A Year of Truth and the Possibilities for Reconciliation in Indonesia

Abstract

Since the end of the New Order military regime in 1998, successive Indonesian administrations have yet deal with crimes against humanity perpetrated by the old regime, particularly the 1965–1966 massacres. Attempts for reconciliation have mainly come from grass-roots organizations which employ oral historical methods to both document these crimes and to serve as the basis for claims of truth-telling about the past. In this paper, I examine the work of some of these grass-roots organizations and, in particular, the ‘Year of Truth’ initiative. I outline the ‘Hearing Testimony’ forum held in November 2013 and contrast this work with the failed attempts at the national level to deal with this past.