M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – Two scholarly treatises on Indonesian communism remain banned more than 40 years after the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was obliterated in the wake of an abortive coup.

The Attorney General's Office (AGO) and the Customs and Excise Office prevented the entry of the two books imported by Jakarta-based publisher Equinox.

Copies of the Indonesian Communism Under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics by Australian historian Rex Mortimer and The Rise of Indonesian Communism by Indonesianist Ruth McVey are now being held in customs pending approval from the AGO for their release.

Publisher Mark Hanusz of Equinox said he wrote to the AGO asking for the books' release, but found himself mired in red-tape. "After we sent the letter, they called and said they needed a copy for review. We told them the only copy we have is with the customs office," Hanusz told The Jakarta Post.

Equinox printed a limited number of the two books in the US to test the local market, but those held in Customs are the proofs of the works.

The books are part of a series called Classic Indonesia, a collection of books published by the Cornell University Press and long out of print. Mortimer's work was published in 1974, while McVey's book was originally published in 1965 as the wave of anti-communist sentiment got underway.

Hanusz believes many other scholarly works on communism remain banned. "In spite of the media opening and the closing of the information ministry, there is still censorship for books about communism."

AGO spokesman I Wayan Pasek Suarta said it was hardly surprising the books were withheld. "Learning from their titles, the books could be categorized as materials that could disrupt the country's ideological foundations and provoke the rise of communist movement."

However, after the Post informed him they were academic works, Wayan said approval could be given for their release after two or three months.

He noted the AGO could ban books based on their contents under the 2004 law on its scope of authority. "Everyone should also bear in mind that the decree of the People's Consultative Assembly that bans the propagation of Marxism and Communism is still intact."

The AGO spokesman was unaware that Indonesian-language versions of Karl Marx's Das Kapital and works by Vladimir Lenin, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Leon Trotsky are widely available in bookstores throughout the country.