Upon seeing The Act of Killing communists were systematically killed in Indonesia in 1965 with estimates ranging from 500,000 - 1-2 million dead in a year. Why is it named as mass killings and not just Genocide?
This question is probably a good candidate for today’s SASQ, but I’ll answer it here.
The mass killings of communists in Indonesia are not considered genocide because it doesn’t fit the legal definition of the crime. According to the UN genocide is “[...] the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group [...,]” so the targeting of members of a political party or ideology is reprehensible, but not applicable in international law to the crime of genocide.