Background

Indonesia and the United States in the 1960s
In the mid-1960s, Indonesia was in the midst of social and political turmoil. Despite an abundance of natural resources, the nation was bankrupt and suffering from widespread inflation, poverty and hunger. Dutch colonial rule had ended just 20 years prior, and tensions were high amongst those of differing political ideologies--especially the right-wing military and the left-wing communist party. Indonesia's president at the time, President Sukarno--the nation's first president and a key player in ousting Dutch rule in 1945--shunned Western powers and supported communism. With an estimated three million members, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was the largest such party outside of a communist nation. The United States, meanwhile, was engaged in the Cold War and the Vietnam War in an effort to end communism worldwide. As such, the U.S. government had poor relations with President Sukarno and viewed his regime as a threat to Southeast Asian security.

Sources:
Berger, Marilyn. "Suharto Dies at 86; Indonesian Dictator Brought Order and Bloodshed." The New York Times 28 Jan. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/world/asia/28suharto.html?pagewanted=all

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: Political Action Paper." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. United States, 19 Nov. 1965. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d86

Roosa, John. Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

"The United States and Suharto: April 1966-December 1968: Memorandum From Donald W. Ropa of the National Security Council Staff to the President's Special Assistant (Rostow)." The George Washington University. The George Washington University. Web 2 Oct. 2014. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/doc427.pdf

1965-66 Military Dictatorship and Genocide
The genocide in Indonesia began with a single event. In the early morning of October 1, 1965, a group who referred to themselves as the September 30th Movement, organized by a small group of dissident military officers and high-ranking PKI members, abducted and killed six military generals, took control of the nation's radio station and announced its aim to protect President Sukarno from an expected take-over by right-wing military generals. The September 30th Movement maintained control for less than 48 hours before army leaders under the command of a surviving high-ranking general, General Suharto, brought it to an end. Most of the Indonesian public didn't even know what had happened. Army leaders fixed sole blame for the murder of the generals on the PKI and in the days that followed encouraged sometimes violent protests against the party, arguing that the PKI posed a mortal threat to the nation. In mid-October 1965, the army launched a wider campaign to wipe out the PKI and its affiliated organizations. Working with local gangsters and anti-communist Muslim and student organizations, the army targeted for arrest or execution anyone suspected of having communist ties, from ethnic Chinese, to leftists, academics, labor union members and artists.

Over the next six months, the army orchestrated the murder of an estimated 500,000 (and perhaps as many as one million) people, before finally drawing its campaign to a close in March 1966. Most of the victims were unarmed and were neither engaged in revolt nor charged with crimes. They were often abducted from their homes in secret, held as political prisoners and then executed. President Sukarno proved helpless to stop the killings, and on March 11, 1966, under strong pressure from the military, transferred emergency power to General Suharto. Suharto immediately banned the PKI and began consolidating army control over the country, officially appointing himself as Indonesia's new president a year later. He would rule the country as military dictator for the next 32 years.

The perpetrators of the 1965-66 killings kept few records, and much of the physical evidence has been lost, making it difficult to reconstruct the events of the period with certainty. Though many locals knew the locations of mass graves, acknowledging them was taboo and dangerous. In an effort to protect Indonesia's tourist industry, some developers have also been instructed to ignore human remains unearthed during construction or excavation.

A number of Western governments, including the Lyndon Johnson administration, did have evidence of the killings, and in fact supported them. For more than a year, the Lyndon Johnson administration had been conducting covert operations in Indonesia aimed at provoking a clash between the army and the PKI. Declassified U.S. documents show that the U.S. government was aware of the Indonesian army's actions and provided economic, military and technical assistance to the armed forces. U.S. officials saw events in Indonesia in the context of the nation's broader global interests, especially the war in Vietnam. The United States, moreover, supported Sukarno's ouster and the transition to a military-led regime. The U.S. government and other Western governments supported Suharto's regime because of its anti-communist stance, its program of Western-oriented economic development and its welcome of foreign investment. A 1966 memorandum prepared for the U.S. National Security Council summarized the stance of the Johnson administration as follows:

Until late March, our major policy on developments in Indonesia was silence. The anti-Communist leaders wanted no cheers from us. This policy remains generally sound, particularly in the light of the wholesale killings that have accompanied the transition (even though it is perfectly clear that a Communist takeover would have been at least as bloody). Nonetheless, we have recently been quietly pointing out that we take a favorable view of the new regime and have also been noting that its succession would have been less likely without our continued firmness in Viet-Nam and in the area. We should continue to applaud and claim credit only to this extremely limited extent.

