Carmel set to keep on contributing

By Helly Minarti

LONDON (JP): Few of us have had the privilege of witnessing a vital part of history taking place, and not many of the few who do manage to survive to see the tables turn. British-born Carmel Budiardjo, founder of Tahanan Politik (political prisoners, Tapol), is one of the few caught in the middle of the most turbulent times in Indonesian modern history in the mid 1960s and lived to see things change.

Married to Suwondo Budiardjo, an Indonesian, Carmel moved to Indonesian and took out citizenship. She was arrested in 1968 and imprisoned for three years without trial because of her so-called links to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), of which she was never a member.

"That really changed my life. I became a human rights activist not because I studied human rights theoretically. It's very much because I was a victim," she said rather emotionally. After such long years in oblivion --she was arrested in 1968, three years after the Sept. 30 abortive coup -- during which her British family and friends tried many ways to obtain her release, she was finally given her freedom in 1971. Because her British citizenship had been reinstated, she was forced to leave Indonesia.

"I felt I had a very, very strong moral obligation in a way -- I had to be careful not to use it -- it was like as if I had betrayed the other women (that stayed)," she said. "Of course, I discussed it with some other women in prison, that I felt rather mean to leave. Should I do this ... and they said, 'yeah, go... go ... go, tell our stories. It's not a courageous thing to stay'."

So she left for England in November 1971, leaving behind her husband, who remained imprisoned for another seven years. Back in London, she established Tapol in 1973. The organization was initially set up to campaign for the release of political prisoners in Indonesia, but it later expanded to deal with any human rights violation in the country.

Since then Tapol has been engaged in campaigns concerning the East Timor issue, Aceh and many other cases related to human rights violations. In a recent letter to President Abdurrahman Wahid, the organization appealed to him to settle the bloody incidents of Tanjung Priok in 1984 and of Lampung in 1987.

Politics has never really been far from Carmel's life. Born to a Jewish family in 1925, Carmel had been always drawn to student political activities. After finishing her studies she attended several international student conferences. Among them was one which took place in Prague in 1946. A year later she got a job at the secretariat of the International Union of Students (IUS), where she met an Asian crowd and was soon drawn to a small circle of Indonesian students. "I don't know why (in her book she said that she really enjoyed their relaxed and sociable manner). But it was my turning point, when I got to know Indonesians," she said.

Carmel fell in love with one of them, Suwondo Budiardjo, whom she married in 1950. Two years later she and their eldest daughter, Tari, moved to Jakarta, following Budiardjo. In Jakarta, Carmel soon settled in, first as a translator for Antara news agency, and later as a researcher at the foreign ministry. She later attended the University of Indonesia and obtained a master's degree in economics. From there she embarked on a teaching career.

In her spare time, Carmel helped translate documents for the PKI, an activity that later brought her under suspicion in regard to her possible involvement in the 1965 coup attempt.

"Why I was close to them? I don't know. My political preferences have always been very left-wing. I was particularly attracted by the PNI (Indonesian National Party)."

During her years in prison, unlike many other Indonesian women prisoners whose experiences she witnessed, Carmel did not go through any physical torture except a series of interrogations, which is etched in her mind as a haunting experience at the hands of a soldier named Atjep.

"Thanks for reminding me of his name. I was trying to remember it last night," she said, casually. "I don't feel revengeful. But I do think he should be tried for very, very serious crime -- if he is still alive."

She also has no regrets that some of her activities were often cynically viewed by the former Indonesia's government, which stamped her "the anti-Indonesia activist". When she contributed to John Pilger's film Death of A Nation: The Timor Conspiracy, it was deemed by one critic in this newspaper as providing "loony literature" on Indonesia. "I was one of his main sources for his film on East Timor, and I think Pilger made a good and powerful film," said Carmel firmly.

In her memoirs, Surviving Indonesia's Gulag (recently translated into bahasa Indonesia), Carmel records not only the hardships she endured behind bars, but also relates the stories of other Indonesian prisoners who went through a much rougher time and ends it with the hope "that I live long enough to celebrate his (Soeharto) downfall and demise, and to see the creation of a democratic Indonesia".

Now that the wish has come true, Carmel surprisingly fell silent when asked how she felt about it, taking quite a moment to cautiously arrange her words. "I think it was something great to celebrate. I kept this newspaper -- I think it was The Jakarta Post's I QUIT headline (short laugh).

"Yes, I think this is, well, a huge relief for almost everybody," she said rather flatly. "But personally, for me Soeharto's major crimes are not so much corruption, (but) the crime against humanity that started right back in 1965, (which) made everything possible (for him)."

Her husband was released in 1978 and soon after followed her to Britain. But the couple later split up. "I think the prison experience has broken up a lot of families. In some cases it brings you together, in others it pulls you apart," she pondered. "After my release, I came to Britain and I became very much preoccupied with human rights. And I think when he came here, our relationship was already very loose by then. But it's also because I was running this organization and it was very difficult for him to fit into this. He just wanted a completely different world of his own."

Even in the era of reform, Carmel's name remains on a blacklist, barring her entry into Indonesia. She wrote to Gus Dur, as the Indonesian President is popularly called and who she hopes will bring good changes to Indonesia, appealing to him to have her name removed from the blacklist. "I would like to do three things when I visit Indonesia. First, to meet all my prison mates. I'm always getting messages from them.

"Second, to meet the present generations, activists, people who are young enough to be my grandchildren with whom I have a lot of links because I had for quite a few years been exchanging information. Third, to meet my husband's family."

Now, in her mid 70s, Carmel Budiardjo shows neither the frailty nor vulnerability of a person her age, except for a hearing aid. She moves swiftly around her South London house from where she also runs Tapol with four others.

"This is what keeps me going, fit and reasonably healthy because I think I've got a lot to do. And I think I'll go on contributing," said the mother of two and grandmother of four, none of whom live in Indonesia anymore.