Indonesia's 1965 Holocaust remembered

Indonesia's 1965 Holocaust remembered

Aboeprijadi Santoso, Amsterdam

Conventional wisdom about what happened in Indonesia during the
second half of the 1960s generally held leading Army officers, in
collaboration with some youth organizations, responsible for
Indonesia's greatest human disaster after its independence, which
included the killings, persecutions and imprisonment of hundreds
of thousands of alleged communists.

Much less known, a seminar has recently revealed, is that
foreign and local academics were abused by the then most powerful
security apparatus, the Kopkamtib (Security and Order Operational
Command), in the repression during the 1970s.

The 1965 Forgotten Holocaust of Indonesia"seminar, held on
Oct. 28 by the International Institute of Social History IISG in
Amsterdam to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1965
tragedy, presented a number of testimonies -- all pointing to the
profound impact of the tragic events.

One victim-witness, whose husband was tortured to death,
related the pain of the "semantics of repression" by the
interrogators; another recalled with pain a dramatic, but polite
and peaceful confrontation with his father's killer.

Many families lost members or faced tragic disintegration
without even understanding the reasons. Such complex experiences
were left unresolved because the state and society were
disinterested -- the incidents largely clouded with fear, silence
and ideological hatred.

It is no doubt important for the nation to remember the
tragedy. But to refer to the killings and persecutions as a
"holocaust", the term describing the Nazis historic victimization
of the Jews in Europe, would only dramatize rather than
contribute to a proper understanding of the Indonesian tragedy.

With the truth suppressed, the price of history is a tragedy
concealed, not resolved. Hence, the rights of the victims and
their families should be fully rehabilitated and those
responsible for the tragedy, former President Soeharto in the
first place, must be brought to trial.

Meanwhile, a new academic trend has begun focusing on how
Soeharto's New Order was founded -- as distinct to the events of
the 1965-1966 tragedy.

Ben Anderson, an old hand in Indonesian studies, recently in
Amsterdam pointed out the importance of several political
networks as financial and intellectual resources supporting the
Opsus (special operations) campaign to neutralize and remove the
old elite.

The transition to the New Order has also been described in a
new book by Dutch historian Lambert J. Giebels, De Stille
Genocide (The Silent Genocide). Using hitherto unknown sources,
he featured the central role of the Opsus chief Gen. Ali Moertopo
and the Dutch priest P. Beek, which has been a public secret for
sometime.

Of this trend, quite independently, the latest is a study
Indonesian researchers in the Netherlands have embarked on
Kopkamtib's collaboration with foreign and local scientists,
which started as early as 1971 as part of efforts to consolidate
the new regime.

Kopkamtib's project only came to the surface as its chief, the
security tsar Admiral Soedomo seven years later proudly announced
"now scientifically we can measure the state of political
prisoners' ideology with the help of Dutch psychologists." (The
New York Times, Apr. 12, 1978). The admiral referred to the
questionnaire designed "to check them for the state of their
communist ideology", which by 1976 had been used to examine
29,000 political prisoners of the "B Category" on the island of
Buru.

Soedomo had earlier asked the CIA whether they had "a computer
that could be set to human head" (Haagse Post Feb. 10 1979), but
got a negative answer, so he turned to British and Dutch
psychologists for advise on the questionnaire method. Four
universities -- the University of Indonesia, Jakarta, University
of Pajajaran, Bandung, and those of Nijmegen and Groningen in the
Netherlands -- were involved from 1973 to 1976 in the set-up of a
database and supervision of the research, which was also part of
the Dutch-Indonesia Cultural Agreement.

Soedomo had claimed the questionnaire was made by members of
the Indonesian Committee on National Security.

The issue had ignited student protests in the Netherlands, but
the University of Nijmegen Council and Dutch Institute of
Psychologists NIP denied any ethical wrongdoing, rejecting the
accusation of being "an instrument of Indonesia's security
apparatuses". There had been no public response, though, from the
Indonesian academics, and the new research team on Kopkamtib's
project is now planning an inquiry.

The political prisoners had been subjected to a test that
served the aims of the Kopkamtib. Former Buru prisoners have
confirmed they had sat questionnaire and had feared their answers
might influence their predicament, Hilmar Farid, a member of the
research team, told Radio Netherlands.

Some were indeed released later than others. Soedomo admitted
the method had been used to select those who had to be
scrutinized after being released. Indonesian psychologists were
even active on the ground, reportedly traveling to Buru and
questioning prisoners the admiral called "criminal elements". The
psychologists' role has thus critically shaped Kopkamtib's
approach to the political prisoners.

The fact that the Kopkamtib decades ago sought and acquired
science which it used for repression is a good lesson even today.

It reminds the civil society the need to watch some state
apparatuses even more critically as they now seek more power --
just as the active role of many intellectuals and Western
governments during Soeharto's transition to state power helps
explain the sustainability of his three decades-long New Order
regime.

The writer is journalist with Radio Netherlands.