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.
Victims demand Komnas HAM renew probe into 1965 communist purge
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Activist Bedjo Untung and his colleagues voice their demand to reopen the investigation into the 1965 communist purge using the recently released declassified United States files on the purge on Tuesday. (Tempo/Fajar Pebrianto)
S
urvivors and families of victims of the 1965 communist purge have urged the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) to use the recently released declassified United States files on the purge to renew a long-stalled investigation into the mass killings.
Bejo Untung of the 1965 Murder Victim's Research Foundation (YPKP 65) said that the US files had further revealed that the Indonesian Army had, at that time, orchestrated the mass killings of alleged sympathizers of the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).
On Tuesday, Bedjo, along with five colleagues, came to Komnas HAM to voice their demands, urging the government-sanctioned rights body to "request the documents [from the US embassy] and use them as evidence” to renew its investigation into the tragedy.
"We also hope Komnas HAM ensures that it will be followed up by the Attorney General's Office [AGO]," Bedjo said. "We have suffered from getting stigmatized for 52 years. We only demand for our rehabilitation and the revelation of truth.”
Komnas HAM concluded in 2012 an investigation into the purge and has submitted their findings--that it constituted a gross rights violation--to the AGO and recommended that military officials involved in the purge be brought to trial. Yet, the AGO returned the documents to Komnas HAM after the prosecutors found insufficient evidence to build a case.
Komnas HAM commissioner M. Nurkhoiron said it had yet to decide whether to use the declassified US files to complement its investigation, which was concluded years before the release. (ipa)
