Friday, June 19, 2009

Indonesia - 1965 Mass Killings Erased From History










Singapore. Scholars attending a conference discussing the 1965 mass killings agreed on Friday that the Indonesian government had done very little to address the devastating historical event.

Indonesians in general were still entrenched with the New Order frame of mind when it came to public discussion on the event, where the killings of the six generals by Indonesian Communist Party members is given more preeminence than the killings of the some 500,000 victims of alleged communist affiliation.

Current official Indonesian history textbooks only mention the alleged 1965 communist coup, but not the mass killings that followed it.

Historians say that a countercoup led by then Lt. Gen. Suharto, led to a nationwide purge of communist party members and their supporters that saw more than 1.5 million people summarily detained for years and some 500,000 killed.

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