40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy

Himself - Survivor:
My family was treat unjustly, slandered, terrorized... I feel like I live in two worlds, the dark world and the light world, black and white. When the dark power comes, I want to take revenge. But if I can stay positive and control myself, I can reach the light again.

Himself - Survivor:
This is what I find very, very devastating about this violence. It's so much about the politics of the neighborhood. You know, who initiated the killings is really more like the guy next door. Or sometimes it was your cousin, or even a key figure.

Himself - Survivor:
I wanted to hide in a quiet place, but there were always creatures and sounds. There were voices coming from the grass. There was an image of a black creature. The rice fields were full of voices... [the spirits] want to take my body and make me a communist.

Herself - Survivor:
Spiritually, I was very, very disappointed. I would sit outside and say, "Why? Where is God? Why does he let this happen?... During this chaos in 1965, I would say there was a big choice, that I would collapse or I would grow. If I still keep the hatred, it's like I have a bomb inside me. I think I have suffered enough, why should I suffer more?

Himself - Historian:
The people who died in 1965 were ordinary people, who had committed no crime. The people who killed them, forty years later, still have not been brought to justice.

Himself - Historian:
It was as if members of the Democratic Party in the United States today all of a sudden discovered that the Democratic party was illegal, and they were rounded up and imprisoned. The situation was rather chaotic, so anyone could take advantage of that moment to exact revenge.

Himself - Historian:
It is really important for Indonesians to cope, to deal, to discuss the injustices of the past. Because otherwise people will think that the victims of the 1965-66 affair were only those who were killed or sent as political prisoners. No, the victims of that event is all of us. So my question is more about the future of this country. If the killing of half a million people is not a problem, then these things might happen again and again.