Justice processes and discourses of post-conflict reconciliation in Southeast Asia

The year 2015 saw the 40th anniversary of the 1975 Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste. The anniversary was marked with calls for an end to impunity for those Indonesian military leaders responsible for orchestrating and carrying out criminal acts during the invasion, the subsequent 24-year occupation of the country and during the 1999 independence vote. ¹ In the same year, Cambodia also observed a 40th anniversary, of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge and the beginning of the mass political violence of 1975–1979. An internationalized criminal tribunal examining Khmer Rouge crimes has been underway in the country for nearly ten years. Also in 2015, a People’s Tribunal was convened in The Hague to examine the crimes committed within Indonesia from 1965 against members or suspected members of the communist party (KPI). ²