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Left-Untung and Amelia Yanni in front of a picture depicting their father being taken. Right-Dr. Ribka Tjiptaning and her late father

Year of living dangerously

 

Chris Gunness examines the "year of living dangerously" in Indonesia.

In 1965, plotters attempted a coup against President Sukarno, abducting and assassinating six military generals. The Communist Party, the PKI, was accused of staging the coup. The response was brutal.
Suharto's terror campaign
• Up to a million massacred
• Nearly two million people imprisoned
• Many tortured

"It was a slaughter the CIA describes as one of the worst mass murders of the twentieth century. Unlike other crimes against humanity in the twentieth century, this is a story never fully told, the perpetrators never fully exposed"

As General Suharto consolidated the grip of power, a nationwide campaign against the Communists turned into a massacre.

Since that time, information about the killings has been suppressed, vanishing from the official history.

Suharto's regime encouraged crony capitalism and introduced a culture of political violence that bedevils Indonesia to this day.

With the fall of Suharto, the period is now being re-examined, for its profound effects on the nation.

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