Obituary

Obituary

Retired police general Roekmini Koesoemo Astoeti Soedjono, a
member of the National Commission on Human Rights, died of cancer
complications late Monday. She was 58.

Survived by her husband, Mas Soedjono, and four children,
Roekmini died at the Gatot Subroto Army Hospital around 11:00
p.m. She had been treated for a month for cancer of the throat
which had spread.

Roekmini was an outspoken former legislator of the Armed
Forces (ABRI) faction. She was known to be very critical of many
government policies, was in the forefront demanding political
reform and openness, but was also fiercely loyal to the military.

Roekmini was also the second Indonesian woman to achieve
generalship after Jeanne Mandagi. She retired from the police
force with the rank of brigadier general.

When she was appointed member of the human rights commission,
she took to her job with dedication which belied her physical
limitation. Roekmini lost one of her vocal cords a few years ago
in an operation to remove a tumor from her throat. She was unable
to speak loudly, yet kept her speaking engagements in various
places, from seminars in grand hotels to gatherings in campuses.

She once described how great a burden people were placing on
the National Commission on Human Rights. "We are called to handle
not only problems such as arbitrary arrests but also complaints
about how high voltage power towers affect people's health," she
said.

When she was a member of the House of Representatives from
1982 to 1992, Roekmini lived on her own in Jakarta while her
family stayed back in Yogyakarta. "Politics is an unstable job,"
she told Kompas. "What if I took my children to Jakarta and then
I lost my job? "

Roekmini and ten other outspoken House members indeed "lost"
their positions in 1992.

Roekmini started her career in the Yogyakarta police force in
1965. From 1972 to 1974, she headed the intelligence section of
the Yogyakarta regional police. She was later promoted as head of
the sociopolitical bureau of the Java-Madura Regional Command in
Semarang. In 1982 she represented the Armed Forces in the House
of Representatives.

She married Soedjono, a lecturer at Gajah Mada University, in
1964.

She was flown to Yogyakarta yesterday morning and was later
buried in a family burial site in Balerejo village in Madiun,
East Java. (swe)