Freedom fighter battles for truth about lost years (South China Sunday Morning Post, 23 April 2000)

=== [PDF page 1] === Freedom fighter battles for truth ab out lo Vaudine England in Jakarta st years South China Sunday Morning Post (1985-2000); Apr 23, 2000; ProQuest pg. 10 Vaudine Englan in Jakarta” slightly built;and hasa sto- Fry to tell. She remembers growing up at:the. royal’ court of Solo. central Java, where her father was'a clerk. and going toa Duteh elementary school when Indonesia was’still a Dutch colony: in ‘1942, Japanese occupation forces arrived, so she did her sec- > ondary schooling in Japanese. “During the Dutch time there. was: great discrimination.” Ms Sudjinah says. . “So from my childhood | began to ask; why'arfe we, the firstchildren, always treated as the last? “During the Japanese ‘times, - people were dying on the streets, the Japanese took the properties ofthe people, and they. sent young virls tothe front as prostitutes. | remember, | know the places where the girls were taken ta, “Soin 1945, IT wanted to be independent.”: Ms Sudjinah and tens of (hous., sands like her-got their wish but later paid a-high price for it. = ace” cused of communism, tortured, imprisoned and. discriminated against for much of herlife. Whole families and villages in Bali and Java remain afflicted today by the young country’s grows ing pains, with children: unclear why their parents disappeared, whole careers-and education dreams shattered; amid a society in which any questioning of the national myths about nationbuilding spelled trouble. Those times are changing. President Abdurrahman Wahid is fuelling desires fora newapenness about the past, freely talking about communism (which used 10 be legal in. Indonesia), and calling for true reconciliation based. on: fact rather:than allegation. Ms Sudjinah-is one of many now benefitting from the new. at mosphere. In her mid-teens, she - recalls, the Indonesian nationalists defended the independence announced by Sukarno on August UDJINAH Halina®is/72,~ Once a fighter VAUDINE ENGLAND Sudjinah Halina is now fighting to reveal the truth about the 1965 coup 17,1945, against persistent Dutch chims on their former colony, “| joined the troops asa volunteer. Lentered the Tentara Pelajar [Student Army]," she says. “Hn 1947, [ was sent tothe front at Semarang [Central Java}, where L gained instruction.in weapons. But they were too big for me. The recoil would knock me over! So | took care of logistics and the kitchens and supplies,: “In 1949, we had to go into the hills as guerilla fighters, So.) became.a courier, taking messages from guerillas in the hills to our army in the town, IL was very dangerous, With bombing. here and there, But Tam still alive.” Not only alive, Ms Sudjinab is kicking atthe weight of subsequent. harassment, imprisonment and: discrimination: she. has suffered, this time from her own peo- : ple, Despite her past as a guerilla, she later endured. 17 years.in former president Suharto’s jails. “Released in 1984, Ms Sudjinah has spent years documenting stories such as hers by interviewing fellow. cellmates and the wide community of Ex-Tapols”, or former political prisoners. The: documentation can/now be pub-. » lished, discussed at seminars and, perhaps, bittemess purged. How,could a person wha fought for her country’s nationhood later. ° become'a Victim of its repression? Go back to the 1950s, the height of the Cold War, and atime: of ideological ferment, especially: in newly free nations such as Indonesia, Her experiences had made her a nationalist and a feminist, “Ms Sudjinah says, and she studied politics and society at the University of Gajah Mada in Jogjakartauntil.1955. Then came an invita- “tion to the Students’ Youth Festival.in Prague. “1 was active in Gerwani, the: mass women’s movement (associated with the then legal: Indonesian Communist Party or PKI], so - [could get a job with the Women’s : International Democratic Federation, headquartered in Berlin.” “Her next few years were spent travelling to Russia, China, Hong Kong; India, Paris, Denmark, ° ‘Sweden, Switzerland, and Aus- ‘tria; among other countries. “On her return in 1958, Ms Sudjinah. became a journalist.and women's activist, She did translations for the Indonesian edition of. Pravda (the Soviet communist journal), and worked alongside government ministers. / “There was no problem then. We were proud to be. members of Gerwani, we were proud to.