Wahyoe Boediwardhana, Blitar – At 78, former legislator Putmainah's eyes light up when she recounts her past activities in the women's division of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
"Now is the time for my grandchildren to continue this struggle. My time is over, it's your task is to fight capitalism so it will not oppress the people, like what Bung Karno (president Sukarno) fought for," Putmainah said.
Clad in a flowery cream gown, the former head of PKI Blitar Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani), spoke to The Jakarta Post in her house in the town's Pakis Rejo village.
The mother of six said many experiences still weighed on her heavily, especially the ill treatment she received from the military and the government after the 1965 coup and the bloodletting that followed.
Unlike less lucky party members who were rounded up an summarily executed in the months after the attempted 1965 coup – the death toll in the violence is estimated to be at least 80,000 – Putmainah was not arrested until 1968, when she was hiding out with other PKI members in the Nggayas caves in Blitar. After being imprisoned in 16 jails, she served at least 10 years in the Plantungan women's penitentiary in Kendal, Central Java.
"The government still regards us as a menace. If I entertain many guests – even now – someone will report it to the police, and an officer will come the next day and ask a lot of questions," Putmainah said.
During her interview with the Post, several people were seen walking up and down the street and watching the house discretely.
Putmainah, a former member of the House of Representatives from 1955 to 1965, said she only gained the right to vote again in the 2004 elections during president Megawati Soekarnoputri's term.
During that period, she was asked to attend village meetings. After several of these occasions, things turned sour when she was courageous enough to criticize local officials' poor performances. She has never attended the meetings again. "It seems they are so afraid and think that I will stir up trouble again," Putmainah said.
While the government now officially recognizes the rights of former PKI members and their children, Putmainah says the changes are meaningless at the grassroots, where she still faces routine discrimination.
Syamsu Bachri, 72, a former reporter at the Jakarta-based Kebudayaan Baru daily, affiliated with the PKI, said the 2004 law setting up the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (KKR), had done little to improve things for former PKI members. "To me, the commission... is just a government ploy to shun responsibility for the bloody 1965 tragedy," he said.
Syamsu, who was imprisoned on Buru island from 1969 to 1979 together with the late writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, said he would accept the KKR law if articles that disadvantaged former political prisoners were revised. Article 27, which states "perpetrators of the 1965 incident" would be given amnesty before they were allowed to reconcile with their "victims", was especially in need of a change, he said.
The article is confusing because it does not state clearly who the perpetrators and the victims are, he said. The country's history books blame the PKI members as being behind the attempted 1965 coup, although the communists and their supporters were the main targets of the violence that followed.
Syamsu said the stigmatization that followed also impacted on his children; something that has never been righted. His third son, he said, failed to graduate from the Air Force Academy in 1998 after the Indonesian Military (TNI) discovered he was the son of a former political prisoner.
Syamsu said the government should immediately rehabilitate the reputations and compensate former members of the PKI and their offspring for the injustices they had suffered. People would not be suspicious of former PKI members if the government did not restrict their rights and stigmatize them, he said.
The chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama's Research Commission on Victims of the 1965 Incident (Lakpesdam NU) in Blitar, Lutfi Hafidz, said the continuing discrimination against former political prisoners made the KKR law "nonsense". "Most... prisoners have found the KKR law a lie and something that has ended up being used to repress them, meaning they no longer feel free to talk about the past," he said.
The son of the leader of the Pesantren Al Kamal Islamic boarding school in Wonodadi district, Lutfi is currently working to reconciliate former political prisoners with people in Blitar.
"The KKR can't serve as their legal protection. In their daily lives, almost all of the victims are still intimidated and get depressed every time they see government officials or military personnel in uniform," Lutfi said
He said true reconciliation would only occur if a faction in government was set up to fight for former PKI members' rights. "If they were wrong, then please forgive them. Basically, no one wants to make mistakes all the time. That's what all people have to understand – that history happened," he said.