• Joko Widodo has admitted “grave human rights violations” throughout nation’s history.
• He listed 12 “regrettable” occasions, one of which was a purge of communists.
• Some estimates place the death toll from the killings at about 500,000.

Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, has admitted “grave human rights violations” throughout his nation’s history and promised to stop them from happening again.

Hi listed 12 “regrettable” occasions, one of which was a purge of communists at the height of the Cold War.

Some estimates place the death toll from the killings at about 500,000.

Following the late Abdurrahman Wahid’s public apology in 2000, Mr. Widodo is the second Indonesian president to openly acknowledge the killings in the 1960s.

In the midst of a power struggle between the Communists, the military, and Islamist groups, the violence broke out after communists were accused of killing six generals in an attempted coup.

“With a clear mind and an earnest heart, I as (Indonesia’s) head of state acknowledge that gross human rights violations did happen in many occurrences,” Mr. Widodo said on Wednesday at a news conference outside the presidential palace in Jakarta.

“And I strongly regret that those violations occurred,” added the president, more commonly known as Jokowi.

The kidnapping of democracy activists during demonstrations against former leader Suharto’s iron-fisted government in the late 1990s was one of the incidents he listed, which occurred between 1965 and 2003.

The president also called attention to human rights abuses that occurred during insurgencies in the province of Aceh, in the north of the island of Sumatra, and in the region of Papua, in the east of the country, which borders Papua New Guinea.

The government was looking to restore the rights of victims “fairly and wisely without negating judicial resolution”, he said, but did not specify how this would be done.

“I will endeavor wholeheartedly to ensure gross human rights violations never happen again in the future,” he added.

Also Read

Indonesia seeks 200 earthquake victims

Death toll rises to 268, with more than 1,000 injured, officials say....