Sexual Metaphors in the Change from Soekarno's Old Order to Soeharto's New Order in Indonesia (Wieringa, RIMA, 1998)

=== [PDF page 1] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI Sexual Metaphors in the Change From Soekarno's Old Order to Soeharto's New Order in Indonesia Saskia E. Wieringa Introduction In 1989 I participated in a student demonstration. When the police came and beat us up I noticed I was hit even harder than the male students were. The officers shouted at me: "Gerwani whore, we'll teach you a lesson!". I was sentenced to two years in prison; all the time I kept wondering why they called me 'Gerwani whore'. I was born after Gerwani was destroyed, and I'm still a virgin, for I realise fully well that as a political activist a woman always has to scrupulously watch her reputation. The above anecdote, which was told to me in 1995 by an Indonesian student, suggests that some members of the military apparatus at that time still related women's political activism to both communism and prostitution. Although Gerwani', the communist-oriented women's organisation, was banned after the 'events of 1965' (as the October 1 putsch of that year is often called), the association lingered on. In New Order Indonesia, the spectre of communism was called up to justify the harsh repression of any democratic anti-government forces in the country" This was demonstrated, in the years just prior to the === [PDF page 2] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 144 resignation ofSoeharto, by the government's reaction to popular unrest RIMA after the elected chair of the opposition party PO I (People's Democratic Party), Megawati Soekarnoputri, was replaced by a pawn of the government'. As Van Langenberg (1990) suggested, the riots became part of a cam paign to warn the public of the dangers ofsocial disorder, to re-ernphasise the presence of 'subversive' elements in the body politic and to focus attention on the presidency as crucial to state stability'. In this article I argue that President Soeharro's New Order state legitimated itself by its destruction ofthe Communist Party ofIndonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI). Others, like Mortimer (1969), have pointed this our, but the gender aspects of this process have so far been largely ignored. Recently one of the major analysts of this part of Indonesian history, McVey, wrote: Massacres of the general communist following were also carried out, usually after the introduction of special troops into the area. Local civilians were recruited to help with the task on the basis of religious or class sentiment, or from fear of themselves being compromised (1996, 115). It is important to study the bloody origins ofSoeharto's New Order, as 'the tacit acceptance of repression and covert political violence that have become almost institutionalised as mechanisms of social COntrol' (Mackie and MacIntyre 1994, 1) have to be understood in this context. Although class and religious factors obviously played an important role in the destruction of the PKl, the gender aspects are either overlooked or their importance downplayed. Here I focus on the campaign of slander and sexual innuendo against Gerwani. I suggest that this campaign, orchestrated to associate communism with wild, perverse, sexually loose women and to present the Army under General Soeharto as the virile saviours of a nation on the brink of destruction, should be seen as one of the factors leading to the actual coup, the toppling of President Soekarno. The whole period between October 1965 and March 1967 when the actual transfer of power took place, may be seen as one extended coup. It is not by chance that women and their organisation, Gerwani, === [PDF page 3] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R were singled out for this form of slander. The association of Gerwani 145 with the castration of the symbol of the nation's virility, its top-level SEXUAL Generals, was the strongest way to effect Soeharto's "mental transition'" METAPHORS to his New Order state. For the intention of this coup was not only the liquidation of the communist party, PKI and its mass organisations, leaving state power in the same hands. It paved the way for a change of power, the ascension of General Soeharto to the Presidency". Until the late 1980s little attention was given to this crucial period in Indonesian modern history, either abroad or internally? As John Legge writes, perhaps because it was communists who were being killed the conscience of the outside world seemed comparatively undisturbed by what must rank, in any assessment, as one of the bloodiest massacres in modern history (Legge 1972, 399). Here I will argue that one of the reasons why Western governments and media commentators kept silent was their inability to comprehend the machinations behind and the ramifications of the campaign of mass unrest and murder waged after the 'first' coup ofOctober 1 1965. In most recent accounts as well this crucial period in Indonesian history is glossed over rather too quickly to move on to the more familiar realm of political or economic analysis", A good example is Vatikioris' study ofIndonesian politics under Soeharto: ...the prelude to re-establishing order and the reconstruction ofIndonesia's economy was a briefbut bloody period of further turmoil. The New Order exploited the highly polarised state of society left by Soekarno to dispose of its opponents and provide an outlet for some cathartic bloodletting (1993, 33). Some of the most well-known commentators on Indonesian modern history describe the murder of some half a million people in the terminology more commonly associated with natural disasters. Completely ignoring the media campaign the army waged, Schwarz writes: 'The massacre began with little warning, raged unabated for the === [PDF page 4] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 146 remainder of 1965, sputtered on through 1966 and then stopped (1994, RIMA 20).' Even Cribb and Brown, who carefullyanalyse the role ofthe military in organising the killings, are reluctant to attribute any agency to general Soeharto and the army in creating the conditions under which the mass murders could start. They mention 'rumours' which somehow 'elaborated into extravagant stories' (1995, 103), but the mechanism which triggered this process of elaboration remains invisible. In the meantime any opposition in Indonesia was battered or skilfully manoeuvered into silence by the ruthless repression of the regime. Not only were hundreds of thousands of innocent people massacred, also tens of thousands were detained, some of them for over twenty years. Only a handful ofthose detained were ever brought to trial.The suffering of the survivors did not stop there, for until this day these tapol and napol? are effectively barred from most kinds of employment". Their children, grandchildren and other close relativesare also still affected by restrictions in their employment or study, as these people have to produce a letter of living in a 'clean environment', that is of having no relatives who have been political prisoners, for them to be accepted for university study and government employment. Many of the ex-tapol still have to report regularly to the military authorities. Gerwani Gerwani was the women's organisation associated with the PKI. To indicate the character of the organisation I will mention some major points in its history based on my earlier analyses (Wieringa 1985, 1988, 1992, 1993 and 1995). Gerwani, or Gerwis!', as it was called between 1950 and 1954, was set up by a group of young women who wanted to fulfil the ideals they had of the Indonesian revolution. Contrary to members of other women's organisations, such as Perwari", they did not withdraw into what was commonly seen as women's terrain, the struggle for social issues, but they kept up a presence in the political arena. The initial emphasis of Gerwis' members on a marriage law based on monogamy dwindled after President Soekarno's polygynous marriage with Hartini in 1954. The focus shifted to a campaign for equal labour rights for women and for equal responsibilities with men in the struggle for full national independence and socialism. Rights === [PDF page 5] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R for women and children, including creches and the creation of the 147 "revolutionary family", remained central themes throughout Gerwani's SEXUAL history. Full national independence and peace as defined by the WIDp3 METAPHORS were other major issues. After the 1954 congress the organisation started to follow the "mass line" the PKI had already set in place. Thousands of cadres were being trained. Members went into the villages