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In April, 1955, representatives from twenty-nine governments of Asian and African nations gathered in Bandung, Indonesia to discuss peace and the role of the Third World in the Cold War, economic development, and decolonization. The twenty-nine countries that participated represented a total population of 1.5 billion people, 54% of the world’s population. The conference was organized by Indonesia, Burma (now Myanmar), Pakistan, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and India.
On April 17, 1955 President Sukarno of Indonesia opened the historic Bandung Conference in this way:
This is the first intercontinental conference of colored peoples, so called colored peoples, in the history of mankind. I am proud that my country is your host. It is a new departure in the history of the world that leaders of Asian and African peoples can meet together in their own countries to discuss and deliberate on matters of common concern. In spite of diversity that exists among its participants, let this conference be a great success. Yes, there is diversity among us. Who denies it? Small and great nations are represented here with people professing nearly every religion under the sun…almost every political faith we encounter here…and practically every economic doctrine has its representative in this hall…But again, what harm is in diversity, when there is unity in desire. This conference is not to oppose each other; it is a conference of brotherhood.
What harm can come from a desire for self-rule and an end to neocolonialism? In response to this expression of unity, millions of people were murdered, continue to be murdered, by the forces of reaction, encouraged and supported by the reactionary and racist government, military, and corporate leadership of the United States. What harm indeed.
If your country espoused the principles of the Bandung Conference, and your citizens were so-called “colored peoples,” you would not be tolerated.
This is the anticommunist playbook that our guest Vincent Bevins calls “The Jakarta Method” as its great success (the nearly overnight erasure of the largest unarmed socialist party in the world) prompted replication in several other countries in South and Latin America.
The result of the 1955 Asian-African Conference was known as the Ten Principles of Bandung, a political statement containing the basic principles in the efforts to promote peace and cooperation in the world.
Or, to the USA, reasons for extermination.
1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.
3. Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations large and small.
4. Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country.
5. Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
6. Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers, abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries.
7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country.
8. Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties’ own choice, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation.
10. Respect for justice and international obligation.
GUEST
Vincent Bevins has been a journalist for thirteen years and is the author of The Jakarta Method: Washington’s Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World, published by Public Affairs Books. He joined me via Zoom from London.
RELATED
How ‘Jakarta’ Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing by Vincent Bevins
What the United States Did in Indonesia by Vincent Bevins
The World the Jakarta Method Built: A Conversation with Vincent Bevins
MUSIC
“Responsible” – Peter Brötzmann
“Gang Kelinci” – Lilis Suryani
“Genjer Genjer” – Lilis Suryani
“Family Business” – Dengue Fever
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Executive Producer: Kade Young
