden yang turut memecat Prabowo dari Angkatan Darat setelah kejatuhan Suharto. Selama kampanye tahun ini, SBY terlihat hangat-hangat kuku mendukung Prabowo. Dalam sebuah surat pribadi yang bocor, SBY mengkritik rencana kampanye besar-besaran Prabowo sebagai tindakan yang memecah belah.

Seperti yang telah terjadi, rapat strategis Desember 2018--menurut notulensi rapat--dimulai begitu Prabowo pulang dari acara pertemuan dengan SBY di Jakarta. 

Notulensi rapat menyatakan: "Tugas lain dari BIN nanti adalah melemahkan partai koalisi untuk meningkatkan dominasi Gerindra dalam pemerintahan: PKS dan Partai Demokrat akan digembosi habis-habisan melalui berbgai kasus Korupsi lama dan yang baru. Para petinggi partai akan dipenjara karena korupsi. Dengan begitu, Prabowo tampak sebagai presiden yang kuat dan tegas dalam menegakkan hukum."

Pemenjaraan politik ini akan diperintahkan jauh-jauh hari sebelum ada fakta, sebelum bukti-bukti dikumpulkan, sebelum pengadilan digelar. Penugasan ini hanya dilakukan untuk kasus korupsi baik sungguhan maupun baru dugaan, bukan untuk kasus pembunuhan massal, penyiksaan, atau pelanggaran HAM berat lainnya.

BIN di bawah kekuasaan Prabowo juga akan ditugaskan untuk "melumpuhkan kelompok HTI [yang telah dilarang oleh pemerintah karena dianggap sebagai ancaman negara dan keselamatan publik], FPI [organisasi yang awalnya dicetuskan oleh tentara dan polisi sebagai "preman" untuk menyerang aktivis pro-demokrasi], JAD, dan [kelompok-kelompok] yang setara dengan itu." Kerja-kerja ini akan mengiringi tugas POLRI untuk "melemahkan gerakan HTI dan FPI; menangkap ulama-ulama radikal untuk menunjukkan pada Amerika dan sekutu bahwa Prabowo-Sandi tegas mengatasi radikalisme dan terorisme di Asia Tenggara.

Mungkin inilah aspek yang paling kontroversial secara politis dari rencana tersebut, karena HTI, FPI, PKS, kelompok-kelompok serupa, dan "ulama-ulama radikal" adalah motor di balik kampanye akar rumput Prabowo.

Dan Prabowo--yang mengampanyekan dirinya sebagai musuh bebuyutan "antek-antek asing"--secara eksplisit menarget organisasi Islamis dan "ulama radikal" demi Amerika Serikat:

Dalam pertemuan itu, "Dikabarkan juga, pada pertengahan Desember 2018, Prabowo Subianto sempat diundang oleh Dubes Amerika untuk Indonesia bertemu di kediaman Dubes Joseph R. Donovan, Jr. Selain membicarakan perang dagang Cina-AS, keduanya membahas komitmen Indonesia melawan terorisme ke depan. Prabowo berjanji akan mendukung penuh AS dalam memerangi kelompok radikal dan teroris di Indonesia.”

Tentang upaya Prabowo mendekati AS, notulensi itu memaparkan: "jika terpilih sebagai presiden, langkah awal yang dilakukannya [Prabowo] adalah menghancurkan radikalisme di Indonesia"--sebuah komitmen penting bagi seorang kandidat yang dalam pawai terbesarnya berkampanye bersama pimpinan FPI (melalui streaming video dari Arab Saudi); seorang kandidat yang dalam salah satu video viraalnya terlihat memberi hormat di hadapan khalayak dari atap limusin yang disediakan oleh seseorang yang mengaku sebagai "Presiden ISIS Indonesia" dan mengirim kombatan-kombatan Indonesia ke Irak dan Suriah.

Salah satu alasan kenapa rapat strategis itu diadakan adalah (selain merencanakan "balas dendam politik") "untuk menentukan langkah konkrit menghadapi sejumlah isu strategis seperti tuduhan Prabowo-Sandi mendukung Khilafah... Seperti diketahui, Prabowo, sampai saat ini, belum menyatakan sikap tegas apakah mendukung atau menentang Kelompok HTI, FPI, dan kelompok lain yang mendukung berdirinya Khilafah di Indonesia. Prabowo sengaja diam karena ia ingin menjadikan mereka serdadu [untuk] memenangkan pertempuran politik 2019."

