2019年经济学人 安瓦尔·冈戈-刽子手之歌(1)

 

Anwar Congo, a perpetrator of the mass killings² in Indonesia in 1965-68, died on October 25th, aged³ 78

安瓦尔·冈戈是1965年至1968年的印尼大屠杀的一个凶手，他于10月25日去世，享年78岁。

The first time he tried to kill a man, he used a stinky durian fruit. It didn't work. Eventually, he came to the view that the most efficient method was garrotting, and he was proud of how adept⁴ he became with the wire. It hadn't always been so.

第一次尝试杀人时，他用了一个臭榴莲。结果没有成功。最终，他知道了最高效的方法就是勒死。他很骄傲自己成为了使用金属线勒死人的内行。情况并非一直如此。

He was born in Medan, a grimy industrial town in northern Sumatra that was home to Pancasila Youth, the main semi-official political gangster⁵ group that flourished as Indonesia's military dictatorship grew ever more powerful in the mid-1960s. An attempted coup⁶ by leftists in 1965 had given the army the excuse it needed to unleash⁷ an orgy of killing¹ across the country. Anybody opposed to the army could be accused of being a communist. As America became enmeshed in the Vietnam war, and the fear of communism's possible domino effect across Asia took hold in the West, President Lyndon B. Johnson and his allies were happy to look away as more than a million alleged⁸ communists were tortured and killed, many of them Chinese Indonesians.

安瓦尔·冈戈出生于棉兰市，一个位于苏门答腊岛北部的肮脏的工业城镇，它是潘卡希拉年轻人的故乡，在20世纪60年代中期，随着印尼军事独裁的日益强大，这个主要的半官方政治匪帮也蓬勃发展起来。1965年，左翼分子发动了一场未遂政变，这为军方提供了在全国范围内发动疯狂杀戮的借口。任何反对军方的人都可能被指控为共产主义者。随着美国卷入越南战争，对共产主义在亚洲可能产生的多米诺骨牌效应的恐惧在西方扎根，林登·B·约翰逊和他的盟友很高兴把目光移开，因为100多万名据称是共产党人的人遭到拷打和杀害，其中很多是印尼华人。

Known as preman, from the English words "free men", Pancasila's death squads⁹, with their political connections and their can-do/will-do swagger, proved the ideal recruiting ground for a boy like Anwar Congo. He had dropped out of school at the age of 12 and spent much of his time selling bootleg cinema tickets with his friends outside Medan's main picture house. Dressed in a cow boy hat and a braided leather necktie complete with Texas star, he imagined himself as a skinny John Wayne, or, in a dark Panama and shades, as one of the mobster types in "Murder, Inc".

潘查希拉的敢死队被称为普雷曼，它来自英语词汇“自由人”，他们凭借其政治关系和“能做什么”、“要做什么”的大话，造就了像安瓦尔·冈戈那样的男孩的理想招募地。安瓦尔·冈戈12岁便辍学，他花了很多时间和朋友们在棉兰的主要电影院外售卖盗版电影票。戴着牛仔帽，系着一条配有德克萨斯之星的编织皮领带，冈戈将自己想象成瘦人版的约翰·韦恩，或者，戴着深色的巴拿马草帽和墨镜，扮作“谋杀公司犯罪团体”中的暴徒。

1 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

2 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

3 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

4 adept   

adj.老练的，精通的

参考例句：

• When it comes to photography,I'm not an adept.要说照相，我不是内行。
• He was highly adept at avoiding trouble.他十分善于避开麻烦。

5 gangster   

n.匪徒，歹徒，暴徒

参考例句：

• The gangster's friends bought off the police witness.那匪徒的朋友买通了警察方面的证人。
• He is obviously a gangster,but he pretends to be a saint.分明是强盗，却要装圣贤。

6 coup   

n.政变；突然而成功的行动

参考例句：

• The monarch was ousted by a military coup.那君主被军事政变者废黜了。
• That government was overthrown in a military coup three years ago.那个政府在3年前的军事政变中被推翻。

7 unleash   

vt.发泄，发出；解带子放开

参考例句：

• They hope to create allies to unleash against diseases,pests,and invasive species.他们希望创造出一些新群体来对付疾病、害虫和一些有侵害性的物种。
• Changing water levels now at times unleash a miasma of disease from exposed sewage.如今，大坝不时地改变水位，从暴露的污水释放出了疾病瘴气。

8 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为

9 squads   

n.（军队中的）班( squad的名词复数 )；（暗杀）小组；体育运动的运动（代表）队；（对付某类犯罪活动的）警察队伍

参考例句：

• Anti-riot squads were called out to deal with the situation. 防暴队奉命出动以对付这一局势。 来自辞典例句
• Three squads constitute a platoon. 三个班组成一个排。 来自辞典例句