Talangsari still evokes terrible memories
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.