International Culpability in the Aftermath of Cold War Massacres in Cambodia and Indonesia

• In Event: 21. Beyond the Margins of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal: A Multidisciplinary Multisited Approach to Recovery and Framing the Past. Sponsored by the Center for Khmer Studies

Abstract

During the cold war, both Cambodia and Indonesia became victims of the struggle for hegemony in Southeast Asia. Both President Sukarno of Indonesia and Prince Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, sought to remain neutral through the politics and events sweeping the region. In both cases the leaders were overthrown by rightwing military forces and massacres followed. In Indonesia, in the aftermath of a botched leftist coup, 500,000 to 1 million suspected communists were massacred by General Suharto and vigilantes. In Cambodia, after the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge defeated the right-wing American-backed government, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were killed under their rule.

The paper focuses on the aftermath of the two massacres highlighting how international amnesia has negatively influenced the search for justice and reconciliation in both countries. In Indonesia, by tacitly endorsing the fifty years of denial of the massacres by the government; and in Cambodia by continuing to recognize the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government of Cambodia for eleven years after its overthrow in January 1979. This led to the denial of justice in Indonesia, and its delay in Cambodia. The paper concludes that the end of the cold war in 1989 allowed for the promise of reconciliation even if that has not been fully realized yet. In Cambodia, by enabling a United Nations elections and a United Nations assisted Khmer Rouge Tribunal and in Indonesia by showing the first hints of potential justice such as President Jokowi’s instructions to gather information about mass graves.

Author

• Benny Widyono, University of Connecticut