G30SPKI September 30th Movement, group of Indonesian military personnel who captured and murdered six generals in 1965, marking the commencement of the abortive coup that led to the fall from power of Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president. Late in the evening on Sept. 30, 1965, a group of army conspirators calling itself the September 30th Movement gathered in Jakarta with the aim of kidnapping and killing seven army generals in the early hours of the following morning. By dawn on Oct. 1, six of the generals were dead; the seventh, Abdul Nasution, had escaped. Later that morning the movement announced that it had seized power to forestall a coup against the president by a council of generals. In the meantime, General Suharto, commander of the army’s strategic reserve, began to gather the reins of power into his own hands. By evening he had seized the initiative from the conspirators. The Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia; PKI) maintained th...