Photo by Veronica Burgstaller

The Balinese Genocide Through the Eyes of I Made Susantha Balian and his Granddaughter

Veronica recently found out that her grandfather had witnessed a historical genocide in Bali, Indonesia, when he was a teenager. Her family encouraged her to interview him. This is his story.
Indonesia, Southeastern Asia

Story by I Made Susantha Balian. Edited by Sterre van Dord
Published on October 4, 2021. Reading time: 10 minutes

This story is also available in de it



Listen to this story:


During my childhood I spent many years living in Indonesia - in Sulawesi, Bandung and Bali. For the most part I was too young to be interested in politics or have any understanding of the social and political background of Indonesia. Sometimes, I would hear the names of Sukarno and Suharto in the conversations between my parents, uncles, aunts, and grandparents. All I knew while growing up was that my great-aunts and grandparents witnessed a regime change, which had not been peaceful. But then, a few months ago, my father sent me an article on the massacres in Bali that took place during the regime change in 1965-66 and told me that my grandfather was living in Bali at that time. I confirmed with my uncle and aunt first because it was quite unbelievable to be told that your own grandfather witnessed a historical genocide [1]. They confirmed and encouraged me to interview him. This is his story.

“My name is I Made Susantha Balian and I was born on the 12th of February 1949 in a small village north of Bali, called Tamblang. I lived in Bali until 1973. Our family owned a few pieces of land. In the language of class structure, we belonged to the class of landlords. I still have one piece of land in Tamblang. Although my main residence is in Bandung, Java, I return at least once a year to tend to the land and visit friends and relatives. Nowadays I enjoy a good relationship with my relatives, but this was not always the case. In the 1960s, there were three major parties competing for power: the Communist Party (PKI), Nationalist Party (PNI) and Muslim Party [2]. In 1965 a coup took place in Indonesia by Suharto and his PNI against the PKI. Since my father was a member of PNI, I naturally also joined the PNI. 


The police would patrol the neighbourhood to make sure nobody was outside. I was a member of the PNI and therefore, I wasn’t too afraid as long as I stayed at home. 

Until 1963, it was still peaceful in Bali. In 1964, I entered my second year of high school. But after the coup on the 30th of September 1965 [3], the situation changed a lot in Bali. After school, us students had to go straight home as we were not allowed to go anywhere else. A curfew (Jam Malam) existed, which meant we had to stay at home after 6pm. The police would patrol the neighbourhood to make sure nobody was outside. I was a member of the PNI and therefore, I wasn’t too afraid as long as I stayed at home. 

The events that unfolded in Jakarta in 1965 also severely impacted Bali. Violence nearly broke out and many members of the PKI were imprisoned in Bali. In Tamblang, too, PKI members were taken away. Around 30 people were taken away and never came back.

I was only 16 years old. The situation was very scary. In the early morning people came who were not from our village. These people assembled the members of the PKI in a big open space at the village centre. By three in the afternoon, the PKI members were put into a lorry and then they were gone. I did not know who took them and where they were taken. All I know now is that it would be the last time I saw them.


They were members of the PKI, but I felt sorry for them. At the same time I also hated them.

I could not say goodbye to them because I was scared. They were members of the PKI, but I felt sorry for them. At the same time I also hated them. This is because they were always threatening me and my father with words. They said that they would kill us and occupy the land of my family. They would then divide our land among them. According to them, land belongs to all the people. If I had to describe the PKI, then it is a party that has no humanity. 

When people from my village were taken away, I also felt really sad. Tamblang is a very small village and we are all related. My teacher and many of my friends went missing. Many times in my life, I have asked myself: where are they and what happened to them? However, even my father told me to keep silent and stop asking questions. 


I no longer seek to find out who led the PKI members away and what happened to them.

I no longer seek to find out who led the PKI members away and what happened to them. Why? Because there has been too much speculation and I cannot rely on people’s memories of events that happened more than 50 years ago. All I want is for people to learn from this period. I want people to learn that when you join a party, you should not be too fanatic about the ideologies that are promoted. There were so many victims. At the end, who suffers out of this, is us, the citizens.”

As I interviewed my grandfather, I noticed many inconsistencies in his statements. He would say one thing, but a few minutes later say something that contradicted what he said before. This ambivalence I also saw in the documentary “The Act of Killing” - a documentary I encourage anyone who would like to know more of what happened during that period to watch. He also admitted his reluctance to talk about it, if I hadn’t specifically requested this interview. This is because, for him, it was such a dark period. So I was surprised that my grandfather was at all willing to be interviewed and  willing to share his name and photograph. Nevertheless, the interview did not go as smoothly as I expected. My grandfather would always give out very short answers, and although I prepared some questions beforehand, I realized that if I wanted to get anything out of it, I needed to really ask very specific questions. 


The line between innocent bystander and collaboration is not clear-cut, and these events must have left some kind of trauma on them.

Of course, as I was brought up with a Western education, I see my grandfather’s account through Western eyes. I can only explain his inconsistency as an internal struggle of those people who lived through that time and saw their relatives either get killed or be led away. The line between innocent bystander and collaboration is not clear-cut, and these events must have left some kind of trauma on them. Most of the people who were involved in the massacres and in the crackdown on so-called communists continue to live unprosecuted and even enjoy positions of power. Somehow, I believe that my grandfather actually knew what happened to those being led away. They were killed. The story of my grandfather may be too ‘normal’ for such a fateful period, but a lot of people still do not dare to speak out. It cannot be proven whether my grandfather has tried to suppress certain incidents. At least, for me, this interview brought me to learn more about these events in Indonesia and Bali. Unfortunately, documents by the Indonesian government on the persecution and killings of PKI members are still inaccessible [4]. The process of reappraisal is only slowly developing and it is people like my grandfather who can lead an example for others to speak out and teach us about Indonesia’s recent past. I hope at least that his story can make more people interested in what happened at that time.


Footnotes:

[1] In Indonesia itself, the events are still not considered a ‘genocide’ rather as a ‘mass uprising’. But it should be noted that such widespread killing was only possible through coordinated actions from above (the military and the government. For further readings on the coup and the killings, I suggest the following articles: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/15/killing-season-geoffrey-robinson-army-indonesian-genocide-jess-melvinreviews; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2017.1393942 

[2] Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI – Indonesian Communist Party), the Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI – National Party of Indonesia) and the Nahdlatul Ulama (Muslim Party)

[3] The September 30th Movement refers to the coup against Sukarno in Jakarta, which subsequently led to the communist crackdown. For more information: https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/indonesian-killings-1965-1966.html 

[4] It is thought that up to two million people were killed in Indonesia as a whole as part of the communist crackdown and several thousands of people in the small island of Bali: https://www.smh.com.au/world/australian-journalist-frank-palmos-first-witness-to-1965-indonesian-massacre-20151002-gjzjjn.htmlhttps://theclassicjournal.uga.edu/index.php/2020/05/12/bite-sized-bali-grown-in-genocide-consumed-by-capitalism/ 


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

I Made Susantha Balian

I Made Susantha Balian

I Made Susantha Balian is Balinese, born in the small village of Tamblang, Bali on 12th February 1949.

Topic: Liberation




Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Liberation

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938