A New Criminal Type in Jakarta

Abstract

Indonesian National ViolenceMost peoples of the world kill those they want to consider other than themselves: Hutus and Tutsis murder each other, as do Serbs and Croats, to take only recent examples.There is another type of massacre, however, in which one kills those in one's own image.The history of the Indonesian nation holds three clear examples.The Indonesian revolution began in 1945 and culminated in 1949 with the transfer of sovereignty from the Dutch to the independent state.In 1948 during the revolution nationalists fought communists, who were also nationalists, resulting in a number of dead that has never been estimated but which, it is agreed, was large.There was no doubt that both sides were comprised of "Indonesians."Then in 1965 came the massacre of Indonesian communists and those accused of being communists.This is clearly the largest in scale of the three, with many hundreds of thousands, perhaps more, murdered.In 1983 and 1984 came the events I will describe.At that time, "criminals;' many of whom had until that point been employed by the government party, were killed by the thousands by the government.There are other incidents of major violence in Indonesia: the revolution against the Dutch from 1946 to 1949 and the aggression against East Timor.In the first case one has to count not only Dutch deaths, but also the killings of Indonesians considered traitors either because they formed part of the Dutch armed forces or their civilian bureaucracy, or they were ordinary civilians thought to have betrayed the nation.No reliable figures are available.In the case ofEast Timor, a foreign territory was invaded and annexed and, as a direct or indirect result, it is estimated that a third ofthe population, over 200,000 people to date have died.But from our point of view, this case, like the revolution, is ambiguous; nonetheless it is clear

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