State Mass Killings in Indonesia 1965 to 1966 In order to develop a general framework with which to understand collective political violence, I examine state mass killings in Indonesia 1965-66. While acknowledging the importance of historical/cultural factors, I identify elements within the sociopolitical sphere that influence actors of collective political violence at national, local, and event- specific levels. Elements discussed are elite interests, justification for violence, formal organizations, and mobilization factors. Finally, I suggest future preventative policy measures. Introduction Violence marks much of human history. Within the sociopolitical sphere, violence has continually served as a tool used by various actors to influence and/or to control territory, people, institutions and other resources of society. The twentieth century witnessed an evolution of political violence in form and in scope. Continuing into the twenty-first, advances in technology and social organization dramatically increase the potential destructiveness of violent tools. Western colonialism left a world filled with many heterogeneous nation-states. In virtually all these countries nationalist ideologies have combined with ethnic, religious, and/or class conflicts resulting in secessionist movements or other kinds of demands. Such conflicts present opportunities for various actors in struggles for wealth, power, and prestige on both national and local levels. This is particularly evident in Indonesia, a region of the world that has experienced many forms of political violence. The state mass killings of 1965-66 mark the most dramatic of such events within this region. My goal is to understand the killings within a framework of collec... ... middle of paper ... ... murders in democratic Kampuchea, 1975 to 1979, and in Indonesia, 1965 to 1966', Comparative Studies in Society and History, 35, 1992: pp. 769-823. 5. R. Hefner, The Political Economy of Mountain Java, 1990, pp. 193-227, Berkeley: University of California Press. 6. H.Schulte Nordholt, 'A genealogy of violence', [Unpubl paper], 2000, pp. 1-18. 7. G. Robinson, 'The post-coup massacre in Bali', in D. Lev & R. McVey (eds), Making Indonesia, 1996, 118-143. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program. 8. O. Verkaaik, Inside the Citadel. Fun, violence, and religious nationalism in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Ph.D. Thesis University of Amsterdam, 1999, pp. 22. 9. H. Waterman, 'Reasons and reason: collective political activity in comparative and historical perspective, World Politics, v 33, n 41, 1981, pp. 554-589.
When people hurt other people’s right to life and violate their humanity, it is definitely violence. We can consider two forms of violence, physical and psychological violence, which both violate the human right to life. Although psychological violence is hard to observe, it leaves sufferers with severe trauma. State violence can fall into either of these categories. In The Tattooed Soldier, The Guatemalan army used “psychological operation” that is a method to control civilians with terror to regu...
Ung (2000) mentions that the Cambodian genocide is a product of a perfect agrarian vision that can be built by eliminating Western influence. More specifically, the Angkar perceives peasants and farmers as “model citizens” because many have not left the village and were not subjected to Western influence (Ung 2000:57). Moreover, the Khmer Rouge emphasized the ethnic cleansing of individuals from other races who were not considered “true Khmer” and represented a “source of evil, corruption, [and] poison” (Ung 2000:92). Lastly, the ideology centered on obtaining lost territory was based on a “time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories” (Ung 2000:78). In essence, Ung successfully demonstrates that multiple causes encouraged the Cambodian
[1] Since the dawning of the industrial revolution, producing the stratification of socioeconomic status into a competitive class hierarchy never before seen, conflict theorists have appeared to define the unjust. From William Blake’s poetry to Karl Marx’ manifestos, from Bethlehem steel strikes to the current Labor Party, from Fidel Castro to the Mexican Zapatista movement, from Lenin to Mao Tse Tung, from the Molly Maguires to Jimmy Hoffa, the desire to upgrade the conditions of the working class have had a continual role in justifying violence, providing an equilibrium to keep capital interests in check, motivated whole countries to gain newly instituted political leaders and formats of rule, even in offering some form of purpose for, identity with, and release of violent rage inside the tribal nature of humans in a world of disintegrating, or disintegrated, tribes. The question of the new millennium might very well be whether or not humans can live without enemies. In a country, if not a world, with creature comforts easily secured, labor issues becoming obsolete, where will modern man direct his barbaric energy?
