Talangsari still evokes terrible memories
The Jakarta Post, Talangsari, Lampung
"Talangsari? Will it cause any problems? Try another company," a man at a rent-a-car company in Bandarlampung said when we told him we wanted to rent a car and driver to take us to the remote village.
The man, who referred to Talangsari as "the place where human rights violations have occurred", suggested we try renting a car in the Way Jepara district in Central Lampung regency.
The third car rental company we contacted finally agreed to take us to the village, which is located about 150 kilometers, or a four-hour drive from Bandarlampung.
It has been 13 years since the bloody Talangsari incident in 1989, but many residents of the province of Lampung are afraid to talk about the violence that claimed hundreds of innocent lives.
Some people even refused to give us directions to the village when we arrived at a junction in the Way Jepara district. Finally, an elephant trainer at the nearby Way Kambas elephant training center told us that the village was 10 kilometers away.
The journey from Bandarlampung to Way Jepara was tiring and quiet although the asphalt road was quite smooth. From the junction we drove along a 10-kilometer-long dirt road that leads to Talangsari.
Talangsari village consists of four hamlets: Talangsari I, Talangsari II, Talangsari III and Cihideung. Most of the hundreds of Talangsari residents are Javanese migrants who moved there in the early 1970s.
We stopped at a drink stall in Talangsari II and asked the owner about the 1989 bloody incident.
"I don't know about the incident. It did not happen here," she said in Javanese, and refused our money when we tried to pay for the three glasses of coffee we ordered.
Another resident suspiciously asked about our visit and claimed to know nothing about the incident. The man simply said that the incident was in Cihideung, next to Talangsari III.
At least three security posts have been installed by the military district at Cihideung since the incident.
The Cihideung hamlet was closed for almost 10 years after the incident. At least 17 families were living there at the time of the incident, but they left when the violence broke out.
Four families were allowed to return two years ago after paying between Rp 250,000 (US$27) and Rp 500,000 to get their land back.
The families claimed that they still felt fear whenever they remembered the incident.
"Every time I hear the sound of a car approaching, my heart begins to pound," Mardi, 60, one of the villagers, said.
The Cihideung of today looks quiet and desolate. Throughout the hamlet all we could see were cassava trees planted by villagers. In addition to cassava, farmers also grow coconut trees for a living.
Unlike the houses in Talangsari I, II and III, which are mostly painted and built close to each other, the homes in Cihideung are mostly makeshift structures made from bricks. None of them are painted and they stand quite far apart from each other.