Washington Fabricates Violent Sedition Across Indonesia

06-09-2025: According to mainstream media, in the last week of August, youth in Indonesia rose up against an increasingly authoritarian and militaristic government, which demonstrated its corruption by authorising a hefty parliamentary housing allowance for members of parliament. 21-year-old Affan Kurniwan, a motorcycle taxi driver, was killed after being run over by a police vehicle at a protest site. The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) claimed that after a week of protests there were 23 reports of missing persons, and only three were located – which means that 20 are still missing.[1] By the 1^st of September, there were reports of 8 people losing their lives in the worst violence that Indonesia had seen in two decades.[2] Many students were criticising the government’s response to protests over the housing benefit of 50 million rupiah (about $3075), while the masses were dealing with a rising cost of living and rising unemployment,[3] amongst other social ills.

Street violence

The problem with this narrative is that it turns reality on its head. What is transpiring in Indonesia today is not a grassroots protest movement with good intentions, but the US (United States of America) deep state fuelling violent sedition across the giant Indonesian nation in an attempt to topple the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). It is yet another subtle regime change plot in yet another country of the Global South in yet another attempt to force an independent state to break deep political, trade and investment ties with the Asian superpower – the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The playbook of themed colour revolutions is once again on display, this time with the skull and crossbones pirate flag from the pop culture anime series One Piece being flown[4] instead of the flag of the Indonesian republic for which many shed blood during its anti-colonial independence struggle.

There is nothing that is progressive about Western backed colour revolutions, and indeed in practice they resemble reactionary counter-revolutions. Even the corporate media reporting on the events cannot hide the overt violence of the “protestors”, not the Indonesian state authorities. On the 1^st of September, the Metropolitan Jakarta Police announced that 1240 people had been arrested over the previous week NOT for protesting, but for public violence.[5] Some of this violence included public vandalism, looting, setting fire to government buildings and even damaging public transport – such as the Transjakarta bus stops and the Jakarta MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station. For the first time since Indonesia won independence in 1945, members of parliament’s homes were ransacked, partially destroyed and looted.[6] In the city of Makassar, three people died after the riotous mob set fire to a building, with five others hospitalised with burns or broken bones after trying to jump clear.[7] To say the least, a genuine protest undertaken by authentic citizens for real and felt needs would not recklessly endanger the lives of entirely innocent people, let alone slaughter them.

Delayed trip to Beijing

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto had to delay his planned attendance in Beijing for China’s extensive commemorations of the 80^th anniversary of the victory over Japanese occupation in World War II, to attend to the riots spreading across the Indonesian archipelago. Under extreme pressure, Prabowo felt compelled to announce a reduction in the parliamentary housing allowance and a moratorium on overseas work trips.[8] At the same time, Prabowo correctly condemned some actions as “treason and terrorism”, along with the reasonable admission that while people had the right to protest, the state must step in when protests turn to violence.[9] In addition, in June Prabowo used the Pancasila Day address to warn against the foreign funded NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) fuelling division within Indonesian society. Prabowo advised Indonesians not to be manipulated by foreign powers, and that the founding fathers proclaimed that Indonesians must stand on their own feet.[10]

Unfortunately, being manipulated by Western powers, principally the US government, is precisely what is affecting some Indonesian impressionable youths. To be sure, almost all of the Indonesian students on the streets over the past week do not believe they are serving US imperialism, and many would imagine that they are fighting against it. Yet imperialism has learnt to work its way towards the pillars of a targeted “Third World” nation, through the funding of “civil society” organisations over decades. Under the guise of assistance and aid in education, legal and media organisations, the CIA – invariably through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation and others – can rouse many young people into doing what they would otherwise never think of doing. Such as, rioting, looting and burning down the very locale of their birth.

