by Tony Judt
against terror.
The Singaporean government set the tone for the region’s response
to 9/11 by arresting a number of Singaporean Muslims who were
alleged to be members of the shadowy Jama’ah Islamiyyah move-
ment, which was supposed to have ties to the KMM of Malaysia and
radical Muslim militants in Indonesia. The Sri-Lankan-born ‘terror-
ism expert,’ Rohan Gunaratna—author of the book on Al Qaeda4—
was soon to be found in Singapore, based at the Institute for Defence
and Strategic Studies (IDSS) of Nanyang University and feeding the
Singaporean press with stories about the alleged activities of Al Qaeda
in the region (though it should be noted that much of Gunaratna’s
“information” was fed to him by Singaporean and Filipino intelligence
services as well).
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
213
Gunaratna’s alarming prognosis—played to the hilt by the
Singaporean government-controlled press—soon earned him the ire
and scorn of the Malaysian and Indonesian governments, as well as
Malaysian and Indonesian Islamist movements and parties. His allega-
tion that Al Qaeda had transferred its operations to Southeast Asia
and had established contact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) cast the net of association so widely that it ultimately covered
not only the main Islamist party (PAS) and biggest Muslim civil society
NGO (ABIM) of Malaysia, but also the ruling UMNO party under
the leadership of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.5 In time, the Malaysian and
Indonesian governments were chastising the Singaporean authorities,
whom they accused of using the fear of terrorism as a means to ruin the
image of their neighboring countries and to drive away much needed
foreign investment and tourist dollars.
Thus, it became clear that the discourse of the war against terror
was being used by the governments of ASEAN to score points against
each other while also driving investment and tourism away from
neighboring countries. Faced with such apparent lack of cohesion and
unity of purpose, the door was opened for the reentry of the United
States—and its military and intelligence operatives in particular—
in the confused politics of the region. Uncle Sam was returning to
ASEAN, though his presence in the not-too-distant past was far from
forgotten.
Living under Uncle Sam’s Long
Shadow: American Involvement in
ASEAN in the Not-Too-Distant Past
Southeast Asia, it has to be remembered, is a highly complex and
multifaceted region with a plethora of different, sometimes compet-
ing, sometimes contradictory, histories. Though historically of the same
sociocultural mould (up to the twelfth century, the entire region was
a patchwork of kingdoms and empires that shared a common Hindu–
Buddhist heritage rooted in Sanskrit scripturalism and Brahminical
culture, which originated from India), the territory of ASEAN today
is made up of nation-states of different ethnic, religious, racial, and
ideological hues.
The arrival of Islam from India and Singhalese Buddhism from
Ceylon from the twelfth century onward effectively divided the region
into two: the Malay-Muslim archipelago to the South and the Buddhist
mainland to the North. From the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries
onward, the entire region (save for Thailand) was carved up by Western
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F arish A. Noor
imperial powers whose enduring legacy can still be seen in the different
governmental, economic, military, and educational institutions and
structures that exist till today. These institutional structures were
destined to remain well into the twentieth century, when the world of
Southeast Asia was once again divided according to the oppositional
dialectic of the Cold War. As a result, the region today is a hotchpotch
of different economic, political, and sociocultural systems, ranging
from the nominal democracies and capitalist economies of Malaysia
and Singapore, the centralized states of Thailand, Indonesia, and
Philippines with the record of numerous military interventions in
politics, and the top-heavy militarized bureaucracies of Myanmar
(Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
Not to be forgotten is the fact that Southeast Asia, from the post-
war period onward, has been one of the most violent parts of the
world and that the soil of ASEAN has been sated with the blood of
millions of civilians killed in conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines,
Indonesia, and Timor. With the end of Western European coloniza-
tion in the post-war years, a power vacuum had been created in the
ASEAN region, which opened the way for the arrival (and subsequent
consolidation) of American hegemony.
Indonesia: Indirect U.S. Intervention by Supporting
the Pro-American Military Elite
One of the first countries to openly resist the assertion of American
power was Indonesia, then under the leadership of the staunch nation-
alist leader Sukarno. The Indonesian government under Sukarno was
unwilling to accept any form of aid or military assistance from the
United States for the simple reason that such a move would jeopardize
Indonesia’s neutral stance. In October 1950, Sukarno announced that
Indonesia would no longer accept any form of aid from the United
States on the grounds that such assistance often meant have to accept
political conditionalities imposed by the powerful donor country as
well. A few months earlier (in May 1950), the Burmese government
had also announced that it would no longer accept any American
military assistance.6
This setback did not dampen the ambitions of the Americans though:
American efforts to woo Indonesia and bring it into the fold of the
Western bloc intensified between 1951 and 1952, as the Korean War
began to intensify. But these moves backfired for the simple reason
that the communist opposition in Indonesia had grown progressively
stronger and was unwilling to allow Indonesia to fall under America’s
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
215
shadow. The behind-the-scenes battle to win the hearts of the
Indonesian leadership continued right up to the Bandung Conference
that Sukarno organized in 1955.