and neighbourhoods to discuss the daily problems with peasant women and urban women, especially women labourers. A major effort was made to combat illiteracy among women. In the accelerating political events of the early l%Os Gerwani members participated actively in the "unilateral actions" the Farmers' Front organised to implement the land reform laws. Together with Cerwani's efforts to get women's political rights" established this greatly antagonised conservative forces in the countryside. In its later years Gerwani's feminist wing lost out to its communist wing. The ties berween Gerwani and the PKI as well as berween these rwo organisations and President Soekarno became stronger. The women's organisation propagated a model of militant motherhood in which mothers were responsible for the moral education of their children, to make them worthy members of the "true Manipol" family". These families were intended to become "strong fortresses" against the influence of imperialist culture, and to help Soekarno and the nation to achieve Soekarno's vaguely defined revolutionary goals, which in the last years of the Old Order included the Confrontation with Malaysia. Gerwani also organised some anti-price rise demonstrations. For the purpose of this article I will complement this picture only with an indication of the way Gerwani differed from other women's organisations of its time and strayed from the women's leodrat, an Islaminspired code of conduct based on women's intrinsic "nature". Although all women's organisations had displayed a considerable amount of political activism during the prolonged struggle for Indonesia's independence, members felt they should leave the political arena once that goal had been reached (Vrcede-de Stuers 1960; Wieringa 1995). Women's anti-colonial activities had only been tolerated because they could be associated with women's motherly qualities in giving birth to the nation and with the preferred model of wifehood, women as faithful companions of their warrior-husbands. The best description === [PDF page 6] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 148 of how revolutionary men of those days saw womens participation in RIMA the national struggle is provided by Soekarno himself in his book Sarinah which was originally published in 1947. Basing himself on socialist ideas of the “woman question”, especially on the writings of Bebel and Zetkin, Soekarno wrote that only after the national revolution was won would women be relieved from the “patriarchal illness” they had had to endure for so long. Under male supervision, more specifically by himself, women should occupy themselves with the revolution as the “second wing of our national garuda"16 (Soekarno 1963, 255-7). Apart from Gerwani, most women’s organisations thereafter only busied themselves with activities commonly classified as “social”, withdrawing behind the thresholds of their homes and social clubs. Soekarno himself ignored most of the feminist views he had so ardently defended in Sarinah, especially after his marriage with Hartini. The kodrat of Indonesian women prescribes that they should be meek, passive, obedient to the male members of the family, sexually shy and modest, self-sacrificing and nurturing, and that they should find their main vocation in marriage and motherhood. An illustration of Gerwani s resistance to this kodrat is provided by the following lines of a poem written by a supporter of Gerwani: ‘no longer / are we gilded posies / engaging when compliant I exquisite when yielding I enchanting when submissive / to hell ’tis our duty to go / to heaven permitted to follow’17. The Indonesian term ibu means both wife and mother. In fact women are so strongly perceived as always being in relation to their husbands and children, that young unmmarried women are generally seen as “potential wives” (Tiwon 1996). This is not inconsistent with a certain degree of economic autonomy18, nor with the memories of the ‘lady soldiers’ at the royal palaces of Central Java (Kumar 1980). Javanese women in particular are supposed to be like Sumbadra, the shy and obedient wife of the wayang hero Arjuna. Gerwani on the other hand upheld a model of womanhood which was more in line with the figure of Srikandi, Arjuna’s warrior-wife. Although the organisation never questioned the primacy of women’s maternal role, it propagated a model of militant motherhood, fusing women’s maternal functioning with political activism. This deeply antagonised conservative forces in society (Wieringa 1995). As a leader of the Catholic Women’s Organisation formulated it: === [PDF page 7] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R We worked in the women's federation of Yogyakarta, 149 [which]...was concerned with social duties, for that is the task SEXUAL of women. All the time Gerwani tried to change that; they METAPHORS wanted us to occupy ourselves with politics. But that is for men. Women should not do that. Gerwani members were actually insulting our feelings ofwomanhood by their pushing. It was very frightening (cited in Wieringa 1995, 162). The 1 October 1965 coup The change from Soekarno's Old Order state to the New Order of President Soeharto was introduced by the so-called "October 1965 events", instigated by the 30 September Movement. There is a vast body ofliterature on this crucial period in Indonesian history'?' however the gender aspects are generally neglected. Although there is wide agreement as to what actually happened on the night of October Ist, various interpretations of what was behind the "COUp"20 are offered. An even greater controversy surrounds the propaganda campaign which preceded and accompanied the mass murder ofhundreds of thousands communist and leftist people" after which Soeharto came to power. It is important to discuss what happened during this crucial period, the last months of1965, for rwo reasons. First, the campaign had major consequences especiallyfor the women's movement. Gerwani was totally destroyed, and the space within which the other women's organisations could manoeuvre was severely restricted. The New Order state was able to define what interests women's organisations should take up (see also Wieringa 1985, 1992, 1993). Second, the propaganda campaign linked communism (and later liberal, critical thinking in general) with women's frightening sexual powers once unleashed. The campaign evoked both Islamic concepts of sexual disorder", and a pre-Islamic, Hindu worldview. Both in the Kakawin Bbarata Yudha, one of the major texts related to the popular Javanese wayang play and in certain hikayat (Malay stories), there are scenes in which crowds of frenzied women forsake husbands and children (Tiwon 1996). I suggest that Gerwani was singled out as the ideological repository ofresistance against the virile order of the military === [PDF page 8] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 150 and ofconservative forces because of its insistence on women's political RIMA activism. This was seen as an unacceptable form of rebellion. According to Mernissi women's disobedience is much feared in the Muslim world, because its consequences are enormous, In such societies, rigid sex-role stereotyping is so fundamental to hierarchical order, that when women challenge the status quo, they threaten not only patriarchal power (their relation to the husband) bur the vety existence of the entire system (and more specifically God's claim to obedience). (1996,111-2) Mernissi's analysis is based on Morocco, but her views also shed light on the situation in Indonesia, which has a similarly rigid system of gender ideology, women's kodrat. Below I offer a gender analysis of the events during the last months of 1965 23, based on print media and interviews. I argue that the October 1st putsch was a prelude to a much more fundamental change of order which laid the political and moral basis ofthe military regime ofPresident Soeharro. One of the strongest ideological forces behind this second coup, in which the actual change of Presidents took place", was a careful manipulation ofsexual symbols. The PKI became associated with disorder symbolised by women's sexually perverse behaviour, as I will illustrate below. From this state ofchaos society could only be saved by a systematic cleansing of communism and the resubordination of women. As the symbol of virility, the army and President Soeharto in particular, took care to emerge from this episode as the only force capable of restoring and maintaining an orderly society. Their continued power was justified by consistently recreating the myth ofthe perverted "Communist Beast'?". Women's subordination, to their men and to the patriarchal order'", their "proper" behaviour, became one