The above was an excerpt from the book Confessions of the 1965 Executioners, Tempo Investigation into the 1965 Killings read by poet Sitok Srengenge during the book's launch at the Salihara Arts Centerin Jakarta earlier this week.

Confessions is based on an edition of Tempo weekly magazine from 2012 as part of its series on the 1965 anti-Communist purge. The magazine started the series in 2006 with a special edition on DN Aidit, the doomed leader of the PKI, and the latest one last week on Lekra ' PKI's cultural arm.

The book offered dozens of first-hand accounts of people from across the archipelago about their involvement in the killings.

'Over the years much of what has been described about the events of 1965 has been from the victims' perspective. Through this investigation, we were trying to look for valid data and truth from the mouths of the killers,' Tempo executive editor Arif Zulkifli said.

Arif explained that the idea to get the killers' stories was triggered by Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary film which offers an insight into the mind of Anwar Congo, a gang leader who became one of the murderers during the purge in Medan, North Sumatra.

'We were allowed to watch the movie before its release by Joshua. We then decided to take a wider view than the movie's approach, getting stories from other areas of the country,' he said.

The magazine enlisted the involvement of more than 60 journalists in the project in August 2012 with a publishing target of October in the same year.

'It was quite a short time for a special investigation. But fortunately our correspondents in the regions did not have any difficulty getting information about executioners and execution locations.

'Our correspondents contacted elderly locals and they still remember specific people and locations. It was an event that remains strong in their memory,' Arif said.

The systematic persecution of members of the PKI following the abortive 1965 coup has been deemed a gross violation of human rights, with the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reporting evidence that government officials were involved in the events.

Last year, the commission reported that officials from the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib), at the time the country's highest security authority and which was first led by then Gen. Soeharto, were involved in the systematic and widespread killing of members of the PKI and countless other civilians suspected of having political ties to the party.

In the months after the Sept. 30, 1965 coup attempt, security forces and militias hunted down and killed thousands of people suspected of being communists.
An estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 people became the victims of extra judicial killings, imprisonment and exile.

The commission also concluded that government officials committed crimes against humanity including murder,
annihilation, slavery, forced disappearances, limits on physical freedom, torture, rape, persecution and forced prostitution.

'What we have found in our investigations was that although some executioners killed for personal revenge most of the killings were committed on instruction by the military. Their situations were either kill or be killed. Many of them still feel righteous about the killings, with the excuse that what they did was a civic duty. In this sense, they too are victims of the killings,' Arif said.

He said that by looking at the executioners as also victims of the tragedy, Indonesians could view the purge from a fairer and less divisive perspective.

'I now live alone with my wife and work as a grave digger. The people in the village call me 'Bapak Tengkorak' [Mister Skull]. I am glad I can live peacefully with the victims' families, including those whose relatives I killed. They know I did it under threat from the military,' Sitok ended his reading.

Pengakuan Algojo 1965, Investigasi Tempo Perihal Pembantaian 1965
Kurniawan et al.
Tempo Publishing, 2013
177 pages

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