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Senior minister’s plan to visit political exiles abroad gets tepid response
Senior minister Mahfud MD will be visiting some European countries to reach out to political exiles who were left stateless after the 1965 tragedy.The planned trip has received a tepid response from political exiles residing overseas.
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Activists of the Solidarity Network of Victims for Justice attend the 574th Kamisan, a weekly silent protest, in front of the Presidential Palace in Central Jakarta on February 14, 2019. At the rally the demonstrators expressed their opposition to the music bill, saying it could destroy freedom of expression. (The Jakarta Post/Dhoni Setiawan)
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enior minister Mahfud MD will be visiting some European countries to reach out to political exiles who were left stateless after the 1965 tragedy. However, the plan has received a tepid response from political exiles residing overseas.
“I will visit some European countries [to reach out to political exiles] who want to return to the country and are willing to regain their citizenship,” the coordinating legal, political and security affairs minister said on Tuesday during a meeting at the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).
However, Mahfud did not mention when he would start the tour.
His trip will be part of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s administration’s renewed commitment to righting the wrongs of the past through nonjudicial acts, in a major policy shift for the country, which has long put human rights issues on the back burner.
For the past few months, the government has been devising a scheme to reinstate the rights of political exiles, mostly students on scholarships, who were rendered stateless due to their links, or alleged links, to the 1965 attempted coup d’état which was used as the pretext for a bloody communist purge.
While the government is focused primarily on restoring the constitutional and civil rights of political exiles, it is also committed to providing social and health reparations for victims of 11 other human rights violations that occurred between 1965 and 2003.
The government, Mahfud said, must step in for the sake of humanity, as 60 years have passed since the exiles were forced to stay overseas, and many of them have already died before getting the chance to come home.
