Siti Latifah Herawati Diah - Carla Bianpoen

Siti Latifah Herawati Diah, the first Indonesian woman journalist to be academically trained abroad and co-founder of the English daily Indonesian Observer, passed away on Friday morning at the Medistra Hospital in Jakarta.

She was 99 years old.

Herawati’s personal secretary Damayanti said Herawati had been hospitalized on Aug. 29. “She died of old age, but medically it was due to a blood clot,” Damayanti said, as quoted by news agency Antara.

Herawati was among the pioneers of Indonesian journalism, along with other prominent journalists, including her husband Burhanuddin Muhammad Diah (BM Diah), Mochtar Lubis, the cofounder of the Indonesia Raya daily, and Rosihan Anwar, who founded newspaper Pedoman in 1961.

“Ibu Herawati was a pioneer of the Indonesian press since early independence,” veteran journalist Atmakusumah Astraatmadja told The Jakarta Post.

Herawati was born on April 3, 1917, as the daughter of medical doctor Raden Latip and Siti Alimah.

Born into a family of means, she was able to pursue higher education in the US.

After a journalism course at Stanford University in California — between her principal studies of sociology at Barnard College at Columbia University in New York — she returned to Indonesia in 1942 as the first Indonesian female journalist academically trained abroad.

She became a stringer for the United Press International (UPI) newswire, joined Radio Japan as an announcer and married BM Diah, who at the time worked at the Asia Raya newspaper.

Herawati became a founding member and reporter for the Merdeka newspaper in 1945. Together with her husband she also founded the Indonesian Observer during the Asia-Africa Conference in 1955. The newspaper was aimed at improving communication in Asia and Africa with the outside world.

When her husband became the minister of information in 1968, following his stints as Indonesia’s ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the UK and Thailand, Herawati left her job as a journalist.

“She mastered many foreign languages, like English and Dutch. With her linguistic abilities she made a big contribution to Indonesian diplomacy,” senior Kompas journalist and gender equality activist Maria Hartiningsih said.

Maria, who had the opportunity to interview Herawati several times, described her as a figure that had inspired many women.

In 1998, amid a financial crisis and political turmoil, she joined Gema Madani, a civil society group that demanded peace and the investigation of violence against women and children, said Damar Juniarto, a regional coordinator of freedom of expression network SAFENET.

She was also among prominent women demanding that former president BJ Habibie acknowledge the rape of thousands of mostly Chinese-Indonesian women during the May 1998 riots, before the downfall of president Soeharto.

In the same year, she became a board member of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan).

Together with Debra Yatim, Herawati founded the women rights movement Gerakan Perempuan Sadar Pemilu (GPSP), which today is known as Gerakan Pemberdayaan Swara Perempuan and promotes the empowerment of women. (win)

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