Crimes against Humanity in Indonesia (1965–1966)

Abstract

This chapter provides a case study of crimes against humanity committed in Indonesia in 1965–1966. In October 1965, the Indonesian military took over the government and mobilized national and religious militias to assist in wiping out the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Up to one million people were killed, and a further one-and-a-half million were rounded up and held in detention camps for their alleged Communist affiliations. The military-led government fell in 1998, and in the two decades since, there has been little political will to investigate or redress the crimes committed in 1965–66, or the other cases of state-led atrocities by Indonesia’s military. In 2012, the Indonesian National Commission for Human Rights released a landmark report into atrocity crimes perpetrated during the 1965–66 period, finding strong evidence of crimes against humanity, the results of which are outlined in this chapter. This report has been buried, just as Indonesia’s government is determined to bury the past.