Ex-prisoners ostracized by children

Rusman, The Jakarta Post, Samarinda

The sun has just risen on the horizon, and Rahmat, 65, was tilling the land to grow beans. The land, on part of which he grows vegetables, is not his, but has been lent to him by a church. He still looks strong for his age.

He was a soldier with his final rank being that of corporal first class. However, his life changed following the incident on Oct. 1, 1965, in Jakarta in which six army generals were murdered.

After what is described in Indonesia as the abortive coup attempt, he was accused of being a member of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI)'s Youth Wing (PR). For seven years, his accusers struggled to make the accusation stick, and for seven years he was questioned. Eventually, he says he was forced to admit his involvement in the organization.

He was accused of being a PKI member as he often performed in ludruk (a traditional east Java folk play whose actors are all men), even though he just played minor roles. He says he was never involved with the PKI. Five of his fellow soldiers from the same battalion were also detained. He was accused of being the leader as he held the highest rank among the group of accused soldiers.

"I played in the ludruk just for fun, and it had no connection with the PKI. I performed only small roles every now and then, only when I was needed," he said.

He was arrested in 1970 and released from detention in 1977, when the government immediately exiled him to the jungles of Argosari subdistrict, Samboja district, Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan, some 80 kilometers south of Balikpapan, the largest city in East Kalimantan.

But freedom did not serve to erase the sorrow. "The thing that makes me sad after being released is that my children won't recognize me as their father. They are ashamed of having a father who is a murderer, even though I never did any such thing," he said.

"For us, life now is just spending our remaining days in uncertainty. Our lives and being ignored by our own children is heartbreaking. But we can only resign ourselves to our fate. The most important thing is our children's well-being," he said. Now, Slamet's children live happily in Balikpapan, not far from where he stays. He has seven grandchildren from his three children.

However, none of his three children ever visited him during his stay in the isolated village. Their first and last meeting since his arrest was in 1993. He said that he had forced himself to meet them as he longed fervently to see them.

Things turned out disappointingly. "I, their father, was looked down upon as a beggar. Since then, we have never met and I don't know how they are now," he said dejectedly.

A similar fate has befallen Saenah, 74, a housewife who was active in the Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani), an organization affiliated to the PKI.

When she was released on parole, her husband, a civil servant, ignored her. "That was the saddest moment for me," she said.

During the time she was being questioned as a suspect, her six children never visited her as they were ashamed of their mother's status. "My third child visits me once in a blue moon, while I've never seen my other children since then," said Saenah.

Due to the situation, Saenah eventually opted not to live with them, but in Argosari village, a place of banishment for others accused of being involved in the organization, to spend her old age in solitude. "Many friends of the same fate live in this village. I prefer to stay here rather than the outside where people continue to ostracize people like us," she said.