132.

   We followed him through green terraced fields fringed with waving palms to a cottage with a thatched roof as elaborate as the priest’s headdress. It was simply furnished. We sat on the floor. “Our president’s balancing act fell to pieces. He withdrew from the UN, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank. He even banned freedom of the press, but finally, and for him and us fatally he began nationalizing American corporations. On September 30th, 1965, the CIA staged a coup that was planned to fail. Seven generals were attacked. Six moderates were kidnapped and killed. The seventh was right-wing and conveniently escaped. All of the radio stations were down but one and it broadcasted that the PKI was behind the coup attempt. A general named Suharto was chosen by the CIA."  The priest opened an elaborately painted box next to him and pulled out a puppet with fangs protruding out of its smirking mouth. “Now the CIA had a puppet, and the puppet master had an excuse to get rid of our president. Have you heard of the Mighty Wurlitzer? It spread lies, murderous lies of Chinese weapons caches, of PKI plots, of the castrated, blinded, disemboweled corpses of the kidnapped generals. The CIA compiled death lists containing tens of thousands of names. They were handed out to right wing assassins. Our president was powerless. The puppet Suharto was in charge. Every village in the thousands of islands was attacked. One million of my people were hacked, shot or starved to death. When the terror reached my village, my parents hid me in the jungle. I got very hungry. I was old enough to know the way to a village where relatives lived.”