ofthe pillars ofNew Order society. By mid-1965 tensions in Indonesian society were reaching a climax. In the countryside the unilateral actions of the PKI-associated Farmers' Front had thoroughly disturbed social relations. Rising levelsof inflation caused increasing poverty. The relationship between the army leaders and the PKI became increasingly tense, with President Soekarno leaning more than ever towards the PKI side. Only the nation's leader seemed === [PDF page 9] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI able to keep the competing factions together. The PKI was particularly 151 worried that the President might not be able to protect them much SEXUAL longer in view of the six murder attempts which had been made on him METAPHORS already (May 1978). Rumours ofhis illness therefore caused great unrest", In this tense situation several middle-ranking officers of the Army staged a military putsch. They wanted, so they testified later, to prorect the President against plans of an alleged Council of Generals, which, so they had come to believe, intended to overthrow Soekarno on Army Day, October 5. Also, they said they were discontented with the corrupt and decadent lifestyle of some of those Generals, in particular Yani (Crouch 1978). The plans of the officers were reportedly discussed in several meetings ofthe PKI "politbureau'F', during which some limited support was promised to the plotters. During the putsch six generals and one lieutenant were killed and their bodies were thrown into a deep well known as Lubang Buaya (Crocodile Hole), at a training field for volunteers of the Malaysia campaign, which had been mostly used by volunteers" of the PKIaffiliated youth organisation and Gerwani. This field lay on the grounds of the military airport, Halim. Before the day was out General Soeharro's forces had managed to cajole and threaten half of the rebel forces into submission". In the meantime President Soekarno had decided not to appoint Soeharto, who was next in line to replace the murdered Chief of Staff, possibly because he considered him too "strong-willed" (Anderson and McVey 1971). Instead he appointed a junior General, Pranoto Reksosamudro. Soeharto ignored the orders ofhis President. He issued his own radio announcement that he had taken over the army leadership to restore security and order (Crouch 1978, 132). Two weeks later Soekarno was compelled to replace Pranoto by Soeharto. Thereafter followed the propaganda campaign, the massacre and mass detainments. Broadly speaking there are three interpretarions" of the events in October 1965 which marked the end of the "Old Order". The army version is that the PKl was the dalang (puppeteer) behind the coup, through its Special Bureau. The fullest account of the army view is given by Notosutanro and Saleh (1967)32. The PKI on the other hand maintained initially that it was an intra-military affair. This version was supported abroad by a paper circulated in 1966 authored by two === [PDF page 10] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 152 social scientists ftom Cornell University, Anderson and McVey 33. A RIMA third interpretation is that Soeharto and possibly the CIA were behind a conspiracy to break the power of the PKI. Holrzappel (1979), Scott (1985), Utrecht (1970) and Wertheim (1979,1991) have elaborated this view.This interpretation stresses the class aspects of both the coup and the propaganda campaign which followed it, pointing our that most victims fell in the areas where peasant unrest had been heaviest. My own interpretation is that Soeharro had shown himself to be both a ruthless and very ambitious man as well as a person able to wait patiently for the right moment to strike. The information he had received-" may have convinced him that the coup was so clumsily planned, with so little actual support that it would be too risky to support it, while it could very easily be put down. He would then come our as the great saviour of the nation and Soekarno would have had no other choice than to appoint him Army Chief. The start of the propaganda campaign which formed the second, "real" coup may have been when Soekarno appointed a junior officer to Army Chief instead, which humiliated and enraged Soeharto and made him realise that his only access to power lay in the removal of President Soekarno. Gerwani and the 1 October 1965 coup In the middle of the eighties I interviewed forty-five women, consisting of the main surviving Gerwani leaders who had just come our of prison and some ordinary members who had been associated with the events around "Lubang Buaya". Just released, they found themselves in an atmosphere of innuendo and accusations in which they and their former organisation had become associated with amoral, anti-religious conduct, with sexual perversions and atrocities, based on the slander stories which the army constructed around what had happened during the nights of September 30 and October 1 1965. My reconstruction of what actually happened at Lubang Buaya, based on these interviews, is as follows: Some seventy women, most of them young girls frorn the yourh organisation, others trom the trade union and the farmers' association and a few Gerwani members, including some wives of soldiers, were assembled at Lubang Buaya by the plotters. Gerwani as an organisation was left out of the plans. === [PDF page 11] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI What happened then? What about the wild accusations which were 153 later hurled at them, of "naked, sexual dancing", of having "severed SEXUAL the penises of the generals", and of having their "eyes gouged out"? METAPHORS How did the generals die 35? One of the assembled women told me the following story, which was corroborated by other interviews I held with surviving members of Gerwani and the youth organisation: A few days before the coup I was picked up by a female party member to be engaged in some extra activities at Halim (the airforce base on which ground Lubang Buaya was located). She never disclosed what was up, but as usual I joined. Once there I was asked to sew stripes of various colours on uniforms to distinguish friends from enemies. It was a lot of work and we worked until late at night. So on the morning of October l st I was sleeping heavily when we were woken up by shouts. It was still dark outside and we were all frightened. We ran to the open space where we saw a group ofsoldiers dragging those kidnapped generals. It was quite a noise, for they kept shouting 'kabir'36 at them. In fact that was quite a common word, we used it all the time. The soldiers hit the generals and finally they were shot and thrown into the well.The soldiers were enraged, they even rained bullets on them when they were alreadydead. Only then, terrified, we also walked to the well. Afterwards they started circulating stories about dancing and sexual perversions, and cutting off penises. All that is bare nonsense. Those generals were deadly scared, they couldn't even get them up! And the girls were scared too, they huddled in a corner! The army went to great lengths to construct the stories they decided to circulate.Witnesses were "quoted" in the papers, photographs wereshown. There were television broadcasts and radio programmes on the horrors said to be committed at Lubang Buaya. How did the military go about that? One of the volunteer girls who had been present at Lubang Buaya: I was sixteen and was a member of the Pemuda Rakyar [the PKI's youth organisation]. I had been trained at Cipete and === [PDF page 12] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 154 had joined many exercises for the Malaysia confrontation so RIMA when I was asked to come to Lubang Buaya I naturally joined. I witnessed the soldiers kill the generals and ran home afterwards. I was arrested at nine 0' clock in the morning and put in prison for two weeks. I was beaten and interrogated. They forced us to undress and to dance naked in front of them while they took pictures. Then I was released. After a little while I was captured again, and released again. In total I was captured five times before they finally decided to keep me in prison. That was at the beginning of November 1965. I was released in December 1982.' The campaign had a slow starr". Although the autopsy results had become available to the authorities, they were not made public. The repon only became known widely when Benedict Anderson got access to it and published an article about ir in 1987. The autopsy demonstrated that the wounds found on the bodies of the killed generals and lieutenant were either gunshots, or resulted from heavy, dull traumas, possibly caused by clubbing with the butts of guns or the damage likely to occur from a fall into a 1G-rnetre well. All the genitals were intact, all eyes were in their proper sockets, and there were no traces of cuts with razors. As General Soeharto himself had ordered the repon to be prepared it is unlikely that he had not been informed of its results before the burial'", Until October 11 th the accounts of Gerwani's involvement in the murder of the generals only referred to the fact that the murders happened 'under the nose of Gerwani' (AB 6/1 0/ 1965 and 8/10/1965). The first indication of the way in which the deeper layers of the Javanese, Islamic consciousness would be manipulated is on October 11tho A small article appeared in the AB which opened with 'Spirits in broad daylight'. The word used for spirit was kuntil-anak, the name of a spirit of a woman who has died in childbirth, who appears as a beautiful woman with a hole in her back. This is a particularly frightening spirit which hovers around at night. 