Wife searches for man taken by soldiers in '71

Wife searches for man taken by soldiers in '71

JAKARTA (JP): A woman turned up at the secretariat of the
National Commission on Human Rights yesterday seeking help to
track her husband, missing since 1971, after he was accused of
being a communist and taken by the military.

Jaurah Muzakkir, 63 years, said that although the military
cleared her husband, Mohammad Zachri Abdullah, of any communist
links in 1978, she had not received any satisfactory answers
about his fate.

The military said Zachri fled shortly after he was arrested.
His wife now says that the military never gave any detailed
explanation of how he managed to escape.

Zachri was a secretary for the Ogan Komering Ilir Regency
Office in South Sumatra when he was picked up by the military
because of allegations he had links to the Indonesian Communist
Party (PKI) which was outlawed in 1966.

His disappearance left Jaurah to raise his 10 children all by
herself, a task made even more difficult because their father had
been publicly branded as a communist.

"I and my 10 children have been suffering mentally and
physically. Until today I haven't got any information about my
missing husband," she said.

Despite the military's pronouncement in 1978 that Zachri was
not involved with PKI, Jaurah said the public's impression that
her husband was a communist remains to this day.

Jaurah met with the commission's Secretary-General Baharuddin
Lopa yesterday. He gave a letter of reference which she can use
when seeking help with her search for information from government
and military agencies.

The woman was seeking three things in the meeting yesterday: A
fuller explanation of how her husband escaped from the military,
a wider public announcement stating that her husband was not a
communist, and a guarantee of protection so that she and family
will not be subjected to intimidation. (par)