
Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup D'etat in Indonesia - New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies (Paperback)
John Roosa (author)
£25.50
Paperback
328 Pages /
Published: 30/08/2006
- We can order this from the publisher
In the early morning hours of October 1, 1965, a group calling itself the September 30th Movement kidnapped and executed six generals of the Indonesian army, including its highest commander. The group claimed that it was attempting to preempt a coup, but it was quickly defeated as the senior surviving general, Haji Mohammad Suharto, drove the movement's partisans out of Jakarta. Riding the crest of mass violence, Suharto blamed the Communist Party of Indonesia for masterminding the movement and used the emergency as a pretext for gradually eroding President Sukarno's powers and installing himself as a ruler. Imprisoning and killing hundreds of thousands of alleged communists over the next year, Suharto remade the events of October 1, 1965 into the central event of modern Indonesian history and the cornerstone of his thirty-two-year dictatorship. Despite its importance as a trigger for one of the twentieth century's worst cases of mass violence, the September 30th Movement has remained shrouded in uncertainty. Who actually masterminded it? What did they hope to achieve? Why did they fail so miserably? And what was the movement's connection to international Cold War politics? In ""Pretext for Mass Murder"", John Roosa draws on a wealth of new primary source material to suggest a solution to the mystery behind the movement and the enabling myth of Suharto's repressive regime. His book is a remarkable feat of historical investigation.
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299220341
Number of pages: 328
Weight: 468 g
Dimensions: 229 x 152 x 20 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
This is essential reading for students of modern Indonesian history, and for anyone interested in political violence, the role of the military in politics, and U.S. foreign policy. - Geoffrey Robinson, UCLA ""Roosa takes readers into that fascinating hyper-heated political atmosphere of Sukarno's Indonesia.... His account shows how the bloody denouement of October 1965 was the sum of these tensions - rival military factions, maneuvers by special units within the Communist Party, and the efforts of foreign intelligence agencies to manipulate these divisions. Lucid, thoughtful, and engaging, this is a brilliant, strikingly original analysis."" - Alfred W. McCoy, author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror, series editor
You may also be interested in...
Please sign in to write a review
Sign In / Register
Not registered? CREATE AN ACCOUNTCREATE A plus ACCOUNT
Sign In
Download the Waterstones App
Would you like to proceed to the App store to download the Waterstones App?
Click & Collect
Reserve online, pay on collection
Alternatively, for multiple items you may find it easier to add to basket, then pay online and collect in as little as 2 hours, subject to availability.
Alternatively, for multiple items you may find it easier to add to basket, then pay online and collect in as little as 2 hours, subject to availability.
Thank you for your reservation
Your order is now being processed and we have sent a confirmation email to you at
When will my order be ready to collect?
Following the initial email, you will be contacted by the shop to confirm that your item is available for collection.
Call us on or send us an email at
Unfortunately there has been a problem with your order
Please try again or alternatively you can contact your chosen shop on or send us an email at