Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T17:00:41.629Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The State of Knowledge about an Open Secret: Indonesia's Mass Disappearances of 1965–66

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

John Roosa
Get access

Extract

In a scene in the genre-bending documentary film The Act of Killing (2012), a journalist, Soaduon Siregar, claims to have a sudden insight while standing in a film studio. Having just watched two executioners reenact their deeds of 1965–66 before a camera, he realizes why he had never known that they had garroted hundreds of detainees when he was working with them in the same building. His old friends had been so “smooth” (he used the English word) that he had not noticed them running a human abattoir upstairs. One of the executioners standing in the studio with crude makeup plastered on his face, Adi Zulkardy, is incredulous and insists Siregar must have known since even the neighbors heard the screams of the victims: “It was an open secret (rahasia umum).” When the director of the film, Joshua Oppenheimer, interjects, noting that Siregar's longtime boss at the local newspaper had already admitted to being an interrogator who decided which detainees were to die, Siregar becomes only more adamant in denying any knowledge of the killing.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 75 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 281 - 297
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Abdullah, Taufik, Abdurrachman, Sukri, and Gunawan, Restu, eds. 2012. Malam bencana 1965 dalam belitan krisis nasional, bagian II: Konflik lokal [The disastrous night of 1965 in the coils of the national crisis, part II: Local conflicts]. Jakarta: Obor.Google Scholar
Beatty, Andrew. 2009. A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Bowen, John. 1991. Sumatran Politics and Poetics: Gayo History, 1900–1989. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Budiawan. 2004. Mematahkan pewarisan ingatan: Wacana anti-komunis dan politik rekonsiliasi pasca-Suharto [Breaking the inheritance of memory: Anti-communist discourse and politics of reconciliation after Suharto]. Jakarta: Elsam.Google Scholar
Conboy, Ken. 2003. Kopassus: Inside Indonesia's Special Forces. Jakarta: Equinox Publishing.Google Scholar
Cribb, Robert. 2001. “Genocide in Indonesia, 1965–66.” Journal of Genocide Research 3(2):219–39.Google Scholar
Cribb, Robert. 2009. “The Indonesian Massacres.” In Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts, eds. Totten, Samuel and Parsons, William, 193–217. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cribb, Robert. 2010. “Political Genocides in Postcolonial Asia.” In The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, eds. Bloxham, Donald and Moses, A. Dirk, 445–64. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crouch, Harold. [1978] 1988. The Army and Politics in Indonesia. Rev. ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Elsam. 2012. Pulangkan mereka! Merangkai ingatan penghilangan paksa di Indonesia [Bring them home! Connecting the memories of disappearances in Indonesia]. Jakarta: Elsam.Google Scholar
Elsam. 2013. Jembatan Bacem [Bacem Bridge]. Jakarta: Elsam. Film on DVD.Google Scholar
Fealy, Greg, and McGregor, Katherine. 2012. “East Java and the Role of the Nahdlatul Ulama in the 1965–66 Anti-Communist Violence.” In The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965–68, eds. Kammen, Douglas and McGregor, Katherine, 104–30. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Gerlach, Christian. 2010. Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Marshall. 1965. Telegram from US Embassy in Jakarta to Secretary of State, “Joint Sitep no. 70,” December 29. National Security Archive, Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project, File 16, p. 16.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert. 1990. The Political Economy of Mountain Java: An Interpretative History. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Herlina, Nina. 2012. “‘Tatar Sunda’ digoncang konflik sosial politik” [The “Sunda realm” shaken by social-political conflict]. In Malam bencana 1965 dalam belitan krisis nasional, bagian II: Konflik lokal [The disastrous night of 1965 in the coils of the national crisis, part II: Local conflicts], eds. Abdullah, Taufik, Abdurrachman, Sukri, and Gunawan, Restu, 51–78. Jakarta: Obor.Google Scholar