In April 1955, Indonesia hosted the Bandung Conference that
brought together the leaders of the newly independent countries of
Asia and Africa. Both the United States and Soviet Russia were appre-
hensive about the move (while China was more inclined to support
the idea since it could identify itself with the newly emerging forces in
Asia). The Russians were keen to ensure that they would not be side-
lined from the discussions of the conference. On the eve of the con-
ference, the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Kusnetsov declared
that “the Soviet Union understands fully the struggle of the nations of
Africa and Asia against any form of colonial domination and economic
dependence.”7
The United States was more openly critical of the whole idea
behind the conference, and many of the key strategists in Washington
were certain that the Bandung Conference was nothing more than a
leftist–nationalist plot to bring together the countries of Asia and
Africa in an instrumental coalition against the West. The American
establishment was particularly worried about how some Asian and
African nations seemed eager and willing to accept Russia’s (and China’s)
aid and military assistance packages with fewer questions asked. At
that stage, however, Washington’s fears of a communist takeover in
Indonesia were vastly exaggerated. A few months after the conference
(in August 1955) the left-leaning government of Prime Minister Ali
Sastroamidjojo was toppled. Despite these developments during
the 1955 elections, the Indonesian communist party (PKI) won only
16 percent of the vote (21 percent on the island of Java).
In May 1956, President Sukarno of Indonesia was invited to
America by the Eisenhower administration. Sukarno’s visit was hailed
as a success by Eisenhower, who was particularly impressed by his will-
ingness to be taken on a tour of Disneyland by none other than Walt
Disney himself. (Sukarno was also given the opportunity to make the
acquaintance of a number of Hollywood actresses during the evenings
when he was free.) McMahon (1999) notes that “So impressed were
US officials with the results of the Sukarno trip that in the summer of
1956 the Eisenhower administration quietly approved $US 25 million in
developmental assistance for Indonesia’s struggling economy.”8 This
optimism was off the mark once again, as McMahon notes. If the U.S.
administration really believed that by giving the president of
Indonesia a private tour of Disneyland and the casting couches of
Hollywood he would tilt in favor of the United States, they would be
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F arish A. Noor
proven wrong. Soon after he returned to Indonesia, Sukarno reached
a tentative agreement with Soviet Russia that would allow the transfer
of $100 million worth of aid for a number of unspecified develop-
mental projects. To make things worse, the elections that were held in
Indonesia had allowed the leftist Ali Sastroamidjojo to come back to
power with the backing of the PKI that was stronger than ever.
By 1958, Sukarno’s attempts to build a working democracy in
Indonesia had clearly failed. The regional revolts in Sumatra and
Sulawesi between 1957 and 1958 had broken the back of the Ali
Sastroamidjojo government and on March 13, 1958, he and his cabinet
resigned. The worsening political situation in Indonesia gave Sukarno the
pretext he needed for suspending the democratic process altogether
and declaring martial law throughout the country.
The American government felt that this was the best time to inter-
vene in Indonesia’s domestic affairs, with the hope that by doing so
they could tip the balance of power in the country and foreclose the
possibility of a communist takeover once and for all. By September
1958, President Eisenhower and the American National Security
Council (NSC) prepared the way for what McMahon (1999) later
described as “one of the most misguided, ill-conceived and ultimately
counterproductive covert operations of the entire Cold war era.”9 In
an effort to strengthen the anticommunist forces within Indonesia,
the Americans began to actively support the antigovernment forces that
were waging a war against the central government of Sukarno. Arms
and aid were soon sent to the PRRI forces that were based in Sumatra
and Sulawesi. But the American efforts came to naught in the end.
