The Construction of History under Indonesia’s New Order: the Making of the <i>Lubang Buaya</i> Official Narrative

Abstract

This study examines the emergence of the New Order’s official narrative of the Lubang Buaya killings, focusing above all, on the origins of the story. Despite the unclear, controversial nature of the event, which for years has sparked controversy among foreign and domestic scholars, several fundamental facts are certain. Those facts among others were the killings of the top Indonesian army leadership at Lubang Buaya on 1 October 1965, which triggered a process that led to President Sukarno’s downfall, the killings of around 500,000 or more alleged communist supporters, the mass incarceration of thousands of people, and the emergence of General Soeharto’s New Order military regime, which would dominate Indonesia for the next thirty-two years.