'It has been reponed', the story continued, 'that people "belonging to" [the word === [PDF page 13] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R used is kalap, meaning 'possessed by an evil spirit'] Pemuda Rakyat 155 and Gerwani, umbrella organisations of the PKI-Aidit 39, are SEXUAL committing several terrorist acts. Unknown women have visited METAPHORS the houses of our Heroes, wearing veils as if they belonged to Islamic organisations. Their movements aroused suspicion, for it was clear they were Gerwani members. Fortunately their evil plans became known before they could commit any evil actions towards the families of the Heroes of the Revolution", We have to be very careful' (AB 11/10/1965). The same day an article in the BYM reported on the condition of rhe bodies of the Generals which were found in the well. Contrary to what the autopsy revealed, the paper wrote that 'eyes had been gouged out, and ofsome Generals the genitals had been cut off' (BYM 11/10/ 1965). Other papers took up the campaign as well. It was reported that the Indonesian Council of Churches expressed its feelings ofgreat distress, as 'it truly could hardly believe that certain persons in our Pancasila state are capable of executing actions such as rapes which are beyond human boundaries' (SH 9/10/1965). The Duta Masyarakat carried a short article entitled 'Gerwani was Immoral'. After mentioning that Gerwani members 'touched the genitals of the Generals and exhibited their own', the article continued: ... even, according to sources which can be believed, Gerwani danced in front of their victims naked, which act reminds us of cannibalist ceremonies executed by primitive tribes centuries ago. Let us leave it to the women to judge the womanly morality ofGerwani which is ofan immoraliry worse than animals' (D M 12/10/1965). In November the first press conferences were reported in which prisoners "testified" about their experiences. The AB of 3 November carried a picture of two young, scared girls, with the statement ofa male member of the youth organisation that he saw 'thirty Gerwani members shouting, torturing and playing with the already unconscious General Yani' (AB 3/11/1965). The following day the BY carried a story about beautiful Gerwani members who were ordered to sell themselves: === [PDF page 14] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 156 Documents haveproven the existenceofa "BlackCat" group which RIMA have been entrusted with burning the houses of non-communist people, as wellas the woods, and with destroying vital installations. Linked to this was a group caUed "Black Button" consisting of Gerwani members with beautiful faces who had to sell themselves and align themselves with the leaders of other parties to induce them to support the PKI programme (BY 4/11/1965). Then all papers brought prominently the "honest confession" offifieenyear old, three-months' pregnant Djamilah, nicknamed the "Srikandi ofLubang Buaya". It was reported that both her husband and Djamilah herself were members of the Tandjung Priok branch of the PKI youth organisation. On September 29th she was picked up by a PKI leader for some exercises in Cililitan. That day and the following day we exercised...and at about three o'clock we were woken up...we were instructed to crush the kabirand Nekolim". There were some 500 people collected there, 100 ofwhom were women. The members ofGerwani, including Djamilah, were issued small knives and razorblades....From afar we saw a short fat person entering; he was in his pyjamas. His hands were tied with a red cloth and red cloth was also tied over his eyes. Out leader Dan Ton was ordered to beat up this person, and then they started stabbing with those small knives at his genitals. The first one, as we noticed, to beat and stab the genitals of that person was the chair of Gerwani Tandjung Priok, called S., and Mrs Sas. Then other friends followed... after that we ourselves joined in torturing that person. All 100 of us joined in this activity.... Then he was dragged to the well by men in uniform...but he still wasn't dead. Then a uniformed man ordered Gerwani to continue. The Gerwani women continued as before, stabbing and slicing his genitals and his body until he was dead. I have four accounts ofthis story, AB 5/11, OM and SH 6/11 and BY7/ 11, 1965. It is striking that the wording is exactly the same in all four articles. This suggests that the text was prepared beforehand. Two papers === [PDF page 15] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R carried a picture of Djamilah which again are the same. The source of 157 the story was stated to be the army. It seems that the army didn't trust SEXUAL the "honest confession" of Djamilah enough to let her tell the story METAPHORS herself to the press.This account was highly inflammatory and it became widely known'". After this story the slogans of the students and other groups who were demonstrating included Gerwani Tjabol ("Gerwani Whores"), Gantung Gerwani ("Hang Gerwani") and Ganjang Gerwani ("Crush Cerwani"):". These terms were still quite recently echoing in Indonesian society, as the opening quote demonstrates. Islamic leaders spurred on the massacre which now began to unfold. The Muhammadiyah'" held an emergency meeting on November 9- 11 at which it was declared that the 'extermination of the Gestapu/ PKI and the Nekolim is an obligatory religious duty' (Boland 1982, 146). This call for a holy war was subsequently echoed by many Muslim leaders, who justified the killings as 'the will of Allah". Then in the papers a picture appeared of a frightened girl called Sujati, nicknamed Jossy. A fierce-looking bearded man in a uniform was towering over her. The subscript said that she confessed to have been involved in shooting one of the kidnapped officers, general Yani, both in his home and at Lubang Buaya". 'This Gerwani mernber'" and high school student is another proof', the papers reponed, 'of the evil acts of the Gestapu/PKI, poisoning our young buds... We should never again allow our new generation which is still clean, to be poisoned and provoked by the traitors of our nation' (AB 19/11/1965). In relation to her a few weeks later the first mention was made of the "Golden Horse Award". This award, Jossy is reponed to have confessed, 'was promised by Aidit to anyone who managed to kill a General... The Lubang Buaya executioner', the account continued, acknowledged that she had been trained for six months at Lubang Buaya Barracksand that everyone there had received the amount of rupiah 120,000, excluding food, clothing and military equipment. Also, she said that women and men were engaged in free relationships as they already had received indoctrination that in communism there are no differences between men and women' (MB, second week of December 1965). === [PDF page 16] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 158 President Soekarno in the meantime tried to stem the tide ofviolence. RIMA He decided to publish the results of the autopsy on the bodies of the generals which, as Anderson's article (1987) clarified, revealed that the reports which held that the genitals of the generals were cut off and their eyes gouged out were false. He called on the journalists to keep themselves to the facts and to refrain from publishing lies. Only one paper published this announcement (SH 13/12/1965). But to no avail. A fewdays later the same paper carried the "confession" of Saina. This 17-year old 'member of Gerwani', 'with a child and husband'... told the investigating team that she had been 'injected several times while training for 6 1/2 months at Lubang Buaya after which she feltwild sexual urges'.According to the Head ofthe Interrogarion Team of the Pepelrada" West Java, Major A. Danamihardjo S.H., Saina, during their 6 1/2 months