JAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesia on Monday convened an unprecedented two-day discussion of anti-communist massacres in 1965-66 that brings together survivors and representatives of the military that orchestrated the atrocities.

There were scuffles between protesters who oppose the conference and police outside the tightly guarded venue, in a sign of the deep divisions within Indonesia over what rights groups say was one of the worst atrocities of the last century.

Researchers estimate that the military and religious groups killed half a million people in the attacks on communists and sympathizers that ushered in the 32-year rule of the dictator Suharto.

Conference organizer Agus Widjojo, a retired general, said at the meeting that Indonesia is “torn apart” by the massacres and called for the government to establish a commission for truth and reconciliation. Within Indonesia, widely accepted accounts of the era gloss over the deaths, and descendants of Communist Party members are stigmatized and face legal discrimination that prevents them from holding government jobs.

But the conference has the backing of government figures and was opened by the Cabinet minister in charge of security and political affairs, Luhut Pandjaitan. Indonesia’s attorney general, police chief and justice minister also attended.

The killings began in October 1965, shortly after an apparent abortive coup in which six right-wing generals were killed. Suharto, an unknown major general at the time, filled the power vacuum and blamed the assassinations on Indonesia’s Communist Party, which was then the largest outside the Soviet Union and China, with 3 million members.