Most Balinese have family or friends who were involved in the conflict in one way or another, but few will talk about it today, so extensive and brutal were the killings. One journalist wrote, "For the next three months [November 1965 to January 1966] Bali became a nightmare... There is no one living in Bali now who does not have a neighbor who was killed and left unburied by the black devils with red berets [followers of the PNI] who roamed about at the time."
A quiet military leader, Suharto emerged as President of Indonesia. His "New Order" government has provided a long period of stability and development, in sharp contrast to the chaotic Sukarno years that preceded it, providing basic health care, food, housing and education to a rapidly growing population of over 190 million people.
Ngurah rai international airportBali has played a key role in Indonesia's recent development. The tourist "paradise" begun by the Dutch has been revised and given modern form, providing a lucrative income for many thousands of Balinese and significant amounts of foreign exchange for the nation.
Under the leadership of Ida Bagus Mantra, a Brahman religious scholar and educationalist who became Bali's governor in 1978, the island's tourist development was relatively steady and controlled throughout the 1980s.
The end of the 20th century brought great changes to Indonesia, with the downfall of the Suharto regime and the arrival of democratic elections. Bali's challenge, in this era of newfound political and economic freedom, is to control the island's cultural changes in the face of expanding mass tourism.
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