of training, 'had been competing together with 199 other Gerwani members to sexuallyserve 400 men who were also being trained there in the hope of winning the "Golden Horse Award" which D.N. Aidir had promised them'. Saina had often been injected 'which had aroused her to engage in these indecent aces'. She had told the team that 'Aidit had once given a speech at the camp that PKI volunteers did not need to feel constrained by religious rules but that they should have free sex amongst each other'. At the question how it was possible that she 'as a woman could engage in murdering the Generals', Saina explained that 'she could engage in such aces after hearing a speech ofAidir in which he explained that women should be as courageous as men' (SH 8/12/1965). Women's "courage" and their independent behaviour is thus directly associated with sexual perversion and murder. The stories of sexual abuse said to be committed at Lubang Buaya were reported to be more widespread than the incidents on the night of 30 September. A girl named Julie 'confessed weeping that some 40 women had been training in Lubang Buaya in September. Bur she was betrayed for she had been raped there by members ofPemuda Rakyar' (BY 30/1111965). Another aspect of the "training" the women were alleged to have received at Lubang Buaya was "revealed" by Sakinah. 'Apart from sexually serving Pemuda Rakyat members', she was quoted as having said, 'they were also taught to cut the genitals of a cat. Then they were given the task of cutting up two soldiers of the Diponegoro division === [PDF page 17] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI and two traders in Tegal, whom they attracted first by behaving as 159 prostitutes'. In relation to this, the article continued, 'Brigade General SEXUAL Sutjipto hopes that Muhammadijah would accept the challenge to fight METAPHORS against these evil acts' (AB 15/12/1965). It is striking that after these "confessions" none of the women who had been present at Lubang Buaya and who had been detained were ever brought to court. The propaganda advantages to the military of the women telling their stories in the public space of the courtroom would have been immense. Trials were held on much less "evidence?". In December the campaign lost its vigour. Most of the killing in Java had been done, although in Bali the worst killing took place in the second two weeks of December 1965 (Vickers 1989; Schulte Nordholr 1991; Robinson 1995 and 1996). Creation of disorder The above material points to the importance of a gender analysis of the events oflate 1965, a dimension which, as pointed out above, has been almost totally neglected by previous scholarship. Some aurhors'? ignore the significance of the presence of women at Lubang Buaya. Others (e.g. Utrecht 1970; Wertheim 1979) present the mass killings as a revenge for the PKI-inspired unilateral actions. McVey holds that the 'high degree of social tension in the countryside made it easy for the liquidation campaign to become a major massacre' (I 971, 28). By stressing the class aspects of the killings, which indeed formed an important component, most authors ignore gender aspects. Yet this interpretation leavesa wide gap. Apart from Cribb (I 990), Southwood and Flanagan (I 983) and Leclerc (I 99 1), who mention the accusations against Gerwani, only Van Langenberg (I990) discusses the sexual aspects of the propaganda campaign preceding the mass killings throughout the country in some detail. The manipulation of gender ideology however was a much more central factor in the birth of the NeW" Order state than these authors maintain. More attention should be given to the following questions: Why were women and their organisation singled out for the media campaign? Male members of the PKI-affiliated youth organisation had also been involved in the military manoeuvres of the putschists. Yet the accusations against the === [PDF page 18] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 160 youth organisation were not as bitter as those against Gerwani. The RIMA women at Lubang Buaya, although most of them belonged to the youth organisation and not to Gerwani, and others were wives of soldiers, were generally associated with Gerwani, not with the army or with the youth organisation. Why did the military conjure up images of "pornographic dancing" and sliced-off penises? And, if the unilateral actions of the farmers' organisations were the most important trigger for the murders, why weren't members of the Farmers' Front seen as devils? Or the members of the leftist cultural association, because of their ideological work? There were members of the communist trade organisation too at Lubang Buaya. Why wasn't this "revolutionary vanguard" in PKI eyes framed for the killings? In my view the significance of the campaign lies in the deliberate manipulation of the collective cultural and religious conscience of the Indonesian population on which Soeharto built his road to power. To achieve this, the PKI and Soekarno had to be eliminated. But because of Soekarno's great popularity and the large following of the PKI, it was not an easy task Another reason to go slowlyand to first prepare a "mental transition" is pUt forward by Soeharto himself in his autobiography. He explains that a military coup would have been much faster, but that it might have entailed the danger ofa counter-coup, as violence may breed violence". It seems that a climate of disorder deliberately was created exploiting the deep anxietiesofa population that was already badly shaken by the political and socio-economic tensions ofthe period. This disorder struck chords with the Islamic fear of the uncontrolled sexual powers of women, a religiously-inspired apprehension that women's disobedience will endanger the entire social systern'", Hindu notions of all-female maniacal crowds and the male horror ofcastration. Assisted by the army, and especially the troops of Sarwo Edhie, (Crouch 1978; May 1978; Robinson 1995; Utrecht 1970) Islamic youth groups were the major killers", assisted in some places, especially in Bali, by members of the conservative wing of the PNP4. As Utrecht repons, Hindu Balinese saw the killing of people associated with the PKI 'as the fulfillment of a religious obligation to purify the land' (Robinson 1995, 300). Robinson argues that the killings in Bali were spurred by a campaign mounted by the local military and police authorities, === [PDF page 19] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © R who began to resort to the language and techniques 161 developed by national military and party propagandists to SEXUAL inflame passions against the PKI...Later investigations METAPHORS purportedly revealed that Gerwani members in Bali had been instructed to "sell" themselves to ABRI men in order to obtain weapons for the PKI, and having done so, to murder and castrate the soldiers they had seduced (1996, 133-4). Apart from the elements mentioned above, the atmosphere created by the manipulation of sexual symbols around "Lubang Buaya" may have struck a familiar chord among Javanese. A central element in every wayang performance is the gara-gara, a scene performed at the beginning of the second acr ". In a full performance the gara-gara scene is played at midnight. It connotes a disturbance of the equilibrium in nature which can only be solved when the hero, often Arjuna, withdraws to gain inner strength, for instance by visiting a hermit. Usually the gara-gara is accompanied by a fight between the two brothers Petruk and Gareng. Hereafter the hero, who has acquired the needed superior powers, has to conquer the lower drives of humanity in the perang kembang. The hero always wins, as the higher self always has to conquer the lower lusrs". The test of the mental strength of humanity as played out in the gara-gara restores the order of the world which is essential for the survival of humanity. Fighting between "brothers", the conquest of elements from hell and a "mental transition" are thus phenomena to which Javanese people are accustomed. The last months of 1965 can be seen as one huge gara-gara scene, manipulated by one of the most skilful dalang of Indonesian history, General Soeharto. In this metaphor the army is the allconquering, righteous hero, the PKI and especially Gerwani, the lower instincts which have to be conquered for Indonesian society to regain its balance. By manipulating these fears and emerging as the virile hero able to restore order, the army set itself up as the only legitimate powerholder in society. === [PDF page 20] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 162 Soekarno replaced RIMA The traumatic 1965/6 period in Indonesian history marked the change from the Old Order of