1965 - 1966 - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

1965 - 1966

Review: The USA, the CIA and Suharto’s coup

A complex relationship

1965 collaborators and victims living side by side silently negotiate between past and present

Mapping the 1965-66 killings in East Java

In the first of a series of articles we present recent work by demographers and genocide scholars at Michigan State University's Asian Studies Centre on the 1965-1966 killings. Their analysis takes the form of a collection of infographics tracing population numbers across East Java at this time.

Review: The killing season

More than 50 years on, mis-truths about the 1965-66 killings and what motivated them prevail in Indonesia. Geoffrey Robinson's and other books and films on the issue, based on archival research and analysis, continue to be of utmost importance to counter this movement against the truth.

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: Bicultural leader Siauw Giok Tjhan

A drink for humanity

Honouring Indonesian activist Putu Oka Sukanta for humanity

OzAsia and beyond

OzAsia festival illuminates the world of Indonesian performance and its social concerns

Justice denied?

The Indonesian way of confronting the past underestimates the importance of truth and justice

Interview with an activist: Soe Tjen Marching

Standing up in the name of truth and justice

Masa lalu yang tersembunyi

Esai foto-foto Pulau Buru

Review: Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-66

Women, Sexual Violence and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-66 - Routledge

Pohlman’s study provides sensitive and powerful testimony of the impact of this violence on women and girls

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

Accomplice to atrocity?

Keith Shann - The Canberra Times, 15 April 1977.

Australia’s role in the 1965 massacres

A post-colonial subversive

Like Toer’s tetralogy before it, Semua Untuk Hindia turns Indonesia’s national history narrative on its head

No ‘magic bullet’

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

Review: 'Enduring impunity': Women surviving atrocities in the absence of justice

Ongoing impunity for perpetrators continues to impact on the lives of women survivors

Review: The Crocodile Hole

Saskia Wieringa’s latest novel brings to life a dark period in Indonesia’s past

The Crocodile Hole

Indonesia, beginning of the 1980s. The young journalist Tommy comes into contact with the survivors of the genocide that the New Order regime of General Suharto carried out. To her bewilderment she hears stories about lurid dancing, castrations and the murder by young girls of a number of generals in the night of October 1 1965. Guided by Ibu Sri, herself a former prisoner and a member of the women’s organisation that was held responsible for these alleged sexual and sadistic perversions she sets herself the task to unravel these fantasies. Who invented these hateful lies which were meant to incite mass organizations to murder possibly one million of their neighbors? Tommy is betrayed and thrown into prison.

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