1965 in Indonesia - Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Indonesian killings of 196566 were a violent anti-communist purge following an abortive coup in Indonesia. The most widely accepted estimates are that over half a million people were killed. The purge was a pivotal event in the transition to the "New Order"; the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was eliminated as a political force, and the upheavals led to the downfall of president Sukarno, and to the commencement of Suharto's thirty-year presidency. The failed coup released pent-up communal hatreds which were fanned by the army, who quickly blamed the PKI. Communists were purged from political, social, and military life, and the PKI itself was banned. The massacres began in October 1965 in the weeks following the coup attempt, and reached their peak over the remainder of the year before subsiding in the early months of 1966. They started in the capital Jakarta, spread to Central and East Java, and later Bali. Thousands of local vigilantes and army units killed actual and suspected PKI members. Although killings occurred across Indonesia, the worst were in the PKI strongholds of Central Java, East Java, Bali, and northern Sumatra. It is possible that over 1 million people were imprisoned at one time or another. Sukarno's balancing act of "Nasakom" (nationalism, religion, communism) had been unraveled. His most significant pillar of support, the PKI, had been effectively eliminated by the other two pillarsthe army and political Islam; and the army was on the way to unchallenged power. In March 1967 Sukarno was stripped of his remaining power by Indonesia's provisional Parliament, and Suharto named Acting President and in March 1968 Suharto was formally elected president. The killings are skipped over in most Indonesian histories, and have... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=18170761