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Government sidesteps call to revise dark history
Rights activists and victims of gross human rights violations are confounded by the government's response to an appeal by political exiles residing overseas to confront historical truths.
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Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly (second right) hands over a framed image of a free visa to Indonesian political exile Sri 'Ning' Budiarti (second left) while senior minister Mahfud MD (center) looks on, during an event at the De Schakel building in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023. The government is meeting with the exile community overseas as part of its push to settle past rights atrocities using nonjudicial means. (Courtesy of the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister/-)
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s the government seeks to make good on a promise to restore the rights of victims of past atrocities, the senior minister in charge has instead denied them a sense of justice by saying he is unwilling to set the record straight.
Two cabinet ministers are currently in Europe to speak with Indonesian political exiles, many of whom were stripped of their rights and forced to remain overseas after the 1965 attempted coup and the ensuing communist purge.
The exiled community applauded the efforts to restore the victims’ rights and afford them special benefits.
But they also appealed to the state to reveal the truth behind the forced termination of their citizenship and revise the history in which the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was squarely blamed for the coup attempt.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD turned them down, however, by arguing that the onus was on the experts to do their bidding.
“Different regimes have different historical perspectives,” Mahfud told a meeting of political exiles in Amsterdam that was streamed online on Sunday.
“I would say… the government is able to provide grants to fund those willing to write history, but it is not the government’s stance [to reshape past events],” he said.