Sources:
Berger, Marilyn. "Suharto Dies at 86; Indonesian Dictator Brought Order and Bloodshed." The New York Times 28Jan. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/world/asia/28suharto.html?pagewanted=all

Kuhn, Anthony. "Exposing Indonesia's Cold War Communist Purge." NPR 9Apr. 2012.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/09/150149910/exposing-indonesias-cold-war-communist-purge and Macroeconomic Policies, Crises, and Long-term Growth in Indonesia, 1965-90

McGregor, Katharine. "Sensitive Truths." Inside Indonesia Jan-Mar 2010. http://www.insideindonesia.org/feature-editions/sensitive-truths

Reuters. "Sukarno Yields Powers to Army to Curb Unrest; Communist Party Banned." The New York Times 12Mar. 1966. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB0B15FF3A541A7493C0A81788D85F428685F9

Roosa, John. Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

Schonhardt, Sara. "Veil of Silence Lifted in Indonesia." The New York Times 18Jan. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/world/asia/veil-of-silence-lifted-in-indonesia.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Simanowitz, Stefan. "Indonesia: Eat, Pray, Kill." GlobalPost 24 Nov. 2010. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/indonesia/101123/indonesia-eat-pray-kill?page=0,1 http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/indonesia/101123/indonesia-eat-pray-kill?page=0,1

Simpson, Bradley R. Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968. Redwood City, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 2008.

"Suharto's Indonesia." Time. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1702682_1516311,00.html

"The United States and Suharto: April 1966-December 1968: Memorandum From Donald W. Ropa of the National Security Council Staff to the President's Special Assistant (Rostow)." The George Washington University. The George Washington University. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB52/doc427.pdf

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: Memorandum Prepared for the 303 Committee." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. United States, 17 Nov. 1965. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d175

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. United States, 9 Nov. 1965. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d172

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: Memorandum Prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency for the Department of State." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. United States, 18 Sept. 1964. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d76

"Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968: Telegram From the Embassy in Indonesia to the Department of State." U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian. United States, 4 Nov. 1965. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v26/d169

Human Rights Trials and Reparations
Following the genocide, many of the perpetrators remained in power, and a number went on to hold high political positions. President Suharto established the New Order regime and maintained his position as military dictator before stepping down in the face of popular protest in 1998. The government covered the 1965-66 massacres with a quick and complete propaganda campaign that vilified the PKI, glorified the army's suppression of the September 30th Movement as a heroic response to an attempted communist take-over and remained silent on the killings. The genocide became Indonesia's open secret, and the government and media almost never publicly mentioned the massacres. Many foreign countries lauded the events as a victory over communism, and Time magazine called Suharto's new regime and policies, "the West's best news for years in Asia."

None of the perpetrators of the events have been convicted of crimes in either national or international courts. The International Criminal Court, which was founded by the international community to "prosecute crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes," does not have jurisdiction over crimes that took place prior to ratification of its statute in 2002, unless the nation where the crimes took place has since ratified the court's statute (which Indonesia has not). After Suharto left power, Indonesia added a new human rights section to its constitution and established a human rights court, but all those tried under that system were acquitted or had their convictions overturned, largely on the grounds of lack of sufficient evidence.

In 2012, Indonesia's independent human rights commission, Komnas HAM, submitted a report to the attorney general's office stating that the 1965-66 massacres were a gross human rights violation. Though Suharto and many other high-level officials from the time are no longer living, the group called for the remaining participating military officials to be tried and asked the government to issue an apology and provide rehabilitation and reparations to survivors. The requests were rejected. According to Djoko Suyanto, coordinating minister for legal, political and security affairs, "The killings were justified because Indonesia would not be what it is today if the killings hadn't taken place." Neither the Indonesian government nor international governments have made an official apology for the events, though some local governments have sought pardon by building monuments to honor victims and providing victims' families with health care and educational scholarships. According to Frans H. Winata, a human rights expert, the Indonesian government's first step toward reparations for the genocide must be to form a truth and reconciliation committee. The military blocked an attempt to do so by former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, but there remains optimism that the next president will take action.

Sources:
"The Act of Killing." BRITDOC. BRITDOC Puma Impact Award. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. http://britdoc.org/uploads/media_items/theactofkilling-web.original.pdf

Aritonang, Margareth S. "Govt Officially Rejects Rome Statute." The Jakarta Post 21 May 2013. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/05/21/govt-officially-rejects-rome-statute.html

"Indonesia Urged to Ratify the Rome Statute." Amnesty International. Amnesty International, 2Mar. 2008. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. https://www.amnesty.org/fr/node/4798

"Indonesia: Vengeance with a Smile." Time 15 July 1966. http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,836000-10,00.html

"Jurisdiction and Admissibility." International Criminal Court. International Criminal Court. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. http://www.icc-cpi.int

"Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court." International Criminal Court. International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998. Corrected 16 Jan. 16 2002. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. http://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf

Roosa, John and Joseph Nevins. "40 Years Later: The Mass Killings in Indonesia." GlobalResearch. Centre for Research on Globalization5 Nov. 2005. Web. 2 Oct. 2014. http://www.globalresearch.ca/40-years-later-the-mass-killings-in-indonesia/1187