Abstract
Political factions in the little town of Maumere seek out powerful patrons with connections at the centre. Towards the mid-1960s, the dominant groups in town—religious and localist in character—have formed a loose, ad hoc alliance with the military. They all fear losing privileges to a popular movement promoted by the communist party. Theirs is a top-down, limited form of citizenship. When developments in far-away Jakarta lead military brass to commence the violent elimination of the entire communist party, local military officers call in their factional debts. In Maumere, allied civilian groups, shocked but compliant, assist the military in carrying out genocidal violence against their factional enemies.
Jan Djong is among hundreds to die. The existing elites in town are beneficiaries of a genocide.
And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace.
Tacitus, Agricola
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Notes
- 1.
A ‘citizenship regime’ is the complex agreement among citizens, and between citizens and the state, comprising the complete range of prevailing rights and duties (written and unwritten), ideologies, and laws, as well as the daily practices in which those things are supported, evaded, or (rarely) contested (Isin and Nyers 2014: 151).
- 2.
The other two were Markus Robot and Rofinus Noeng.
- 3.
The account in Menjaring Angin is confirmed and expanded in a 2012 report by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission (2012: 66–7, 118–22), with additional details in “Pengakuan Algojo 1965 [Confessions of a 1965 Executioner],” Tempo, 1–7 October 2012, and Ahmad Yunus, “Senandung Bisu 1965 [the Silent Humming of 1965],” IndoProgress, 2010. These accounts I cross-checked by means of interviews with executioners and witnesses, as well as field visits to some mass grave sites, in May 2017.
- 4.
A priest told Tempo there are now thought to be 30 mass graves in Sikka district, including in the following subdistricts: Talibura, Waigete, Kewa, Bola, Alok, Maumere, Nita, Lela, Lekebai, and Paga. An executioner gave Tempo a list of locations where he killed people (these locations probably fall in the subdistricts mentioned above): Waidoko, the Catholic mission coconut plantation in Maumere town (now behind the Sikka district chief’s office), Watulemang, Koting, Nila, Pauparangbeda, Rane, Detung, Higetegefa, Baungparat, and Pigang.
- 5.
Curiously, Lidi confidently dates this massacre to 14 November 1965, having written the song three days later. This is much earlier than the chain of events described by other sources, and indicates how little we still know (Roosa 2013). Possibly he conflated the departure of Bollen in November with the start of the massacres.
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van Klinken, G. (2019). That Chilling Moment. In: Postcolonial Citizenship in Provincial Indonesia. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6725-0_5
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