Jakarta rejected on Thursday the findings of an international panel of judges that declared Indonesia had committed crimes against humanity in anti-communist killings during the 1960s in which it claimed the US, Britain and Australia were complicit.
At least 500,000 people died in the months-long purge across the Southeast Asian archipelago that started after General Suharto put down a coup blamed on the communists on October 1, 1965.
Suharto took power on the back of the killings and then ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for three decades, during which the onslaught was presented as necessary to combat the communist threat.
Even since his 1998 downfall, successive governments have refused to apologise for the killings.
Set up by activists, the International People’s Tribunal on 1965 Crimes Against Humanity in Indonesia (IPT 1965) was overseen by seven international judges in November in The Hague and its findings were read on Wednesday.