The Killing Season
A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66
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- $27.99
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
The Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century—the shocking antileftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 1965–66, leaving some five hundred thousand people dead and more than a million others in detention.
An expert in modern Indonesian history, genocide, and human rights, Geoffrey Robinson sets out to account for this violence and to end the troubling silence surrounding it. In doing so, he sheds new light on broad and enduring historical questions. How do we account for instances of systematic mass killing and detention? Why are some of these crimes remembered and punished, while others are forgotten? What are the social and political ramifications of such acts and such silence?
Challenging conventional narratives of the mass violence of 1965–66 as arising spontaneously from religious and social conflicts, Robinson argues convincingly that it was instead the product of a deliberate campaign, led by the Indonesian Army. He also details the critical role played by the United States, Britain, and other major powers in facilitating mass murder and incarceration. Robinson concludes by probing the disturbing long-term consequences of the violence for millions of survivors and Indonesian society as a whole.
Based on a rich body of primary and secondary sources, The Killing Season is the definitive account of a pivotal period in Indonesian history. It also makes a powerful contribution to wider debates about the dynamics and legacies of mass killing, incarceration, and genocide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Relying on primary documents from governmental sources such as the CIA, the U.S. State Department, and foreign governments, as well as secondary sources on mass killings, UCLA professor Robinson (The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali) pulls back the curtain on a traumatic period in Indonesian history: the antileftist purges of the mid-1960s, during which half a million people were killed. After six Indonesian Army generals were assassinated on October 1, 1965, the army leadership blamed the Indonesian communist party, which had greatly increased in popularity and influence in the previous decade. What followed was a torrent of hellish violence, in many cases carried out by civilian militias associated with right-wing political parties, that was intended to destroy the communist party "down to the very roots" and unseat President Sukarno, the country's first postcolonial leader. As Robinson explains, evidence indicates that the purges were orchestrated by the army and that the United States and other Western powers, extremely concerned about the high likelihood of yet another country embracing communism, countenanced the violence. This meticulous scholarly analysis of the country's institutions comprehensively investigates the economic, religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors behind the arrests, rape, torture, and murder that were inflicted on communist true believers and innocents alike. Robinson's authoritative scholarly work is an indispensable resource for specialists seeking a comprehensive overview of this little-studied period in Southeast Asian history.
