We Have Tired of Violence

A True Story of Murder, Memory, and the Fight for Justice in Indonesia

A chilling work of true crime about the midair murder of a human rights activist, set against a riveting political drama in the world’s fourth-largest nation

“The truth about who killed Munir is the only antidote to Indonesia’s poisoned justice system.” —The New York Times

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist

On a warm Jakarta night in September 2004, Munir said goodbye to his wife and friends at the airport. He was bound for the Netherlands to pursue a master’s degree in human rights. But Munir never reached Amsterdam alive. Before his plane touched down, the thirty-eight-year-old—one of the leading human rights activists of his generation—lay dead in the fourth row.

Munir’s daring investigation of the killings and abductions that occurred over three decades of authoritarian rule by the former president, Suharto, had earned him powerful enemies. Undeterred, Munir’s wife, Suciwati, and his close friend, Usman Hamid, launched their own investigation. They soon uncovered a conspiracy involving spies, a mysterious co-pilot, threats of violence and black magic, and deadly poison.

Drawing on interviews, courtroom observation, leaked documents, and police files, this book uncovers the dramatic murder plot and the titanic struggle to bring the perpetrators of Munir’s death to justice. Just as Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing did for Northern Ireland, We Have Tired of Violence tells the story of a shocking crime that serves as a window into a captivating land still struggling to shake off a terrible legacy.

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Praise

“With a meticulously detailed and accurate reconstruction of the events of Munir’s murder, We Have Tired of Violence charts the activist’s resistance to the authoritarian regime. A must-read for those interested in Indonesia, as well as the global fight for human rights.”
—Leila Chudori, journalist and author of the novel The Sea Speaks His Name
“A gripping, meticulously researched whodunnit, We Have Tired of Violence is a monument to the heroism of Munir and his friends—perhaps the only monument Indonesia’s finest human rights campaigner will have.”
—Gerry van Klinken, professor emeritus of Southeast Asian Social and Economic History at the University of Amsterdam
“Human rights researcher Easton debuts with a chilling account of the 2004 assassination of Indonesian attorney Munir Said Thalib. . . . Easton lucidly unravels the complex history behind the murder and shines a well-deserved spotlight on and how tirelessly Munir’s wife and friends have worked to expose the truth. This harrowing account unearths the insidious legacy of authoritarian regimes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Matt Easton’s We Have Tired of Violence is a detailed, carefully told treatment of [Munir’s murder] drawing on substantial research.”
—TLS
“It is rare that a book about recent events is able to bring together the personal and political, the human and historical, into such a moving and coherent account. Post-Suharto Indonesia is a complicated, contradictory, and confounding story, which Matt Easton has explained expertly and in vivid detail. We Have Tired of Violence is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand modern Indonesia.”
—Brad Adams, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch
“It is so important to have this kind of narrative: how one man’s history crosses with the history of a nation. The idealism that cost Munir his life provides a lesson, from a very great and humble man, about the struggle for humanity.”
—Seno Gumira Ajidarma, writer, journalist, and author of the novel Jazz, Perfume & the Incident
“[We Have Tired of Violence] reads like a gripping legal-procedural whodunnit, as evidence is slowly unearthed from telephone records, lost documents are retrieved from deleted computer files and intriguing new witnesses emerge. . . . As recent history, it is meticulous and moving.”
—The Economist
“By exhuming the crime’s motives and actors and reconstructing the convoluted trials that followed, Easton also sheds light on why so many democratic institutions remain weak in post-Suharto Indonesia—and why one of the world’s biggest democracies remains so haunted by its violent past.”
—Foreign Affairs

News and Reviews

Foreign Affairs

Read a review of We Have Tired of Violence in Foreign Affairs.

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The Washington Post

Read an op-ed by We Have Tired of Violence author Matt Easton in the Washington Post's Made By History about the murder of human rights advocate Munir in Indonesia and the consequences of not confronting the past.

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Publishers Weekly

Read a review of Matt Easton’s We Have Tired of Violence in Publishers Weekly.

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Goodreads Reviews