Joop Beek

Josephus Beek SJ (Joop or Jopie) (12 March 1917 in Amsterdam – 17 September 1983 in Jakarta) was a Dutch and later Indonesian Jesuit, priest, educator and politician. From approximately 1965 until approximately 1975 he was a very important political consultant to the Indonesian president Suharto, but always remained in the shade.

Joop Beek grew up in Amsterdam in a family with Indonesian connections. In 1935, he entered the Jesuit order in Mariëndaal in Grave in the Netherlands. In 1938, as was usual in this religious order, he was transferred to work in a Jesuit college, in his case in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. During the Second World War he was interned by the Japanese until 1945, and come liberation he was held for seven more months by the Indonesians. In 1946, he returned to the Netherlands, to Maastricht, to study for priesthood, was ordained in 1948 and again sent to Yogyakarta, where he stayed until 1959. Here he also started setting up catholic student organisations, that would prove the basis for his later political influence.

In 1960, father Beek started work in Jakarta, where he became increasingly convinced of the danger of the communists in Indonesia, especially to the Catholics. He set up intensive leadership training lasting a month, under the name KASBUL (Kaderisasi Sebulan), on strict ascetic principles and with some excessive punishments. This was successful and formed a generation of militant anti-communist and anti-Islamic and loyal catholic leaders, trained in leadership, speaking in public, writing, group dynamics and social analysis. The students also learned to recognise communist tactics and how to counter them.

The leadership training provided the basis for an information network with a cellular system and for contacts with political leaders, such as the then president Sukarno and the later president, the pro-western general Suharto. A rift with Sukarno developed because of his increasingly communist preferences. In 1965, a coup attempt was made and six pro-Sukarno generals were assassinated.

The coup failed and Father Beek sent his well-organized students into the streets to demonstrate against the Communists. Suharto increased his powers quickly and could eventually oust Sukarno and eliminate the communists in a very bloody witch hunt, that cost at least some 500,000 lives and tens of thousands of prisoners, among which Pramoedya Ananta Toer, the writer who described his many years in prison on the island of Buru. Suharto became president and father Beek his main advisor, up to approximately 1975. Father Beek then had already taken Indonesian citizenship.

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