University of Wisconsin Press Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965-1966 in Indonesia (Critical Human Rights)

In 1965-66, army-organized massacres claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of supporters of the Communist Party of Indonesia. Very few of these atrocities have been studied in any detail, and answers to basic questions remain unclear. What was the relationship between the army and civilian militias? How could the perpetrators come to view unarmed individuals as dangerous enemies of the nation? Why did Communist Party supporters, who numbered in the millions, not resist? Drawing upon years of research and interviews with survivors, Buried Histories is an impressive contribution to the literature on genocide and mass atrocity, crucially addressing the topics of media, military organization, economic interests, and resistance. Review "In a meticulously researched and compellingly argued study, John Roosa presents, for the first time from up close, the history of Indonesia's anticommunist massacres in 1965-1966. Through personal narrating, he details the experiences emerging from small, individual stories and connects them in an original attempt to help us understand this national event as an instance of genocide or mass atrocity against civilians. . . . By unearthing the details of the massacres, the book sheds light on one of the world's most atrocious tragedies of the twentieth century."--Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia "In compelling prose and with heartbreaking intimacy, Roosa offers the most important collection of case studies of the Indonesian massacres ever published. This is an essential, masterful, and devastating book for anyone who cares about the history and mechanics of human evil."--Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence "Roosa portrays a tense political environment that gave no real hint of the killing that was to follow. This book represents a major breakthrough in presenting the killings in their immediate context and in the richness of its oral history data."Robert Cribb, Australian National University "This is a rigorous study graced with absorbing and poignant stories. Roosa presents the subjectivity of the perpetrators, bystanders, resisters, and victims with a rare sense of subtlety. Attentive to the contingencies of history, he shows how nothing was inevitable in the tragic muteness of countless disappearances."--Karlina Supelli, Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta About the Author John Roosa is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and the author of Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia.