Your documentary, Shadow Play, discusses American, British and Australian complicity in the mass murder of communists and alleged communists in Indonesia in 1965-66. When were the official documents exposing this complicity revealed to the public, and under what conditions? That is, what prompted the US government to reveal these when they did? In any case, prior to their revelation, there must have been some speculation about American involvement in the massacre.

Yes, there was quite a bit of speculation even before the documents were released. About 20 or 30 years after an event, the State Department writes an official history of what happened. The State Department released these documents having to do with US involvement in Indonesia through normal declassification procedures. In fact a draft had been written of the official history of the State Department in Indonesia and Malaysia in 1964-66. There was a volume that was prepared by an official historian in the State Department; this volume was then reviewed by the CIA and withdrawn from publication because they had some concerns about it but it was accidentally published and posted on a website. So it was because of this lapse in the declassification process that the most overt connections between the US government and the Indonesian military during that time were revealed. This is the story of the United States.

How did you become interested in this event?

I grew up in Indonesia as an adolescent, in Central Java, because my parents were working there, so I got to hear lots of stories. I also remember being told by my parents, at the age of 13, not to discuss politics around the table or anywhere in the country, which struck me as rather unusual. This made me even more intrigued by what it was that had transpired in Central Java seven years before I was there. I had met missionaries and other people who had been there then and had very dark stories to tell.

In your documentary, you say that Indonesia's military under Suharto murdered more of its own population than any other regime supported by the West and that the military operated very much as a political party. How is it that one can account for the power of the institution?

It has mostly to do with the revolution; the history of Indonesia was essentially as a fragmented country of multiple nations, multiple languages. It became the Dutch East Indies under the Dutch and only became the nation of Indonesia through a war of independence which was fought by initially a rag-tag groups of guerilla fighters who linked themselves up informally. These groups then became the Indonesian army. So effectively it was the most powerful institution in the country from day one.

You say in the documentary that after the 1957 elections, in which the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) fared well, the US started supporting insurgencies throughout Indonesia. What effects did this American involvement have on the shape these insurgencies subsequently took? Were these insurgencies actually expressions of popular discontent, either against Sukarno or the centralized nature of the Indonesian state? Or were they actually created or propelled by the support they received from the outside? What was the effect of this involvement on US-Indonesian relations?

You will hear the argument mounted both ways. If one is interested in a regime change, one cultivates opposition elements. Now to what extent those elements could achieve their ends on their own is possibly the major question. In this case, there is no doubt that there was a major US military intervention. More guns, bombs, planes, and bombing raids were run in that operation than any other operation even against Mao and in support of the KMT in the 1950s; so it was a major operation.

You also say in the documentary that the New York Times applauded Suharto's takeover, saying it was a "gleam of light in Asia". This perhaps is to be expected from an establishment newspaper but was there any other opposing coverage in this country at the time?

I think all the coverage was more or less the same. All this happened in a place a long way away at a time when US troops were on the ground in Vietnam in numbers unprecedented since World War II, so there was obviously major concern about that. Nothing was known really about what happened in Indonesia and because the Indonesian army and the Australians, the British, and the Americans, had such control over the information that was made public, nothing was really known. Ultimately this anti-Communist operation was simply passed off in the West and elsewhere as a civil war. The information was controlled quite effectively; the true story did not get out at all.

It is quite striking that none of the American government officials interviewed in the documentary expressed much remorse about their involvement in what the CIA itself has termed "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century". Is it the case that much of the American foreign policy establishment still believes that there were no other options given the fear of Indonesia coming under the influence of China (and the attendant "domino theory" consequences)?

Yes, pretty much. It is difficult to speculate but in Cambodia, Pol Pot took over with his mad Maoist ideas and killed 1.7 million people. There is no doubt that there was a very, very strong communist party in Indonesia that was coming under the influence more and more of China. This is the period when the Cultural Revolution was on and the temperature was rising in Indonesia. It had been through the previous 15 years of the Cold War and although Indonesia had tried to remain neutral, it had become polarized inside. There were anti-communists threatening the communists, and vice versa.

And what kind of reaction do you expect from your viewers in the United States?

I don't really expect it to be wildly controversial because we're just quoting what has been on the public record. The most controversial parts are about giving money to militia groups who then went on to kill the communists but that was already out last year. It was run in the Washington Post and a couple of other papers. This had been stringently denied for so long.

For more information about the documentary, please visit the Shadow Play website on PBS.

Interview conducted by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource.