Denial and Impunity: Indonesia’s Dark Legacy and the Road Ahead

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to Nazi victims on her first visit to Auschwitz,
December 2019.

A great nation must face its darkest truths — Indonesia has yet to do so.

In December 2019, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Auschwitz, the grim symbol of Nazi atrocities, to honor the victims and to confront Germany’s darkest chapter in history. Merkel’s act was a reminder that true greatness lies not in denial, but in owning past mistakes and committing to genuine repentance and justice. Germany and Japan, despite the enormity of their wartime crimes, have taken steps—imperfect but significant—towards acknowledging their guilt and attempting atonement.

In stark contrast, Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy by population, continues to wallow in historical amnesia and denial, defying not only humanitarian principles but basic moral accountability.

East Timor: Indonesia’s unacknowledged crime against humanity

Just recently, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) met with Timor Leste’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to discuss improving bilateral ties. This gesture might seem positive on the surface, but it obscures a dark truth: Indonesia’s 24-year brutal military occupation of Timor Leste (1975–1999) remains unapologized for and officially unacknowledged.

Human rights defenders like Veronica Koman rightly demand an official apology and reparations, highlighting that the United Nations estimates that up to 200,000 Timorese were massacred during the occupation. Yet the Indonesian government persists in silence, actively suppressing education about this atrocity. The Indonesian school curriculum continues to whitewash or ignore this history entirely, ensuring that a new generation grows up ignorant of their nation’s role as an oppressor rather than a liberator.

This deliberate erasure amounts to a collective national amnesia—a dangerous and morally bankrupt refusal to confront the past that perpetuates injustice and fuels ongoing cycles of oppression.

War criminals in power: Indonesia’s dangerous political trajectory

Unlike Cambodia, which established tribunals to bring Khmer Rouge perpetrators to justice, Timor Leste has seen no such reckoning for Indonesian war criminals. The few who faced trial were low-ranking officers, while high-ranking generals—suspected of orchestrating mass atrocities—have never been held accountable.

Even more alarming is that some of these generals serve in Jokowi’s cabinet. Among them, Prabowo Subianto, the former general with a notorious human rights record, now holds the position of defense minister and is campaigning to become Indonesia’s next president. His running mate is Gibran Rakabuming, Jokowi’s own son—a political dynasty that threatens to cement authoritarianism cloaked in nepotism.

Polling ahead of other candidates, this duo signals a disturbing shift towards normalizing impunity and militarism in Indonesia’s highest echelons of power.

West Papua: Indonesia’s unending colonial nightmare

While Timor Leste has finally achieved independence after decades of suffering, Indonesia’s colonial grip tightens on West Papua—an ongoing tragedy that receives little international attention. Since Indonesia’s forcible annexation of West Papua in 1963, it is estimated that over 500,000 indigenous West Papuans have been killed, victims of systematic violence, exploitation, and cultural erasure.

Indonesia, now more than 76 years old as a nation-state, has never fulfilled the promise of a true democracy. The so-called Reformasi of 1998, which ended Suharto’s dictatorship, has been followed by signs of a creeping return to authoritarianism and oligarchic rule—one that will likely worsen conditions for West Papua under the new regime.

Instead of accountability and human rights, West Papuans face militarization, repression, and the erasure of their identity and rights under a government that treats them as second-class citizens or worse—colonial subjects.

The time for Indonesia to reckon with its past is overdue

If Germany and Japan can confront their atrocities and seek some measure of reconciliation, Indonesia’s ongoing refusal to do the same represents a failure of conscience and leadership that undermines its legitimacy as a democracy.

Without honest reckoning, without justice for East Timor, without an end to oppression in West Papua, and without the removal of war criminals from power, Indonesia risks plunging further into authoritarianism and moral bankruptcy. The world must watch closely—and demand that Indonesia, like any truly great nation, confront the darkest corners of its history and present with courage and integrity.