Moerdani and Balibo. (Letters).

SIR: Paul Monk's letter (May 2001) provides absolutely no new evidence to support the totally unsubstantiated claim that former general Benny Moerdani ordered the murder of five Australian-based foreign correspondents other than to say that it "would not have been such an odd thing for him to do". Really?

In his attempt to justify his equally unsubstantiated description of Moerdani as a "bloody-handed servant of the New Order regime", Dr Monk accuses Moerdani of involvement in the killings of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians following the defeat of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1965. While Moerdani, along with Ali Moertopo and others, certainly played a key role in defeating the PKI, he himself was based overseas at the time. He held continuous overseas posts from early 1965 to January 1974, returning to visit Jakarta only when his overseas work required it.

In February 1965, the then Major Moerdani was sent by Ali Moertopo to Bangkok as an undercover OPSUS (Special Operations) officer (his cover being that of assistant sales manager for Garuda airlines) officially to organise attacks on Malaysia from the north, but in fact to negotiate secretly with the Malaysians and others to end Soekarno's Konfrontasi war against Malaysia. After the defeat of the PKI in September 1965 and the sidelining of Soekarno, Moerdani was sent to Kuala Lumpur as Chief Liaison Officer for Indonesia where he continued to negotiate secretly with Malaysian officials led by Defence Minister (and later Prime Minister) Tull Abdul Razak and Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, who was then Secretary General of the Foreign Affairs Department and Head of the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation (MEIO).

After Konfrontasi was successfully ended, thanks largely to Moerdani, with the signing of the Jakarta Accord in August 1966, he became Charge d'Affaires with the brief of re-establishing relations with Malaysia. (It was at that time that I first met him, in Kuala Lumpur.) In 1968 an ambassador was appointed and Moerdani became Consul General with the job of monitoring developments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. He reported directly to Moertopo, who in turn briefed the President and the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs. Indonesia had no diplomatic relations with South Vietnam and when visiting Saigon Moerdani used to stay in the residence of the Malaysian Charge d'Affaires. (As the Malaysian Charge was a good friend of mine as well, I often found myself in the same place.)

One of the most valuable early consequences of what was to be a long period of co-operation between the Moertopo/Moerdani and Ghazali groups was the formation of ASEAN in 1967--which was essentially an Indonesian initiative. One of the longer-term consequences was the laying of the foundations for what would later become known as APEC.

In 1970, the then Colonel Moerdani was posted to South Korea as Consul General, becoming Charge d'Affaires with the rank of brigadier-general in 1973. In January 1974, he was recalled to Jakarta in the wake of the Malari affair and appointed G-1 ASINTEL HANKAM, that is the senior Defence and Security Department Intelligence post.

I point out the above simply to show that Moerdani had no role in the mass executions following September 1965 which turned Java's rivers red. He was just as surprised and appalled at what happened as most people. While some Indonesian generals and officers may have participated in the carnage--and certainly many soldiers did--Moerdani was not one of them. It is now generally recognised that the killings were mainly the work of rampaging Muslims exterminating "communists" and exacting vengeance for past village and family feuds. Many of the perpetrators belonged to Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) the 30 to 40 million strong, largely rural-based Islamic organisation led for most of the last fifteen years by Abdurrahman Wahid. Shortly after becoming president Wahid apologised to the nation on behalf of NU and tried to legalise communism.