Tetapi Prabowo dan "orang-orang inti dari lingkaran dalam"--notulensi menyebutkan nama enam jenderal yang hadir, tiga laksamana, tiga agen (operative) sipil, namun tidak ada tokoh Islamis--mengambil keputusan yang jelas untuk mengorbankan 'serdadu-serdadunya' begitu pertempuran berakhir.

Tentang apa yang terlihat seperti imbalan politik yang dilebih-lebihkan untuk untuk pengkhianatan ini, notulensi rapat menyatakan Prabowo "berjanji bekerjasama dengan Amerika Serikat, Singapura, dan Australia yang konon saat ini sudah memberikan sinyal dukungan terhadap pasangan Prabowo-Sandi."

Mungkin ini berlaku pada Singapura, namun nampaknya tak demikian bagi AS. Kedutaan Besar AS di Jakarta belum menanggapi permintaan saya untuk memberikan komentar.

Catatan rapat strategis yang berjudul "NOTULENSI RAPAT TERTUTUP PRABOWO SUBIANTO DAN TIM," ini telah beredar secara terbatas di lingkaran aparat keamanan termasuk BIN, dan telah sampai baik ke tangan para pejabat yang loyal kepada Presiden Jokowi maupun pejabat-pejabat lain yang mendukung Prabowo.

Karena telah diidentifikasi sebagai informasi yang diterima "dari 'orang dalam' Prabowo-Sandi", informasi ini tampaknya tidak digunakan secara politis, karena dipandang bermasalah bagi kedua kubu pendukung.

Akan memalukan bagi kubu pendukung Jokowi untuk mengakui bahwa mereka memata-matai Prabowo, sebagaimana yang pernah dituduhkan oleh Prabowo sendiri. Notulensi ini juga melemahkan narasi sejumlah pihak di kubu Jokowi bahwa Prabowo adalah seorang Islamis ekstremis,  berkebalikan dengan yang telah ditunjukkan oleh karirnya--dan oleh dokumen ini--sebagai orangnya Suharto, Angkatan Darat, Washington, dan seorang pendukung kediktatoran yang masih berambisi mengejar kekuasaan mutlak.

Bagi kubu pendukung Prabowo, notulensi ini melemahkan klaim Prabowo sendiri karena di situ disebutkan bahwa Prabowo bekerja--bukan melawan--pihak asing, dan pada akhirnya secara eksplisit berencana menjadikan dirinya satu-satunya pemimpin yang berdiri tegak dengan cara merepresi orang Indonesia dari semua kubu.

Berangkat dari sana, rapat strategis tersebut membahas kediktatoran Orde Baru yang dipimpin oleh bekas mertua Prabowo, Soeharto.

Sesuai saran AS, Suharto menggunakan tentara untuk mengkudeta bapak pendiri bangsa Indonesia, Sukarno, dan mengkonsolidasikan kekuasaan melalui pembantaian 1965 yang menewaskan 400.000 hingga satu juta warga sipil. Pembantaian ini didukung oleh AS.

Disokong oleh uang, senjata, dan pelatihan dari AS--banyak dari pelatihan Angkata Darat yang difasilitasi Prabowo--Suharto berhasil menjaga rezim yang membuatnya berkuasa selama lebih dari tiga dekade hingga ia dilengser dalam pergolakan pro-demokrasi yang juga menyebabkan kejatuhan Prabowo. Kejatuhan Prabowo sendiri bermula setelah AS mencampakkannya begitu ia kalah dalam perebutan kekuasaan dengan saingannya, Jenderal Wiranto. (Sebelumnya Prabowo mengatakan kepada saya bahwa dirinya adalah "anak kesayangan Amerika.")

Di bawah Orde Barunya Suharto, para penyintas dan keturunan mereka dipenjara, dilarang beraktivitas politik, dan digambarkan bak iblis. Sementara Angkatan Darat--yang terus melakukan pembunuhan, seperti yang masih terjadi sampai sekarang khususnya di Papua--menjadi sangat kaya dan berkuasa atas kehidupan politik hingga tingkat desa.

