Indonesia

The legacy of the bloody Suharto dictatorship and its victims still marks political life in Indonesia, especially as the country gears up for elections in early 2024 By: Peoples Dispatch The Kamisan held outside Indonesia’s Presidential Palace in Jakarta. Photo: UNESCO For more than two decades now, the mothers, family, and friends of 13 anti-dictatorship activists who were detained and then disappeared between 1997 and 1998, hold vigils known as the kamisan, every Thursday, outside Indonesia’s Presidential Palace in Jakarta. In 2014, their hopes were raised when Presidential candidate Joko Widodo promised that the 13 disappeared would be found. 9 years and two presidential terms later, nothing has happened and the vigils continue until today. In the period from 19...

BY ED RAMPELL [NOTE: This review contains plot spoilers.] J’ACCUSE: IN HER FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS In the documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, producer/director Rory Kennedy accuses the aircraft manufacturer with the same meticulousness and zeal that her late father, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, brought to bear when he prosecuted organized crime in the early 1960s. But instead of deploying the Justice Department to crack down on Boeing, with an Émile Zola-like passion and skill, Ms. Kennedy admirably utilizes the motion picture medium to lay bare what can arguably be called “mass murder” committed by the U.S.-based multinational corporation, with the complicity of the federal government. JAKARTA/ADDIS ABABA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM On Oct. 29, 2018, shortly...