1 - Eureka Street

TH E REGION : 2P ETER MARESIndonesian witnessIbu Sulami spent 20 years in Indonesian jails. Now 74, the formerGeneral Secretary of the Indonesian Women's Movement was oneof many imprisoned in the aftermath of the 1965 coup.Peter Mares interviewed her in Tangerang, West Java.T. HIRTY-FOUR YEARS AGO, on the night Tangerang Detention Centre there was Since Suharto's fall in May last yearof 30 September 1965, there was a a period when between two and four there have been constant calls for amutiny in Jakarta. Army units led by prisoners died every clay. The same was thorough investigation into the wealthLieutenant-Colonel Untung murdered true at Salemba Prison. The prisoners' of the former president and his family andsix top Generals, ostensibly because they reserves of strength were sa pped by the corruption, collusion and nepotismwere plotting against Indonesia's found- forced and co nstant hungeri the end that characterised his 32-year dictatoringPresident Sukarno. The rebellious result was bereberi and aJI the ship (a term which even Foreign Ministerofficers then captured a radio station and complications that ensued .. . Downer now uses to describe the regimedeclared a revolutionary council. Most of the fir st men to di e were with which Canberra was once so cosy) .The coup attempt was short-lived. farmers who, because of th e physical Less prominently reported are theMajor-General Suharto, 44-year-old labour th ey were forced to do, required calls for Suharto to be prosecuted for hiscommander of the army Strategic Reserve larger rations of food- rations that were role in crimes against humanity,(Kostrad), mustered loyal troops and not given to them. After suffering a particularly the 1965-66 massacres thatquickly crushed the rebellion. With the month of ncar starvation, when their accompanied his rise to power.Generals dead, Suharto emerged as the fami li es were all owed to visit and Leading the push for a thoroughmost powerful military figure in Jakarta. brought with them baskets of boiled investigation into the killings is 74-year-He used his new strength gradually to cassava, they wo uld eat until their old Ibu Sulami, who spen t almost 20sideline, then eventually replace, Sukarno. intestines ruptured. years in Suharto's jails. When the killingsThe coup attempt is known astook place, Ibu Sulami was on the run,Gestapu (Gerakan September Tiga Pramoedya and most of his fellow moving from house to house in JakartaPuluh, The September Thirtieth inmates were eventually released in 1979, to evade arrest.Movement) and it was blamed on the but their freedom was conditional. All 'I did not see very much of the killingsIndonesian Communist Party, the PKI. former detainees had their identity cards with my own eyes,' sh e told me. 'ButA ruthless military-backed crackdown on stamped with the code 'ET' (el