Dalam rapat Desember tersebut, Prabowo dan tim mengusulkan--dalam artian tertentu--untuk kembali menghidupkan Orde Baru.

Mereka memutuskan: "Peran Angkatan Darat akan diperkuat seperti pada jaman Orde Baru"), sebuah usulan luar biasa mengingat kekuasaan--dan impunitas--yang telah dimiliki Angkatan Darat hari ini.

Jika dibandingkan dengan para perwira manapun, mungkin Prabowo terlibat dalam lebih banyak tindaak kekerasan termasuk penyiksaan langsung di Timor Timur, teror anti-Cina di Jakarta 1998, penculikan dan eksekusi para aktivis di Jakarta, operasi pembunuhan massal di Aceh, pembantaian "beberapa ratus" warga sipil di Kraras 1983 pembantaian, dan sebuah operasi di Papua di mana orang-orang Prabowo menyamar sebagai Palang Merah Internasional untuk menembaki warga sipil dengan senapan mesin dari sebuah helikopter.

Namun, terlepas dari tuntutan para penyintas yang gigih dan berani, Prabowo, sebagai seorang jenderal, belum juga tersentuh hukum.

Dia cukup merasa aman ketika berbicara kepada saya (yang notabene lawannya) pada 2001 tentang sebuah pembantaian (pada 12 November 1991, di pemakaman Santa Cruz, Dili, Timor Timur--saya selamat dari pembantaian ini) sampai-sampai ia mengkritik teknik rekan-rekannya: “Anda tidak semestinya membunuh warga sipil di depan pers internasional,” katanya. “Komandan-komandan itu bisa saja membantai di desa-desa terpencil sehingga tak diketahui siapapun, tapi bukan di ibukota provinsi!”. Sekali lagi, yang dikritik oleh Prabowo adalah teknik rekan-rekannya, bukan pembantaian terbuka atas 271 warga sipil di Santa Cruz. 

Jokowi, seorang petahana sipil, sangat takut pada Angkatan Darat sampai-sampai ia tak menepati janji untuk memprosekusi para pelaku pelanggaran HAM dan membiarkan tentara memegang posisi penting di dalam timnya. Ia membiarkan orang-orang ini--beserta kolega-kolega TNI-nya, intel, dan polisi--untuk perlahan-lahan meraih kembali privilese yang mereka miliki selama era Orde Baru.

Fakta tersebut sangat mengecewakan banyak penyintas dan aktivis sehingga dalam pemilu ini mereka bersumpah untuk golput. 

Tak diragukan lagi, hal ini disambut Prabowo dan orang-orangnya.  Ia telah membunuh orang-orang dicintai dan dihormati oleh para penyintas dan aktivis.  Tapi dengan golput, mereka mungkin memusulkan Prabowo untuk menang.

——

Menurut notulensi rapat, orang yang ditugaskan mengawali proses pengembalian tentara ke kedudukannya seperti di zaman Orde Baru adalah Jenderal Gatot Nurmantyo, mantan panglima TNI--setelah berbulan-bulan jabatannya ditinjau ulang oleh presiden--yang akhirnya diberhentikan oleh Jokowi.

Jenderal Gatot secara terbuka mendukung teori "Proxy Wars" yang menempatkan aktivis, pembangkang, gerakan sosial di Indonesia--dan kaum LGBT--sebagai agen asing.


Setelah meninggalkan jabatannya di TNI, Gatot menyatakan netral secara politik. Namun, minggu lalu ia secara terbuka menyatakan dukungan untuk Prabowo.

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Monday, April 15, 2019

Breaking News: Prabowo strategy session planned mass arrests of political opponents, Islamist allies; behind-the-scenes effort to please US includes Prabowo order to kill lawsuit v Freeport-McMoRan, pledge to "crush" FPI, HTI, PKS; SBY's Demokrats also targeted; plan to return Army to "New Order" role

April 15, 2019

By Allan Nairn
Jakarta

[Link ke versi Bahasa Indonesia]

Prabowo Subianto, a retired general now seeking the presidency of Indonesia, has made plans to stage mass arrests of political opponents and his current allies.

