Potsdam (on the division of Korea)
De Waarheid piece (17 Jun 1985, p.5) on the origin of Korea's division at the 38th parallel after Potsdam and the Korean War. It recalls CPN opposition to Dutch participation and quotes Trees Sunito-Heyligers, who visited Korea in 1951 with a twenty-woman international delegation and wrote 'Wij beschuldigen'. No Indone
Untung (Djoko Untung and Gatot Sutarjo sentenced to death)
De Waarheid item (21 Aug 1985, p.3) profiling death-row PKI prisoners Djoko Untung and Gatot Sutarjo, sentenced at Blitar on 2 Jan 1976, with Suharto rejecting clemency. Untung's wife Natsia, a known East Java Gerwani member, was arrested in 1968 and still imprisoned; Sutarjo's wife Poedji Aswati was jailed for 15 year
Ties (Joop Morrien on ties between CPN and PKI)
De Waarheid profile (11 Nov 1985, p.15) of CPN's Joop Morriën, who spent eight months in Indonesia in 1954 (Java tour, Yogyakarta artists' colony, meetings with unionists and Gerwani members) and planned Dutch-language book publication. He recalls being treated as PKI representative on the Prague journal 'Problems of P
'No body issues, they reproach us for it': 40 years of the Dutch Women's Movement
Het Parool feature by Petra van Alten (30 Oct 1986) on the 40th anniversary of the Nederlandse Vrouwenbeweging (NVB): founding in 1946 from Algemene Vrouwenbonden and resistance women, its protests against Dutch Indonesia policy and troop sailings, Cold War isolation, affiliation to the Women's International Democratic
For a free Indonesia (founding of the Wertheim Foundation)
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.
Jan Maassen wants to see the Indies refusers together once more
De Waarheid article by Joop Morriën (6 Feb 1988, p.9) on Jan Maassen's plan for a reunion of Dutch conscripts who refused to serve in Indonesia in 1948-49 (Schoonhoven boys), recounting his three years' imprisonment and the arbitrary sentencing. Lawyers Trees Sunito-Heyligers and Clara Enthoven defended refusers by lin
East is East and West is West (Kousbroek)
Rudy Kousbroek's column 'Oost is Oost en West is West' in NRC Handelsblad (19 Feb 1988): an anecdote of a Minahasan surveyor in Maluku shocked by his atheism, with remarks on Indonesian attitudes to feminism and childlessness. Ends as the surveyor asks whether they are communists. No mention of Gerwani; background colo
Twice Indonesia (announcement of Kartini evening)
Front-page De Waarheid listing (9 Apr 1988) of paper contents and events: Jan de Wit's story as a refuser, an essay on Kartini by Annie van Ommeren-Averink, a VPRO radio series on conscientious objectors, and a 21 April Kartini evening at the Tropenmuseum where Wertheim speaks and Francisca Fanggidaej discusses the pos
Troop shipments unlawful (review of De Jong)
De Waarheid book review (30 Apr 1988, p.5) of a De Jong volume on Dutch troop shipments to Indonesia, arguing the 1946-47 deployments lacked a constitutional basis and that resistance (Amsterdam strike of Sept 1946, Indonesia refusers, Schoonhoven boys) was more significant than De Jong suggests. Lawyers Trees Sunito-H
The Chinese: at school parties we were equal, that was modern (Go Gien Tjwan)
Interview with Dr Go Gien Tjwan in NRC Handelsblad's 'Hun Indië' series (30 Apr 1988): memories of peranakan Chinese life in colonial Malang, racial hierarchy, schooling, Chinese revival in the 1930s and student politics at Batavia under Wertheim. Background on Chinese Indonesians; no Gerwani content.
De Waarheid obituary-style note (15 Oct 1988, p.7) on Trees Sunito-Heyligers, Dutch lawyer who defended the Schoonhoven refusers and Piet van Staveren and was first chair of the Nederlandse Vrouwen Beweging (NVB) in 1946; her husband chaired Perhimpunan Indonesia. It summarises her defence arguments linking refusal to
Hundreds of Indonesia refusers recalled memories (reunion in Dronten)
De Waarheid report (17 Oct 1988, p.2) on the reunion of hundreds of Dutch Indonesia refusers in Dronten, organised by Jan Maassen, with historian Ger Harmsen speaking and a 'comité eerherstel' formed to explore rehabilitation. Trees Soenito-Heyligers is honoured as defender of many refusers; supporting bodies include t
Well-attended meeting in Amsterdam: East Timor must be free
De Waarheid report (24 Nov 1988, p.3) on a Komitee Indonesië solidarity evening in Amsterdam for East Timor, thirteen years after Fretilin's independence declaration. Francisca Fanggidaej, former MP from West Timor, says both Indonesians and East Timorese are victims of Suharto's regime; Fretilin's Abilio de Araujo pre
Indonesian communist free after 20 years in prison (Sundari Abdulrachman)
Front-page De Waarheid report (23 Aug 1989) on the release on 17 August of Sundari Abdulrachman, PKI central committee member and former MP, after over twenty years' imprisonment (arrested Lampung Nov 1968; life sentence 1976, commuted 1982). Notes 51 PKI members still held, fourteen under death sentence, and fourteen
Murders (Suharto and the mass killings of 1965-66)
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
Lesbian women in the Third World: persecuted and recognised
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
Something great was misjudged there
Het Parool feature by John Jansen van Galen (6 May 1995) ahead of the 50th anniversary of Indonesian independence, on a Sunday gathering of four Indonesians and two Dutch scholars. The excerpt shows Francisca Fanggidaej recalling her childhood as 'equalised' with Europeans, estranged from her own culture and thinking i
Loyal (on the origins of Indonesian nationalism)
Het Parool (6 May 1995) continuation of the feature on the Indonesian road to independence. Francisca Fanggidaej recalls first hearing the word 'Indonesia' from a cousin; historians Harry Poeze and Pieter Droogleever and veterans Gondo Pratomo and Aky Djoehana discuss early nationalism, Perhimpunan Indonesia, ethical p
The Indos' wrong gamble
Algemeen Dagblad feature by André Beijen (1995-07-08), first in a series before the Dutch royal visit: Indisch Dutch who stayed in Indonesia, now poor in Medan, and their grievances over Dutch benefits. Recalls the 1958 Sumatra rebellion and 'thousands murdered' in Medan after 1965 (Smit). No Gerwani content.
Folio: Channelling a national narcissism (Blokker column on Indies books)
Jan Blokker column in De Volkskrant (12 Aug 1995) reviewing Dutch books on the Indies and the colonial past. Mrs. S.K. Trimurti appears only as an interviewee quoted in H.C. Beynon's "Verboden voor honden en inlanders", on living with Inggit after Sukarno's 1933 arrest. Gerwani is not mentioned.
Royal wreath wanted on Sukarno's grave (with profile of S.K. Trimurti)
Het Parool (21 Aug 1995) report by Joop Holthausen on four Indonesians, led by Frans Seda and including S.K. Trimurti, 83, asking Queen Beatrix to recognise 17 August 1945 as independence day. Includes a profile of Trimurti: journalist, imprisoned by Dutch and Japanese, first woman minister (labour, 1947), member of di
The trauma of 1965 itches and nags
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
Cezanne (Trouw corrections column)
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
Suharto's fear of the voice of Gerwani (on Saskia Wieringa's research)
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
'Indonesia must work on national reconciliation'
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