Indonesia Still Dealing With Carnage of 25 Years Ago After Failed Coup : Uprising: Much leftover business remains from a rampage in the name of anti-communism that left hundreds of thousands dead and brought President Suharto to power.

The blood bath began 25 years ago in the waning days of what the late President Sukarno said would be a “year of living dangerously.”

From Sumatra to Bali there were nights of horror in city slums and jungle clearings, a rampage in the name of anti-communism that left hundreds of thousands dead after an unsuccessful coup in September, 1965.

Indonesia is still dealing with the carnage and shows no real willingness to bury the past. Much leftover business remains from the turbulent period.

The government recently started screening about 1.5 million former communists or sympathizers to decide whether they will be allowed to vote in the 1992 general election.

Four former palace guards were executed last year for their part in the aborted coup, which was blamed on Chinese influence. At least six more prisoners await the firing squad.

Diplomatic relations with China, suspended since 1967, were restored only four months ago. Still to be settled is the issue of more than 300,000 Chinese who were made “stateless” when they were unable to renew their passports or leave Indonesia when relations were frozen.

Two books about the aborted coup were banned in 1990. One of them, “The United States and the Overthrow of Sukarno,” by Peter Dale Scott of UC Berkeley, alleged that President Suharto helped instigate the uprising.

The memory of that brutal chapter still haunts the country’s leaders, who are anxious to ensure that the next transfer of power is peaceful. Suharto, 69, is halfway through his fifth five-year term. Diplomats and other analysts assume that he will continue for another term if his health remains good.

No conclusive account of the coup attempt that can be independently verified has been issued. A government white paper with an official version was completed in the 1970s but never released.

What is known is that it started on Sept. 30, 1965, with an uprising by a group of mid-level army officers. The government says that they were backed by the Chinese-influenced Indonesian Communist Party, then the world’s third-largest, claiming 20 million followers.

They struck first by murdering six leading generals but were unable to seize power. The coup was put down within 36 hours by troops led by then-Maj. Gen. Suharto, whom the plotters inexplicably left off their hit list.

As head of the strategic reserve command, he was more important than most of the generals who were killed.

There was popular resentment at the slaying of the generals and Muslim anger at a power grab by infidels, but the country remained calm at first. For several weeks a semblance of order was maintained.

Then something snapped. By late October, the official Antara news agency was reporting massacres in Central and East Java. Religious and racial tensions exploded, with ethnic Chinese singled out for the settling of old scores. The Muslim majority had long envied the Chinese for their wealth and questioned their patriotism.

As months of frenzy passed, the purge of anyone labeled a communist came to be considered a national obligation, not murder.

Officials announced in 1975 that from 450,000 to 500,000 people were killed. Tens of thousands were injured.

An estimated 600,000 suspects were detained without charge, among them some of the country’s best known writers, poets, educators, journalists, film directors and intellectuals. The last detainees were released in 1979.

When calm was restored in March, 1966, Sukarno relinquished executive power to Suharto and the army, a situation that prevails 25 years later.

Sukarno’s downfall and outlawing of the Indonesian Communist Party led to a reversal of a leftist, pro-China foreign policy and adoption of a pro-Western course.

Suharto halted a costly two-year war with neighboring Malaysia that had divided the armed forces. Jakarta helped found the anti-communist Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.

The catchy acronyms and slogans that spiced Sukarno’s oratory ended when he went into virtual house arrest until his death in 1970. Among the best-known slogans, thanks to a novel by C.J. Koch and movie based on it, was Sukarno’s forecast that 1965 would be a “year of living dangerously.”

Once hailed for his vision of a unified nation free of Dutch colonial rule, his economic policies left the country near bankruptcy by the time he died.

Only the second president in 45 years of independence, Suharto has brought stability and economic progress to the country of 180 million at the expense of political freedom--a trade-off that most Indonesians appear to accept.

He has largely succeeded in ending most of the regional, religious and political factionalism that racked the country during its first 20 years and threatened to tear apart the 13,677-island archipelago.

The country’s economic policies, praised by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are bearing fruit. The growth rate in 1989 was 7.4%.

But Indonesia must find jobs for a work force that grows by 2.5 million people each year. Per-capita gross national product was only $500 in 1989.