Mass graves, memorialization , and truth-finding

This chapter examines mass graves of victims from the 1965-68 genocide. It discusses some issues around mass graves in Indonesia more generally: as genocide sites, as elements in the incomplete and halting process of truth-finding, and as locations for memorialisation. The chapter describes three mass graves located in Java: in Plumbon, near Semarang, Central Java; in Purwodadi, East Java; and in Tuban, East Java. Mass graves are both proof of the extrajudicial killings that were carried out at this time and proof of potential lieux de memoire as sites of genocide. To date in Indonesia, only a limited number of mass graves have been discovered, and even fewer are publicly acknowledged or have been exhumed. Research on the mass graves might reveal different truth and point to army responsibility, so that kind of research is not welcome in Indonesia. The Indonesian military power holders and right-wing religious groups are invested in the denial of the existence of the mass graves.