WAAT: “Truth-Telling and Memorialization: The Mass Graves from the 1965 Indonesian Genocide” by Bedjo Untung
WAAT: Weekday Afternoon Anthropology Talks
September 23, 2024
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location
BSB 2105
Calendar
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Between 1965 and 1966, a series of human rights violations were enacted against people who were accused of being members of Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI/ Indonesian Communist Party). Instigated by the Indonesian military under General Suharto and facilitated by major Western powers including the United States, Britain, and Australia, members of the Indonesian army and military-affiliated civilian groups committed arbitrary arrests, detention without trial, forced labor, sexual violence, and tortured to over two million people. People who were alleged to be part of a dissenting group were systematically killed and buried in mass graves across Indonesia. While the total number of deaths are impossible to estimate, experts agree that 500,000 – 1.2 million people were executed during the events, making the 1965 genocide one of the worst crimes against humanity ever conducted in modern history. The Suharto-led military dictatorship that was installed in the aftermath of the genocide suppressed any inquiries and investigations into the killings during its regime. It is only after 1998, following the violent downfall of Suharto’s dictatorship, that the victims of the 1965 atrocities began to organize and advocate for their rights by truth-telling the events that happened 59 years ago.
We invite the UIC community to attend a testimony to this work by Bedjo Untung, a survivor and human rights activist who has spearheaded the memorialization efforts of the 1965 genocide across Indonesia. The Center for Recovery and Investigation of the Missing (CRIM) provides archaeological support to Bedjo Untung's work. This talk is co-sponsored by CRIM, UIC Graduate College, LAS, and the Anthropology Department.
Date posted
Sep 16, 2024
Date updated
Sep 16, 2024