-be = communists,” she recalls, “Sukar- “no had the policy of Nasakom, his word for the three united stands of nationalism, religion and communism: | was not a member of the PKI, but [ was a sympathiser.” Then came the coup attempt of September 30, 1965, still the most controversial and emotive moment in Indonesian history. On-that-night,-senior military officers were murdered in Jakarta, Strangely, then Major General Suharto was the only senior general left that night, and he marshalled his forces against the insurgents and foiled the coup, later ‘taking power and ‘ruling for 32 years. r tru But who had mounted thecoup -- “in the first place? *. According to Suharto, who had --a film made to “prove” his point, the rebels were PKL and associat-:. ed subversives who the army had: to quash in order to’save the na-. tion. Shortly after the coup, a doc-"° ‘umentary was made featuring alleged. communist women (mem-- bers-of Gerwani) dancing naked ‘over the generals’ corpscs, with © “the allegation. that these: women |. had mutilated them. A sanitised version, without naked girls, was.. subsequently shown every year. during Suharto’s: rule.: - Other.versions suggest Suharto was himself the instigator, or perhaps Sukarno was:the spark. to events intended to consolidate his: supremacy: over both. army and. communists. China (through the -PKI); the United: States (through ©: =the CIA) and other foreigners were “accused of instigating, manipulat- ” ‘ing or directing events too." “Then in 1967 | was caught, be-: =. ~ cause ofa traitor. [was beaten by... the’soldiers: until} was almost’: dead. [heard ‘someone say, don’t... .. murder her, we have to bring her to... court.: Women beside. me had al-. ‘ready: died, the torture was very. heavy..Jwas taken from camp to camp, in other towns, and-mem-- bess of Gerwani [and the PKI]) were “being murdered everywhere.” > - Once. in prison Ms Sudjinah © ‘met the young women who said ~ they were stripped, raped and © forced to act:in Suharto’s: film about September’ 1965, proving her point about the long series of lies perpetrated by the Suharto. era, “Suharto showed that film on September 30 for 30 years, so the younger generation. know only © this, not the’ facts. Even modern feminists only.know: the fake version,” she says.» Pe That. is now beginning to: “change. Ms Sudjinah and her for-: mer cellmates are ‘researching. Suharto’s role in the, events “which made him president in: 1967. could not be questioned openly in Indonesia for. the 32 -years of his presidency. And any- ‘body with a left-wing past was sus- ‘pect..“It was so wrong what the army said aboutus,” Ms Sudjinah says, still angry. “PKI leaders had heard about the hit-list of the gen-_ erals and had told Suharto about it. But he didn’t say anything. He just used this event, he used it, It “was not possible the communists ‘would have: mounted.a coup against Sukarno, because he was *: for Nasakom. There was no way we wanted him out. “.Ewent underground from 1965 to 1967, I was on the move, ] ‘slept in a different house every. night. | made disguises’... and paid to get another identity. | (4 There was no problem then. We were proud a ot to be members of Gerwani, we were proud to be communists. |was a sympathiser | ‘their past and, through.a foundation for victinis of the mass mur- “ders of 1965-66, are busy holding. “training seminars: in techniques ‘for compiling oral histories.-’ Such: efforts: are not only..allowed by. the Wahid government, but also supported in spirit. by.a series: of investigations recently - opened by the National Human Rights Commission. These probes have yet to reach back to the trauma of the. mid-1960s, as strong “public fear and ignorance contin-, ue to affect political life. a But inquiries are now open into the military rampage through East Timor last year, the military. at-.. tack on the party headquarters of the riots and shooting of students. “jn. 1998, and the murky and as yet unexplained killing of Muslim Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “self. It is healthy and liberating. ° -< gources to tackle past liesio":/ 62 ~ new regime. ‘demonstrators in Jakarta’s Tan “jung Priok port area in 1984. “The commissions reflect a de-* “ parture from past practices, when’ -all:of us became. hostages: in our... own past, looking blithely at the cemeteries of truth and the falla- ‘cies of-history,” said Kusnanto: ~ Anggoro, a.senior researcher. at.” - Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic:and International Studies, *- 2 “Society no longer seems to be ina collective amnesia. Revealin; the truth is indeed ‘necessary ‘fo society:to come to terms with it “So is rewriting history,” he believes, “fa first step to enable society.to develop creative and constructive collective memories. Truth and history are forgotten components of nation building.” The potential for revelations “and the focus of attention (on: Indonesia’s recent and bloody,’ ‘past is deeply. threatening to - many, especially Suharto,’ the ‘armed forces and any politician with links to groups involved in -. Another-impediment to any. truth emerging is a marked lack of questioning minds with the: re-". “Knowing much about facts is not the Indonesians’ strength,”: notes Jesuit priest and philosophy. professor, Franz Magnis-Suseno. ~ “People here don’t read much, so qt makes:them easy to manipu-. cbater™ ee ee Set RE “Many: Indonesians who did. ‘well in the Suharto years sec little need to pry into the past, with ~ -some arguing few new revelations can be expected, only an idcological shift in the memories tosuit the Discounting current efforts. on ~ “the grounds of the relativity of history istoo casy, however. “We may not get to the deep truth, but we will reach more: truth, deeper: te.” ©. flection, more honesty and open-°. “ness, Mr Magnis-Suseno says. Ms Sudjinah is enthusiastic. ‘“l just want to write everything, write it.all. down. So the victims ‘ean speak, and. to wipe out the » discrimination.”