The nationwide massacres of 1965-66 in Indonesia must have numbered in the thousands, yet historians lack detailed information on particular killings. The scholarly literature on the killings of communist party members and sympathizers typically conveys broad generalizations based on a limited range of sources. In Indonesia today, many people remain confused as to the identity of the perpetrators. Were the massacres carried out by civilians or by army personnel? Were the killings spontaneous or were they officially planned? In addressing such questions, Prof. Roosa will draw upon the latest research on the politicide and his own oral history interviews in Java and Bali. He will argue that the army high command under General Suharto's leadership pushed regional and district commanders to organize the disappearances of detainees, that army officers called upon particular groups of civilians to assist them, and that the army personnel and civilians carried out the massacres in a semi-clandestine manner, ensuring that public knowledge of their dirty work would remain fragmented and confused.

John Roosa has been researching the mysterious events of 1965-66 for the past fifteen years. His book Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'État in Indonesia (2006) was called "the leading book about the 1965 massacres" by the New York Times. The book that he is currently writing presents case studies of specific massacres and explores the difficulties of interpreting memories of violence.

ABSTRACT

The current state of democracy in Mongolia is 1960 Kuwait, 1980 Qatar, 1995 Abu Dhabi, 2012 Mongolia all the same? This was the headline of the “Financial Times” newspaper in March 2012. Mongolia experienced the fastest growing economic growth in the world with 17.2 % of GDP growth in 2011, 12.3% in 2012. But the growth rate didn’t sustain longer and showed significant decline since 2012. Why? The country has since then not been able to meet the expectations that it had accumulated from its previous year’s successful growth performances. At the same time, the assessments of the rule of law, the political stability and the effectiveness of the government have been downgraded, suggesting that Mongolia may not be immune to the resources curse. In fact, Mongolian democracy has been in decline in the past 5 years because of the weak rule of law and justice, clientelism, patronage, corruption and cronyism without much public engagement. Clientelism and relations of patronage are all at risk, especially with the low level of rule of law and high corruption in the country. 

Mongolia is a landlocked country situated between the world’s two superpowers with hybrid regimes. In the south, it is bordered with China that has socialism with its own Chinese characteristics, and in the north, it is bordered with Russia that has authoritarian/totalitarian oligarchy with father figurehead leaders, what we call as countries with hybrid regime system.

Nevertheless, given the present state of Mongolia, external and internal factors, the manifestation of strong civil society and sound political movements for the change might be crucial aspect for defining country’s path towards full democratic development or essentially a corrupt police state with small elite fraction groups ruling over the poor masses.

SPEAKER BIO

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Zandanshatar Gombojav comes to Stanford as a Visiting Scholar at CDDRL.  Before his appointment as Foreign Minister, 2011 during which he had many foreign policy accomplishments from renewing the country's foreign policy concept, which was described as democracy-oriented third neighbour policy, to adopting new trade agreements with several partners and thus started the economic dimension program of the foreign relations. He has made significant contribution in making Mongolia the official member of The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). One of the major achievements during his tenure is that Mongolia took presidency over the community of democracies. His current research interest focuses on issues related to the democratic and political development of Mongolia given its geostrategic situation. At Stanford, he will be working on a larger research project encompassing regional democratic and political development from Mongolia's unique perspective.

He has published extensively on various banking issues and also on topics regarding the international relations process in refereed journals and different conference proceedings. He has been a strong supporter of the reform process, being actively involved in the organization of youth development.

Abstract: NSA stands for National Security Agency, but the agency is at odds with itself in its security mission. Undermining global encryption standards, intercepting Internet companies' data center transmissions, using auto-update to spread malware, and demanding law enforcement back doors in products and services are all business as usual. What legal basis does NSA and FBI have for these demands, and do they make the country more or less safe?

About the Speaker: Jennifer Granick started as the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society's (CIS) Director of Civil Liberties in June of 2012. She became an affiliate at the Center for International  Security and Cooperation in July 2012. 

Jennifer returned to Stanford after stints as General Counsel of entertainment company Worldstar Hip Hop and as counsel with the internet boutique firm of Zwillgen PLLC. Before that, she was the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Jennifer practices, speaks and writes about computer crime and security, electronic surveillance, consumer privacy, data protection, copyright, trademark and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

From 2001 to 2007, Jennifer was Executive Director of CIS and taught Cyberlaw, Computer Crime Law, Internet intermediary liability, and Internet law and policy. Before teaching at Stanford, Jennifer spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California. She was selected by Information Security magazine in 2003 as one of 20 "Women of Vision" in the computer security field. She earned her law degree from University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her undergraduate degree from the New College of the University of South Florida.

*Please note that the seminar begins with a reception at 4:00pm where you can meet and talk with Mr. Githongo, followed by a lecture at 5:00pm in Paul Brest Hall at Stanford University.*

Speaker Bio: 

John Githongo

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This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.