another coup was attempted but also proved unsuccessful. According to the president's Daily Briefs, Sukarno wanted to send a message to both military officials and the press. First he wanted to make it clear that Indonesia was in alliance with the Communist axis which included North Vietnam, China, and Cambodia, and that their allegiance was against "American imperialism." Also, he wanted to make it known that he found the media at the time to be slanderous to their regime, their party, and other Communist governments. He minimized the effect of the coup and voiced further intent of resistance to the American forces. In the same year, the left-leaning government of Sukarno was overthrown in a military coup by General Suharto. The new military quickly went after everybody who was opposed to the new regime. Non-violent communist supporters, Indonesian women's movements, trade union movement organizers and activists, intellectuals, teachers, land reform advocates, and the ethnic Chinese were all targeted. Over the course of about two years, it is estimated now by survivors, that as many as 2,500,000 of these people were massacred. The CIA'a World Factbook phrases it this way: "Sukarno was gradually eased from power." The U.S. was very much involved with providing money, weapons, radios, and supplies to this new government. The U.S. government along with the CIA provided death lists with names of leftist public leaders with the intents to eliminate them. The United States wanted the Indonesian army to go after and remove the entire grass roots base of the leftist party. As of 1967 the Soviet-Indonesian relation was strained because of the last coup attempt. The USSR decided to suspend its economic and military aid to Indonesia. Indonesia in August 1967 joined Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand to form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This further strained the Indonesian- Soviet relationship. Fight against the Indonesian Communist Party General Suharto was directly appointed by President Sukarno to lead the Indonesian army. From the very beginning of his rule he planned to destroy and disrupt the Communist party in Indonesia. Even Communist sympathizers were not safe—he planned to make examples of them as well. Indeed, he had given orders to wipe out every Communist in Indonesia. Every commander in the military was ordered to "clean up everything; "I ordered all of my people to send patrols out and capture everybody in the PKI post."" Those