Gerwani and the Perfumed Ghost (Historia, preview)
Historia article by Martin Sitompul (preview only): after destroying Gerwani the New Order used the 'kuntilanak' image to restrict progressive women's movements; quotes Wieringa at a Kuntilanak Wangi discussion. Partial text.
Berita Yudha, 9 November 1965. Front-page 'Peranan dan jeritan kaum ibu' on a demonstration of over 30,000 Jakarta women (8 Nov) organised by the anti-G30S front's women's section; key document of the gendered campaign against Gerwani.
Berita Yudha, 30 November 1965. Antara story that 'executioners of Lubang Buaya' interrogated in Bandung, including 19-year-old Sujati alias Jossy, 'confessed' Aidit promised a 'Golden Horse Star' for killing the generals.
Armed Forces Information Centre, Intisari Berita, 6 December 1965: speech linking godless knowledge to Lubang Buaya
Armed Forces Information Centre bulletin, 6 Desember 1965. Speech at the Akademi Bahasa Asing Indonesia warning that godless knowledge led PR, CGMI and Gerwani/PKI to 'strip naked and sleep together at Lubang Buaya' because it held that 'women and men are equal'.
Armed Forces Information Centre, Intisari Berita, 7 December 1965: sweeps in Central Java and condemnation of Gerwani
Armed Forces Information Centre bulletin, 7 Desember 1965. Three Gerwani members seized among 124 people in sweeps in Pemalang, Cilacap, Blora and Boyolali; a statement condemns Gerwani for 'tearing apart the personality of Indonesian women'.
Armed Forces Information Centre, Intisari Berita, 10 December 1965: Chaerul Saleh condemns Lubang Buaya terror, Perwa...
Armed Forces Information Centre bulletin, 10 Desember 1965. Arrest round-up with 'a Gerwani'; Chaerul Saleh condemns the 'terror of Lubang Buaya in which Gerwani took an important part' and announces expulsion of Perwari members also in Gerwani.
Angkatan Bersendjata, 20 September 1966. 'Bung Piket' part 13 asserts the PKI held military training 'under cover of volunteer training à la Lubang Buaya' whose core was PR and Gerwani, in the Fifth Force campaign; editorial on Madiun.
Angkatan Bersendjata, 4 October 1966
Angkatan Bersendjata, 4 Oktober 1966. Front-page item: a women's action front states that the 'barbarous acts of Gerwani/PKI at Lubang Buaya' do not spring from the character of Indonesian women, distancing 'true' women from Gerwani.
Berita Yudha, 4 October 1966
Berita Yudha, 4 Oktober 1966. Report of a rally of some 3,500 women of KOWANI, KAWI and BPOW at Lubang Buaya (3 Oct) where, led by Ibu Tien Soeharto, they swore to 'eradicate the gerwani/pki mentality'; Ibu Soeharto says they 'practised obscenities without limit'.
Berita Yudha, 5 October 1966: interview with Ibu Tien Soeharto
Berita Yudha, 5 Oktober 1966: wawancara Ibu Tien Soeharto. Armed Forces Day issue with a front-page interview with Ibu Tien Soeharto, 'May our children not inherit the barbarity and immorality of Gerwani', and Perwari conferring 'Penyelamat Revolusi' on Suharto.
Berita Yudha, 7 October 1966
Berita Yudha, 7 Oktober 1966. KAWI (anti-communist women's action front) issues a four-point statement: Gerwani/PKI 'barbaric acts' do not stem from Indonesian women's character, the 'gerwani/pki mentality' must be eradicated, and West Sumatra should revoke a title.
Sinar Harapan, 6 Dec 1966: 'Night of Terror, Dawn of Hope' (V), Clarence Hall serial
Sinar Harapan, 6 Desember 1966: 'Malam Teror Fajar Harapan' (V). Serial translation of Clarence Hall's 'Indonesia: Night of Terror, Dawn of Hope' ends with the claim that the kidnapped generals were 'handed over to about 100 screaming Gerwani members'; also an essay on education as protection against betrayal.
Angkatan Bersendjata, 27 April 1967. South Kalimantan governor Aberani Sulaiman says mothers must 'eradicate women of the Gerwani type, the Lubang Buaya type' to realise 'true Indonesian women'; KOWANI Kartini meeting.
Angkatan Bersendjata, 9 July 1967 (Weekly Edition)
Angkatan Bersendjata, 9 Juli 1967 (edisi Mingguan). Family column 'Jadilah seorang wanita yang baik' defines womanhood through motherhood and invokes 'how savage and cruel Gerwani women' were in torturing the generals, using the slander as a moral counterexample.
A Quarter Century of the Indonesian Parliament (1970)
Official institutional history, 'Seperempat Abad DPR RI', compiled by the DPR-GR Secretariat for the 25th anniversary in August 1970; it traces parliament from the KNIP to 1970 with membership rosters. For Gerwani it matters in the 1965-66 chapters: it records the NU demand (5 Oct 1965) to ban Gerwani, the 15 Oct 1965
Berita Yudha, 13 March 1982: 'Latent danger of extreme left and right in Indonesia' (4)
Berita Yudha, 13 Mar 1982, p. 1: final part of a series retelling the official PKI chronology to 30 September 1965 and asserting that 3,000 'youth and Gerwani' trained at Lubang Buaya.
Berita Yudha, 8 July 1984: Steering teenagers away from frustration
Berita Yudha, 8 July 1984, p. 4: youth-page essay using 1965 as a warning, saying teenagers drawn to the 'PKI education system' were used to murder the generals at Lubang Buaya; Gerwani invoked in passing.
