CIA Death List Led to Indonesia's Forgotten Genocide of 1 Million People

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]In 1965, the CIA handed over a death list to an Indonesian general. Over 1 million people would die because of it.

[00:00:07]General Suharto had just seized power.

[00:00:10]He needed to eliminate his enemies, the communists. American intelligence provided him with 5,000 names, party leaders, union organizers, teachers, students. What happened next was beyond horrific. Entire villages turned on their neighbors, machetes, bamboo spears, mass drownings in rivers that literally ran red with blood. Religious groups blessed the killings, called them holy work. Children watched their parents get butchered. Wives were forced to identify their husbands for execution. The slaughter went on for months. Bodies floated down rivers. Mass graves filled entire fields. When it ended, Suharto ruled Indonesia for 30 years. The killers were never prosecuted. Today, many still live freely. Some even brag about their murders on camera. The Indonesian mass killings remain one of the 20th century's worst genocides, a systematic extermination that the world chose to forget. But, the survivors remember everything.