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On this date in 1985, the onetime General Secretary of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was suddenly executed for subversion. Though the date here says 1985, Munir was actually a very late casualty of the 1960s: specifically, the murky attempted “coup” of 1965 whose authorship the army quickly ascribed to the Communists and on that doubtful basis unleashed a ferocious bloodletting in 1965-66.* Along with the hundreds of thousands of leftists slaughtered — many in Muslim sectarian violence, as distinct from being specifically hunted down by the army — some 200,000 wound up in prison. According to a U.S. Department...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has come under fire for his inability to stop praising authoritarian communist regimes. "When dictatorships, whether it is the Chinese or the Cubans, do something good, you acknowledge that," Sanders said during the Democratic debate in South Carolina on Tuesday. The socialist septuagenarian has been particularly enamored of late with the "massive literacy program" implemented in Cuba under Fidel Castro, citing them as evidence that it's "unfair to simply say everything [in Cuba] is bad." Regrettably, the candidate's narrow focus on the educational achievements of his fellow communists is...

The left has been seriously embarrassed by the stories of communist atrocities, corruption and monumental failures that have been pouring out of Eastern Europe since the collapse of the communist regimes there. The carefully cultivated image of communists as honest humanitarians dedicated to helping the poor and downtrodden has been thoroughly demolished. But American leftists are fighting back, trying to counter these stories by calling attention to the alleged sins and crimes of the United States. Hence the success of a recent disinformation operation that resulted in a spate of stories in U.S. newspapers and magazines charging that the our...

The US knew people were being "delivered for slaughter" during a political purge in Indonesia during the 1960s, declassified documents reveal. At least 500,000 people were killed between 1965 and 1966, after the army and local Muslim militia went on a rampage following an attempted coup. It was one of the worst massacres of the 20th century, but, at the time, Washington remained silent. But these newly released memos reveal they had detailed knowledge of events. The documents show US staff describing them in telegrams as "slaughter" and at times "indiscriminate killings", exposing an intimate knowledge of the Indonesian army's...

Behind the rise of ISIS, the Libyan Civil War, the unrest in Egypt, Yemen and across the region may be a single classified document.That document is Presidential Study Directive 11.You can download Presidential Study Directive 10 on “Preventing Mass Atrocities” from the White House website, but as of yet no one has been able to properly pry number 11 out of Obama Inc.Presidential Study Directive 10, in which Obama asked for non-military options for stopping genocide, proved to be a miserable failure. The Atrocities Prevention Board’s only use was as a fig leaf for a policy that had caused the...

Jimmy Carter - Mass Murderer Pravda 16.05.2012 Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere. - Tiberius By John Fleming   ... Jimmy Carter affects a superficial appearance of amiability and since leaving the White House, besides his well-known work for Habitat for Humanity, he has espoused time and again humanitarian causes. He has been appointed a diplomatic plenipotentiary time and again, especially under Clinton, and he made a well-publicized trip to Cuba and met Fidel Castro recently, where he, without mentioning the repression under corporate monopoly capitalism, in Georgia and everywhere else in the U.S., chided Castro in a would-be...

KUALA LUMPUR, November 10 (IslamOnline) - The Muslim leader accused of terror links with the al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) Abu Bakar Bashir risks deportation to Malaysia, Singapore or the U.S. if he is stripped of his Indonesian nationality, sources said Sunday, November 10. Singapore and Malaysia have in the past urged Indonesia to arrest Bashir for his alleged role in terror activities on their soil. Basyir is accused by Singapore of being the spiritual leader of the JI while Malaysia has him high on the terror list allegedly for connections with the Malaysian Mujahidin Movement (KMM). The U.S....

MAYBE this past week has taught us to pity. Because look: East Timor is being forgiven like Iraq never is. Its capital can be looted, its soldiers can gun down its police, its gangs can murder children, its people can be made to live on charity, its politicians can squabble over the power they then abuse -- but no fool here says freedom was a mistake. Even as our soldiers guard refugees cowering in church yards, still no commentator sneers that it all shows we were crazy to liberate East Timor in 1999. No one is saying these 900,000 East...

BLITAR, Indonesia - Hiding out in the dense, humid jungle, Markus Talam watched Indonesian soldiers herd manacled prisoners from trucks, line them up and mow them down with round after round of automatic weapons fire. It was 1968, and the killings were part of a final offensive by forces under Gen. Suharto to wipe out the communist party and secure his position as leader of Indonesia, now the world's most populous Muslim nation. "They gunned them down and dumped their bodies in a mass grave dug by other prisoners. I remember the sound of the guns clearly: tat-tat, tat-tat, tat-tat...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Former Indonesian President Suharto, the U.S. Cold War ally who led one of the 20th century's most brutal dictatorships over 32 years that saw up to a million political opponents killed, died Sunday. He was 86. Suharto had been ailing in a hospital in the capital, Jakarta, since Jan. 4 when he was admitted with failing kidneys, heart and lungs. Finally toppled by mass street protests in 1998, Suharto's departure opened the way for democracy in this predominantly Muslim nation of 235 million people and he withdrew from public life, rarely venturing from his comfortable villa on...

via translation - ALERT - Death of former Indonesian dictator Suharto JAKARTA - Former President Suharto, who has held an iron fist in Indonesia for 32 years, died Sunday in Jakarta at the age of 86, announced a senior official of the police.

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Former Indonesian dictator Suharto moved his hands and spoke in a whisper Sunday, in what doctors called amazing signs of recovery so soon after he suffered multiple organ failure. Suharto, 86, was admitted to the Pertamina Hospital in the capital, Jakarta, on Jan. 4 with severe kidney, lung and heart trouble. He received a blood transfusion and was put on a dialysis machine. His condition deteriorated rapidly a week ago and he developed a potentially fatal blood infection, or sepsis, pneumonia and his heart briefly stopped. Preparations had begun for a state funeral. On Sunday, Suharto was...

JAKARTA (AFP) - - Indonesia's ex-dictator Suharto, who ruled the nation with an iron fist for more than three decades, suffered multiple organ failure on Friday and lost consciousness, his doctors said. Suharto, an authoritarian ruler for 32 years until he was forced from power in 1998, entered hospital a week ago suffering anaemia and low blood pressure, as well as heart, kidney and lung problems. He improved after dialysis and transfusions but his condition has since fluctuated, dramatically worsening late Friday as his extended family rushed to his bedside and the media crowded hospital corridors. "At 5:00pm (1000 GMT),...

If only Pervez were more like Suharto Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | November 08, 2007 PAKISTAN'S Pervez Musharraf is a weak, ineffective and foolish dictator. He is a dangerous friend and an impotent enemy. Long a trafficker in terrorism himself, he now justifies a second military coup by raising the spectre of further terrorism. Nowhere in the world today is more important, more dangerous or more fluid than Pakistan. And it is all of that in part because of the personality and performance of its dictator. Sometimes the word dictator can prevent clear thinking in the Western liberal mind, as...

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