Soepardjo

After the failure of the coup, Soepardjo went into hiding. He was eventually arrested on January 12, 1967. He was found guilty of treason, sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on May 16, 1970.

In the years following the failure of the 30 September Movement, General Soepardjo wrote an analysis of the movement, titled Some Factors That Influenced the Defeat of ‘the September 30th Movement’ as Viewed from a Military Perspective. A copy of these personal notes, now known as the ‘Soepardjo Document’, was intercepted by military officers and added to the records of the military court that tried Soepardjo in 1967. In the document, Soepardjo reflects on what may have caused the September 30th Movement to fail, based upon his military experience and what he witnessed throughout the event.

On 28 September 1965, he left his post without the knowledge of then KOSTRAD commander, Suharto (later President of Indonesia). He had received a telegram from his wife stating that his child was sick. At Soepardjo's trial in 1967, an ex-Communist official testified that the cable was code between Soepardjo and Communist participating in the coup, and that the real reason for his return to Java was to help command the coup.

Soepardjo wrote this document while on the run as he had already been stripped of his rank and dismissed from the military. This key fact is what gives the document its importance, and historian John Roosa notes that the document may be the most important primary source on the movement. The Soepardjo Document is the only primary source which was written by a participant of the September 30th Movement before his arrest. The fact that the document was written before he was arrested means that there was no chance for the military to influence his testimony unlike those from other generals, which led to many unreliable narratives as most of their stories were either coerced through torture or fabricated by the media.

Mustafa Sjarief Soepardjo (23 March 1923 – 16 May 1970), also known as Supardjo, was a Brigadier General in the Indonesian Army. He was one of the leaders of the 30 September Movement, a group that killed six of the army's top generals and launched a failed coup attempt on 30 September 1965.