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.