TAPOL Bulletin no. 53 (London, September 1982, 24 pp.): new Army 'Board' to monitor ex-tapols and Sudomo's remarks on 33,000 B and 540,000 C category people under supervision, an editorial against 65 pending death sentences (Munir, Ruslan Wijayasastra), West Papua testimonies, East Timor resettlement, arms sales, Sunar
Gjengangeren, 9 Mar 1984: Amnesty women's day appeal naming Sudjinah
Gjengangeren (Horten, Norway), 9 Mar 1984: a column on women prisoners of conscience for International Women's Day, from the Horten/Borre Amnesty group. It cites Sudjinah, 'formerly active in what was then Indonesia's largest women's movement' (presumably Gerwani; not named), held eight years before a 1975 trial and a
Gjengangeren, 9 Mar 1984: Amnesty women's day appeal naming Sudjinah
Gjengangeren (Horten, Norway), 9 Mar 1984: a column on women prisoners of conscience for International Women's Day, from the Horten/Borre Amnesty group. It cites Sudjinah, 'formerly active in what was then Indonesia's largest women's movement' (presumably Gerwani; not named), held eight years before a 1975 trial and a
Tempo, 6 October 1984: Stories of October 1965
Long Tempo feature (6 Oct 1984), New Order-era 'scattered stories' of 30 Sept-1 Oct 1965 told by witnesses: Catherine Panjaitan, Dewi Sukarno, Bambang Wijanarko, Mangil, Roeslan Abdulgani, Sugandhi, Salim Said, Syu'bah Asa. Frames events as a PKI coup and describes army/RRI takeover. Gerwani is not mentioned.
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
Swiss press, 14 May 1987: violations of human rights against parliamentarians (IPU; Sundari)
Courrier de Geneve report (by Angelica Roget, 14 May 1987) on 100 cases of abuse of parliamentarians raised at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Managua. For Indonesia it says only that 'M. Sundari', a former parliamentarian aged 70, has been detained since 1965. The identification with Siti Sundari Abdul Rah
Swiss press, 14 May 1987: violations of human rights against parliamentarians (IPU; Sundari)
Swiss paper L'Express, 14 May 1987, on the 77th Inter-Parliamentary Union conference (Managua, 27 April-2 May 1987), which denounced about 100 cases of abuse against MPs in Chile, Turkey, Vietnam, Somalia, Colombia, Indonesia and Swaziland. For Indonesia it names only 'M. Sundari', a 70-year-old former MP detained sinc
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
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.
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
Harian Neraca serial 'Siapa menabur angin akan menuai badai' (61): army's 1965 sexual slander retold
Harian Neraca, 14 Mar 1989, p. 10: instalment 61, the serial's most important Gerwani item, reprinting the army's 1965 slander: PR and Gerwani dancing naked in a 'flower-scent party', sex permitted, stimulant injections, per 17-year-old Djamilah.
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
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
Pravda, 1990: Shurygin, 'Indonesia: strokes to a tragedy of 35 years ago' (excerpt)
Pravda (Nov/Dec 1990, No. 303) archive.org OCR excerpt of V. Shurygin's retrospective 'Indonesia: strokes to a tragedy of 35 years ago'. Lists Gerwani among PKI-affiliated mass organisations, cites up to 500,000 killed, notes slander turned opinion against communists, and says ~50,000 of 1.4 million ex-prisoners may vo
Human Rights Watch World Report 1990 chapter on Indonesia and East Timor: Aceh and Irian Jaya abuses, execution of four 1965 palace-guard prisoners, 'screening' for 1960s leftists and the Bonar Tigor Naipospos subversion case. Background on continuing New Order repression.
Tempo, 12 May 1990: S.K. Trimurti sets the record straight (reader's letter)
Reader's letter in Tempo (12 May 1990) responding to Trimurti's memoir excerpt of 21 April 1990, praising her 'steel mentality' after a six-hour beating by the Dutch police and contrasting it with migrant worker Kurtiah's abuse abroad. The heading also carries a correction: Trimurti born in Sawahan, Boyolali, 11 May 19
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
The Guardian (Weekend Guardian), 8 Sept 1990, p.A4, John Gittings, 'The black hole of Bali': long feature on the 1965 massacre (250,000 or more killed), how the killings were organised by the army under Suharto, the Aidit/PKI role, the US list of communists (Martens/Kadane) and US encouragement, survivors ('Tapols') an
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
TAPOL Bulletin No. 105, Jun 1991: interview with former Timorese prisoner (Tangerang, 'Mama Sundari')
TAPOL Bulletin no. 105 (June 1991). In an interview (pp. 11-12) East Timorese ex-prisoner Domingas Coelho describes Tangerang women's prison from 1984, where she shared Blok Anggrek with two elderly PKI prisoners, Sundari Abdulrahaman ('Mama Sundari') and Tati, who nursed her and taught her embroidery, fieldwork and In
Media Indonesia, 18 August 1991: Romo Mangun's novel-essay (Durga Umayi)
Media Indonesia, 18 Aug 1991, p. 15: review of Y.B. Mangunwijaya's Durga Umayi summarising the heroine's path from Sukarno's household servant to rape, prostitution and becoming 'an important figure in Gerwani', a political fugitive.
Sukitman's story of G30S/PKI (part 2)
Akcaya (Pontianak), 10 Nov 1991, p. 7: concluding part of a retelling of police officer Sukitman's 1965 story, with the paper glossing the 'volunteers' as '(Gerwani - red)', reproducing the New Order slander.
Multi-dimensional literary work: review of Durga Umayi
Bali Post, 31 May 1992, p. 6: review of Y.B. Mangunwijaya's novel Durga Umayi whose climax has the heroine exposed as a Lekra and Gerwani figure.
Banyuwangi, the first spark that burned out G30S/PKI
Bali Post, 30 Sept 1992, p. 6: G30S-anniversary opinion page; a feature lists Gerwani among communist masses backing Madiun 1948 and retells the Cemetuk clash of 18 Oct 1965 as PKI poisoning.
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