Country: Indonesia
Group: Javanese
Date Finalized: 4/5/2020
Team: Rayna Castillo (lead), Colleen Clauss
Content Warning: physical violence, homicide
Approximate Time Period: 1965-1966
Evidence of targeted lethal violence towards the Javanese of Indonesia arises from the 1965-66 Indonesian massacres. While the scale and motives of the massacre are contested by scholars, many articles maintain that the Javanese were one of the groups most affected. The massacres resulted in the death of roughly 500,000 Indonesians, with some estimates as high as two to three million (Cribb, 2001; Melvin, 2017). These attacks were carried out by local militias with the presumed goal of “annhilat[ing] its political opposition and bring[ing] the military to power” as well as “exterminat[ing] the roots” of groups affiliated with the Communist Party of Indonesia (Cribb, 2001; Melvin, 2017). The Indonesian massacres took place most prominently in areas with large communist populations, such as Central and East Java, Bali, and North Sumatra, meaning the Javanese were largely affected due to their geographical location (Cribb 2001). This high concentration of Javanese deaths would deem this case an appropriate classification of targeted lethal violence. Because of the highly contested and variable specifics of these massacres, the data quality would be a 2/3, but many peer-reviewed articles are available on this topic.
Sources
- Cribb, R. (2001). Genocide in Indonesia, 1965‐1966. Journal of genocide research, 3(2), 219-239.
- Melvin, J. (2017). Mechanics of Mass Murder: A Case for Understanding the Indonesian Killings as Genocide. Journal of Genocide Research, 19(4), 487-511.