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In Bali, the holiday vibe masks memories of a massacre

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Surfers at Batu Belig beach in Bali on Nov 28. The development of mass tourism on the island was a deliberate strategy to resuscitate an economy shattered by the mass killings, historians say.

Surfers at Batu Belig beach in Bali on Nov 28.

PHOTO: NYIMAS LAULA/NYTIMES

Hannah Beech and Muktita Suhartono

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When the hotels and beach clubs were built to lure tourists to this beautiful, haunted isle, the bones emerged, white and smooth.

On one stretch of palm-fringed coast on the Indonesian island of Bali, construction for a five-star resort in the 1990s unearthed enough bones to fill half a pickup truck, said the Hindu priest called in to exorcise the ghosts.

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