TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
1965 tribunal hears woman's tale of sexual abuse
People attend the International People's Tribunal 1965 which opened hearings intended to publicize allegations of mass killings 50 years ago by Indonesian authorities of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists, at the Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, in The Hague, Netherlands, Nov
Change Size
People attend the International People's Tribunal 1965 which opened hearings intended to publicize allegations of mass killings 50 years ago by Indonesian authorities of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists, at the Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, in The Hague, Netherlands, Nov. 10. (AP/Peter Dejong) (AP/Peter Dejong)
P
span class="inline inline-center">People attend the International People's Tribunal 1965 which opened hearings intended to publicize allegations of mass killings 50 years ago by Indonesian authorities of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists, at the Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, in The Hague, Netherlands, Nov. 10. (AP/Peter Dejong)
The second day of a 'people's tribunal' in The Hague, the Netherlands, in relation to Indonesia's 1965 massacre heard testimony from a survivor of sexual abuse on Wednesday.
Witness Tintin Rahayu (not her real name), who was a member of student group in Yogyakarta in the wake of the so-called Sept. 30, 1965 coup, testified behind a black curtain to having been incarcerated for 11 years by government forces on allegations of insurgency.
Tintin said she was tortured, sexually abused and detained at Wirogunan Prison in Yogyakarta and at Plantungan, a camp for female political prisoners in a remote part of Central Java.
She told the Indonesian People's Tribunal 1965 that she was beaten with a bicycle and her body burned, and that she was also stripped naked and subjected to sexual abuse.
'When I was moved to Wirogunan after [the sexual abuse] happened, I could not eat or sleep. I couldn't even speak to anyone, I was so ashamed,' she said as recorded on youtube.com. At several points she broke down in tears.
She was detained at Wirogunan Prison and Plantungan camp, where she and her fellow detainees were forced to work the land with their bare hands.
Tintin said she was baffled by the charges of insurgency and had had no links to the (banned) Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) or the affiliated Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani), but she was repeatedly forced to admit to know a man accused of the same crime.
'[The interrogators] did not listen to me,' she said.
The tribunal is intended to publicize allegations that the Indonesian authorities were responsible for killing up to one million people regarded as communists in 1965 and 1966. The government faces a nine-count indictment of crimes including mass murder, torture and sexual abuse. No government representatives have appeared at the tribunal.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has concluded that the 1965 event was a crime against humanity, but no further government action has been pursued.
The government has refused to acknowledge the tribunal, and Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan has questioned the event, calling it unjust.
The tribunal holds no legal powers, but aims to expose the truth behind what organizers have called one of the darkest moments in Indonesia's post-colonial history.
Hendardi from the Setara Institute for Democracy Peace said that while it had no legal significance, the tribunal was doing important work to uncover the truth behind the allegations.
'The overreaction from Indonesian government officials over the International People's Tribunal is an indicator of the tribunal's success. Now the government must quickly realize steps to reveal the truth and heal the nation,' Hendardi said on Thursday.
The PKI was held responsible for the murder of a number of military generals on Sept. 30, 1965, in a supposed attempted coup against then president Sukarno. PKI members and their associates were labeled traitors and brutally persecuted in the aftermath of the event.
Lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, who is acting as a prosecutor in the tribunal, noted in his opening statement on Tuesday that the stigma attached to all relatives, spouses and children of the alleged communists had not been lifted.
'No words can explain the magnitude of physical and mental suffering experienced by people at that time, suffering that continues to this day.'
