Suara Merdeka, 27 October 1965, p. 2: Gerwani Semarang chair Soetjiran says her house was attacked
Suara Merdeka (Semarang), 27 Oktober 1965, hlm. 2. Two key items: at a Kodim 0733 Semarang meeting a freezing decree was read; Soetjiran, chair of Gerwani Semarang, said her house was attacked, members panicked and Gerwani Semarang 'knew nothing' of the events.
FCO 15/1941: Political Detainees in Indonesia (1974-75)
British Foreign and Commonwealth Office file FCO 15/1941 (1974-75), 'Political detainees in Indonesia': ministerial letters on the National Peace Council and TAPOL campaigns, Research Department notes on Carmel Budiardjo, UN human-rights briefing, ICRC/Buru material and TAPOL Bulletin extracts. Gerwani features in the
TAPOL Bulletin no. 5, June 1974 (London campaign for Indonesian political prisoners). Covers mass transfers of tapols to Central Java workcamps (Nusakambangan, Cilacap), British and Australian policy, IGGI aid, press bans and the January 1974 Malari aftermath. A short item, 'Ex-Gerwani Members Also in Trouble' (p.5), r
TAPOL Bulletin no. 6, August 1974. Covers the Hariman Siregar (Malari) trial, tapol forced labour on the Cilacap oil pipeline and Nusakambangan cement works, prison conditions, Australian and British military links and trials of 1965 detainees. It reports on Plantungan women's camp (food, commander Major Prayoga, death
TAPOL Bulletin no. 7, October 1974. Covers the Indonesian Defence Department's attack on TAPOL, the Hariman Siregar trial, admissions on tapol forced labour, 'C' category releases and re-arrests, non-involvement certificates, civil-service purges (teachers and PLN staff dismissed) and plans for October Week in Britain.
TAPOL Bulletin no. 8, January 1975. Leads on Papuan mass killings and the Indonesian ban on the word 'tapol'; also Buru unrest and health conditions, the British Foreign Office meeting with religious leaders, non-involvement certificates, 'C' category releases, Hariman Siregar's six-year sentence and Carmel Budiardjo's
Thousands of Indonesian women still languish in Suharto's prisons
Tribune (Sydney), 20 May 1975, p. 7, abridged from the British magazine TAPOL (Mar 1975): thousands of women remain among about 100,000 political prisoners. Describes Gerwani's work, its banning, the sexual slander ('sex-maniacs', mutilation claims) as fuelling the massacres, torture and rape of women tapols, Plantunga
Thousands of Indonesian women still languish in Suharto's prisons
Tribune (Sydney), 20 May 1975, p. 7, abridged from the British magazine TAPOL (Mar 1975): thousands of women remain among about 100,000 political prisoners. Describes Gerwani's work, its banning, the sexual slander ('sex-maniacs', mutilation claims) as fuelling the massacres, torture and rape of women tapols, Plantunga
TAPOL Bulletin no. 11, August 1975, on the 'show trials' ahead of the tenth anniversary. Key item (p.3): four women, including Gerwani General Secretary Sulami, sentenced after a five-month trial to 15-20 years for subversion (helping the PKPS movement, illegal cells, alleged recruitment of cooks and seamstresses for L
[MORE] Jan 1976: Writers in Prison (Barbara Sproul), with entry on Sudjinah
Issue of the New York media magazine [MORE] (January 1976) with Barbara Sproul's Amnesty-linked article on writers jailed by repressive regimes. Its Indonesia list describes Sudjinah as a writer who contributed short stories to Harian Rakjat and worked on the editorial staff of Api Kartini, journal of Gerwani; arrested
[MORE] Jan 1976: Writers in Prison (Barbara Sproul), with entry on Sudjinah
Issue of the New York media magazine [MORE] (January 1976) with Barbara Sproul's Amnesty-linked article on writers jailed by repressive regimes. Its Indonesia list describes Sudjinah as a writer who contributed short stories to Harian Rakjat and worked on the editorial staff of Api Kartini, journal of Gerwani; arrested
Riek Hoogkamp: international solidarity high on the banner
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
Interview with Maria Ulfah Santoso: PKI and Gerwani tried to control Kowani (Tempo, c. 1977; JPRS)
JPRS translation of a Tempo profile (c. early 1977) of Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. Serang 1911): her marriage to political prisoner Soebadio Sastrosatomo with Subandrio's help (Jan 1964), early women's-movement work, Perwari and Kowani, and the PSI. She says that during her 11 years leading Kowani from 1952, 'PKI and Gerwa
NVB on International Women's Day: no support for Suharto (Van Heutsz monument wrapped)
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
Gerwani (Annie van Ommeren on Tanti Aidit and the witch-hunt against Gerwani)
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
Clinic (Gerwani polyclinic 1958, Tanti Aidit)
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
New objectives at 11th NVB congress
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
Trial will not go ahead (Tanti Aidit)
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.
TAPOL Bulletin no. 44 (London, March 1981): army takeover of the legal sector, Free-Aceh trials, Pramoedya's Buru novels harassed, East Timor, US human rights report. A short item (p.4) reports that eight women political prisoners long held in Bukit Duri were moved to Tangerang women's prison: Sulami (20 years), Sudjin
Imprisonment: Wertheim on continued prosecution of Gerwani women
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
Population movement hits Papuans
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
Despite executions... generals can count on continued support
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
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.
Pravda, 30 Oct 1990: 'Indonesia: strokes to a tragedy of 35 years ago' (V. Shurygin)
Pravda, 30 October 1990 (No. 303), p. 5: V. Shurygin's retrospective 'Indonesia: strokes to a tragedy of 35 years ago' on the 1965 coup, Suharto's rise and the destruction of the PKI by a Pravda correspondent who was in Indonesia. Gerwani appears once, listed as the PKI's women's organisation alongside SOBSI, BTI, Pemu
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
TAPOL Bulletin no. 101 (London, Oct 1990), covering West Papuan border raids, Suharto's 'de-Suharto-ization', new litsus screening rules, Petisi 50 and East Timor at the UN. A page on US embassy collusion reproduces Kathy Kadane's May 1990 interview with ex-deputy chief Jack Lydman about embassy-compiled PKI name lists
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
The Forgotten Years: Mass Slaughter in Jombang-Kediri 1965-1966 (Sulistyo, 1997)
Hermawan Sulistyo's 1997 Arizona State history PhD, 'The Forgotten Years', studies the 1965-66 killings in Jombang-Kediri, East Java, from interviews and documents, finding no single national pattern and stressing local conflict and military-backed operations. Gerwani appears in passing: its claimed 1.75 million member
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