Violent Video
Apr 27th, 2007, in News, by PatungA video of the Poso conflict.
This is an old, heavily edited, video clip showing some of the violence during the Central Sulawesi war of 1998-2001. It is said to contain extreme and graphic violence, – your scribe can’t say for sure as he is squeamish and has only watched the first 30 seconds.
Some background for those who don’t know of the events in question.
Suharto’s resignation as Indonesia’s President in 1998, and the consequent confusion and weakening of the central power in Jakarta, is often cited as a general contributing factor to the fighting in Sulawesi, as also in Ambon.
More immediate and direct causes were the decision by Poso regent Arif Patanga, a Muslim, to propose his son as his successor. The custom in Poso for many years had been for the bupati (regent) position to alternate between Christian and Muslims.
Then, at the same time, a brawl erupted between Muslim and Christian youth in Poso town, and this began the first stage of the Poso conflict. Muslims began attacking Christians in Poso, burning down churches and Christian homes.
Later, in the second stage of the fighting in April 2000, a larger Muslim attack on Christians began and this time there were many deaths.
The third stage, from May 2000, saw the Christian counter-attack, when several hastily organised militias, the “Red Group”, the “Black Bat” raiders, etc., went on the rampage and killed hundreds of Muslims.
August 2001 witnessed a new upsurge in violence, this time of a different, more “professional” nature. About 7000 Laskar Jihad volunteers arrived in Poso from Java and attacked and burned whole villages in the largely Christian hinterland of the town. By December 2001 peace talks began and the resulting Malino Declaration was signed that month.
Here is the video – once again, it is very gory and violent.
15 Comments on “Violent Video”
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Abul says:
I’m passed. Watching this kind of video will just make me feel depressed. Really sad (really!), to know that such things still happen in my lifetime, in my part of the world. Watching this. One can’t help feeling helpless about Indonesia, no wonder lots of good people decide to find a (non-barbaric) living somewhere else (me included).
My heart goes to all the victims depicted in above sick video. Over and out. -
I turned the video on and immediately turned it off. I can’t watch it. It’s too graphic!
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I wonder if we should make this one a compulsory watch in some radical pesantren, (ngruki perhaps?). Who knows maybe the students would get sick watching these kinda movies and thus giving up their (narrowly-defined) jihadist aspiration. 🙂
Btw lots of sick videos around, I’m aware also that there’s one who shows afghan (or is it iraqi?) less-than-10-years-old kid beheading another afghan US informant. A kid, mind you! I’m speechless there as well.
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Andrew says:
I doubt these are all from Poso – I’ve seen a portion of that video in a different clip circulating on the internet, labeled as the Dayak-Madurese conflict.
This is no doubt a propaganda video stitched together to incite hatred – like Abul said, this probably a mandatory watch in terrorist camps.
In any case, my heart goes out to all the victims and their families.
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Bas says:
This is just a little glimpse in the reality of Indonesia. No need to go to Poso to see that. Slaughtering happen every day in the country, even in the street or university campus.
For my part this kind of footage is just like watching Tom and Jerry. I probably live in Indonesia and watch Indonesian criminality TV shows for too long. 🙁
Good to publish that if it can help people realizing the real face of Indonesia. And a happy holiday in Bali.
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Mohammed Khafi says:
We have such a long way to go in teaching our people that violence is not God’s way, it is such a shame to realise that violence is so institutionalised as was illustrated recently at IPDN, if it is at that level, what hope is there for the poor and uneducated who are so easily influenced by people with fancy words and money.
Peace
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Niamh Piperman says:
Bas Says:
April 28th, 2007 at 10:08 amFor my part this kind of footage is just like watching Tom and Jerry. I probably live in Indonesia and watch Indonesian criminality TV shows for too long. 🙁
Yes. Unfortunately, because of inconsistent censorship in this country, where the local Indonesian TV news is a smorgasbord of gruesome, unedited scenes of dead bodies and the like, one becomes rather desensitised to this sort of footage.
Nevertheless, it certainly highlights the true face of human nature. This sort of thing has been a common part of human history since the beginning. That’s how nations rise and fall.
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Robert says:
I watched the video and I felt really sick afterwards. I knew of course about the Sulawesi and Maluku violence but I had never seen this. The brutality of the violence is mindblowing. As a foreigner I can’t understand that one Indonesian hates his fellow Indonesian much that he wants to butcher him. I use the word butcher because I felt like watching a slaughterhouse instead of a normal society. Everybody seems to become victim: men, women, children, old aged people.
I have been on this forum for just a while. It seems that the thread running through a lot of issues is violence. Whenever there is a conflict, violence is the tool which is being used. It looks like there is a cult of violence. Dialogue seems to be far away. It is really weird to see that in one country there are peace talks between its own habitants.
Another thing that striked me in the video was the apparent absence of the Army. I did see some trucks with soldiers. But how on earth is it possible the these mobs could do what they did? I don’t live in Indonesia so it’s more difficult to get a proper idea about what happened and what not. Why didn’t the army interfere? What role did they play in this tragedy?
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Dan says:
In response to robert, as you can see in the final, and most disgusting part of the video, the authorities are totally complicit in the violence. the man was being slowly hacked to death ran to the uniformed authority for help and was rejected, just before receiving his death blow.
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Kura Kura says:
This violent video makes my appetite loss, how come that the young generations could feel this damn things, according to Dr. Jose rizal which is a Filipino hero, youths are the hope of the nation, well as what I’ve seen, people must read the word of God so that they will not be hopeless, God promised us to have an everlasting life.
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Nissa says:
What should I say? It is one of the saddest events in history….
This is compArable to the holocaust. “We don’t own our lives… we are not in the position of hurting ourselves as well as other people”This may have passed like any ordinary days but like a wound it would leave a scar that will remain forever.
I felt sorry for the kids who have became victims of this childish behavior…They were not given the chance to enjoy what life has stored for them…
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Jenny says:
This video barely shows anything from Poso– most of the footage comes from the Madurese-Dayak fighting, the fighting in Ambon, even some from East Timor. It barely has anything from Poso or Central Sulawesi at all. Obviously a propaganda video. Nevertheless, it is an awful one to watch, but we should all know where the footage is coming from.
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Strato says:
Nothing will be achieved until all peoples abandon superstition for reason.This violence is the result of ignorance that is cultured by religion.We must abandon this rubbish and start seeing each other as human, using human reasoning.I see children in the victims here – religion is the perversion of the human state.Time to grow up and give it up.
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Alex says:
I agree. Religion is still the opium of the society. And lack of understanding is a serious crime than slaughtering children and women. After watching the video I asked myself… what kind of God do we have? If there is one….
Comment on “Violent Video”.
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God, why did I watch that. 🙁
What kind of madness is this? It’s sick!
I knew it was bad in Poso, but this bad. 🙁
How can people do this to each other?