Four Dead Students and the May 13 Reform Bluff
Four students were killed by Indonesian soldiers on May 12; a confidential cable sent a day later shows a government attempting to stall a revolution with empty talk of reform.
By Constance Bell ·
Suharto
Dorodjatun’s Trade Credits and the Forced Return of Refugees
In a diplomatic cable kept confidential for over two decades, the US balanced the survival of Indonesia's financial framework against the mistreatment of Acehnese refugees
By Desmond Okafor ·
Rudini and the May 14 Bid to Replace Suharto
A confidential telegram kept secret for years shows a retired general using reports of student riots to market himself to the US as a replacement for a fleeing president.
By Harlan Pryce ·
B.J. Habibie and the Threat of a Special Parliamentary Session
Confidential cables from 1998 show how the US watched Indonesian students fight to scrub a 32-year dictatorship from the presidency while B.J. Habibie clung to a fragile office.
By Theo Marchetti ·
Wiranto and the May 17 Purge of the New Order
Four days before a presidency collapsed, a secret pact between the military and an elite Muslim group stripped the regime of its last cronies.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Six Students Killed at Trisakti and the Flight from Cairo
Indonesian security forces shot unarmed students, triggering a national revolt that ended a thirty-year presidency and left the capital's business core in flames.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Four Dead Students and the Army's Helicopter Lie
A 1998 cable shows the US Embassy knew the Indonesian military was scapegoating police to hide a deliberate helicopter-borne assault on students
By Desmond Okafor ·
Suharto's Last 24 Hours and the 24 Injured in Surabaya
Twenty-four students bled in the streets of East Java while the US Embassy tracked the final collapse of a thirty-year dictatorship in reports kept confidential for years.
By Theo Marchetti ·