AL JAZEERA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9oebCcE6-k
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It was one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century, well hidden from the outside world – the systematic killing of communists or alleged communists in Indonesia in 1965 and 1966. Researchers estimate that between one and three million people died.
Never before have the executioners spoken out in as much detail as in the recently-released documentary The Act of Killing. In this film, killers in North Sumatra give horrifying accounts of their executions, and even re-enact them.
The killers have always considered themselves heroes because their acts were supported by the government and large parts of society. Many executions were directly committed by the military.
In the years that followed, Indonesians were bombarded with anti-communist propaganda and, until today, most people do not know what really happened.
The film, and a recent report by the Indonesian national human rights commission that called the killings crimes against humanity, have launched a new debate on how the country should deal with this very traumatic past.
Mass graves have yet to be exhumed and victims are yet to see some kind of justice. In many villages, killers and victims’ relatives are still living with the awkward reality that ‘our neighbour has killed my father’.
Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen talks to former executioners and finds out why so many people – mostly Muslim youths – turned into cold-blooded killers, and why this dark episode in Indonesian history is still very sensitive and alive today.
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The act of killing
by SYARINA HASIBUAN (producer)
When a friend told me of a documentary about an executioner involved in the killing of alleged communists in 1965, I did not believe her. I had never heard of anyone confessing to this – let alone a documentary about it screening at international film festivals. I was dying to see it and, luckily enough, I was one of the first Indonesians, along with a small group of journalists, to attend a secret screening of The Act of Killing in Jakarta. We were told not to reveal the location of the screening for security reasons, which reveals just how sensitive this bloody period in Indonesian history remains today.
After I watched it I felt shocked, confused and betrayed. Shocked to find out how horrible the situation was at that time – with people living in fear and killings taking place everywhere, every day. Confused because I did not know what to think of Anwar Congo, the executioner in the film. Somehow I did not hate him because I saw him as an uneducated man, brainwashed by the government into believing that he was doing the right thing by killing all those people. It was clear that his actions haunted him for life. I felt betrayed because the government never told us the real story when I was growing up. They lied to us. And now I wanted to know more.
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