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	Massacre, eliticide, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, politicide, religious violence, revolutionary violence, sexual violence
Deaths	3,500–30,000 (see casualties)
Perpetrators	Indonesian nationalist militias and civilians
Motive	Europhobia, Indonesian nationalism, jihadism, Sinophobia, vengeance, xenophobia

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Bersiap is the name given by the Dutch to a violent and chaotic phase of the Indonesian National Revolution following the end of World War II. The Indonesian word bersiap means 'get ready' or 'be prepared'. The Bersiap period lasted from August 1945 to November 1947.^[2] In Indonesia, other terms aside from bersiap are commonly used, such as gedoran in Depok, ngeli in Banten and surrounding West Java, and gegeran and dombreng in Central Java.^[3]

The period started with revolutionary violence occurring during the increasing power vacuum left by the retreating Japanese occupational forces and the gradual buildup of a British military presence, but before the official handover to a Dutch military presence. The term refers to the period following Sukarno's proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August 1945.

Thousands of European and Eurasian 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 decreased by the time British forces withdrew in 1946, 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.