Former PKI prisoners still waiting for freedom

The Jakarta Post, Surabaya/Kutai Kartanegara

For the suspected members of the outlawed Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI) and their families, the country's anniversary celebration has always been a bitter time, bringing back old memories.

Tjahjono, 70, could not control his emotions and broke down into tears as he recalled the time last year when his daughter was denied an application to become a teacher in an elementary school in Pontianak simply because of the "special mark" on her identity card.

The card bears the code 001, a "scarlet letter" that was forced upon everybody related to PKI's accused members. And his daughter was not the only one who suffered. Tjahjono's three other children also were turned down by private and state institutions, and now are all unemployed.

"I feel disappointed in the government because my children have to suffer, although they don't even know what really happened at that time," the chairman of New Order Victims Rehabilitation in Malang told The Jakarta Post.

The former civil engineering lecturer at the Malang Teachers Institute, who lost his job after accusations that he was a PKI supporter, claimed he was accused simply because he was close friends with PKI supporters.

"I knew nothing about PKI, but people just didn't care. They thought that because I was close to some supporters, I was one of them," he said.

The PKI was accused of masterminding the bloody failed coup by on Sept. 30, 1965 -- referred to by Indonesia's historians as the September 30 Movement, or GS-30 -- which resulted in the killings of several military generals. Former president Soeharto rose to power after the failed coup, and his government sent thousands of PKI members and their relatives to prison without trial.

In the years following the fall of Soeharto, general conditions were less hostile to the suspected PKI members and their families. Early last year, the Constitutional Court restored the political rights of those linked with the communist party by allowing them to vote and contest the legislative election.

Tjahjono said that before he was accused, which got him thrown in Nusakambangan prison and later Buru island for 10 years, he was an independence fighter, who once fought the Allied Forces in Malang. But instead of being appreciated as a war hero, he and his family were branded as PKI members.

He tried to bring up the problem at various discussions to press the government to restore their civil and political rights, but unfortunately for him, nothing has changed.

In the East Kalimantan town of Kutai Kartanegara, 85-year-old Gusti was ailing in bed in his wooden house.

"The pain I'm suffering is nothing compared to what the country has done to me and others accused as traitors. We're left in misery," he said.

The country's anniversary celebration has no meaning for the man since he still feels alienated and is not free from the accusations of being a PKI member.

"We fought against the colonial rulers. We helped set the country free from aggressors, but we end up being sacrificed by our own country," Gusti sighed.

For the man -- as well as around 175 other ex-prisoners accused of being PKI members who live in Argosari, a poor and isolated village nicknamed by locals as the "PKI village" -- the country's Independence Day on Aug. 17 brings back old memories that they, as well as their family members, are not free.

"We earlier hoped that the government of (former) president Megawati Soekarnoputri would restore our names. But it didn't happen. We still are not completely free," said another ex- prisoner, Oentong Soeyatno, 65, secretary of the Group of New Order Victims in the province.

Political observer Daniel Sparringa of the Airlangga University said many relatives of former PKI members had lost their basic rights as citizens -- particularly for equal rights under the law. He said the government should restore their rights through rehabilitation efforts and compensation.

"The government should straighten out our history, either by exposing the PKI's cruelty or the manipulation of the PKI organization by the New Order regime," he told the Post.