The Indonesian Genocide as a Total Event: Patterns in the Violence

• In Event: 191. Still Unresolved Problems in the Indonesian Killings 1965-68. Sponsored by the Indonesian and Timor-Leste Studies Committee

Abstract

The Indonesian genocide was implemented as a centralised and national campaign. This basic fact, however, continues to be denied by the Indonesian state. Drawing upon an investigation of 3,000 pages of previously undiscovered classified documents produced by the Indonesian military and government during the time of the genocide and 70 original oral history interviews with survivors, perpetrators and eyewitnesses of the genocide in Aceh, this presentation will demonstrate how the Indonesian military initiated and implemented the genocide as a deliberate act intended to annihilate an entire human group, using Aceh province as a case study.
It will argue that the role of the military in initiating and implementing the genocide is greater than it has previously been possible to prove, and propose the genocide is best understood as a total event for which Indonesia’s state structures and civil society were fully mobilised.
The key questions this presentation will address are: to what extent was the military’s attack pre-planned? How did the military seize state power and use existing chains of command and bureaucracies to implement the genocide? Who implemented the killings at the local level? Was civilian participation in the killings coercive? At what point did the killings become genocidal in nature? What are the consequences of these findings for understanding the mechanisms though which state-led mass violence is initiated and implemented?

Author

• Jess Melvin, Yale University