1. In Selat Panjang. Based on Riau Post, February 11, 2001, we can say that after a gambling dispute, many Chinese houses were burned and many Chinese killed. Our estimate is sixteen deaths. Hundreds of Chinese fled to Karimun island. The city of Selat Panjang was “dead for ten days” due to the destruction caused.
2. It should be noted that during the anti-Chinese riots in Jakarta in May 1998, many non-Chinese, trapped in malls, were killed. Thus, the reported number of those killed in May 1998 here includes both Pribumi and Chinese. By anti-Chinese riots, we do not mean that all those killed were Chinese. For details, see Purdey (2006).
3. See, for example, Ryter (2001) and Kammen (2001).
4. Center for Global Development (2004, 7). This report was produced by a commission headed by two US members of Congress. It led to many articles in the press, including Wolf Martin (2004). It should be clarified that though most scholars of Indonesia did not identify with this characterization, some went even further, contemplating the imminent disintegration of the country. A leading historian of Indonesia wrote: “The Indonesian experiment … is under challenge today as never before, and all over the Asia-Pacific region defense analysts are pondering the question of whether the early 21st century will see the disintegration of Indonesia in the way that the late 20th century saw the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. For the first time since the Second World War, there is a serious possibility that the extended archipelago … could be divided not into five or six states … but into a dozen or more” (Robert Cribb cited in Emmerson 2005, 26). For the debate about Indonesia's territorial and national integrity in general, see the extensive discussion in Emmerson (2005).
5. Liddle (1997) argues that state coercion, persuasion, and exchange constituted the foundations of the New Order, not coercion alone.