Interview by S. Eben Kirksey and Three Key Survivors Interview conducted May 2003, on Biak. Transcribed and translated June 2013, Sydney. Woman One: On July 6th, 1998, at about 5 am the encampment was attacked in a dawn raid.  It was slightly after 5, it was getting light, and it was raining.  If it wasn’t...

Elshan Jayapura Testimony: Biak Report 1998 PDF Download

Elsham, a local human rights organization, produced a 69 page report in Indonesian about the massacre titled “Names Without Graves, Graves Without Names.”  The report called for an international investigation, but no human rights organizations followed up on their call.  This report has a preliminary list of people who were killed, wounded, or disappeared on...

By Edmund McWilliams In July 1998 I was serving as the Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Throughout the archipelago, it was a time of turmoil but also of great hope.  In May, the three-decade old Suharto dictatorship had been overthrown by a popular uprising led largely by courageous young people, notably university...

Talking about what happened is hard for us. Some of us find it easier to share our stories. Every time I tell my story I share my pain and the pain is a little less; not a lot but a little bit less. I was twelve years at the time of the Biak massacre. I...

I still very much remember what happened on that day. It was the night before when the aeroplanes came. My husband turned to me and said, ‘In only a short time Biak will be bathed in blood.’ We were all scared.  We told the children. Don’t go out of the house. You have to stay...