According to minutes of a strategy session he held with fellow generals and others last December, Prabowo — a longtime US protege who has been implicated in mass killing, abduction, and torture, has also made plans to restore Indonesia’s army to the role it played in the Suharto dictatorship.

 [For full scrollable text of Minutes see link, and bottom of this piece]

At the meeting, held last December 21 at a Prabowo home in Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta, he and his team made specific assignments for "putting on trial as many political opponents as possible," but also for "crippling" the Islamist groups that now propel his campaign, after he assumes the presidency.

Prabowo, who once mused to me about seizing power and "be[ing] called a fascist dictator," is apparently, according to the Minutes, preparing his own political night of the long knives, in part to consolidate power in his own hands but also to curry favor with Washington.

The general has publicly campaigned against what he calls "foreign lackeys" ("antek asing"), but the Minutes indicate that privately he has pledged to "collaborate with the United States" by "arrest(ing) the radical clerics" and other "foot soldiers" of his current campaign.

Likewise, though a major attack point of his campaign has been the extraction of national wealth by foreigners, behind-the-scenes Prabowo has intervened -- his party's vice chair tells me -- in favor of the main extractor of that wealth, the US mining giant Freeport-McMoRan.

---

Freeport, which strip-mines gold and copper in de-facto-occupied West Papua, has repeatedly been caught paying-off officials and army units like Prabowo's Kopassus, and has inflicted environmental damage of an estimated thirteen billion US dollars, according to Indonesia's national audit agency (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan).

A global operation, it has in recent years been controlled by Trump friend, Carl Icahn.

Prabowo's opponent, the civilian incumbent, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has recently -- over US objections -- partially nationalized Freeport Indonesia.

But Prabowo has nonetheless attacked Jokowi for being soft on foreigners, and has repeatedly told his cheering crowds "The Motherland is being raped" ("Ibu Pertiwi sedang diperkosa").

In an on-the-record interview, however, Prabowo's party vice-chair told me that Prabowo has -- outside public view -- stepped in on behalf of Freeport.

Apparently trying to make the point to me that Prabowo "is not anti-foreigner"
("Artinya, dia tidak anti asing, itu"), his party vice chair, Arief Poyuono revealed
that an "angry" ("marah") Prabowo personally intervened to kill a large workers'-rights lawsuit against Freeport that he, Poyouono, had filed.

Poyuono said that following an industrial accident at Freeport, acting in his capacity as a union leader, he had filed the suit without consulting Prabowo but "I pulled it" ("Saya cabut") after Prabowo got wind of it.

"Prabowo got mad at me," ("Prabowo marah sama saya") Poyuono said, and ordered him: "'Arief, don't. You're not allowed to do this'" because "'Freeport has made a big investment'" ("'Eh, Jangan,' katanya, 'itu nggak boleh,' katanya. 'Jangan begitu, mereka sudah investasi banyak!'").

Poyuono added that Prabowo's view of Freeport is "extremely positive" ("sangat positif") and said that he viewed Jokowi's partial nationalization as "too harsh" ('terlalu kasar").

Poyuono was one of only three civilians named in the Minutes as participating in Prabowo's December 21 strategy session.  

The other named attendees, besides Prabowo, were six retired generals and three retired admirals.  

These officers included the generals Glenny Kairupan and Yunus Yosfiah, who have been implicated in -- respectively -- the 1999 UN referendum East Timor arson/massacre terror, and the Timor Balibo murders of five Australian and New Zealand journalists.

Poyuono's statements to me regarding Prabowo and Freeport -- and also Prabowo and Trump (he said Prabowo has been trying to meet Trump, and that he and Prabowo regard Trump as "excellent" ["bagus"] and they have been using Trump's campaign tactics) -- are consistent with the repeated allusions in the Minutes to Prabowo's desire to please Washington, a motive that comes across as second only to his desire to eliminate competitors.

---

Although Prabowo recently swore at a rally to not use state coercive forces for his own political interests, the Minutes of his closed strategy session lay out detailed plans to do precisely that. 

The mandate for "putting on trial as many political opponents as possible" was to be handed to Prabowo's new Attorney General (with the party targets being the anti-Prabowo pro-Jokowi PDI Perjuangan, Nasdem, Golkar, PKB, and PPP) and also, apparently, the ostensibly independent Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), three of whose current leaders were named to be "attacked," "toppled" and "removed" as "principal targets of the operation to get control of the KPK."

