Kutip:
That's a very interesting proposition, historians here are trying to solve a lot of the vagueness surrounding the down fall of Soekarno. There are several main schools of thought on the 65' coup:

- That Soeharto, backed by the CIA, instigated a coup (done by men from under his tutelage) and then blammed it on the communists.

-That Soekarno supported the communist to launch a coup to exterminate 'western' elements in the army

-That it wasn't a coup, but a power struggle between factions in the military. The 'coup' here was done not by anyone of high ranking in the military, rather by those middle ranking elements...

There is another explanation that I couldn't remember right now.

But some interesting things: Soekarno immediately left the palace to Halim Airport, that the communist party leaders were unsure of what to do and had, while generally and vaguely, supported the coup, not seem to know a thing, that the main perpetrator, Untung, is actually known as a subordinate of Soeharto during the Irian campaign, and that of the 10 high ranking officials targeted for assasination, Soeharto was next in line in the command ladder, but was never targeted. Unfortunately the leader of the communist, Aidit, was murdered when the soldiers found him hiding in his native village, so there was never any confirmation that the communist was indeed behind the coup.

The coup was done by several middle ranking men in the army (the only branch of the military that had few communist sympathysers, not like the navy and air force). It was done in Jakarta and Yogyakarta and was to kidnap a number of high ranking army officers that were thought to be in touch with the CIA to plot a coup to wrest power from Soekarno.

The generals were killed and their bodies dumped inside a well. They also took over the Radio station and some government buildings. The coup was exterminated by the military in just one day!! Under the only person in Jakarta high enough to command the army, Soeharto, he had single handedly quell down the coup. That's the strange thing about the coup. Were it an operation done by the communist, it couldn't have been that sloppy. They had millions of followers not to mention those in the military and the government. I doubt the communist was the one that had done this... but unfortunately it is still an open book.

There is another perplexing thing around the giving of the Supersemar letter by Soekarno to Soeharto, which essentially gave power of the government to Soeharto. Some unveriviable sources says that it was conducted under duress, under a gunpoint. Soekarno was exiled inside his palace (such was his charisma that Soeharto didn't dare to touch him), brokenhearted, he died alone.

There is a good book on the massacre of communists here, unfortunately its in bahasa indonesia... The main massacre seemed to have been Java, especially in the Islamic area of East Java and the island of Bali.