In the Time of Madness Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos

by Lloyd Parry, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780802118080
• ISBN10: 0802118089
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-12-13
• Publisher: Grove Press

Summary

In the last years of the twentieth century, longtime journalist Richard Lloyd Parry found himself in the vast island nation of Indonesia, one of the most alluring, mysterious, and violent countries in the world. For thirty-two years, it had been paralyzed by the grip of the dictator and mystic General Suharto, but now the age of Suharto was coming to an end. Would freedom prevail, or merely lawlessness? On the island of Borneo, tribesmen embarked on a savage war of headhunting and cannibalism. Vast jungles burned uncontrollably; money lost its value; there were plane crashes and volcanic eruptions. After the tumultuous fall of Suharto came the vote on independence from Indonesia for the tiny occupied country of East Timor. And it was here, trapped in the besieged compound of the United Nations, that Lloyd Parry reached his own breaking point. A book of hair-raising immediacy and a riveting account of a voyage into the abyss, "In the Time of Madness" is an accomplishment in the great tradition of Conrad, Orwell, and Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Bad Dreams in Bali 1996	1	(16)
Something Close to Shame: Borneo 1997--1999
What Young Men Do	17	(40)
The Best People	57	(30)
The Radiant Light: Java 1998
Krismon	87	(14)
Time of Madness	101	(12)
Strength Without Sorcery	113	(12)
The Sack of Jakarta	125	(20)
The Wayang	145	(16)
Ascension Day	161	(14)
The Shark Cage: East Timor 1998--1999
The Crocodile	175	(20)
With Falintil	195	(22)
Vampires	217	(20)
Eagle of Liberty	237	(18)
Flat of the Blade	255	(14)
The Compound	269	(24)
In The Well	293	(22)
Acknowledgements	315