East Timor and
Indonesian Action Network projects the Oscar-nominated documentary THE
ACT OF KILLING on World Bank headquarters
Human Rights group calls on World Bank to
acknowledge role in the mass killing of one million Indonesians
February 20, 2014 – The Oscar-nominated documentary THE ACT OF
KILLING was projected on the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Thursday in an action by the East Timor and Indonesian Action
Network. The group is calling on the World Bank to acknowledge its
role in the 1965 military coup in Indonesia that lead to the massacre of
an estimated one million civilians. The World Bank helped prop up the
corrupt government of Suharto, the general who lead the coup and ordered
the mass killings. The Bank sent the Suharto regime $30 billion in
development aid over the course of three decades despite knowing $10
billion had been looted by the government.
“THE ACT OF KILLING powerfully highlights the ongoing impunity within
Indonesia for the 1965 mass murders,” said John M. Miller of the East
Timor and Indonesian Action Network. “Tonight we highlight the World
Bank's support for the Suharto regime, which knowingly backed his corrupt
government while his post-coup body count climbed. We urge the World Bank
to acknowledge its role in Suharto's many crimes and to apologize and
provide reparations to the survivors. Institutions like the World Bank
must also be held accountable for their financial assistance to the
murderers and decades of support as they continued to violate human
rights.”
“The World Bank gave $30 billion dollars to a dictator who killed an
estimated one million of his own citizens,” said THE ACT OF KILLING
filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer. “The murderers spent years profiting off of
their heinous crimes with the World Bank and other global financial
institutions footing the bill.”
THE ACT OF KILLING, currently Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary
feature, has been recognized as one of the best films of 2014. The film
has received over 60 awards including Best Documentary from the British
Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). While the mass killings of
1965 are an open secret in Indonesia, the government has never
acknowledged or apologized for sponsoring the murders. THE ACT OF
KILLING, which has been shown in thousands of private screenings and is
available free online throughout Indonesia, is empowering victims’
families to demand reparations from the government for the first
time.
About East Timor and Indonesian Action Network
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) advocates for
democracy, justice and human rights for Timor-Leste, West Papua and
Indonesia. In 2012, the government of the Democratic Republic Timor-Leste
awarded ETAN the Order of Timor (Ordem Timor) for its role in the
liberation of the country. More information about ETAN can be found at:
http://www.etan.org
Twitter: @etan009
About THE ACT OF KILLING
In THE ACT OF KILLING, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer and executive
produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, the filmmakers expose a
corrupt regime that celebrates death squad leaders as heroes.
When the Indonesian government was overthrown in 1965, small-time
gangster Anwar Congo and his friends went from selling movie tickets on
the black market to leading death squads in the mass murder of over a
million opponents of the new military dictatorship. Anwar boasts of
killing hundreds with his own hands, but he's enjoyed impunity ever
since, and has been celebrated by the Indonesian government as a national
hero. When approached to make a film about their role in the genocide,
Anwar and his friends eagerly complybut their idea of being in a movie
is not to provide reflective testimony. Instead, they re-create their
real-life killings as they dance their way through musical sequences,
twist arms in film noir gangster scenes, and gallop across prairies as
Western cowboys. Through this filmmaking process, the moral reality of
the act of killing begins to haunt Anwar and his friends with varying
degrees of acknowledgment, justification and denial. More information
about the film can be found at
http://actofkilling.com/
.