Kuntilanak Wangi: women's organisations in Indonesia after 1950 (Wieringa, transl. Hersri Setiawan, 1999)
Hersri Setiawan's Indonesian translation (Kalyanamitra, Dec 1999) of Wieringa's 1988 working paper 'The Perfumed Nightmare' on Indonesian women's organisations after 1950, with a compact history of Gerwani and the Lubang Buaya slander. Accessible Indonesian-language Wieringa.
Tempo, 29 August 1999: Interview with Sulami - 'I have an obsession to expose the G30S killings'
Tempo interview (29 Aug 1999) with Sulami, former Deputy Secretary-General II of Gerwani, with a short biography: arrested 12 Feb 1967 on Amir Machmud's order, tried 1975, released 1984, torture by rattan between fingers and threats of rape; founded the 1965-66 victims research foundation. She denies any Gerwani role a
Truth about Gerwani: The Gender Aspect of the Suharto Regime (Seri Kartini 03/2002)
2002 Seri Kartini booklet bundling W.F. Wertheim's review of Saskia Wieringa's Gerwani dissertation (Gerwani's puritan sexual politics, army fabrication of Lubang Buaya), a DPP Gerwani statement of 4 June 1962, Sulami's preface and poem, and a memoir of 1945. Survivors' reissue of key Gerwani texts.
Gerwani, Stigmatisation and the New Order (Ratna Mustika Sari, 2007)
Ratna Mustika Sari's 2007 book from her 2005 UGM thesis on the stigmatisation of Gerwani as a New Order power strategy, inspired by Wieringa and her Syarikat research on women victims in Kulonprogo and Sleman. Early Indonesian-language academic study of the stigma.
Influence of Gerwani's image on the women's movement 1966-1998 (Retnoningrum, 2009)
2009 Sanata Dharma history thesis by Elisabeth Retnoningrum on Gerwani's orientation, the New Order's spreading of a bad image of Gerwani, and later women's movement development; concludes the sexual mutilation story was untrue and legitimised the regime.
Communism in Indonesia, Vol. IV: The G30S/PKI Rebellion and its Suppression (1960-1965), Pusjarah TNI, 2009
Official Army history (Pusjarah TNI, Jakarta 2009), vol. IV of 'Komunisme di Indonesia', presenting Gerwani as a PKI mass organisation in the 1960-65 build-up and the G30S. It reports Gerwani's Nov-Dec 1964 housewives' seminar (p. 70), 'unilateral actions' (p. 122), the 27 Sept 1965 Surabaya governor's-office raid unde
Communism in Indonesia, Vol. IV: The G30S/PKI Rebellion and its Suppression (1960-1965), Pusjarah TNI, 2009
Official Army history (Pusjarah TNI, Jakarta 2009), vol. IV of 'Komunisme di Indonesia', presenting Gerwani as a PKI mass organisation in the 1960-65 build-up and the G30S. It reports Gerwani's Nov-Dec 1964 housewives' seminar (p. 70), 'unilateral actions' (p. 122), the 27 Sept 1965 Surabaya governor's-office raid unde
Ups and Downs of the Indonesian Women's Movement (Wieringa, 2010)
Ten-page digest (in Komnas Perempuan's 2010 compilation) of Wieringa's Kuntilanak Wangi, tracing Indonesian women's movements from Kartini and Poetri Mardika to Gerwani, its rivalry with Perwari, the 1965 slander and New Order corporatism (Dharma Wanita, PKK). Concise overview.
Tempo.co, 9 May 2010: Defending Gerwani from New Order slander (Wieringa book)
Tempo.co book notice (9 May 2010) on Saskia Wieringa's Indonesian edition of 'Penghancuran Gerakan Perempuan' (Galangpress 2010, transl. Harsutejo). Recounts the military propaganda of naked dancing, razor-cutting and castration at Lubang Buaya, Wieringa's rebuttal from 1982-85 interviews and autopsy results, and Siti
Tempo.co, 17 May 2010: Defending Gerwani from New Order slander (Wieringa book, second version)
Tempo.co book notice (17 May 2010) (second Tempo.co version, with a lead on the penis-cutting allegation) on Saskia Wieringa's Indonesian edition of 'Penghancuran Gerakan Perempuan' (Galangpress 2010, transl. Harsutejo). Recounts the military propaganda of naked dancing, razor-cutting and castration at Lubang Buaya, Wi
Tempo, 1 October 2012: Gulag on the bank of the Lampir river (Plantungan camp)
Tempo report (1 Oct 2012) on the Plantungan camp (Kendal) for women Group B political prisoners, opened 1971 in a former leprosarium. Names Gerwani activists and others held there: Sumiyarsi Siwirini ('Lubang Buaya doctor'), Siti Suratih, Mia Bustam, Pujiati, C.H. Sumarmiyati, Mujiati. Covers conditions, 'santi aji' in
Gerwani and women's political struggle (Rio Apinino, IndoPROGRESS, 2013)
Rio Apinino's 2013 IndoPROGRESS review essay of the Indonesian edition of Wieringa's Gerwani study: the film's Lubang Buaya scenes, Gerwis's founding in Semarang on 4 June 1950, PKI influence and the persistent 'whore' stigma. Chapter-by-chapter summary.
Gerwani and the murder of identity (Lustanto, 2015)
Rendi Lustanto's 2015 Jurnal Perempuan essay on the 50th anniversary of 1965: Gerwani women hunted over alleged Lubang Buaya involvement, with media stories of erotic dances and genital mutilation made credible by patriarchal culture. Short reflective piece.