The New Atlas has once again outlined just how the US government creates, funds and unleashes an uprising at almost the precise moment it requires one – for the interests of Washington.[11] For example, Project Multatuli admits on its website that it works openly with the Open Society Foundation (of the notorious George Soros) and Google.[12] Similar “independent media” outlets in Indonesia such as Remotivi and New Naratif have admitted that they have been negatively affected by the funding cuts of the Trump Administration to the NED,[13] which have nonetheless NOT closed down its activities. By doing so, these fronts admit that they are not “independent media” whatsoever, but are in fact US government funded media, which has the task of cultivating domestic and international opposition to the government of a Global South nation over many years. Also, fronts such as the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation is openly funded by the Ford Foundation,[14] and as such is not even Indonesian at all. Many within Indonesia would not suspect that such bodies with innocuous sounding names could in fact be undermining their whole state for the geopolitical goals of a now declining US Empire. Yet there are political restraints on imperialism today acting overtly through military power alone. Social and political subversion under a shroud of deceit are often, for them, of much higher value.

NKRI-PRC ties

It is not difficult to grasp why Indonesia has hit by multiple colour revolution attempts this year, such as the “Dark Indonesia” protests from February to April.[15] In January, Brazil, the current chair of the non-imperialist BRICS bloc, announced that Indonesia had become a full member. Indonesia is the tenth full member, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[16] This was a blow to US and European Union (EU) imperialism, as Indonesia is the largest nation in South East Asia and has a rapidly growing economy thanks to extensive trade and investment deals with Red China. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to Washington dropping the hammer with sedition aimed at the Prabowo administration. To add to the US government’s pain, in May this year the PRC and the NKRI signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a framework enabling bilateral transactions (esp.trade) to take place in their own currencies.[17] This move accelerates the already advancing trend towards dedollarisation – the ever fading demand for US dollars as the international reserve currency.

NKRI-PRC trade has now hit $13 billion per month, with the PRC investing billions more in Indonesia through Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative.[18] These are the real reasons why there are violent riots on the streets in Jakarta, NOT concerns about an extra parliamentary allowance! Washington must not only try to stop rapidly developing multipolarity through BRICS and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – soon to meet in Tianjin), it must pull out all stops to sever economic and political ties to its largest rival – the PRC. It is a forlorn task. The PRC is surpassing the US, the EU and the West economically, industrially, technologically and even politically. As a workers’ state (albeit one which is heavily deformed by a conservative Stalinist political leadership), its economy does not run primarily on the basis of private profit. This gives it an unparalleled advantage.

Workers of the world have a vital interest in defending Indonesia, the PRC, BRICS and the SCO against imperialism, which represents capitalism on its last legs. At the same time, multipolarity will not lead to socialism per se. Multipolarity may be a progressive step forward, but Leninist vanguard parties are required to guide working people in South-East Asia and the world towards the proletarian revolutions which will put an end the old world and open the road to mass liberation.

Workers League

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E: workersleague@protonmail.com

[1] www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/02/indonesia-protests-twenty-missing-rights-group-says (03-09-2025)

[2] www.en.tempo.co/read/2045240/protests-across-indonesia-continue-despite-crackdown-and-deaths (03-09-2025)

[3] www.chiangraitimes.com/news-asia/indonesia-protests/ (03-09-2025)

[4] www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3ezvj4d111o (03-09-2025)

[5] www.netralnews.com/polda-metro-jaya-tangkap-1240-pelaku-anarki-selama-demo-di-jakarta/UHMvTXpxVDMzdmhSQWJOLzRlVTN3dz09 (03-09-2025)

[6] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-02/indonesian-mps-houses-looted-amid-jakarta-protests-over-perks/105722932 (03-09-2025)

[7] www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-30/three-dead-after-mob-sets-fire-to-indonesia-regional-parliament/105716624 (03-09-2025)

[8] www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesias-prabowo-calls-for-calm-plans-to-revoke-lawmakers-perks-after-protests-escalate-into?close=true (03-09-2025)

[9] www.tradeandfinance.com.pk/indonesian-president-condemns-protests-as-treason-cites-looting-and-violence/ (03-09-2025)