Jakarta – For some, the end of September is the time of year that brings back memories of family tragedies and loosing their rights to justice simply because their ideological affiliations were not in line with that of the winner of a power struggle during the decisive year of the mid 1960s.
Post Sep. 30, 1965, the rising-to-power New Order government, under then president Soeharto, jailed thousands of ordinary people without trial or stigmatized them as being communist, then used as a demonized label that helped the New Order authoritarian ruler to come into power.
M. Iswara, 83, is one of the citizens who was summoned for police questioning in 1966 for reasons then unclear to him. "I was so scared to death at that time, I thought I would end up dead," he told The Jakarta Post. He was then a lecturer on Accounting at (then) leftist Res Publica University (Ureca) that was under the Consultative Body for Indonesian Citizenship (Baperki), the Chinese political party.
Baperki was accused of being affiliated with the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and was disbanded by the government after the Sep. 30, 1965 tragedy, which is often referred to as a "failed coup" allegedly instigated by the PKI.
There was a nation-wide anti-Communist propaganda campaign. Many people were killed. Some said the death toll exceeded 1 million, while some others were exiled.
Iswara said that in the police headquarters he was interrogated for the whole day before he was finally released. "I don't know why they released me, because I heard many others were imprisoned. Maybe it was just my luck."
He was asked whether he was a member of Baperki and why he was teaching at Ureca, now Trisakti University in West Jakarta. "I replied that almost all people of Chinese descent were members of Baperki. And I was the only Chinese who graduated from the Accounting Department of the University of Indonesia, therefore I was called to the job in Ureca," Iswara said.
It was common for Chinese-Indonesians at that time to affiliate to the Baperki which was regarded as accommodating their aspirations, but they were not necessarily leftist.
Iswara was indeed lucky as many others were arrested without trial, tortured, murdered or banished. There were others who disappeared, like Larasati, who was taken away from her family because she was active in the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani). Gerwani was affiliated with PKI, but was an independent organization concerned with socialist and feminist issues, including labor rights and Indonesian nationalism. The organization was later banned and thousands of its members raped and killed.
The Army alleged Gerwani members had helped to kill the generals but most contemporary historians disagree with such allegations.
Maryoto, 75, Larasati's younger brother, said that he never met his sister again after she was taken away. "I don't know who took her. I have no idea whether she is still alive. Our family did not try to find her because we were afraid that we could end up just like her," Maryoto said.
He felt guilty for not trying to find his sister, however, things were much more complicated at that time, he said. "I was even afraid to tell other people that I lost my sister because they could label us as being affiliated with PKI," he said.
The organization was founded in 1950, and had about 1.5 million members in 1965. (not)