Red Party outlawed: Indonesia bans Communist party, Pemuda Rakjat and Gerwani (Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 18 October 196
Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 18 Oct 1965, p.1 (AP): Radio Jakarta announced a military ban on the Indonesian Communist Party and affiliates, issued in the name of Maj-Gen Umar Wirahadikusumah for the Jakarta area; SOBSI was banned, and Pemuda Rakjat and Gerwani, 'the party's women's wing', were also placed under the ban.
Abrupt change in Indonesia's political situation: Suharto takes control, mass arrests, PKI offices burned
Xinhua survey in Renmin Ribao (20 Oct 1965, p. 1) of Indonesia's first three weeks after 30 September, from Chinese-side sources: Suharto takes control, mass arrests (3,000 by 17 October), PKI headquarters burned, Harian Rakjat closed, universities shut, anti-Chinese incidents. Gerwani appears in the NU demand to disso
The Anti-Communist Campaign in Indonesia: A Chronology (USIA R-158-65), Nov 1965
USIA Research and Reference Service report R-158-65 (November 1965), a chronology of the anti-Communist campaign in Indonesia, 1-20 October 1965, built on Indonesian and foreign radio and press. Gerwani entries: Suharto's 4 Oct TV statement linking the generals' murders to Pemuda Rakjat and Gerwani training grounds; NU
South China Sunday Post-Herald, 7 Nov 1965, p.30 (Reuter, Djakarta, 6 Nov): the Armed Forces bulletin says nine 'suicide squad' members of Gerwani, the Communist Women's Organisation, were killed by troops after standing in the path of army tanks in Solo, jeering and turning their backs when asked to leave. The item al
Sukarno will act against Reds (The Hindustan Times, 7 November 1965)
The Hindustan Times, 7 Nov 1965 (Reuter, Bogor, 6 Nov): Sukarno promises action against the PKI while the army hunts its members; Subandrio reports Sukarno scolding Njoto for the party's 'childish disease'. The armed forces bulletin says nine Gerwani 'suicide members' were killed by paratroopers when they blocked the r
Gudok, 23 Nov 1965: In Indonesia (TASS on arrests)
Gudok, 23 Nov 1965, p. 4, TASS dispatch from Jakarta: military and right-wing forces continue the anti-communist campaign, with arrest figures (1,600 in South Kalimantan; 1,630 in Wonogiri, 820 in Sragen, 711 in Boyolali, over 2,200 in Klaten), citing Antara that all those arrested are members of PKI, Gerwani, Pemuda R
Army plans to kill P.K.I. for ever (The Scotsman, 8 December 1965)
The Scotsman, 8 Dec 1965, Dennis Bloodworth, 'Army plans to kill PKI for ever': Suharto and Nasution press to destroy the PKI while Sukarno refuses to ban it; the article analyses the PKI's miscalculations. It repeats the slander that six generals were mutilated by 'doe-eyed girls' of the PKI's 'Gerwani' women's moveme
Appeal for Solidarity with Gerwani and the Women of Indonesia (WIDF Bureau, June 1966)
WIDF Bureau appeal (Berlin, 2-5 June 1966), German original with English translation and notes by Faye Chan (2015). It states that tens of thousands of Indonesian women were murdered or are held and tortured, that Gerwani's leaders and several thousand members were arrested, and that Gerwani and other women's organisat
Thai Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee protests repression in Indonesia (snippet)
Snippet-only Renmin Ribao extract (19 Apr 1966, p. 4) from a Thai Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee communiqué protesting Indonesia's repression. It lists banned mass organisations including Gerwani and notes the 12 March 1966 ban on the PKI; truncated. Full text is GA-01992.
Janda PKI: stigma and sexual violence against communist widows (Pohlman, 2015)
Pohlman (2015) on 'janda PKI': women widowed in 1965-66 were doubly stigmatised as widows and as 'PKI' women demonised by Gerwani propaganda; four testimonies show sexual violence and exploitation. Gendered stigma analysis.
Tempo.co, 2 October 2015: Putmainah, the Gerwani-PKI podium lioness who forgot September
Tempo.co profile (2 Oct 2015, by Bobby Chandra) of Putmainah, 77, former Gerwani chair and PKI faction member of the Blitar DPRD, now stroke-afflicted in Pakisrejo, Srengat. Her husband Subandi, Blitar Front Nasional and DPRD head, was killed after a PKI congress; she fled into the forest with seven children. Once a re
Tempo, 8 February 2016: Mintardjo and a fragment of Gerwis history
Tempo review (8 Feb 2016) of Elisabeth Ida Mulyani's video 'Supervivere' on 1965 exiles (Mintardjo and nine others in the Netherlands and Sweden), shown in Yogyakarta with a charcoal portrait 'Suti, Plight of Gerwani' by Dewi Candraningrum. It describes Suti, 95, founder of Gerwis Musuk/Boyolali in 1952, a literacy cam
Years of Dressing Dangerously: Modern Women, National Identity and Moral Crisis in Sukarno's Indonesia (Sullivan, 2020)
Charles P. Sullivan's PhD dissertation (History, University of Michigan, 2020) reads Indonesian women's magazines (Wanita, Puspa Wanita, Varia) from 1945-66 to argue that the Lubang Buaya narrative about Gerwani worked as a 'post-text' of long-running anxieties over modernity, moral crisis and the 'Mother of the Nation
Tempo, 2 October 2021: Black propaganda against Gerwani (Ita Fatia Nadia)
Op-ed by Ita Fatia Nadia in Tempo (2 Oct 2021) tracing the army-controlled press campaign from 7 Oct 1965 that cast Gerwani as sexually sadistic, contradicted by the military doctors' autopsy (Roebiono Kertapati). It links the slander to the mass killings, Kowani's expulsion of Gerwani (29 Oct 1965), Lubang Buaya volun
Tempo English, 4 October 2021: Traumatic burden of 1965 (Umi Sardjono's last years)
Tempo English cover story 'Traumatic Burden of 1965' (4 Oct 2021, Dini Pramita) on Umi Sardjono's silence and guilt after release in 1978. Ita Fatia Nadia read her a Medan woman's testimony of gang rape and public parading, and showed Sudjinah's X-ray; Umi wept, saying it was her responsibility. It covers her life in t