JP/24/TJAHJ

JP/24/TJAHJ

New Order victim struggles tirelessly for justice

Indra Harsaputra
The Jakarta Post/Malang

Tied to an iron pole, the red-and-white flag waves in front of a
house on Jl. Piranha Atas Selatan II/5, Malang, East Java.

The house belongs to Tjahjono, one of the victims of the New
Order's drive to crush the September 30 Movement, a 1965 coup
attempt allegedly masterminded by the now defunct Indonesian
Communist Party, and also chief of the local chapter of the
Institute of Struggle for the Rehabilitation of Victims of the
New Order Regime.

In his neighborhood, Tjahjono's flag is the cleanest and
brightest, a symbol that the owner has kept his fighting spirit
aflame.

"My wife and I always cry upon seeing the red-and-white flag
being unfurled in front of our house close to Independence Day,"
said Tjahjono on Monday afternoon, his eyes slightly red as he
tries hard not to shed tears.

In his old age, he can still vividly recollect the incident on
November 10, 1945, in which a number of young Indonesian freedom
fighters tore off the blue part of the red, white and blue flag
of the Dutch, which was then being unfurled at Hotel Yamato, now
Majapahit hotel, Surabaya.

Tjahyono, a militia member of the Indonesian Students
Association, was inside the hotel building and witnessed the
incident.

Shortly afterward, as testament to the valor of the young
Indonesian freedom fighters, a fierce battle, better known as the
Battle of Surabaya, broke out between Indonesian militiamen and
the Dutch and Allied forces in Surabaya.

A lot of bloodshed ensued. Although many freedom fighters laid
down their lives, those who survived were not deterred. They
withdrew from Surabaya and set up defenses outside the city in
Sidoarjo, Malang and Mojokerto.

The Battle of Surabaya inflicted great losses on the Allied
forces. The battle has gone down in history as claiming more
lives than the battle between British and Japanese forces in
Burma in 1942.

Thanks to his involvement in this battle, Tjahjono later
received from Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, the title of
a veteran freedom fighter of the Republic of Indonesia. The title
was conferred on him by Brig. Gen. Sambas Atmadinata, then
Indonesia's minister of veteran affairs.

Tjahjono studied civil engineering in 1952 at Kediri
government technical school for four years. He then joined the
Engineering School in Yogyakarta and after graduation became a
teacher at state technical school No. 1 in Malang. In addition,
he also taught at the teacher training institute in Malang.

On November 8, 1965, four days before he was to be installed
as principal of school No. 1, he was arrested and thrown into
Lowokwaru penitentiary without due process, as he was alleged to
have been an activist of the Indonesian Communist Party.

He was arrested in front of the principal's room, just after
he had finished teaching. Handcuffed, someone stamped on his
back, an act of violence that has left him with back problems
even today.

Tjahjono was accused of being a sympathizer of the Indonesian
Communist Party. Because of this arbitrary arrest, his idealism
as a teacher was lost. Worse still for him, his wife was fired
from her teaching position at a school in Malang in June 1966.

His two children, Yuningtyas Hartanti and Sasmoko Hercahyo,
both who knew nothing of the activities of the Indonesian
Communist Party, were also sent to a juvenile penitentiary for 16
months.

Besides that, 12 of Tjahjono's relatives in Tulungagung, most
of whom were teachers, were kidnaped and never reappeared. One of
them was Partodiwiryo, the principal of an elementary school in
Tulung Agung.

A survey conducted by the Malang chapter of the Institute of
Struggle for the Rehabilitation of Victims of the New Order
Regime showed that as many as 14,583 people in Malang were
kidnaped and disappeared following Sept. 30, 1965, and some 4,500
others were incarcerated.

They included teachers, lecturers, Indonesians of Chinese
descent, businessmen, members of regional legislative assemblies,
secretaries to village heads and reporters.

"I have lost all documents relating to my veteran freedom
fighter status and my university diploma. I was imprisoned for 13
years and after my release I could not get a regular job," said
Tjahjono, who was born in Madiun on July 5, 1928.

He said that the New Order regime committed a lot of heinous
crimes. They accused people of being members of the Indonesian
Communist Party without evidence and sent them to prison without
due process.

Several middle-ranking military officers even took the wives
of Indonesian Communist Party detainees and forced them to
remarry. The rector of a university in Malang, Tan Hwi Lion, was
killed and his wife was forced to marry a military officer.

Even after he was released from prison, Tjahjono found it
difficult to get a steady job because he was labeled a political
detainee.

To support his family, Tjahjono decided to work as a
supervisor in a house construction project, earning less then Rp
600,000 a month. In his old age, he has still kept his job. He
was involved in the construction of a house of a Kompas daily
newspaper reporter in Malang in 2002, for example.

Tjahjono's eldest child, Yuningtyas Hartanti, 45, who was
imprisoned when she was just six years old, was unable to get a
teaching job at a junior high school in Pontianak, Kalimantan, in
1980 because her identity card had the code number 001, an
indication that she is from a communist family. That is why she
earns a living as a dressmaker.

Tjahjono's second child, Sasmoko Hercahyo, 43, who was
detained when he was just four years old, could not join the
civil service. A graduate of an Australian theology college, he
is now a church minister at the Salvation Army Church in Malang.

As for his youngest child, Nawangsih Respitorini, 40, she
opted for a job at a private real estate consulting company in
Malang.

"This Independence Day, I'm grateful to God for the good
health He has bestowed upon me and the fortune He has blessed
upon my children. We harbor no revenge toward anybody. We know
that what has befallen us is God's wish, for which we must be
thankful," said Tjahjono, while looking at photos of his three
children as youngsters.

Although he has neither a computer nor a typewriter, Tjahjono
has never stopped writing his testimony of the alleged crimes of
the New Order regime.

He will send his handwritten testimony to the National
Commission on Human Rights as part of the material in the lawsuit
filed in Jakarta by victims of the New Order that linked them to
the Indonesian Communist Party.

Tjahjono is also actively organizing a number of New Order
victims like him in Malang and has continued to seek information
on the whereabouts of the missing victims.

"We won't feel free unless we are rehabilitated and the
historical record is corrected. In Surabaya in 1945, we took up
arms but now our struggle is confined only to writing our
testimony of history," he said.