Ex-minister Subandrio dead at 90

Ex-minister Subandrio dead at 90

Former deputy prime minister Subandrio, who was imprisoned for 30
years for his alleged involvement in an abortive coup in 1965,
died on Saturday due to old age.

He was buried at Jeruk Purut public cemetery in South Jakarta
later that day.

Born in 1914 in Surabaya, Subandrio was sentenced to death in
1966 for his alleged role in the failed coup on Sept. 30, 1965,
which was blamed on elements of the Army and the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI).

The verdict was reduced to life imprisonment after Britain's
Queen Elizabeth and then U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson asked
that he be spared.

The coup eventually led Sukarno to hand power to strategic
reserves commander Maj. Gen. Soeharto, who had taken steps to
crush the PKI.

Thousands of alleged party members were imprisoned in a
maximum security prison on Buru island, Maluku, without trial,
including noted writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Human rights groups
said hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the aftermath
of the coup attempt.

Subandrio, who also served as foreign minister under president
Sukarno, was released from Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta
in 1995.

A graduate of the Jakarta Medical School, Subandrio denied
involvement in the coup attempt and in 2000 appealed to then
president Abdurrahman Wahid to clear his name.

In his unprinted memoir titled "Kesaksianku Tentang G30S"(My
testimony on the G30S coup), Subandrio, who was often criticized
when he chaired the Central Intelligence Bureau (BPI), said he
was imprisoned because he was close to Sukarno.

He said Sukarno's successor Soeharto had manipulated the coup
for his own interests and asked the People's Consultative
Assembly to endorse Sukarno's letter called Supersemar as a
"transfer of power".

At the beginning of the independence era, Subandrio was
installed as secretary-general of the ministry of information,
before he was appointed as the country's representative head in
London (1947-1954) and ambassador to the Soviet Union (1956-
1957).

A friend of former prime minister Sjahrir, Subandrio was a
member of the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI), before he joined
the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI) and adopted a radical
nationalist stance.

Subandrio was viewed by many as pro-communist and pro-Chinese
due to his idea to set up the Jakarta-Pnom Penh-Hanoi-Peking-
Pyong Yang political axis.

Two volumes of his speeches have been published under the
title Indonesia on the March.

After his wife died in 1974, while serving his sentence at the
penitentiary, Subandrio married Sri Kusdyantinah, the widow of
Col. Bambang Supeno.

Subandrio was often reported to know the whereabouts of the
so-called revolution funds, which were raised by the Sukarno
administration. The existence of the assets has never been
proven.