Long De Tijd opinion piece by Arie Kuiper (24 Apr 1969) on the Nijmegen student congress and the Wertheim Indonesia Committee's call to halt Dutch aid to Suharto's regime. It acknowledges hundreds of thousands killed and many political prisoners but blames Muslim hatred and defends Suharto; it repeats that generals wer
Nederlands Dagblad, 6 October 1976, p. 5: partly missing report on an Amnesty International press conference in the Netherlands about Indonesian political prisoners. It states that the women in the women's camps are for the most part members of the militant Gerwani, discusses church relief for prisoners' families, and
De Waarheid, 15 Nov 1976, p. 1: report on an NVB meeting opened by chair Riek Hoogkamp, who stressed the role of international solidarity in NVB history and said the thoughts of the meeting went out to the women of the Indonesian sister organisation Gerwani, to women in Chile and Namibia. The NVB reports growth and 31
Limburgsch Dagblad, 2 December 1976, p. 1: Jakarta announces release of 2,650 communist prisoners held since 1965 without trial, with a promise to free the remaining 29,000 within three years. At a ceremony 150 swore loyalty to Suharto; among them were students, former civil servants and members of the banned women's m
Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 2 December 1976: Reuter report that Indonesia released 2,650 prisoners held since 1965 without trial. At a ceremony 150 swore loyalty to Suharto, among them students, former civil servants and members of the banned leftist women's movement Gerwani; 29,000 remain, with a promise to free them
Nederlands Dagblad, 3 December 1976, p. 3: Jakarta announces release of 2,650 communist prisoners held since 1965 without trial, repeats the promise to free the remaining 29,000 within three years. At a ceremony 150 swore loyalty to Suharto; they included students, ex-civil servants and members of the banned women's mo
De Waarheid, 9 Mar 1978, p. 1: report that NVB women on International Women's Day wrapped the Van Heutsz monument in Amsterdam in white cloth marked 'Gerwani'. The item summarises Gerwani's pre-1965 work (clinics, crèches, kindergartens, courses, anti-polygamy campaigns) and the 1975 trials: Sulami life, Suharti, Sudji
De Waarheid, 24 Mar 1979, p. 8: excerpt from Annie van Ommeren on Tanti Aidit, board member of Gerwani, sister organisation of the NVB. She says Gerwani had one million members, was the target of a huge smear campaign during and after the 1965 coup, with women accused of atrocities, which found fertile ground among rea
De Waarheid, 24 Mar 1979, p. 8: sidebar on the clinic Gerwani opened on International Women's Day, 8 March 1958, a polyclinic and advice bureau for women in its building (destroyed in 1965), run by Tanti Aidit, now 12 years in pre-trial detention. Annie van Ommeren recalls the 1975 trial of Sulami (life), Suharti Harso
Front-page De Waarheid report (12 Feb 1980) on the 11th congress of the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB), which re-elected Riek Hoogkamp. The congress adopted a declaration asking Dutch ministers to press Indonesia to restore civil rights of released political prisoners, grant amnesty to women independence fighters, a
Short De Waarheid item (6 Mar 1980, p.9): the planned trial of Tanti Aidit after twelve years' detention will not go ahead. It argues she had nothing to do with the 'CIA-organised coup' and her only offence was Gerwani board membership, naming Suharti, Sudjinah and Shri Ambar as fellow Gerwani women who also paid.
Closing section of a Wertheim piece in De Volkskrant (28 Apr 1981). It states that women active in Gerwani are still prosecuted: in 1979 two were given extremely heavy sentences without credit for detention since 1965, and with six other Gerwani women were moved to Tangerang. The rest concerns ex-CIA officer McGehee an
De Waarheid report (23 Mar 1985, p.3) on a Dutch parliamentary committee debate criticising Indonesia's transmigration to West Papua. CPN MP Ina Brouwer, pressing minister Schoo on freedom of organisation, states that Gerwani, 'the progressive Indonesian women's movement' that once did much for women, is banned; Schoo
Front-page De Waarheid report (5 Jun 1985) on Dutch minister Schoo's opening speech at the 28th IGGI conference in Amsterdam, urging donors to continue backing Suharto's regime without mentioning executions. A Komitee Indonesië spokeswoman says she was shocked that Schoo ignored the ban on Gerwani and that existing wom
De Waarheid report (30 Nov 1987, p.4) on the launch of the Wertheim Foundation, where W.F. Wertheim praised a Hendra painting of a male and female guerrilla. He argued that the Suharto regime rests on mass murder and falsified history, and that one task is to write the real history of Gerwani, Lekra, SOBSI and the PKI.
De Waarheid piece (2 Sep 1989, p.16) criticising Suharto's silence on the 1965-66 massacres, quoting Stanley Karnow and C.L. Sulzberger on the killings and estimates of 300,000 to one million dead. It notes mass arrests without trial of hundreds of thousands, including members of SOBSI, Gerwani and Pemuda Rakjat, and t
Het Vrije Volk interview feature (9 Jul 1990, p.10) by Canis Zijlmans on anthropologist Saskia Wieringa's research on lesbian women in the Third World. One passage mentions her research in Indonesia on the 'three-million-member' communist women's organisation Gerwani, wiped out after Suharto's takeover, and lesbian lif
Jan Bezemer's long Trouw weekend feature (30 Sep 1995) on the unresolved 1965 trauma. Covers the 30 September events, Suharto's role, US encouragement, massacres (Gatot's trial testimony) and the smear campaign against Gerwani. Draws on Saskia Wieringa's doctoral research: Gerwani was blamed for mutilating the generals
Trouw correction column (4 Oct 1995): a wrong phone number for the Cézanne exhibition, and a note that the 30 September article on the 1965 coup drew on Saskia Wieringa's research, due for her Amsterdam doctorate on 6 October, under-acknowledged. Gives her thesis title: The Politicization of Gender Relations in Indones
De Vrijdag (Het Parool, 6 Oct 1995) article by Hanneke de Wit on Saskia Wieringa's Amsterdam PhD on the Indonesian women's movement. It recounts the 1965 press claims that Gerwani girls castrated and blinded generals and danced naked, which Wieringa calls lies; autopsies showed the generals intact. It details forced 'c
Algemeen Dagblad (2000-05-27, Nina Eberlijn, Jakarta): Human Rights Minister Hasballah Saad discusses the near-impossibility of prosecuting Suharto-era abuses and a South African-style truth commission; Kontras cites ~16,000 missing. Sulami, jailed 20 years as a Gerwani activist, says reconciliation needs victims' test