Govt puts out welcome mat for political exiles

By Linawati Sidarto

AMSTERDAM (JP): Another New Order taboo crumbled last week: Indonesian political exiles could now opt to regain their lost citizenship.

At the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague on Jan. 17, Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra met with over 100 Indonesians who have lived in exile since the country's political turmoil in September 1965.

Yusril's message to the graying crowd, some shedding tears of joy, was that the government wants to turn over a "new leaf" and plans to remove the hurdles which for the last three decades made it difficult for many of them to visit their homeland.

While many attending the event reside in the Netherlands, some came especially from France, Germany and Scandinavia.

"Imagine, for so many of us this was the first time since 1965 that we attended a function at an official Indonesian venue," said Ibrahim Isa, a government official under founding president Sukarno's rule.

He jokingly added that previous visits to the embassy had been to "demonstrate, which took place on the other side of the gates".

However, questions and doubts lurk beyond the afterglow, as the exiles ponder the past and what may, or may not, happen in the future.

Many here have welcomed the gesture from President Abdurrahman Wahid's new government.

"This is quite a miracle, a very significant breakthrough," said Nico Schulte Nordholt, an Indonesia specialist at Twente University in the Netherlands.

"The fact that this gesture was made within 100 days of President Wahid's rule shows this has been given a very high priority."

Isa, 69, dubbed the Jan. 17 meeting "historic".

An Indonesian representative to the Organization of Asian- African Peoples Solidarity in Cairo beginning in 1960, Isa was in Jakarta for a planned conference in early October 1965.

"It didn't take long to see that there was some serious trouble, as people started disappearing left and right, either detained or killed," he recalled.

The coup attempt on Sept. 30, 1965, when a number of key generals were abducted and murdered, was soon blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). What followed was a bloodbath in which some estimates say over a million people branded communists were either killed or arrested.

Although Isa managed to swiftly return to Cairo, the writing on the wall was clear when in January 1966 he spoke out at an international conference in Havana about "the truth" surrounding the recent tragedy in Indonesia.

He was quickly denounced as a traitor in Indonesian papers.

Via Beijing, Isa and his family eventually settled in the Netherlands, the country with the most Indonesian political exiles in Europe.

"We have fought long and hard for our rights, and while we still have a ways to go, last week was a step in the right direction," he said.

Skeptical

Others are less enthusiastic about the development.

"Many more (exiles) didn't attend last week's meeting," said Warjo, 69, who attended Beijing's Normal University in 1964 on a scholarship from the Indonesia-China Friendship Foundation.

Some estimates put the number of Indonesian political exiles in Europe to be as high as 500, although Isa said it's "probably somewhat less than that."

Many of them have not returned since the 1960s.

It's difficult to gauge how many absentees chose to stay away, like Warjo, and how many simply did not know about the event.

"I was only aware of the event after I saw it on the news," said Go Gien Tjwan, who was one of the top people at the news agency Antara "until I was dishonorably discharged" not long after September 1965.

At that time Go was also vice chairman of Baperki, one of the many mass organizations branded illegal in Indonesia in the wake of September 1965. The youth organization Pemuda Rakyat, of which Warjo was a member, suffered a similar fate.

Warjo sees the gesture from the new government as "merely a concession", and still too vague to feel happy about because "many of the New Order's military and civilian officials are still in power".

In 1966 Warjo was called to the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing and asked to choose allegiance between Sukarno and Soeharto.

"The officials said: 'If you choose Soeharto, you can freely return home. If you don't, you won't be given a passport, you won't be able to go home'," Warjo recalled, a fate shared by many Indonesian students and officials residing abroad at the time.

He questioned whether in the future identification documents would not still bear special codes which branded the bearer as a social pariah. During Soeharto's rule, codes were put on the IDs of former political prisoners, which often barred them and their families from many basic rights, either in securing permits to obtaining certain jobs.

One element of the Jan. 17 meeting struck the wrong chord, even among enthusiasts.

Yusril said that those desiring to regain Indonesian citizenship only needed to fill in forms and pledge their allegiance to Indonesia in front of Indonesian ambassadors in their respective countries.

Isa pointed out that he, like the other exiles, was always true to Indonesia, and that the New Order government "has violated our rights" through ways like refusing requests for new passports, or denying entry to Indonesia.

Of premier importance, all agree, is an investigation into what really happened during September 1965 and its aftermath, and who should be held responsible.

Almost everyone detained shortly after September 1965 never saw any arrest warrants, nor went through any court process before being jailed.

Poet

One of them was Sitor Situmorang, one of Indonesia's most important poets, who was arrested in January 1967 and spent the next eight years in Jakarta's Salemba Prison.

"I have never been formally accused of anything, let alone convicted. Light has to be shed on my case, and those of many, many others. Sweeping legal reform should be done," said Sitor, who now resides in the Netherlands.

He underlined the importance, for example, of clarifying what mistakes Sukarno committed, pointing out that many of his followers were among those arrested.

"If Sukarno really made mistakes, then show them, prove it. As long as no efforts toward such an investigation are made, we will remain stuck with false accusations and, hence, mistaken arrests of so many people."

Even more important than reconciling with exiles abroad, he added, is clearing the names of the ex-political prisoners, and their families', many of whom have suffered daily persecution due to their alleged link with the September 1965 events.

Go Gien Tjwan stressed that without rectifying and clarifying historical facts, any kind of reconciliatory gesture would ring hollow.

"And this must include bringing Soeharto to court for all that he did to the victims of his New Order regime. People keep talking about retrieving the money he allegedly stole from the country, but this is so much more important."

Many exiles are taking a wait-and-see attitude, after Yusril said the government would announce next month which concrete legal steps it would take to further the reconciliation steps.

The skeptics question how far-reaching these steps would go to abolish existing laws and regulations -- which ban all left-wing organizations and communist thoughts -- such as the Provisional's People's Consultative Assembly Decree no 25/1967.

Isa worried that some forces in Indonesia would try to stall the efforts of the President, pointing out that recently some legislators voiced displeasure over leniency toward anyone with alleged communist links.

He said that for Indonesia to become a truly democratic country which respects the law and basic human rights, discriminatory regulations must all be scrapped.

Looking back, the exiles' list of woes is long, including rejection by their relatives.

Isa recalled that when he first came back to Indonesia in 1994, with a Dutch passport, some members of his family refused to see him.

"And yet, how can I blame them? They were persecuted because they were related to me," he said.

The most painful, many agree, was being labeled a traitor by the government of a country they love so dearly.

"I have fought for my country, and took part in the independence struggle. I will always be very proud of that," said Warjo, who as a teenager fought the Dutch colonists in the 1940s.