Genocide, Part 2 of 2

This entry is part 6 of 10 in the series Caustic "Icide Guide"

In part 2 of 2 we discuss the Armenian Genocide, Herero Wars, and Indonesia vs East Timor. Plus news and pop culture!

Trigger Warning: Rape, outrageous violence.

Music:ย ย “After You’ve Gone” by Django Reinhardt

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8 Responses

  1. To add to the pop culture section: in the game Star Control 2 (aka The Ur-Quan Masters), if the player takes too long to win the game, then the Big Bad begins their galaxy wide genocide of the other star-faring races, and you can see their spheres of influence wink out on your star map, saving Earth for last (giving you a small chance to still win the game).

  2. Disclaimer: I’m sure there is a lot of disagreement surrounding the exact events in East Timor in 1975, and what I write below is from Wikipedia primarily. I’m not intending on treading on any toes. I’ll leave that to you guys (you must have pissed off so many different nationalities with these two eps…!). ๐Ÿ™‚

    You guys started to touch on the Balibo 5 towards the end of the episode. They were the 5 journos (two Australians, a Kiwi (NZ) and two Brits), all working for Australian news agencies, who were killed during the first few days of the invasion of East Timor by the Indonesian Army. Another journo (Roger East, an Australian) went to East Timor a few months after they disappeared to look for them and was more likely than not (check the Wikipedia page for the Coroner’s precise wording[1]) killed the day after arriving by the Indonesian Army. The Indonesian government and the Australian government maintain that they were killed accidentally in cross-fire. This story has been challenged by at least two Coronial inquests, including eye-witness testimony, and was referred to the Australian Federal Police to investigate in 2009, but I found an article from May this year [2] suggesting that the investigation may be on hold again, due to lack of cooperation from foreign governments (I would have expected East Timor would have provided as much help as it could!). I didn’t see anything about the precise manner of the journos’ deaths, as Kevin mentioned.

    There was a film produced in 2009 called Balibo starring Anthony La Paglia (from Without a Trace (TV) and Empire Records and Lantana (films)) which was very well received, although I haven’t seen it. The Wikipedia page says that around 183,000 people were killed as part of the invasion, so the deaths of 5 or 6 journos can be lost in the noise, but I’m under the impression that the Balibo film does a good job of giving the audience at least the hints of a feeling of how horrific an experience it must have been for all those poor people.

    Anyway, if you’re keen for looking into it, the film and the book it’s based on might be a good starting point.

    Australia’s current relationship with Indonesia also makes for interesting reading.[3].

    [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five
    [2] http://www.smh.com.au/national/fears-balibo-five-killing-investigation-is-stalling-20130505-2j1h1.html
    [3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-18/indonesia-angered-by-revelations-australia-spied-on-sby/5100264

    1. The details of their grisly method of execution was an account from someone who claimed to be a witness to the events. Obviously, this is a hotly debated topic with conflicting stories on both sides, I generally judge reliability based on possible ulterior motives. The Indonesian Army has a vested interest in having their deaths ruled an accident, while a local witness only has a possible retaliation as reward for telling his story, it’s on that basis that I deemed the account credible enough to recount it.

      1. Oh sure, I didn’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t believe you, just that I hadn’t seen any mention of it in my scant research. ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. One of the most depressing episodes you’ve done.

    The thing that I used to think is that these massacres of the past occurred in another time and place and in cultures that normalized this sort of brutality. It couldn’t happen today. Or if it did it happened in backwards, third world countries, not advanced democracies like the US of A. But the more I’ve read about this stuff, the more convinced I am of how easy it is to succumb to this sort of tribal violence. The atrocities committed in Vietnam are just horrible and this behavior was engaged in by kids who came one generation before me. That’s not much time for cultural drift. Go back to WWII and we were all ok with firebombing cities. We could excuse that because of necessity. There are always excuses. I’m sure there will be some great ones for our next genocide, too.

    One other thought: some of the older historic accounts have few primary sources and there’s an argument to be made that this was propaganda, smear your enemies. But then you see shit like the Holocaust — no disputing it — and you realize that those historic accounts remain disgustingly plausible.