President Soekarno to the New Order of President Soeharro?", Ostensibly the New Order preached a "return to the Pancasila'" and the constitution of 1945", that is to the state philosophy Soekarno drafted and the firsr, democratic consitution of the Republic. In reality the New Order state was built on a militaristic and patriarchal model of discipline and repression in which any reference to social inequality was denounced as being inspired by or related to "communist subversion". The myth of the birth of the New Order was consciously created and continually recreated by General Soeharro and his allies, in campaigns of indoctrination in which amongst others a film of the so-called "betrayal" of the PKI is used 59. The slander campaign against Gerwani and the PKI in 1965 not only facilitated rhe actual change of power, but it also laid one of the ideological foundations for the continued military rule of the New Order. As Mortimer writes, 'the legitimacy of the Soeharto government rests strongly upon the acceptance of the political public that the PKI committed treason against the state and that by encouraging communists and trying to shelter them even after their treason Soekarno forfeited his right to lead the nation' (1974,420). The form this "treason" took however was not just the Untung putsch. It was the assault on the very basis of morality and religion and thus of the social order itself of which Gerwani was accused. Under Soeharto any resistance to the military was blamed on some "PKI remnant", or the "latent danger" the PKI was said to represent'". It was made clear what that would lead to: chaos in the state and at home, women's sexual powers unleashed, the minds of children poisoned and innocent Islamic men seduced or castrated. Persistence of these strategies in New Order Indonesia President Soeharto tried to ensure that the Lubang Buaya stories were portrayed not as lies bur in a scientific light. To that end, in 1983 the Research Center for Social Sciences (Lembaga Studi Ilmu-Ilmu Kemasyarakatan) published a booklet full of footnotes and other === [PDF page 21] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI scientific paraphernalia. Quoting army sources, the following version 163 of what happened at Lubang Buaya was provided: SEXUAL METAPHORS To heat up the atmosphere the Gerwani dancers stepped up their dancing. They danced the Dance ofthe Fragrant Flowers, which they used to do every night after their exercisesat Lubang Buaya. There were no moral boundaries. Not at all. In a primitive manner the members of Pemuda Rakyat, the BTl and SOBSI were permitted [to do what they liked] with the Gerwani members by the leaders of their military exercises...Then occurred the torturing which was carried out by members of the Gerwani, Pemuda Rakyat, BTl and SOBSI. One of the torturers was Djamilah, at that time only seventeen years old. She hit the prisoners. It was all totally beyond the bounds of humanity. It is not fitting that their cruelty is told in more detail (LSIK 1983, 92). Government sources continued to hammer on the same theme. In 1982 the National Army History Services wrote that during the fateful night of September 30 1965 the waiting Gerwani women 'had already taken their special injections... and were crying hysterically,.. Several Gerwani women went up to the unlucky generals... and were dancing as if they were possessed by devils... (the generals) were butchered by bloodthirsty people who don't know God... Satan reigned there...A feast of the hell took place at Lubang Buaya' (DSTNAD 1982, 126-7). Even today the PKI is associated with these two words: penghianat, "traitor" and biadab, "primitive", "pagan". The PKI is thus excluded from the nation and even from human culture as such'". A monument and museum at the site of Lubang Buaya is being constructed. The well itself was under reconstruction when I last visited Jakarta in 1994. It was being turned into a marble shrine complete with a temple roof intended for the veneration of anticommunism. The enormous museum is called "Museum Penghianatan (Betrayal) PKI". On its two vast floors models of wood and papier mache show every incident in which the PKI was === [PDF page 22] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 164 involved since 1945 behind glass windows. It is the museum of the RIMA victors of 1965/6, intended to create the impression of a treacherous, murderous and thieving PKI, which is all the time confronted by the sincere, invincible army, the true defender of the people. It also contains huge murals of photographs, composed of pictures taken, amongst other places, at Lubang Buaya. Strikingly enough the pictures of the bodies of the generals, terrible enough as they are, show no signs of razor blade cuts, and there are no bloody parches on the place where the castrations should have taken place. All the crotches, as far as visible, are intact. The monument on the same site is called "Monumen Pancasila Sakti Lubang Buaya". It is a huge semi-circular construction in front of a pillar and a statue of the Garuda, the national bird. Statues of the slain generals and lieutenant in vigorous attitudes and in full military attire are placed on a platform. Below them rhe history of Indonesia since 1945 according to Soeharto is presented in a mural. It is here that the full ideological weight of the way the New Order regime, built on the subordination of women and the manipulation of sexual symbols, becomes clear. The central part of the mural is devoted to the events at Lubang Buaya. The generals are being clubbed and thrown into the well. They are surrounded by representations of women. To the left three women are standing. One of them is dressed in a very sexual way and argues defiantly with a man. Both of them are ugly. Beside her two dancing women are arranged, one of whom bears a wreath of flowers (representing the so-called "Dance of the Fragrant Flowers"). Above the well one woman is portrayed, leaning against a tree. She is clad in uniform trousers and a blouse which clearly reveals her full breasts. A knife hangs on her belt. Her posture again is defiant. To the right the scene is dominated by the overpowering figure of general Soeharco. Under his left arm two women are standing, heads down, attitude demure, one of them carrying a baby. The figure of General Soeharto has intervened and turned those defiant, seductive, dangerous and castrating women i n ro the very symbols of obedience and motherhood. The last scene shows the all-powerful General-President Soeharto in front of what is presumably a courtroom. The absolute military and legal power is his G2• === [PDF page 23] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI Conclusion 165 Communism as expressed by the PKI in the fifties and sixties confronted SEXUAL religious, and especially Islamic and Hindu groups, in many ways. But METAPHORS I suggest that apart from the class snuggle, the fear of the bold and free way in which Gerwani women spoke up and fought for what they perceived to be their interests struck a deep chord of anxiety in conservative partS of the population. This facilitated the military manoeuvres to organise the mass murders. This anxiety had definitely sexual overtones and it was these fears that the campaign Major General Soeharto mounted addressed. In my view, conservative parts of the population, especially military and conservative men, became so terrified of what they saw as the castration of their voice by articulate Gerwani members that they translated this fear into the castration of penises. Afraid of becoming speechless by the voice Gerwani gave to women, the conservative parts of the Indonesian public were ready to believe the myth of the sexual castration ofmilitary men. The restoration of order by General Soeharto meant the return to male domination, with women obediently following women's kodrat which Indonesian patriarchy has long constructed. Women's political ambitions were discredited and channeled into the powerless organisations the state established for them'", The central element of the ideologicalfury unleashed around women's involvement in the murders of Lubang Buaya is that Gerwani in its "communist", "perverted" madness had the major hand in torturing and killing the generals, dancing naked, and cutting off their penises. Women members ftom the PKI youth organisation, Pemuda Rakyat, and Gerwani had indeed been assembled at the training camp. My investigation shows however that Gerwani as an organisation was not involved and that the accusations of sexual debauchery are totally unfounded. By neglecting a gender analysis, the extent of the massacres in Indonesia and the ramifications into the present cannot be gauged. The military's