Qualla: Lubang Buaya

Lubang Buaya: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Crisco 1492, CC BY-SA 3.0. The name means "crocodile pit," and it was literal. A Betawi cleric named Syarif Hidayatullah dug a water hole here and found the swamp teeming with reptiles. For centuries, Lubang Buaya was nothing more than a patch of wetland on Jakarta's eastern outskirts, known only to locals who understood why crocodiles gathered where the water pooled. Then came the night of September 30, 1965, when a group of soldiers carried out one of the most consequential acts of violence in Indonesian history -- and this forgotten swamp became a name that every Indonesian would learn to recognize.

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Image: Crisco 1492 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lubang Buaya: The Fifth Force

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NaidNdeso, CC BY-SA 4.0. By mid-1965, Indonesia was a political pressure cooker. President Sukarno, the charismatic founding father who had led the country since independence, called on May 31 for the creation of a "fifth force" -- armed workers and peasants who would stand alongside the Army, Navy, Air ...

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Image: NaidNdeso | CC BY-SA 4.0

Lubang Buaya: A Night of Abductions

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Crisco 1492, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the early hours of October 1, 1965, groups of soldiers moved through Jakarta in trucks, targeting the homes of senior army generals. Six generals and one lieutenant were seized. Ahmad Yani, the man who had stood against the fifth force, was shot at his home when he resisted. T...

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Image: Crisco 1492 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lubang Buaya: What the Monuments Tell

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sabung.hamster, CC BY-SA 3.0. Today, Lubang Buaya is a memorial complex saturated with the official narrative of the New Order regime that Suharto built in the aftermath. The well where the generals' bodies were recovered is protected by a pavilion. A plaque bears a defiant inscription attributed to the falle...

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Image: Sabung.hamster | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lubang Buaya: Contested Memory

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sabung.hamster, CC BY-SA 3.0. For decades under the New Order, October 1 brought an annual ceremony to Lubang Buaya, attended by the president and senior officials. Schoolchildren watched a dramatized film of the events every year on television. The narrative was singular and enforced: the PKI planned and exe...

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Image: Sabung.hamster | CC BY-SA 3.0