In 1965, an American newscaster for NBC announced that Bali had become “more beautiful without communists.” Time magazine reported that the elimination of communism in Indonesia was “the West’s best news for years in Asia,” while James Reston of the New York Times wrote that Americans should feel relieved that “control of this large and strategic archipelago is no longer in the hands of men fiercely hostile to the United States.”

This was the year that the Indonesian government — led by Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president and an anti-imperialist known for his revolutionary opposition to Dutch colonialism — was deposed by Suharto, a right-wing general. Suharto launched a violent campaign that swept across Central Java, East Java, Bali, and North Sumatra, in which over a million and a half people, all accused of opposing the new military dictatorship, were rounded up and massacred.

In their mass purge of alleged communists, Suharto and his fellow generals cast a wide net, targeting not only left-wing intellectuals and union organizers but landless farmers and ethnic Chinese. And once Suharto consolidated power, the massacres weren’t just swept under the rug. They were redefined as legitimate, even heroic.