Jakarta, Friday (AP): arrest of Trees Soenito
One-paragraph AP wire item in Het Rotterdamsch Parool (5 Jan 1968, p.1): Jakarta police arrested Dutch-born lawyer Trees Soenito, earlier defender of PKI's Njono. According to the armed forces daily she is suspected of communist sympathies and 'would have been a former leader of Gerwani'. Allegation only; no other deta
Dutch jurist arrested
Nederlands Dagblad, 6 January 1968, p. 1: brief report that Jakarta police arrested Dutch-born lawyer Trees Soenito-Heyligers on suspicion of membership in the banned scholars' association HSI; she had defended SOBSI leader Njono, who was sentenced to death for the 1965 coup. A second item on Cyprus is unrelated. No Ge
More Indonesian lawyers arrested
Trouw (6 Jan 1968), UPI: arrests continue of Indonesian lawyers who defended former communists. After Subandrio's counsel, two more were detained, including Dutch-born Trees Soenito, who had defended PKI leader Njono. No reason given. Shows the New Order's persecution of 1965 defence lawyers; Gerwani not mentioned.
Washington Post, 6 Jan 1968: 'Red Defenders Held in Djakarta' (Trees Sunito)
Washington Post (6 January 1968, p. A9), an AP report headed 'Red Defenders Held in Djakarta'. Per the sweep log, it says woman lawyer Trees Sunito, who defended Njono, has been arrested and is described as a former leader of the women's section of the Communist Party. Only the page header is in the text; the article b
Army leadership in Jakarta: 'infamy' as Njono, Sudisman, Wirjomartono executed
De Waarheid, 29 Oct 1968, p. 1: report, via Reuters, that the Indonesian military regime executed PKI Central Committee members Njono and Sudisman and Yogyakarta PKI secretary Wirjomartono by firing squad in Jakarta Bay after secret tribunal hearings; an initial report on Supardjo and Ruslan Kamaludin was retracted. It
Berliner Zeitung, 3 Nov 1968, p. 5: Protest against massacre
Berliner Zeitung, 3 November 1968, p. 5. ADN/BZ brief 'Protest gegen Massaker': the IDFF (WIDF) telegraphed General Suharto its outrage at continuing massacres of Indonesian patriots and democrats, calling them a flagrant violation of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The same page's column 'Es geschah in dieser Woch
RAND memorandum RM-5753-PR (Feb 1969), Guy J. Pauker, 'The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Indonesia'. Argues, from trial records, that Aidit planned the 30 September action against the generals and traces PKI strategy, the Chinese turn, the agrarian 'unilateral actions' and the killings (up to 300,000), and th
Indonesian Communism since the 1965 Coup (van der Kroef, 1970)
Article by Justus M. van der Kroef (Pacific Affairs, spring 1970) on the PKI underground and army counter-campaign after 1965, from the Blitar and Purwodadi operations to political prisoners and Moscow/Beijing exile factions. Gerwani appears once (p.50): arrests of former Communists 'including members of Gerwani (the P
Interpretations of the 1965 Indonesian Coup: a review of the literature (van der Kroef, 1970)
Review essay by Justus M. van der Kroef (Pacific Affairs, winter 1970) surveying interpretations of the 1965 coup (Wertheim, Rey, the Cornell Report, Utrecht, Pluvier, Hughes, Nugroho/Saleh) from a pro-PKI-complicity standpoint. Several passages mention Gerwani members' role at Halim; he cites 'Mrs Djamilah's' confessi
Archive of the Event of 1965 in Indonesia (compilation incl. Anderson and McVey, Preliminary Analysis of the October 1,
Internet Archive compilation on the 1965 events whose main text is Anderson and McVey's Cornell 'Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965 Coup' (1971), with source documents. It says Gerwani and Pemuda Rakjat trainees at Lubang Buaya were drawn into the killings (pp. 22-23) while stressing the army-fed 'orgy' storie
Archive of the Event of 1965 in Indonesia (compilation incl. Anderson and McVey, Preliminary Analysis of the October 1,
Internet Archive compilation on the 1965 events whose main text is Anderson and McVey's Cornell 'Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965 Coup' (1971), with source documents. It says Gerwani and Pemuda Rakjat trainees at Lubang Buaya were drawn into the killings (pp. 22-23) while stressing the army-fed 'orgy' storie
The 1965 Coup in Indonesia: The CIA's Version (van der Kroef, 1976)
Critical review by Justus M. van der Kroef (Asian Affairs, Nov 1976) of the CIA's declassified 1968 report 'Indonesia-1965: The Coup That Backfired'. Takes issue with the CIA's claim that Lubang Buaya victims were not mutilated and that Gerwani/Pemuda Rakyat confessions were Army-contrived, quoting Gerwani member Djami
The 30 September Movement: a political movement of the armed forces or an intelligence operation? (Holtzappel, 1979)
Journal article by Coen Holtzappel (Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1979) analysing the Untung and Njono trial records to argue the 30 September Movement was steered by Air Force and Army intelligence, with Sjam's Pringgodani group deliberately compromising the PKI and Aidit. Gerwani is mentioned only once, in a footnote
TAPOL Bulletin no. 34 (London, June 1979, 20 pp.): exposes inconsistencies in KOPKAMTIB release figures, resettlement camps in Kalimantan and Buru, the student trials, release oath and ex-tapol discrimination, the Nijmegen psycho-test cover-up, TAPOL's research on 366 1965 trials, IGGI aid. Gerwani is not named; one it
TAPOL Bulletin No. 37, January 1980: Indonesia's Political Trials
TAPOL Bulletin no. 37 (London, January 1980): editorial on the end of KOPKAMTIB's release plan, plus Julie Southwood's long study of 1,014 political trials since 1966. It notes the 1965 Lubang Buaya claim that communist women castrated the generals, and the 1975 subversion trial of Gerwani's Sulami and Sudjinah, with S
TAPOL Bulletin no. 90 (London, Dec 1988): East Timor, Golkar congress, executions of two 1965 Cakrabirawa prisoners, Kopkamtib replaced by Bakorstanas, 'clean-self/clean-environment' screening, and Suharto's role in the G30S. In the G30S article, a section on a 'myth coming unstuck' says the 1965 press claims that Gerw
Harian Neraca serial 'Siapa menabur angin akan menuai badai' (65): Njono's confession and Untung as 'puppet'
Harian Neraca, 18 Maret 1989, p. 10: instalment 65 of Soegiarso Soerojo's serial. Covers Njono's confession on training at Lubang Buaya and opens a chapter on Untung as 'puppet'; names Mudigdio, mother of Aidit's wife, as a Gerwani figure.
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
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
Killing off the communists (South China Morning Post, 17 July 1999)
South China Morning Post, 17 July 1999, p.37, Marian Wilkinson (Sydney Morning Herald), 'Killing off the communists': newly released US embassy and CIA cables show US officials encouraging the army's anti-PKI campaign in Oct-Nov 1965, urging anti-PKI propaganda that links 'diabolical murder and mutilation of the genera
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