In the Canberra suburbs there is a road, an arch cut into the dry brown hills. Mick Shann Terrace was conceived just a few years ago. Some of its homes were finished only six months ago, some are still being built.
The name follows the tradition of the local council of Casey, which makes a point of naming all roads after public servants who haven't received much fanfare for their work. The buildings are typical of modernised suburbs, flat boxes of bricks cooked by the sun, tanbark lawns whose purpose is defeated by the large inground pools and artificial ponds just a few streets over.
Day by day, home buyers scout out potential wealth and children walk down this arch on their way to school — unaware of who they've attached their names to. Because Mick Shann wasn't just any public official and his legacy lives on in other places. In scars carved into the backs of miraculous survivors. In empty coffins and overflowing graves. In the heart of Jakarta.
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They pulled up in the dead of night, engines roaring before their prey. Out of the convoy of trucks stepped men in vibrant green fatigues, dozens. They did not keep their voices down. They did not cover their footsteps. They spread out across the street and they did not knock when they entered.
Screaming rang out of one home, then another, and another, until a chorus could be heard. The men in fatigues marched out with crying residents over their shoulders. Gunshots were heard intermittently, but most arms were used as clubs to push residents into the backs of trucks. In an hour, 250 had been detained on this Bali street. The convoy let out another roar. They took off towards where the beaches turned to cliffs. None would ever have a funeral.
But one house on the street was not visited by men in fatigues this night. The lights were on, and its occupant made no attempt at hiding their presence. Keith 'Mick' Shann watched from his lounge. He made no attempt to stop the abductions. After all, it was only a month before that he'd written a memo back home expressing 'hope that the army act firmly against the PKI [Indonesian Communist Party]'. Why would he stop what he had hoped for?
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The massacres of 1960s Indonesia remains one of the bloodiest patches of the history of the 20th century. Following a coup by