Ronna Nirmala – Petrus Sadino embarked on a 577-kilometer journey by train in the dead of the night from his hometown of Klaten, Central Java, arriving in Jakarta on Tuesday morning to push for the re-opening of his case that is now 44 years old.

The 59-year-old said he was just one of many victims of the anti-communist purge which saw the downfall of Indonesia's first President Sukarno and gave rise to former President Suharto.

In 1968, three years after the purge began, then-15-year-old Petrus was arrested and accused by the military of being the local leader of the now-disbanded Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

"The soldiers were looking for my uncle," Petrus said at the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Tuesday.

He was speaking ahead of Komnas HAM's scheduled announcement of its conclusion into its four-year investigation into the anti-communist purge.Petrus said he had similarly sounding name with his uncle Sadimo, a former PKI member who has been on the military's most-wanted list since 1965.

"[The military] accused me of being my uncle. They didn't want to hear my explanation," he said. "They arrested me, a junior-high school student, and accused me of being a [communist] leader. Where is the logic in that? But they didn't want to hear it."

Petrus said he was detained and tortured so badly that he passed out, waking up days later to find himself locked in a prison in Solo. "I was battered," he said, showing scars that he has since carried on his head and legs. "I was beaten with a wooden chair so badly that the chair shattered."

Petrus was incarcerated without a trial for two years before the military acknowledged his innocence. He returned home only to find that his whole village had been ransacked – allegedly by the military – while its inhabitants were arrested or massacred except for one person who escaped the purge.

But even with no charges officially laid against him, Petrus said he was forced to endure years of stigma as a former "political prisoner" which extended to his future children and grandchildren.

"My children find it hard to be accepted in schools. They can't be civil servants because of our bloodline," said Petrus, who later started a business in furniture.

Agus Wijoyo also carried the stigma of a former communist sympathizer, though he wasn't directly involved in any communist movement.

Born in 1970, five years after the communist purge began, the 42-year-old recounted the days when he enrolled in an Army academy in Semarang in 1985. "I was in my fifth day at the military camp and suddenly I was sent home without any reason," Agus said at the Komnas HAM office.

Upset that his lifelong dream of joining the military abruptly shattered, he confronted his superior officers who told him that he was rejected for being the family of PKI members. "I was enraged, upset, disappointed and puzzled. I never knew what the PKI was and none of my family ever mentioned it to me," he continued.

When he broke the news to his family at his hometown in Tegal, Central Java, he discovered the truth. Most of his family had at one time joined the PKI or one of its wings and paid dearly for their brief encountered with the movements.

"Our houses were burned down, our possessions looted and some of our family members shot and killed," he said.

Agus, Petrus and 30 other victims of the communist purge went to see Komnas HAM commissioners on Tuesday, most from remote parts of Java, hoping to find some sort of resolution for their cases.

In 2008, the Komnas HAM vowed to reopen the cases and provide the victims, most of them aging, with some of form of justice and restitution. With most of the main culprits from the purge already dead, the victims demanded at least official government recognition and apologies for years of hardship they have endured.

But even after interviewing 350 victims and witnesses of the purge and with their terms ending in August, Komnas HAM investigators failed to reach any conclusions in their probe, unable to determine whether there had been gross human rights violations.

"Personally, I would say yes there have been gross human rights violations. We can even see it with our eyes," Komnas HAM commissioner Nurkholis said. "Even inside the team there are those for and against" concluding that human rights violations were committed, he said.

Nurkholis, who headed the investigation team, said this split had forced the rights commission to delay the final announcement of the results of the investigation.

"I've asked for another three days. We've also decided that whichever [commissioner] fails to show up will not [have their opinion] counted, even though this is a very important decision," he said.

He added that the case was tied to the interests of several groups but stressed that his team was not siding with any party. "Our investigation isn't political. This is about how we can create conditions leading to significant progress in rights [protection]," he said.

Nurkholis also said that should the team conclude that the 1965-66 tragedy was a human rights violation, then Komnas HAM will demand an official apology from the government, a restoration of the good standing of the victims or their descendants and compensation.