The people of Indonesia & their culture, politics, economy and environment - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Military Oppression

The red thread

A recently uncovered report reveals how anti-communist paranoia stoked abductions of pro-democracy activists in the last days of the New Order

Review: Nation building and national identity in Timor Leste

Murdering army, silent church

Rev. Mery Kolimon: ‘The Indonesian Churches did not protect the victims of 1965’ - Willem van Gent

Reverend Mery Kolimon, researcher and advocate working on the 1965 killings in Eastern Indonesia, has a personal connection to this piece of history

Testimony of a messenger

President Sukarno with PKI Secretary General DN Aidit at an anniversary celebration for the PKI, 23 May 1965 - Howard Sochurek

A memoir by a former army officer offers insights into Suharto’s moves in October 1965

No ‘magic bullet’

Dealing with human rights abuses has been business as usual under the Jokowi administration

I am Suciwati

A monologue

Lessons learned from Indonesia’s conflicts: Aceh, Poso and Papua

Herb Feith Annual Memorial Lecture 2014

Prabowo and human rights

Jakarta 1998 was bad, but Prabowo likely had more blood on his hands in East Timor

Big prison, little prison

Stories from Papua’s political prisoners show life at the edge of freedom

Survival through slavery

Suspected communists who survived the killings of 1965-66 in South Sulawesi spent the next 20 years working for the military in an isolated jungle camp

I'm still here

Forty-five years later, survivors are telling their stories about their suffering in detention

Hunted communists

Many of those accused of being communists fled to South Blitar after the Surabaya crackdown, only to become the target of the Trisula Operation in 1968

Sensitive truths

The exhumation of mass graves from 1965-66 is a fraught and dangerous business

Accomplices in atrocity

The mass killings of 1965-66 in Indonesia were international, not just local, events - and the US played an important role

Genocide and demographic transformation in Papua

A response to Jim Elmslie and Stuart Upton

A disaster, but not genocide

Migration has caused many problems in Papua, but it is not part of a genocidal master plan

Not just another disaster

Papuan claims of genocide deserve to be taken seriously

A man on a mission

From the highlands of Papua to exile in England, Benny Wenda is a leader of his people

Children of the enemy

A child abducted during the Indonesian occupation returns to her former home

Obama's Indonesia question

Will the US president continue unrestricted aid to Indonesia’s military?

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Lontar Modern Indonesia

A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar.