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State universities backed communist purge: Study
Professors, university staff and students helped detect, expel and torture suspected communist elements during the 1960s political upheaval, a Gadjah Mada University (UGM) study reveals
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rofessors, university staff and students helped detect, expel and torture suspected communist elements during the 1960s political upheaval, a Gadjah Mada University (UGM) study reveals.
History researcher Abdul Wahid from the Yogyakarta-based university said in a discussion that archives and testimonials he found during his ongoing research showed the involvement of state universities in the eradication of communism.
The discussion was held on Thursday by the University of Indonesia (UI) branch of Semar, a cross university student coalition, among events following the International People's Tribunal 1965 held on Nov. 10 to 13 in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Prior to uprisings in 1965, as an 'arena of the Cold War' universities in the country became 'tools of the revolution' by then president Sukarno, to indoctrinate his teachings of socialism and 'guided democracy and economy', Abdul said.
During the heightened battle for political power, the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was known as Sukarno's favorite; students who were among those fed up with the first president's dictatorship favored the emerging colonel Soeharto.
The attempted coup and murder of generals on Sept. 30, 1965, blamed on PKI led to Sukarno's downfall.
'We all wanted Soeharto to become president,' writes Jusuf Wanandi, among student activists who pushed for Sukarno's impeachment. The elite had believed that Sukarno 'brought Indonesia almost to bankruptcy, and foreign policy too closely into alignment with China,' Jusuf writes in Shades of Grey: A political memoir of modern Indonesia, 1965-1998.
Abdul said among the proof of maneuvers to eradicate communism was displayed in UGM's museum in the form of a certificate of gratitude for UGM's role in 'crushing the PKI in Central Java', dated Dec. 12, 1965, and signed by Sarwo Edhie Wibowo, then commander of the Army Para Commando Regiment (RPKAD). For his role in leading the operations, Sarwo Edhie was proposed as a national hero under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his son-in-law.
Following the November tribunal, the 'UGM Alliance for the 1965 tragedy' circulated a petition on change.org, with almost 1,000 supporters, to urge UGM rector Dwikorita Karnawati to acknowledge the university's role in the eradication of suspected leftists or Sukarno loyalists. The petition was made following testimony by a female survivor at the tribunal who said she had been tortured by investigators, including by a UGM student who became a noted sociologist.
At Thursday's talks, former political prisoner Tedjabayu Sudjojono described the interrogation methods of the military led teams, which included academia, in identifying and interrogating suspected students like himself .
A former UGM geography student, Tedjabayu was imprisoned on Buru Island in Maluku, where thousands were exiled. He said that in October 1972 or 1973, students of the UI team 'gave us pages of questionnaires to determine our ideological degree'.
In recent talk shows, former chief of staff of the army reserve command Kivlan Zen has said much of the persecution and murders after the 1965 attempted coup were driven by 'mass hysteria', which included communist sympathizers killing perceived rivals. Among others, land takeovers by the communist side sparked wide resentment.
Anthropologist Iwan M. Pirous said that the first step to reconciliation, which was 'revealing the truth about 1965', was urgent , as 'myths' such as 'socialism and communism are atheist devils [...] really disrupt our brains from learning in a critical manner.'
