HRW Urges US, Indonesia to Reveal Facts on Mass Killings in 1960s

MOSCOW, December 12 (Sputnik) — The United States and Indonesia should disclose all their documents relating to the government-sanctioned killings of at least half a million people in Indonesia back in the 1960s, Human Rights Watch said in a statement Friday.

“If the US Senate can issue a detailed report on US government responsibility for CIA torture nearly a decade ago, surely the Indonesian parliament can do the same for one of the 20th century’s worst massacres… The US should assist Indonesia face that dark period of its history,” HRW deputy Asia director Phelim Kine was quoted as saying in the statement published on the organization’s website.

According to Human Rights Watch, the government of Indonesia sanctioned the killings of at least 500,000 people considered to be communist in 1965-66. Among those slain were members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, activists as well as leftist artists.

Furthermore, HRW noted that Indonesian authorities recently justified the killings, saying they were a necessary defense measure against the PKI.

The watchdog urged the Indonesian authorities to start discussions on the killings and set up a truth commission.

“It has been nearly 50 years and time is running out to establish the truth about the carnage,” Kine added.

HRW’s statement comes just two days after the US Senator Tom Udall, Democrat, introduced the "Sense of the Senate Resolution," calling on the US government to reveal the “events surrounding the mass killings during 1965-66” in Indonesia.

Udall's resolution said that Washington equipped the Indonesian Armed Forces "with financial, military, and intelligence support during the period of the mass killings, and did so aware that such killings were taking place as recorded in partially declassified documents in the Department of State history." The resolution noted the number of those killed ranged from half a million to 1 million.

Udall’s resolution in turn follows the release of the so-called torture report by the US Senate’s intelligence committee, which revealed that the Central intelligence Agency (CIA) used torture on suspected terrorists in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York.