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resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has ordered Coordinating Political, legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan to find any mass graves from the 1965 bloodshed, to allow a verified estimate of the tragedy’s death toll.

“The President has requested that I find out if [there are] any mass graves,” Luhut told journalists after a meeting with Jokowi at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Monday.

Luhut claims that for years Indonesians have been fooled by unfounded estimates that hundreds of thousands of people perished in the tragedy.

The minister urged NGOs to disclose data they had about the whereabouts of mass graves to assist the government in uncovering the truth.

“Go ahead please, if they want to show [their data] to us. We at the ministry are ready to go anytime,” said the retired Army general, adding that many people or organizations had claimed to have data on mass graves but could not prove it.

The 1965 tragedy was sparked by the assassination of seven Army generals in September 1965, allegedly by a group launching an abortive coup against then president Sukarno.

Soeharto, then the commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad), stepped in, defeating the group and accusing the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), a powerful ally of Sukarno, of being behind the coup.

He subsequently usurped power from Sukarno and formed a new government that unleashed a campaign against communism, leading to a spate of killings carried out by civilian and military groups.

Estimates range from a conservative 500,000 deaths to as many as 3 million, a figure once boastfully cited by Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, who, as chief of the Army Special Forces (Kopassus), headed the military campaign.

A week ago the government, supported by the Luhut’s office, held a two-day symposium to examine the killings that took place from 1965 to 1966 through testimonies provided by experts, survivors of the atrocities and members of the military.

At the conference, Luhut said that the victim count from the tragedy was likely to be around 1,000. He cited a statement from retired Army general Sintong Panjaitan, who helped lead a Kopassus platoon during the time of the killings.

Luhut’s estimate does not take into account research and witness accounts that have pointed out the locations of various mass graves.

National Commission on Human Rights member Siti Noor Laila has supported the government’s initiative to search for the graves.

“The government should find and rebury the victims in a more humane burial,” Siti said.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) states that before finding and digging up mass graves, the government should issue a formal regulation regarding the procedure.

“Mass graves are vulnerable to being destroyed so the process needs protection and legal guarantees. The government should also protect witnesses so that they are not criminalized,” said Puri Kencana Putri, Kontras deputy coordinator for strategy and mobilization.

Puri said the government should involve in the process the organizations that have been working with victims and locating mass graves since before the government showed any interest in the issue.

She agrees that the search for mass graves is an effort to find out the truth about the 1965 tragedy. Efforts should also include however, Puri said, seeking other data, facts and as many witness accounts as possible.

“The government must move fast and not be trapped in disputes around the victim count,” Puri said.
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