The Killing Field

Blood. countless gallons of blood soaked deep into the clay of a soccer field. There have been two heavy thunderstorms in the four days since 118 children, women and menMadurese refugees huddled together and promised safe passagewere systematically butchered on the high-school playing field in Parenggean, a logging town deep in central Kalimantan. Those rains weren't cleansing enough: in the still of a tropical afternoon, the sweet stink of putrescence hangs in the air like the unquiet spirits of those murdered here.

Halerin, a stocky sawmill hand in his thirties, was at the field that night. His...