Hidayat, Mansur. 1999. Biografi politik I Gusti Putu Merta (1913–1992) [A political biography of I Gusti Putu Merta (1913–1992)]. BA thesis, Udayana University, Faculty of Arts.Google Scholar
Hughes, John. [1967] 2002. The End of Sukarno: A Coup that Misfired: A Purge that Ran Wild. Singapore: Archipelago Press. First published as Indonesian Upheaval.Google Scholar
Indonesia. 1986. “Report from East Java.” Translated by Benedict Anderson. 41.Google Scholar
Kammen, Douglas, and Jenkins, David. 2012. “The Army Para-commando Regiment and the Reign of Terror in Central Java and Bali.” In The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965–68, eds. Kammen, Douglas and McGregor, Katherine, 75–103. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Komnas HAM [National Human Rights Commission]. 2012. Pernyataan Komnas HAM tentang hasil penyelidikan pelanggaran HAM yang berat peristiwa 1965–1966 [Statement by the National Human Rights Commission on the results of the investigation into gross human rights violations during the 1965–1966 event]. Jakarta: Komnas HAM.Google Scholar
Komnas Perempuan [National Commission on Violence Against Women]. 2007. Mendengarkan suara korban perempuan peristiwa 1965 [Listening to the voices of the women victimized in the 1965 event]. Jakarta: Komnas Perempuan.Google Scholar
Kompas. 2015. “Kalla: Pemerintah tidak akan minta maaf untuk kasus HAM 1965” [Kalla: The government will not apologize for human rights cases in 1965]. November 11. http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2015/11/11/19201271/Kalla.Pemerintah.Tidak.Akan.Minta.Maaf.untuk.Kasus.HAM.1965 (accessed March 12, 2016).Google Scholar
Leksana, Grace. 2009. “Reconciliation through History Education: Reconstructing the Social Memory of the 1965–66 Violence in Indonesia.” In Reconciling Indonesia: Grassroots Agency for Peace, ed. Bräuchler, Birgit, 175–91. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lubis, Firman. 2008. Jakarta 1960an: Kenangan semasa mahasiswa [Jakarta in the 1960s: Reminiscences of my student days]. Jakarta: Musup Jakarta.Google Scholar
Magnis-Suseno, Franz. 2015. “Membersihkan dosa kolektif G30S” [Cleansing the collective sin of the September 30th Movement]. Kompas. September 29. http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2015/09/29/16000001/Membersihkan.Dosa.Kolektif.G30S?page=all (accessed March 12, 2016).Google Scholar
McGregor, Kate. 2012. “Mass Graves and the Memories of the 1965 Indonesian Killings.” In The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965–68, eds. Kammen, Douglas and McGregor, Katherine, 234–62. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Melvin, Jessica. 2013. “Interview with Joshua Oppenheimer.” Inside Indonesia 112. http://www.insideindonesia.org/an-interview-with-joshua-oppenheimer (accessed March 13, 2016).Google Scholar
Melvin, Jessica. 2015. “Documenting Genocide.” Inside Indonesia 122. http://www.insideindonesia.org/documenting-genocide (accessed March 13, 2016).Google Scholar
Melvin, Jessica. Forthcoming. Mechanics of Mass Murder: How the Indonesian Military Initiated and Implemented the Indonesian Genocide, the Case of Aceh. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Mun'im DZ, H. Abdul. 2013. Benturan NU-PKI, 1948–1965 [The NU-PKI clash: 1948–1965]. Depok: Langgar swadaya nusantara.Google Scholar
New York Times. 1966. “Sukarno Reports Killing of 87,000.” January 16.Google Scholar
Oei Tjoe Tat. 1995. Memoar Oei Tjoe Tat: Pembantu Presiden Soekarno [The memoir of Oei Tjoe Tat: President Soekarno's assistant]. Jakarta: Hasta mitra.Google Scholar
Oppenheimer, Joshua, and Uwemedimo, Michael. 2009. “Show of Force: A Cinema-Séance of Power and Violence in Sumatra's Plantation Belt.” Critical Quarterly 51(1):84–110.Google Scholar
