ABSTRACT
By the time East Timor was declared an independent state on May 20, 2002, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Timorese lives had been lost in what has come to be one of the largest cases of genocide in modern-day Southeast Asia. Hence, this chapter focuses on the translated short stories of Seno Gumira Ajidarma as a way to examine the difficulties of writing about the East Timor genocide that remains relatively obscured even today. Seno's narrator may not have witnessed the killings at Dili, but he is presented with a choice and opportunity to validate these testimonies and define his role in the remembrance of this genocide. The Indonesian government's insistence that only 19 died in the Dili massacre and the denial of genocide in East Timor clearly reflect a manipulation of facts into acceptable "truths" that will only further Suharto's cause.