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
The history of ethnic civil war consists of ethnic fragmentation appeared along the societal path to globalization. Over time, human enabled a comprehensive study of variables and motives in attempt to theorize a historical pattern of civil war. Two important models, one constructed by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, and the other by James Fearon and David Laitin, provided hypothesis of the causes of civil war based on social, economic and political measurements. However, as Horowitz states, “a bloody phenomenon cannot be explained by a bloodless theory”, civil conflict can never be concluded to a certain pattern; despite the general trend, chance events such as natural disasters and regional factors such as corruption would also diversify the scale of war in an idiosyncratic manner.
"Bosnian Genocide." The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Patricia D. Netzley. Ed. Moataz A. Fattah. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007.World History in Context. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
This article explores the idea that governments knowingly victimize civilians under war when they feel weakened or defenceless. The article provides two main reasons that states engage in victimization of civilians; desperation or appetite for territorial conquest. The former refers to lowering costs of war on the states part by increasing the enemy’s cost and lowering the enemy’s morale for continuing the battle. The latter refers to a states want for more land to claim, using force and death to get what they want, by subduing or eliminating the enemy. The civilians who are targeted for these purposes are also chosen strategically. Mistreatment of civilians of the enemy occurs when specific values or traditions are seen as barbaric to the
Ploughshares Armed Conflict Reports 2003. Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, Conrad Grebel College Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. 2003©
An important facet of genocide that must be faced is there is a political value in committing such a violent act. Genocide no longer would bring about respec...
The last two decades of the twentieth century gave rise to turbulent times for constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, eventually leading them to split apart. There were a number of damaging aspects of past history and of the political and economic circumstances that contributed to the breakup and eventually caused the situation to snowball into a deadly series of inter-ethnic conflicts. Yugoslavia was reunified at the end of the war when the communist forces of Josip Broz Tito liberated the country. Under Tito, Yugoslavia adopted a relatively liberal form of government in comparison to other East European communist states at the time and experienced a period of relative economic and political stability until Tito’s death in 1980. In addition to internal power struggles following the loss of their longtime leader, Yugoslavia faced an unprecedented economic crisis in the 1980’s. As other communist states began to fall in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, some former Communist leaders abandoned communism and founded or supported ethno-national parties, blaming the economic suffering on the flaws of communism and other ethnic groups. The ethnic violence that followed would not have been possible without the willingness of politicians from every side to promote ethno-nationalist symbols and myths through media blitzes, which were especially effective due to low levels of education in the former Yugoslavia. Shadows of the events of World War II gave these politicians, especially the Serbs, an opportunity to encourage the discussion and exaggeration of past atrocities later in the century. The ethnic violence in the former Yugoslavia can be traced back to a series of linked damaging factors such as the de...
The Web. The Web. 25 Nov 2013 Williams, Sarah. The "Genocide: The Cambodian Experience." International Criminal Law Review 5.3 (2005): 447-461.
The Rape of Nanking, also known as the Nanking Massacre was a six week period when mass numbers of Chinese men and woman were killed by the Japanese. Embarrassed by the lack of effort in the war with China in Shanghai, the Japanese looked for revenge and finally were able to win the battle. The Japanese moved toward the city of Nanjing also known as Nanking and invaded it for approximately six months. Even though the people of Nanjing outnumbered the 50,000 Japanese, they were not as masterful in warfare as their opponents. Chinese soldiers were forced to surrender to the Japanese and the massacre began in which around 300,000 people died and 20,000 women were raped. The Japanese leaders had different methods of killing that were instructed to the soldiers. However, the prisoners of this “City of Blood” soon found their liberation and their justice was served.
These conditions were clearly morally deplorable, and the coup caused a change from aristocrats to an Indonesian business class, seen as a victory over communism at the climax of the Cold War. Seeing as similar killings happened right after Indonesia’s, one would think that the generals did not learn their lesson on moral validity. The inevitability of people being killed waters down the big question of moral validities by the minute. In the end, it all comes down to the point of view; depending on the point of view, any side’s moral values could be seen
Steinberg, David I., and Donald N. Clark. "Review of The Kwangju Uprising: Shadows over the Regime in South Korea." The Journal of Asian Studies 47.3 (1988): 662-63. Print.
Nawoyski, K. (2012) 'Genocide Emergency: Violence against the Rohingya and other Muslims in Myanmar', p. 1.