Political prisoners demand rehabilitation
Political prisoners demand rehabilitation
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Some 400 former political prisoners began their first national
gathering ever here on Friday with a united demand for the
government to restore their civil rights.
Chairman of the organizing committee, Jopie Lasut, said their
rehabilitation was a prerequisite for national reconciliation
between the former political prisoners and state officials who
implicated them during the New Order authoritarian regime.
"Should the rehabilitation take place, the former political
prisoners will enjoy a normal life," said Jopie, chairs the
Justice Fellowship Indonesia organization, the facilitator of the
meeting.
Jopie was imprisoned for his alleged involvement in an anti-
Japanese protest organized by students in Jakarta on 14 Jan.
1974, what later became known as the Malari incident. Among those
jailed following the violent protest were Arif Budiman and
Hariman Siregar.
According to Jopie, the meeting is expected to seek ways to
reveal the truth from the past and to restore the civil rights of
political prisoners.
A meeting of former political prisoners was held for the first
time ever after president B.J. Habibie granted a massive amnesty
to them in 1999, one year after the authoritarian regime under
Soeharto tumbled.
Apart from a forum of reunion, the two-day gathering in the
Cempaka Hotel was aimed at reviving their commitment to laying
the foundation for national reconciliation.
Taufik Kiemas, husband of President Megawati Soekarnoputri and
also an influential figure in the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), kicked off the gathering, which was
attended by prominent former political prisoners, including Sri
Bintang Pamungkas, Sri Mulyono Herlambang, Col. Abdul Latif,
Mochtar Pakpahan.
Kiemas described the gathering as "an arena to unite all
political prisoners with various political spectrums."
Taufik hoped that former political prisoners would contribute
something to help bring the country out of the lingering crisis.
Shortly after taking power from first president Sukarno in
1966, Soeharto sent his political opponents, including student
Taufik, to jail for several months for supporting the old regime
under Sukarno.
Soeharto's regime then sent many more political opponents to
prison for various reasons, ranging from their alleged
involvement in the aborted 1965 coup by the now defunct
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) to alleged subversion.
Together with long jail sentences, often without trials,
torture was commonly used on political prisoners during the New
Order era.
Some of the former political prisoners claimed they no longer
experienced physical suffering, but the mental sorrow had yet to
fade away from their lives.
Former government officials under the New Order government,
mostly military generals, have been campaigning for
reconciliation possibly so as to avoid prosecution for human
rights violations they committed in the past.
Mochtar Pakpahan, a former political prisoner, told reporters
on the sidelines of the gathering, that reconciliation with past
regimes was possible but with one prerequisite: former president
Soeharto, who was accused of running the country with an iron
fist, must be willing to admit his past sins and to apologize to
political prisoners.