Explanation requested: death sentences in the Madiun affair
Nieuwe Courant, 26 September 1950: correspondent's report that the Madiun rebel leaders (Amir Sjarifuddin, Suripno and others) were shot on 20 December 1948 and buried in a mass grave near Solo, with no official detail given. MP Mrs Mudigdo champions the relatives, with Mrs Mangku and Mrs Oei Gee Hwat, to demand from p
Nieuwe Courant, 26 September 1950 (page): Madiun death sentences
Whole-page OCR of Nieuwe Courant, 26 September 1950. Relevant item: the report that MP Mrs Mudigdo, with Mrs Mangku and Mrs Oei Gee Hwat, seeks an official account of the 1948 executions of the Madiun rebel leaders. The rest covers an editorial against liquidating foreign capital, the Sarbupri minimum-wage motion, a co
Tempo, 1972: The political prisoner problem
Tempo article (online archive, dated 1972) on the political prisoner (tapol) problem: Archbishop Leo Soekoto urges society to help, Amnesty and the Red Cross press Jakarta, Buru resettlement of about 5,000 Group B prisoners is presented as the best option, and officials still see ex-PKI as a threat. No Gerwani content.
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
Daily World, 16 May 1975: Connecticut towns hear peace delegates (WILPF-WIDF seminar)
Page 9 of the Daily World (New York, 16 May 1975) with a Connecticut report on delegates to a WILPF-WIDF disarmament seminar. They included British woman Carmel Budiardjo, who was in Djakarta in 1965 and imprisoned for three years while her husband remained jailed after ten years; she says over a million were killed an
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
Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience Week 1975: Salawati Daud (Swiss press, Nov 1975)
Berner Tagwacht, 15 Nov 1975, short Amnesty 'Prisoner of Conscience Week' profile of Charlotte Salawati (Salawati Daud), 66. It describes her as a nationalist teacher in Celebes, first and only woman mayor of the Muslim part of Makassar, later a PKI parliamentary candidate and member; arrested after October 1965 and he
[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
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
Unclassified US State Department cable (7 Sep 1977) reporting Amnesty International's list of 62 imprisoned or disappeared former legislators; Indonesia has the longest list (21). Among the Indonesians named are Kartinah Kurdi and 'Umiharti Sardjono' (Umi Sardjono), both former Gerwani leaders, still detained 12 years
TAPOL Bulletin no. 19, January 1977. Leads on 'release equals transmigration': Sudomo's 1 Dec 1976 release of 2,500 B-category tapols into 'transmigration centres' and Buru. Reports that women tapols at Plantungan (since 1971) were moved to Bulu prison, Semarang, apparently for transfer to a 'hard-core' women's camp at
TAPOL Bulletin no. 21, April 1977 (London). Covers the ICRC mission to seven Indonesian detention sites, Carter and human rights, East Timor testimony, Kopkamtib detention legality, official denials and the May elections. It prints a smuggled letter from a Salemba tapol to the Red Cross describing starvation, beri-beri
Meeting of women fighters at Gedung Kebangkitan Nasional, 21 May 1977 (Idayu photo album)
Photograph from the Yayasan Idayu S.K. Trimurti albums (Perpusnas Khastara), image 07 of a series on the 21 May 1977 meeting of women fighters (pertemuan wanita pejuang) at the Kebangkitan Nasional building, Jakarta. No text or caption could be read, so people shown are not identified; no Gerwani link is evident.
Meeting of women fighters at Gedung Kebangkitan Nasional, 21 May 1977 (Idayu photo album)
Photograph from the Yayasan Idayu S.K. Trimurti albums (Perpusnas Khastara), image 09 of a series on the 21 May 1977 meeting of women fighters (pertemuan wanita pejuang) at the Kebangkitan Nasional building, Jakarta. No text or caption could be read, so people shown are not identified; no Gerwani link is evident.
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
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
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
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
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