Govt puts out welcome mat for political exiles

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.