lies surrounding the events at Lubang Buaya played on certain deeply held fears of the population, namely that the "communist Beast" would pervert "their" women and that these politically and sexually powerful women would castrate them. I have argued that this manipulation of the consciousness of the Javanese and Balinese masses === [PDF page 24] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 166 became one of the major ideological underpinnings of the New Order RIMA state. Until Soeharto's resignation and the demise of the New Order in 1998, more than three decades after the 1965 putsch, obedience to the Soeharto government was enforced by a combination of military power, fear of the "Communist Beast" and women's subordination. Saskia E.Wieringa teaches at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, Netherlands. Newspaper Abbreviations AB Angkatan Bersenjata BY Berita Yudha DM Dura Masyarakat SH Sinar Harapan === [PDF page 25] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI Notes 167 1. Gerwani is short for Gerakan Wanita Indonesia, Indonesian Women's SEXUAL 2. See for instance Cribb and Brown 1995: 'Sections of the government continue to warn publicly against the "latent danger" said to be presented by the presumably underground PKI, while unexplained disasters, such as major fires, are often blamed on the communists (147)'. 3. Megawati Soekarnoputri is the eldest daughter of the former President, Soekarno. She has become one of the most popular opposition leaders. Prior to the 1997 general election the government decided to replace her and her board. After the new chairman and board had taken over, riots broke out, brought about by an attack on the headquarters of her party by suspected members of the Indonesian Armed Forces. An unknown number of persons were killed or imprisonned. The government accused the small, activist-oriented group PRD (Democratic People's Association) of having infiltrated Megawati's POI, as part of a "communist conspiracy" (the Dutch newspaper NRC 29/7/96; 31/7/96; see also Inside Indonesia no 48, October- December 1996). 4. In his article' How Might the Soeharto Era Conclude?' in Inside Indonesia, no. 48 October-December 1996, p. 13. 5. One year after the coup Soeharto wrote that a "mental transition" was needed to effect the building of the New Order (Soeharto 1966). 6. I thus do not agree with Varikiotis who maintains that those around Soeharto, notably younger officersand radicalstudents 'probably pushed Soeharro into seizing power' (1993, 24). Soeharto himself, in his autobiography, attempts to create this impression. He portrays himself as the humble village boy who was seen by other forces as the only one to be able to savethe country from the chaos in which President Soekarno, misguided by the communists, had plunged the country (Soeharto 1989). 7. In a paper in 1985, entitled 'the Perfumed Nightmare' I first pointed to the way the army under General Soeharto had constructed the campaign around Gerwani's alleged role in the October 1965 coup. Recently, Leclerc in an unpublished paper picked up the same theme, focussing on the monument built at the site on which the generals were murdered, Lobang Buaya (1991). Below I will refer to this monument. === [PDF page 26] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 168 Van Langenberg (1990) has also paid some attention to the construction RIMA of sexual images after the October 1 putsch. See also Saya Shiraishi 1990. 8. Cribb has provided the most extensive accounts of the mass killings so far; he refers to 'a carefully orchestrated campaign of disinformation about evenrs at Halim airforce base...' and gives some examples of this "disinforrnation". His conclusion is that 'the killings were not an outraged response to these specific "events": rather, in the highly charged atmosphere of the times these "revelations" were sufficienr to make the party in general appear to be demonic force whose destruction would be a service to the nation. People were willing to believe these stories not because they particularly fitted with what was previously known about the PKl but because the crisis of the age demanded a culprit.' (1990,29). He does not reflect on the issue of why it was women who were portrayed as having castrated the generals. 9. Tapol is short for tahanan politik, political prisoner, napol for narapidana polirik, convicted political prisoner. The rapo], who had never been tried, were released in 1979, fourteen years after the evenrs of 1965 and had to carry the ET (Ex Tahanan, ex political prisoner) sign on their ID papers until August 1995. But the stigma remained.The few convicted napol were released after their senrences expired. In 1987 a Governmenr Instruction (no 5 of that year) withheld the reduction oflife senrence to twenty years, after five years of "good behaviour". In 1990 four napol who had received the death senrence were executed. Eighteen napol, among whom four are on the death roll, are still in prison. 10. Functions which are officially closed to the ex-tapol are the civil and armed services, and vital enrerprises. They are also not allowed to take up jobs which might bring them into contact with the people, such as journalists, teachers and priests. The legal foundation for these regulations is formed by the 1975 Anti-Subversion Law (Decision of the Pangkopkamtib no 06/Kopkam/Xl related to the 'Surat Keterangan Tidak Terlibat G30S/PKl', Letter ofInformation of not being involved in the PKl 30 September Movement') and the Instruction of the Ministry of Home Affairs no 32 of 1981 related to the 'Guidance and Supervision of the Ex Prisoners and Convicted Prisoners of the PKl 30 September Movement'. === [PDF page 27] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 11. Gerwani was originally called Gerwis, Gerakan Wanita Indonesia 169 Sedar, Movement of Conscious Indonesian Women (Wieringa 1995). SEXUAL 12. Perwari is short for Persatuan Wanita Republik Indonesia, Women's METAPHORS Federation of the Indonesian Republic. 13. WIDF is the Women's International Democratic Federation, a federation of socialist women's organizations, residing in East Berlin until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only in its last years did Gerwani deemphasize the peace issue, in the wake of the anti-Malaysia campaign. 14. For instance the struggle to get women accepted as village leaders. 15. Manipol, Manifesto Polirik, Sukarno's speech on Independence day in 1959, is the ideological basis of Guided Democracy. 16. Garuda is the name of a mythical bird which has become the national symbol. 17. Sugiarri, originally published in 1962, translated in Wieringa (1995, 172). See also the women characters in Umar Kayarn's Sri Sumarah (1980), for instance the story ofBawuk, and Linus Suryadi's Pengakuan Pariyem (1985). Actually the poem plays with a common Javanese saying: surga nunut, neraka katut, (follow [your husband] to heaven, get dragged [with him] into hell). There are few analyses of the concept of women's kodrar, One of the best sources is the letters the Javanese princess RA Karrini wrote at the beginning of the century (the best edition is the one provided by Jaquet in 1987). See also Tiwon (1996). 18. Since the publication of Hildred Ceertz's The Javanese Family in 1961 there has been a lot of debate on women's supposed autonomy versus their subordination. For views on gender ideology see Mather 1985, Sears ed. 1996a, Sullivan 1994, Wieringa 1995 and Wolf 1992. 19. See for instance Anderson and McVey 1971; Crouch 1978; Gunawan 1968; May 1978; McVey 1971; Mortimer 1969, 1974; Pauker 1969; Pluvier 1973; Southwood and Flanagan 1983; Tornquist 1984; Utrecht 1970; Wertheim 1979, 1991. 20. The present government usually speaks of the October 1 "coup". I prefer the word "putsch" for this event, as its intention was not to replace the legal president, but to effect a leftward swing of the government. 21. SeeCribb (1990) for an overviewofthe sources related to the massacre. 22. According to Mernissi the Arabic concept of htna refers to the kind of disorder and chaos which is associated with women's sexual === [PDF page 28] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 770 attraction that makes men lose their self control (1975, 4). In RIMA Indonesian fitna has come to mean slander in general. 23. The most extensive account is that by Southwood and Flanagan (1983) who briefly refer to the way Gerwani was implicated in the propaganda campaign waged by the group around General Suharto. 24. Pohan (1988) calls this second coup the "creeping coup" in which Soeharto wrested power from Soekarno, but fails to refer ro the manipulation ofsexual symbols which created the atmosphere in which this "creeping coup" took place. 