Santa Cruz Cemetery

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Lonely Planet review

On 12 November 1991, Indonesian soldiers fired on a peaceful memorial procession at the Santa Cruz Cemetery . More than 200 civilians died, many of them after they were rounded up and trucked away by the military. One of the people killed was Kamal Bamadhaj, a New Zealand citizen and the subject of the film Punitive Damage ; two of the many people the soldiers beat up turned out to be American journalists.

The bloody attack was filmed by British journalist Max Stahl, whose footage features in the documentary In Cold Blood . The massacre at the Santa Cruz Cemetery is cited as a turning point in the independence struggle. The Xanana Reading Room has films about the event available for viewing.