Thread by @Vinncent

So: Ann Dunham definitely worked at the US Embassy, and Lolo definitely worked for the Indonesian Military, while the US-backed and blood-soaked Suharto dictatorship consolidated rule over Indonesia. But this tweet is probably not 100% right. Because many people asked, a thread:

https://twitter.com/EritreaStruggle/status/1314249816621359104

First — there could be more. For The Jakarta Method (link in bio), I did not do special research into Ann or Lolo. But in "Dreams From My Father," (1995) Obama is clear that they were both surrounded by horrible people, and horrible things. His version could be wrong, of course.

But by just relying on Obama's own account, David Remnick's book, and other mainstream and very-public sources, you can insert that narrative into what we now know about 1965-1966 Indonesia, and the story is very striking, I think. That is how I tell it -

Ann and Lolo met in Hawaii, at the East-West Center. Lots of US government types end up there, including former Indonesian Ambassador Howard Jones (I did go through his files, actually). Lolo was an employee of the Indonesian military, not a soldier. They married in 1965.

My understanding is Lolo was called back in 1966, after most of the killing was finished, and Suharto was firmly in control. This was common for Indonesians abroad then. If you didn't come home, or pledge allegiance to Suharto, you lost your citizenship.

https://twitter.com/Vinncent/status/1264914274884952064

Regardless of the exact moment he arrived, Indonesia would have been a very ugly place. He told Barack at one point he had witnessed murder. A chilling passage from "Dreams From My Father" -

Lolo's own father and brother were killed by the Dutch, as they tried to regain control over their former colony, from 1945-1949. He could have been talking about that war. And, it is notable that when he left for Hawaii (1962) the Army was not a purely right-wing force.

It is also notable that by 1966-7, almost no one was standing up to Suharto's dictatorship. Approximately one million innocent people were dead. Another million were in concentration camps. The terror campaign was brutally, totally effective.

So I don't know what he did, or saw, when he first arrived. Ann and Barack got there in 1967, and Lolo was working for the Army to survey West Papua. Please, read up on what happened in West Papua when Suharto took over, and what is happening there now.

Ann started teaching English at the US Embassy. She found it full of racists and imperialists. She reported - or at least, Obama implies heavily - that she was surrounded by men working in fronts for nefarious clandestine activities. From "Dreams" -

Lolo later started working for Union Oil (now part of Chevron). The ability of US oil companies to exploit Indonesian resources was a big part of the coup. Ann saw (like everybody else) just how corrupt the new order (New Order, it was actually called) in Indonesia was:

So, draw your own conclusions. My personal interpretation was that young Obama had a sophisticated understanding of US foreign policy, and how destructive it could be. Then as President, he...did what he did. So maybe, draw your own conclusions about the US Presidency.

Finally, listen to Obama himself narrate the passage about the violence in Indonesia, and just how effective state terror can be. Thanks to @TinyRevolution for uploading this: tinyrevolution.com/mt/mt-static/i…