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The truth first, Mr. President
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The International People's Tribunal (IPT) on 1965 crimes against humanity in Indonesia is held in the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Nov. 10 to 13. (Courtesy of the International People’s Tribunal 1965/-)
V
ictims and human rights defenders celebrated the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims on March 24.
The right to the truth, together with the right to justice, and reparation — including rehabilitation and compensation — are the rights of a victim that should be guarded and implemented as guiding principles in all government policies to combat impunity. Without it, every step taken by the government to solve abuses is a mockery of justice. It is the victims, not perpetrators of gross violations of human rights that need to be respected by the state.
Pak Kandi Pargono is one of the survivors of the 1965-1966 witch hunt, arbitrary detention and killings of suspected communists from Maluku — which therefore can be considered “genocide” of a particular group. He is above 70, frail but still spirited. He told me there were many people like him in Ambon, but they were afraid to speak out.
Or to be precise, their families are afraid. And since the state is not taking care of them, they rely on the support of the families in their old age.
We invited Kandi to tell his story in a public meeting in Ambon on March 19, titled “Against Forgetting: Buru and the survivor’s path to justice.” We also screened Rahung Nasution’s film, Buru My Motherland.
The meeting was attended by 51 invited guests and about 10 uninvited guests, intelligence members from the police, the district military command (Kodim) and according to a journalist, even from the State Intelligence Agency (BIN).
Like all fellow detainees Kandi said he was arrested, beaten and imprisoned in various military camps in Ambon, before they eventually sent him to Buru. His only sin was that he was an active and respected citizen in Ambon, a teacher, an artist and at the time of his arrest the chairman of the Maluku branch of the People’s Cultural Institute (Lekra).
