Firdha Novialita – Activists have urged a government minister who previously appeared to express sympathy with those involved in the 1965 purge of alleged communists to explain himself.

Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, last week urged the public to take a "wider perspective" in assessing the acts of violence.

Nongovernmental organizations – including the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy and the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) – lambasted Djoko for "speaking on behalf of the state perpetrators of violence in the past."

"The minister should have taken a neutral stance in addressing calls for a resolution to the incidents of 1965," the groups said in a joint statement on Monday.

"A neutral stance would have shown the appropriate respect for the findings of an investigation by Komnas HAM," they added, referring to the National Commission on Human Rights, which researched the issue.

Responding to calls for a government probe into the year-long purge in which some 500,000 people were estimated to be killed, Djoko said the crackdown was warranted in the wake of an alleged coup attempt officially blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

"Look at it in a wider perspective. We can't just apologize without looking at what really happened in the 1965 incident," he said on Oct. 1. "If we want to look at history, for example the 1965 [incident], we have to look at it based on the perspective in 1965."

Komnas HAM earlier this year found there were gross human rights abuses by the authorities during that period. It recommended that the government settle the cases of rights violations and called on the president to issue an official apology.