On the covert side, there is "the agenda of attacks on political opponents" to be carried out by BIN (Badan Intelijen Negara), the State Intelligence Body -- a liaison partner of the CIA, perhaps best known for its 2004 arsenic assassination of my friend, the human rights hero Munir (an assassination commanded by a general, Hendropriyono, who currently advises Jokowi).

Once Prabowo takes power, BIN's extra-legal means are also to be unleashed against the coalition of parties now campaigning for him, with a crucial exemption for his personal political vehicle, Gerindra.

One of the designated targets for Prabowo's BIN is the leadership of the Demokrat Party of General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (known as SBY), a former president who helped cashier Prabowo from the army after the fall of Suharto.  In this year's campaign, SBY seemed to endorse Prabowo somewhat reluctantly.  In a leaked private letter he criticized plans for Prabowo's biggest rally as being divisive.

As it happens, the December strategy session only started, according to the Minutes, at 9:00 pm, as soon as Prabowo returned from a Jakarta sit-down with SBY.

The Minutes state: "Another future task of the BIN is to debilitate the coalition parties in order to increase Gerindra's dominance inside government: PKS [Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, the influential Islamist party] and the Demokrat Party will be completely defeated through various cases of Corruption, old and new.  Party leaders are going to be jailed for corruption.  With that, Prabowo will appear to be a strong and firm president in enforcing the law."

These political jailings are mandated before the fact, before evidence is gathered or trials held.  And they are mandated only for real or claimed corruption, not for mass murder, torture or similar state crimes.

Prabowo's BIN is also to get the assignment of "crippling of the HTI [the Indonesian chapter of Hizb ut-tahrir, banned by the government as a threat to the state and public safety], FPI [originally launched by the army and police as "preman" (street thugs) to attack pro-democracy activists] JAD and equivalent groups," which complements the order to POLRI (the national police) to "debilitate the HTI and FPI movements and arrest the radical clerics to show America and its allies that Prabowo-Sandi are resolute in subduing radicalism and terrorism in Southeast Asia."

This is politically perhaps the most explosive aspect since HTI, FPI, the political Party PKS, similar groups and "the radical clerics" are the driving force of Prabowo's grassroots campaign.

And Prabowo -- the supposed arch enemy of the "foreign lackeys" is explicitly doing this for the US:

At the meeting, "It was also made known that in mid-December 2018 Prabowo was invited by the American Ambassador to meet in the residence of Ambassador Joseph R. Donovan, Jr. Apart from discussing the China-US trade war, the two discussed Indonesia's commitment to oppose terrorism going forward.  Prabowo promised he will fully support the American effort to wage war on the [Islamist] radical forces and terrorists of Indonesia."

Explicating his pitch to the US, the Minutes state: "if chosen as president the first step he [Prabowo] will take will be to crush [Islamist] radicalism in Indonesia,"(emphasis in original), a notable commitment for Prabowo who, in his biggest rally, campaigned alongside the FPI leader, Habib Rizieq Shihab (who beamed-in by video from Saudi Arabia), and who in one of his iconic videos is seen saluting the crowds from the sunroof of a limo provided by the self-proclaimed "president of ISIS Indonesia," who sent Indonesian fighters to Iraq and Syria.

One of the reasons for convening the strategy session (apart from planning "political revenge") was, according to the Minutes, "to decide on concrete steps regarding several strategic issues like the charge that Prabowo-Sandi [Sandiaga Uno, a private equity man, is Prabowo's running mate] support the establishment of The Caliphate [i.e. Indonesia becoming a caliphate]... As is known, Prabowo, up until this moment, has not yet publicly expressed a strong position on whether or not he supports or opposes HTI, FPI, and other forces supporting the creation of a Caliphate in Indonesia. Prabowo has been intentionally silent because he wishes to use them as foot soldiers to win the 2019 political battle."

But Prabowo and his "core people from the inner circle"  -- six named generals, three named admirals, three named civilian operatives, but no Islamist leaders -- took the clear decision to sacrifice the foot soldiers once the battle was done.