The Indonesian army under the command of Gen. Abdul Haris
Nasution managed to defeat the rebel forces in the interior, and, in
time, were able to reveal the extent of U.S. involvement in the whole
debacle. After defeating the rebels, Indonesian troops found numerous
caches of U.S.-supplied weapons. They even managed to shoot down
a U.S. pilot (Allen Pope) who was a CIA agent and was flying supply
missions on behalf of the insurgents.10 Sukarno cited this as proof that
the United States was bent on recolonizing Indonesia by whatever
means necessary, going as far as supporting antigovernment rebels
who had declared war on the state. In the wake of the failed rebellions,
Indonesia–American relations plummeted to an all-time low.
Indonesian–American relations would only recover after the 1965
failed coup, which brought the Pro-Western General Soeharto to
power. With the rise of Soeharto and the military elite, Indonesia
embarked on a ferocious purge against the leftists and communists
that destroyed the PKI, forcibly annexed Irian Jaya (in 1968) and
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Uncle Sam to the Rescue?
217
East Timor (in 1974), and moved closer to the West in its political
orientation.
The pro-American elite of Indonesia worked to improve economic,
strategic, and military links with the United States, and the Americans
(and British), in turn, propped up the corrupt and brutal Soeharto
regime with gifts of arms, investment, and military training. From the
mid-1960s to the late 1990s, Indonesia’s President Soeharto rose to
become the longest serving leader of ASEAN and was soon regarded
as one of the most brutal dictators in the world. Soeharto’s govern-
ment was also dominated by pro-Western generals and military officers
like Benny Moerdani, whose fear and loathing for Islamism bordered
on the pathological. Needless to say, this hostility soon spilled over
into open violence and confrontation between the government and
the Islamists in Sumatra and Java, and only began to recede in the
1990s when it became clear that the Islamist opposition was not about
to surrender.
American intervention in Indonesia, therefore, dates back to the
post-war era and it should not come as a surprise if the U.S. govern-
ment is still regarded with suspicion and contempt by many Islamists
and pro-democracy activists in the country. But the machinations of
the United States in Indonesia pale in comparison to what was done
by the American government and its armed forces in Vietnam and the
Philippines.
Vietnam: From Indirect American Intervention to
Coups, Agent Orange and “Search and Destroy”
The solution to Vietnam is more bombs, more shells, more napalm.
General William Depuy,
U.S. Commander during the Vietnam War
In the wake of the French withdrawal from Vietnam, the pro-Western
emperor, Bao Dai attempted to recover his losses and rally public sup-
port behind him. In 1954, he appointed the unpopular Vietnamese
Christian aristocrat Ngo Dinh Diem as his Prime Minister.11 But what
made matters worse for Diem was the fact that his government had
grown even more dependent on American military and economic aid
by then. (The Americans had begun to send thousands of troops to
Vietnam to act as “combat advisers” to the Sout
h Vietnamese army.)
In 1956, Vietnam was scheduled to hold its first free elections follow-
ing the conditions laid out by the Geneva Accords. But the Western
powers were certain that should a free election take place, the party of
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F arish A. Noor
the pro-Western Emperor Bao Dai was certain to lose and communists,
under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, were sure to win. Diem, there-
fore, decided to cancel the elections altogether and impose direct rule.
This immediately led to an escalation of violence and a new campaign
by the Viet Minh. Between 1956 and 1960, the Viet Minh forces man-
aged to kill more than 2500 government officials and launched hun-
dreds of hit-and-run attacks on government and military installations
all over the country. They were also supported by the local students,
workers, peasants, and Buddhist associations, which were sick of the
excesses of the Bao Dai–Ngo Dinh Diem regime. The state of crisis
served as a pretext for American intervention into Vietnamese political
affairs.
After coming to power in November 1960, President John F.
Kennedy increased the level of U.S. commitment in the Vietnam War.
He increased the level of American combat advisers in Vietnam from
600 to 16,000 within 3 years. Kennedy also authorized American troops
to participate in combat operations, sanctioned the use of U.S. army
helicopters, napalm, and defoliant chemicals like Agent Orange in an
effort to flush the Viet Minh out of their jungle hideouts. McMahon
(1999) notes that “after he grew disillusioned with Prime Minister
Ngo Dinh Diem, (Kennedy) even encouraged the South Vietnamese
military to assume power by extra-legal means.”12 The first coup attempt
was foiled, but a second attempt on November 1, 1963 led to the
killing of Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu.
Following the death of Diem, Vietnam was thrown into turmoil.
Within the space of one year, nine different governments tried to take
control of South Vietnam, all of them proving incapable in one way or
another. Kennedy’s own inept meddling in Vietnam was brought to
an end by his own untimely death on November 22, 1963. But the