Poesponegoro, Marwati Djoened, and Notosusanto, Nugroho. 1990. Sejarah nasional Indonesia [The national history of Indonesia]. 6 vols. 6th ed.Jakarta: Balai Pustaka.Google Scholar
Prior, John Mansford. 2011. “The Silent Scream of a Silenced History: Part One: The Maumere Massacre of 1966.” Exchange 40:117–43.Google Scholar
Ricklefs, Merle. 1993. A History of Modern Indonesia since c. 1300. 2nd ed.Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Robben, Antonius C. G. M. 2005. Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Geoffrey. 1995. The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Roosa, John. 2006. Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d’État in Indonesia. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Roosa, John. 2012. “The September 30th Movement: The Aporias of the Official Narratives.” In The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia, 1965–68, eds. Kammen, Douglas and McGregor, Katherine, 25–49. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Roosa, John. 2013. “Who Knows? Oral History Methods in the Study of the Massacres of 1965–66 in Indonesia.” Oral History Forum d'histoire orale 33:1–29.Google Scholar
Schaefer, Bernd, and Wardaya, Baskara T., eds. 2013. 1965: Indonesia and the World. Jakarta: Gramedia.Google Scholar
Setiyono, Budi, and Triyana, Bonnie, eds. 2003. Revolusi belum selesai: Kumpulan pidato Presiden Soekarno 30 September 1965—Pelengkap Nawaksara [The revolution is not yet finished: A collection of the speeches of President Sukarno from September 30, 1965 to the supplement to the Nawaksara speech]. Semarang: Mesiass.Google Scholar
Simpson, Bradley. 2008. Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stern, Steve. 2006. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Strassler, Karen. 2005. “Material Witnesses: Photographs and the Making of Reformasi Memory.” In Beginning to Remember: The Past in the Indonesian Present, ed. Zurbuchen, Mary, 278–311. Singapore: NUS Press.Google Scholar
Suara Indonesia. 1965. “Badan Koordinasi Kesatuan Aksi Pengganjangan Kontrev Gestapu” [Unified Coordinating Body of Actions for the Destruction of the Counterrevolutionary September 30th Movement]. December 10.Google Scholar
Sukarno. 1966. Djangan sekali-kali meninggalkan sedjarah [Never abandon history]. Jakarta: Prapantja.Google Scholar
Sunyoto, Agus. 1996. Banser berjihad: Menumpas PKI [Banser's holy war: Crushing the PKI]. Tulungagung: Pesulukan thoriqoh agung.Google Scholar
Tempo. 2012. “Liputan khusus: Pengakuan algojo” [Special report: The confessions of the executioners]. October 1–7, 50–125.Google Scholar
Tempo. 2015. “Kisah Tom Iljas, diusir dari Indonesia karena ziarah ke makam orang tua” [The story of Tom Ilyas, expelled from Indonesia for making the pilgrimage to the grave of his father]. October 18. http://nasional.tempo.co/read/news/2015/10/18/078710584/kisah-tom-iljas-diusir-dari-indonesia-karena-ziarah-ke-makam-orang-tua (accessed March 13,2016).Google Scholar
Tri Hasworo, Rinto. 2004. “Penangkapan dan pembunuhan di Jawa tengah setelah G-30-S” [Arrests and murders in Central Java after the September 30th Movement]. In Tahun yang tak pernah berakhir: Memahami pengalaman korban '65: Esai-esai sejarah lisan [The year that never ended: Understanding the experience of the victims of '65: Oral history essays], eds. Roosa, John, Ratih, Ayu, and Farid, Hilmar, 25–60. Jakarta: Elsam.Google Scholar
van Klinken, Gerry. 2013. Murder in Maumere: Postcolonial Citizenship. Inaugural lecture 477. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Vickers, Adrian. 2005. A History of Modern Indonesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiludiharto, Yayan. 2004. “Penantian panjang di jalan penuh batas” [A long wait on a road full of obstacles]. In Tahun yang tak pernah berakhir: Memahami pengalaman korban '65: Esai-esai sejarah lisan [The year that never ended: Understanding the experience of the victims of '65: Oral history essays], eds. Roosa, John, Ratih, Ayu, and Farid, Hilmar, 61–86. Jakarta: Elsam.Google Scholar