Using a small team, Wynne set up a disinformation newsletter, the origin of which was disguised by sending it to Indonesia via cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Manila. The newsletter was given the appearance of being produced by ‘patriotic Indonesians living abroad' and targeted as many influential people in the government hierarchy as it could.
In 1965, the time came to take advantage of the momentum it was able to accumulate, and after producing a radio broadcast and a special edition of the newsletter, the IRD took advantage of a military coup in Indonesia to call for violence against the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI)
The disinformation campaign continued to incite readers of the need to continue with the killing “Unless we maintain a vigorous campaign to eradicate communism … the red menace will envelop us again.”
It was not just communists, any leftists were now targeted and killed. In the troubles that followed, hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed, because of the British IRD’s disinformation campaign.
Britain’s involvement in the affair was only revealed when the documents were declassified after being held far beyond the 20-year rule for declassification.
War in Afghanistan (2001-2021)
There are many episodes that bear testament to the British military’s disregard for civilian life, including the Bosnian War, the Kosovo war, and the Yemen revolution in the 1960s, but as there are no exact figures on the impact of Britain’s direct involvement, or no detailed investigations that reflected the number of civilian casualties, there is not much to do in terms of discussing British massacres during those wars.
This takes us straight to the war in Afghanistan, where the evolution of media allowed for more accountability in terms of revealing the extent of Britain’s involvement in the deaths of innocent civilians. Had it not been for the work of many independent organizations and journalists, many of these deaths would have gone unreported or would have had civilians grouped together with non-civilian targets.
In fact, the UK’s troops, during their presence in Afghanistan, had a “deliberate policy” of killing unarmed men.
Part 3