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Grief of 1998 still lingers
Justice for all: A protester holds a poster that calls for the prosecution of former president Soeharto’s “cronies” during a rally to mark 20 years since Soeharto’s fall, in Jakarta on Monday
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ustice for all: A protester holds a poster that calls for the prosecution of former president Soeharto’s “cronies” during a rally to mark 20 years since Soeharto’s fall, in Jakarta on Monday. Two decades ago, Soeharto resigned from the presidency following a deadly riot that was triggered by a financial crisis marked by a plunging rupiah and mass unemployment. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
For Maria Sanu, May 14, 1998, began as just another day.
The day went by as her son, Stevanus Sanu, then 17 years old, watched television while his brothers told him to wash and dry clothes in the family’s home in Perumnas Klender, North Jakarta.
He complied and later went out for soccer with his friends.
She remembered the boy had yet to have his lunch and went out to look for him.
“His friend said Stevanus had gone to Plaza Klender to see a riot. Since none of his friends were interested in the riot, he went to the mall alone,” Maria told The Jakarta Post on Monday, recalling that fateful day.
Stevanus never returned.
The news about the riot and the burning of nearby Plaza Klender was aired on television that afternoon.
Two days later, Maria was informed that the bodies of the victims of the fire had been taken to Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Central Jakarta.
To her despair, her son’s body could not be distinguished amid all the other charred corpses lying in the hospital.
“I prayed to God at that time. If Stevanus was afraid of coming home, please show him a way home. But if he was burned inside, I hope God could forgive him,” she said.
Political upheavals gripped the city in May 1998, as students and activists demanded that then- president Soeharto step down.
Days of protests had turned into riots, frequently driven by anti-Chinese sentiment.
Thousands of individual shops and 40 malls in Greater Jakarta were damaged or destroyed.
The violence claimed 2,244 lives, according to the 2002 Volunteers’ Team for Humanity.
The largest number of deaths occurred in and around Plaza Klender, then also known as the Yogya department store, with 288 killed.
Twenty years on, Maria still visits the Pondok Rangon Public Cemetery in East Jakarta, where all of the unidentified victims of the riots were buried.
Each of the graves have a uniform headstone that reads “Korban Tragedi 13-15 Mei 1998 Jakarta” (Victim of the 13-15 May 1998 Tragedy in Jakarta).
That is where Maria usually prays, although there is no special grave for her to visit.
Alongside the 1965 purge of the Indonesia Communist Party (PKI), the 1998 tragedy is among the largest human rights abuse cases that the government has yet to resolve.
In 2015, the Jakarta administration under then-Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama built a monument shaped as a needle with a red thread, titled Prasasti Jarum Mei 1998 (Needle Statue of May 1998), in the cemetery.
The threaded needle symbolizes the healing process for the victims’ families for the loss of their loved ones.
Maria still grieves to this day over the loss of her son, but she wants something more than a memorial.
She wants the government to uncover the mastermind behind the riots that killed her son.
“If the city administration makes other monuments, I’m worried it won’t maintain them well. It will make me even sadder if one day I find the monument dirty or vandalized,” she said.
Maria was referring to another monument built near a river in the Klender area by the victims’ families. Not having been maintained, it is in poor condition today.
There are many unresolved issues about the riots.
A fact-finding team on the 1998 tragedy set up by the government found that the riots and the burning of the Yogya Plaza were started by a group of men who incited people to loot and riot, and later locked the building and started the fire.
Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) researcher Wahyudi Djafar said he hoped the city administration could build other monuments to remember other human rights violations, such as Semanggi I and II, Trisakti and the Tanjung Priok case, in a collective action to uncover the truth and achieve justice for victims and their families.
“The monument is needed to prevent similar violations from occurring in the future,” he said.
Wahyudin said that although it was the central government’s job to resolve the human rights violations, the Jakarta administration could participate in an effort to conciliate the victim’s families, for example by building
monuments.
The Jakarta administration is reluctant to respond to the requests to build more memorials.
“The administration should be careful in deciding whether to build another monument, as it could reopen the wounds of the victims’ families,” said Jakarta Tourism and Culture Agency head Tinia Budiati.
Aside from the Pondok Rangon statue, the administration has also built a statue in front of Trisakti University campus in Grogol, West Jakarta, to remember the shooting of four students on May 12, 1998.
The administration has also renamed a nearby Transjakarta bus stop “Grogol 12 Mei Reformasi”.
