Bejo Sunaryo was a low-ranking soldier. As his wife testifies, he was moved for obscure reasons from one detention place to another. He would have been among the tens of thousands of people believed to have been arbitrarily detained in 1965, according to the July 23 report by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). However the findings, the first state report of its kind, also reveal human rights abuses related to the 1965–1966 killings, which continued well after the massacres.

The report's national figure of 32,774 arbitrarily detained people were all civilians, so there is no estimate yet for the number of soldiers like Bejo who were also victims.

The summarized investigation over four years includes the specific testimony of unnamed survivors and their family members, of what transpired in the building, which is now a restaurant, on Medan’s Jalan Gandhi, and also in other detention centers.

Bejo's wife Sumiarty says she has no idea what he did wrong, only guessing that his socializing with a youth group associated with the later banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) led to his detention.

The Commission's findings confirm that victims were indeed a target of "a series of attacks against members and/or sympathizers of the PKI"'; thus the alleged crimes were "not isolated crimes" against the victims.

Among others the report cites a survivor detained from July 1968 to December 1972 on Jl. Gandhi. She said the daily meal, comprised rice and corn with a small portion of tasteless vegetable (kangkung) "mixed with shards of glass" and bits of ular lidi, a non-poisonous snake, and leeches.

When entering detention the unnamed survivor was told, "If you try anything, we will torture your
husband."

Other survivors testified that detainees would be taken at midnight from the center on Jl. Gandhi and the other detention center in town, the Suka Mulia prison, and that "they mostly never returned".

The authorities who "borrowed" (bon) them were usually from the local military command. Torture would include being trampled on by members of the Mobile Brigade working for intelligence.

Other forms were being "repeatedly hit by rattan so that the skin of the witness' hand was stretched as if it were about to loosen itself from the flesh"; or two officers would jump on a table placed on the witness' toes. Detention in a locked toilet full of excrement for 10 days was another form, as well as being forced to stand in a pool of water up to the waist for about a week. Death following torture was also reported, while survivors said medical check-ups or treatment were non-existent.

A female survivor testifies that the women's cell in the Jl. Gandhi detention center had about 30 women, including a few who were nursing babies.

"The witness was never tried. She was arrested just like that, detained just like that, and released just like that," the summary of the report said.

Detainees were known to include communist leaders in Medan, labor leaders and students. Some 60 people who were sent to both Jl. Gandhi and the Suka Mulia prison in mid 1967 subsequently went missing, and have remained so until today.

— Ati Nurbaiti

Popular

Is Indonesia really ready to embrace dual citizenship?

Palm oil plantation-less mills lead to increase deforestation

Prabowo inaugurates construction of Majapahit palace replica