25. See notes 2 and 3 on the "latent danger" communism is said to present to Indonesian society. 26. This is for instance enacted in the various Dharma Wanita and Dharma Perriwi groups which are organized at present to assist men in their workplaces (Wieringa 1985; 1995). 27. See also Cribb and Brown (1995, 97). They conclude that 'Indonesian people were ready to believe that a demonic force was responsible for their plight (1995,104)'. 28. See testimonies of Peris Pardede (in Gunawan 1968), Nyono and Sudisman (for instance in Crouch 1978; May 1978 and Mortimer 1974,419). 29. Other organizations, for instance religious groups, had organized training camps for their volunteers as well. It was thus not only the "leftist family" that had its young members trained. 30. Crouch writes that the coup group had failed to ensure supplies of food and drink for the soldiers in the Merdeka square, the occupation of which was one of the major feats of the rebels (1978, 130). 31. I will not consider here a fourth interpretation, provided by Dake (1973), who maintains that Sukarno was behind the whole affair. His view is based on the testimony of Bambang S. Widjanarko, an adjudant of President Soekarno (see also Crouch 1978, 119-22). See Manai Sophiaan (1994) for a carefully-argued refutation of Soekarno's involvement in the first "coup". 32. In 1974 Notosutanto became the head of the History Section of the Armed Forces (Klooster 1985, 134-6). 33. It was first circulated anonymously to friends and colleagues. The full version was finally published in 1971. The paper was written before PKI leaders had testified to their involvement. === [PDF page 29] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 34. Colonel Latief met Suharro on the eve of the putsch, see for instance 171 Wertheim 1979 and 1991. SEXUAL 35. This is the title of an article by Ben Anderson (1987) who has METAPHORS studied the autopsy reports composed by a team of five experts in forensic medicine who examined the bodies of the seven murdered military men. 36. Kabir is an acronym to denote "capitalist bureaucrat". This word was especially used to discredit the army officers who had become the managers of confiscated Dutch and British properties, and who had amassed great wealth. It is also an Arabic word meaning 'great', and usually refers to Allah. 37. For information on the development ofthe campaign against Gerwani I made use of direct army sources, that is the papers Angkatan Bersenjata (AB, "Armed Forces"), Berita Yudha (BY, "Army News") and Dura Masyarakat (0M, "Envoy ofSociety"). These newspapers had a general and broad circulation. For most articles referred to below the army is directly stated as the source. Another newspaper referred to is the Protestant Sinar Harapan (SH, "Ray of Hope"). Unfortunately I had no access to the radio programmes which were the major transmitters of news to the masses of the population, nor to the television broadcasts. 38. See also Anderson 1987. 39. Aidit was the chair of the PKI. 40. This refers to the military men killed on October 1. Soekarno had them promoted and called them the "Heroes of the Revolution". 41. These terms are pan of the rhetoric of the last years of Sukarno's Old Order. Nekolim refers to neo-colonial forces. 42. See for instance Virrachi 1967. 43. See Buku Putih (1994, 2). 44. Islamic Reform Movement. 45. See Cribb (1990) for the role ofIslamic youth groups. Schwanz refers to the involvement of Islamic youth groups in the killings as a Jihad, or Islamic holy war (1994, 21). 46. According to May, Yani was captured by a squad of some 200 palace guards who shot him in his house. He died in the truck that brought him to Lubang Buaya (1978, 95). This Story is corroborated by an account of Yani's death in BY 5-12-1965. 47. Neither jossy nor "Saina", see below, had belonged to Gerwani, as === [PDF page 30] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 172 my sources testify (Wieringa 1995). RIMA 48. The Pepelrada were the Regional Authorities to Implement Dwikora (Pengusaha Pelaksana Dwikora Daerah). They were abolished in July 49. See Amnesry International (1977) and Southwood & Flanagan (1983) for trials which have been held. 50. For instance the early account ofGunawan (968). See also Pohan (988), who provides one of the most sophisticated analyses of this history from a "progressive" Indonesian perspective, and who dwells at large on the "creeping coup" which brough Soeharto to power, ignores the impact of the campaign of slander waged againsr Gerwani. 51. SeeSoeharto 1991, chapters 24 - 26. In his autobiography he ignores the masskillings.When he speaksofviolence in this context he only refers co military acrion against other military units, nor againsr civilians. 52. See Mernissi 1996 for an exploration of rhis rheme. 53. Manai Sophiaan quotes an interview in Editor of September 1993 with the chair of one of the major Islamic parties at the rime, the NU, K.H. Abdurrachman Wahid, who said that 'Islamic people alone slaughtered 500,000 ex-PKI' (1994, 311). 54. The massacre was strongest in East Java, Central Java and Bali. For Balisee Crouch (1978, 152), Schulte Nordholr (1991) and Vickers (1989). Robinson 0995, 1996) recently revealed that in Bali notions of Gerwani's sexual depraviry were imported from Java. 55. The wayang performance is typically divided into three acts. The wayang, the Javanese form of shadow puppet theatre, is extremely popular in Java, and is one of the main transmitters of culrural values. See also Sears 1996b. 56. See Clara van Groenendael (1985) and Ras (1976) for a fuller account of wayang and the significance of the gara-gara scene. Ras in his translation of the Soebadra Laroeng play provides a beautiful example of a gara-gara scene, for example: 'The mountains, which used to support the earth as wedges, are staggering and the earth, its equilibrium distorted, collapses.What a misery! One earthquake follows another...the dead are everywhere;... the strong ones assault the weak. The order ofthe Middle World isdestroyed...The crisis in nature reaches its zenith. The world has a sad appearance and deep darkness reigns all over. Flashes of lightning cross, a furious storm rages through the === [PDF page 31] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI atmosphere. The tail of the Holy Snake Anantaboga strikes co and fro; 173 the Holy Cow Andini puts up her horns; it is as if the cauldron of hell SEXUAL is being stirred so that it overflows and its seething mudpulp spreads METAPHORS over the earth, increasing its misery...The mind ofthe Creator is pleased. He has put co test the Middle World co remind it of Him who created the world...' (Ras 1976, 167-8). 57. The major step in this change of power was the instruction Soekarno was manipulated into giving to Soeharro, in which Soeharto was entrusted with wide powers to rescore order. The instruction has been given the acronym of 'Supersernar', after its title 'Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret' (Instruction of 11 March). But it has also another connotation: Semar is a principal wayang figure, both a God and the main servant ofArjuna. Soeharto then purged the highest body in the country, the MPRS (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat Sernentara, People's Provisional Consultative Council), from supporters of Soekarno. In March 1967 when the MPRS met, Soeharto was promoted co Acting President. 58. The Pancasila contains the following five principles: belief in one God, respectfor human values, nationalism, democracy,and socialjustice. 59. It is shown regularly on tv, for instance on October 1st of every year. 60. See for instance Manai Sophiaan (1994, 244). 61. See Leclerc (1991) for an elaboration of this theme. 62. Leclerc (1991) was the first co point to the ideological messages this Monument conveys. 63. See also Wieringa 1985 for an elaboration of this point. === [PDF page 32] === Downloaded from search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2026033000004091650417276. University of Calgary, on 10/14/2026 02:20 PM AEST; UTC+10:00. © RI 174 References RIMA Amnesty International. 1977. Indonesia, An Amnesty International Report. London. Anderson, Benedict. 1987. How Did the Generals Die? Indonesia 43:109-35. Anderson, Benedict R., and Ruth T. McVey. 1971. A Preliminary Analysis ofthe October 1, 1965 Coup in Indonesia. Ithaca: Modern Indonesia Project Cornell University, Interim Report. Boland, B.J. 1982. The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia. The Hague: Nijhoff. Buku Purih. 1994. The Gesrapu 'Coup'. Mystery Almost Solved'! Jawa Pos. Minggu 2 Ocrober: 13. Clara van Groenendael, Victoria M. 1985. 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