, Columnist
America's Wars Are Spreading Chaos in Africa
Once again, the hunt for one enemy is creating many more victims.
Aftermath of the al-Shabaab bombing.
Photographer: Mohamed Abdiwahab/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
The Indonesian military killed as many as 1 million suspected communists in the mid-1960s, paving the path for a dictator, Suharto, who ruled the country for more than three decades. Newly declassified documents from the U.S. embassy in Jakarta reveal an extraordinary degree of American complicity in what remains one of the Cold War's biggest crimes. The U.S. not only ignored information that could have prevented the atrocity; it facilitated the killings by providing the Indonesian military with money, equipment and lists of communist officials.