“It was the most abominable episode in our country’s history,” writes Jusuf Wanandi in his recent book Shades of Grey: A Political Memoir of Indonesia 1965-1998.

Jusuf refers to the 1965-66 massacres of alleged Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members and those thought to be associated with them. The massacres occurred in response to a pivotal moment in Indonesian history; an attempted coup — blamed on the communists — in which six army generals were killed on Sept. 30, 1965, their bodies thrown into a well in Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta.

Estimates of the number of people killed vary from 78,000 to 3 million.

But these deaths are only part of the story. Amnesty International estimates that hundreds of thousands were also imprisoned without trial for alleged links to the PKI, as a wave of anti-communist sentiment swept across the country.

The 1965 coup changed Bedjo Untung’s life forever. According to Bedjo, in the aftermath of the coup both he and his family were wrongly accused of being communists.

“My uncle was killed, we still don’t know where his grave is,” said 64-year-old Bedjo. “My brother managed to get away but my father and I were captured by the military. They sent my father to a detention camp on Buru Island for 14 years. None of us supported the PKI.”

According to Bedjo, he was detained without trial by the military for nine years, which culminated in him being sent to an overcrowded labor camp in Tangerang.

“We were made to work in the rice fields, planting cassava and soybean,” said Bedjo. “The military didn’t supply us with any tools, so we had to use our hands, and we never had enough food, so we had to eat snails, mice, snakes or grasshoppers — without this, we would not have survived.”

Life changer: The events of 1965 shattered Bedjo Untung’s family.Bedjo was released in 1979, but in many ways his ordeal carried on.

“I didn’t feel like I was free,” said Bedjo. “The military monitored me, and every time I wanted to move to another place I had to ask permission from them.”

Bedjo, and those like him, were also issued identity cards with the label “ET”, which marked them as former political detainees.

Struggling to find work due to his ET status, Bedjo said he was only able to survive through teaching English (which he studied in prison), math and various musical instruments.

The government revoked the ET label from identity cards in 2004, but according to Bedjo, discriminatory attitudes remained in place.

“Former political detainees cannot get credit if they want to buy a house, they cannot work in a government department, become a teacher, or marry people in the military,” he explained. “They are seen as bad and cruel, as communists, and all of this still exists today.”

Resolve: Nani Nurani says she will keep fighting to clear her name. She was accused of having links to the Indonesian Communist Party.Like Bedjo, the life of former political detainee Nani Nurani has also been one of struggle ever since a communist label was attached to her by military police in 1965. A former local government employee and a singer at Cianjur Palace, West Java, in June 1965 Nani was invited to sing at a PKI anniversary event, and moved to Jakarta soon after to further her career. According to 71-year-old Nani, the authorities accused her of being directly involved in the coup.

“They accused me of being a PKI member and said I had been present in Lubang Buaya [scene of the coup] when the generals were killed,” said Nani.

Nani explained that she was arrested and interrogated by military police officials.

“They asked me where I was on Sept. 30 and I told them the truth, that I was asleep at my house, but they said that was impossible and kicked the table,” said Nani. “They forced me to say yes to the things that I never did.”

Without any trial Nani was then shunted around several detention centers and was finally placed in Bukit Duri Prison in Jakarta, where she stayed for seven years, being
released in 1975.

“I was put under house arrest when I was released and then in 1976 I had to sign a document to promise that I would never blame the government for putting me in prison,” she said.

After the Tanjung Priok incident of 1984 when the military fired on Muslim protestors, the authorities suddenly required Nani to report to her district office each month.

“To this day I don’t know why,” said Nani. “At first it made me sad and tired, always having to report myself for no reason. All I had to do was sign. I was so angry.”

Nani also suffered social stigmatization. She never married and never had the chance to start a family of her own.

“How could I have found someone? It was impossible,” she said. “Given what I had been accused of, my partner would have lost his job, he wouldn’t have had any success, because of the way the government viewed me.”

According to Andy Yentriyani, a commissioner at the National Commission on Violence Against Women, former political detainees tended to marry into families that were also accused of having communist links.

Yentriyani added that the discrimination experienced by former political detainees had forced them to go to whatever lengths necessary to ensure that their children did not suffer the same fate.

“Some parents who were accused of being linked with the PKI have asked other families to adopt their children and include them into their family documentation, so that they are completely disassociated from any PKI link,” explained Yentriyani.

Despite decades of struggle, the likes of Bedjo and Nani are still fighting to clear their names.

Bedjo is the chairman of the Murder Victims Research Foundation 1965/66 (YPKP 65), which works to investigate the killings of 1965-66 and to raise awareness of the plight of former political detainees.

“Most former political prisoners don’t speak out because they are afraid of what might happen to them,” explained Bedjo. “But as YPKP chairman it is my duty to speak out. It is our right to struggle,” he said.

Last year, citing a lifetime of discrimination, stigmatization and false accusations leveled against her, Nani went to court to try and rehabilitate her name.

“I had eight witnesses and 52 pieces of evidence and the government had nothing,” said Nani. “And in the end, the judge said it wasn’t the right place to discuss my case.”

“The government was wrong about me,” said Nani, undeterred. “And I will fight and fight to prove that it was wrong.”

But as Bedjo and Nani try to clear their names, they find themselves up against an entire historical narrative that has no sympathy for the grievances of former political detainees.

The battle over this narrative continues today. While a recent report by the National Commission for Human Rights categorized the massacres as a “gross human rights violation”, many voices also call for the 1965-66 massacres and their aftermath to be forgotten, and for the country to leave its past alone.

But for Bedjo, Nani and thousands of others like them, this is an impossible task. For them, the past remains as relevant as ever, because it reaches forward and continues to define them even to this very day.

— Photos by Mark Wilson