Bersiap

Bersiap killings
Part of the Indonesian National Revolution
Bodies of murdered Chinese in a mass grave following the Mergosono massacre, 1947
Location	Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia)
Date	August 1945–November 1947[1]
Target	Chinese, Europeans, Indos, Japanese and Korean POWs, and native Indonesian minorities and elites
Attack type	Eliticide, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, massacre, politicide, religious violence, revolutionary violence, sexual violence
Deaths	3,500–30,000 (see casualties)
Perpetrators	Indonesian nationalist militias and civilians
Motive	Anti-colonialism, Christophobia, Europhobia, Indonesian nationalism, Islamic extremism, Sinophobia, vengeance, xenophobia

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In Dutch historiography, Bersiap ("Get ready" or "Be prepared" in Indonesian) refers to the violent and chaotic beginning of the Indonesian National Revolution following the end of World War II in Asia. In Indonesia, the term Berdaulat ("Sovereign") is also used for this transitional period.^[2] It began after Sukarno's proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August 1945 and culminated during the power vacuum between the withdrawal of Japanese occupational forces and the gradual buildup of a British military presence, before the official handover to a Dutch military presence in March 1946.^[3]

Thousands of European and Indo-European people were killed by native Indonesians.^[4] Many non-Europeans accused of anti-revolutionary sentiment also fell victim to violence, such as Chinese civilians, Japanese and Korean prisoners of war, native Indonesian minority groups like the Moluccans and Minahasans, and Javanese people of higher social and economic standing.^[5] The violence led to forced repatriation and the proliferation of a worldwide Indo-European diaspora.^[6]

Instances of wanton violence had decreased by the time British forces withdrew in 1946 and after the Dutch had rebuilt their military capacity in the region, though revolutionary and intercommunal killings continued into 1947. Meanwhile, the Indonesian revolutionary fighters were well into the process of forming a formal military and stemming violent excesses. The last troops of the former Imperial Japanese Armed Forces had been evacuated by July 1946.