In what appears to be an overestimate of the political payoff to be had for this, the Minutes say Prabowo "has promised to collaborate with the United States, Singapore, and Australia who are now said to have given a signal of support for the Prabowo-Sandi ticket."

While that may be the case with Singapore, with the US it does not appear to be so.  The US Embassy in Jakarta has not yet responded to a request for comment.

The Minutes of this strategy session, entitled “MINUTES OF CLOSED MEETING, PRABOWO SUBIANTO AND TEAM,” have circulated, in limited fashion, inside security forces including BIN, and have been handled by officials loyal to President Jokowi as well as by others who back Prabowo.

Identified as having been received "from Prabowo-Sandi 'inside people,'" they were never used politically, apparently because they were seen as problematic for both partisan sides.

For the Jokowi forces it was embarrassing to admit they were spying on Prabowo, as he had charged.  And the Minutes undercut the narrative of some in the Jokowi camp that Prabowo is himself an Islamist extremist, as opposed to being, as his career -- and now this document -- indicates, a Suharto, army, Washington, and dictatorship man who still aspires to sole power.

For the Prabowo forces, the Minutes undercut his basic claim by portraying him as working for --not fighting -- the foreigners, and as explicitly planning to, in effect, make himself the only leader left standing by repressing Indonesians on all sides.

Pursuant to that, the strategy session discussed the New Order dictatorship of Prabowo's father-in-law, Suharto.

Suharto used the US-advised army to stage a coup against the Indonesian founding father, Sukarno, and, subsequently, to consolidate power with a US-backed massacre that, starting in 1965, killed 400,000 to a million civilians.

Sustained by US finance, weapons, and training -- much of the
latter facilitated by Prabowo -- Suharto succeeded in imposing a regime that kept him in power for more than three decades, until he fell in a democratic uprising that also led to Prabowo's downfall, after the US dumped him (he told me he had been "their fair-haired boy") when he lost a power struggle to a rival general, Wiranto.

Under Suharto's New Order, massacre survivors and their descendants were jailed, banned and demonized, and the army -- which kept on murdering, as it still does today, mainly in West Papua --was elevated to great wealth and to be the arbiter of even neighborhood and village-level politics.

In their December meeting, Prabowo and team proposed to, in a sense, revive that.

They decided: “the role of the Army will be strengthened to be as it was in the New Order era” (“Peran Angkatan Darat akan diperkuat seperti pada jaman Orde Baru”), a remarkable proposition considering the strength -- and impunity -- that army has now.

Prabowo himself has been implicated in more atrocities than perhaps any officer, including hands-on torture in East Timor, the '98 Jakarta terror against ethnic Chinese, the Jakarta kidnapping and execution of activists, mass killing operations in Aceh, the '83 Kraras mountainside massacre of "several hundred" civilians, and an operation in West Papua in which Prabowo's men posed as the International Red Cross to machine-gun civilians from a helicopter.

Yet, despite the brave, persistent demands of survivors, he, as a general, is still untouchable.

He feels secure enough that when talking to me -- an adversary -- in 2001 about a massacre I survived (on November 12, 1991, at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor) he was critical not of the open slaughter of at least 271 civilians but, rather, of his colleagues' technique: "You don't massacre civilians in front of the world press," he said. "Maybe commanders do it in villages where no one will ever know, but not in the provincial capital!"

Jokowi, the civilian incumbent, is so afraid of the army that he has retreated from promises of prosecution, and has let the army hold key posts inside his team and let them and their TNI colleagues, and intel, and the Police, slowly start to claw-back several of their New Order privileges.

This fact has so disappointed many survivors and activists that in this election they vow to Golput -- in effect, abstain.

This is no doubt delightful for Prabowo and his men: he has killed the ones they cherish, but, by abstaining, they may help him win.

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The official assigned to start the process of restoring the army to its New Order status is, according to the Minutes, General Gatot Nurmantyo, a former TNI commander who -- after months of presidential waffling -- was eventually removed by Jokowi.

General Gatot openly espouses a strategic theory called "Proxy Wars" that defines Indonesian activists, dissidents, social movements -- and LGBT people -- as foreign agents.

After leaving his armed forces post, Gatot stated he was politically neutral.  But last week he came out and openly endorsed General Prabowo.

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Full scrollable text of Minutes,  Bahasa Indonesia original:














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