Indonesia's 1965-`Holocaust' Remembered

Conventional wisdom on what happened in Indonesia during the second half of the 1960s generally held leading Army officers, in collaboration with some youth organizations, responsible for Indonesia's greatest human disaster, which included the killings, persecutions and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of allegedly left-wingers. Much less known, a seminar has recently revealed, is that foreign and local academics have been used by then most powerful security apparatuses, the Kopkamtib, in the repression
during the 1970s.

"The Forgotten 1965 Holocaust of Indonesia" seminar, held on Oct. 28 by the International Institute of Social History IISG in Amsterdam to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1965 tragedy, presented a number of testimonies - all pointing to the profound impact of the tragic events.

One victim-witness, whose husband was tortured to death, related the pain of the "semantic of repression" by the interrogators; another recalled with pain a dramatic, but polite and peaceful confrontation with his father's killer who covered up the motive; meanwhile many families have lost members or faced tragic disintegration without even understanding the reasons.

Such complex experiences left the matters unresolved precisely because the state and the society are either disinterested, or largely clouded with fear, silence and ideological hatred.

No doubt, it's important for the nation to remember the tragedy. But to refer to the killings and persecutions as "holocaust", a term inherent to Nazi's historic victimization of the Jews in Europe, would only dramatize rather than contribute to the understanding of the Indonesian tragedy.

With the truth suppressed, the price of history is a tragedy concealed, not resolved. Hence, the rights of the victims and their families should be fully rehabilitated and those responsible for the tragedy, former President Soeharto in the first place, must be brought to trial.

Meanwhile, a new trend has set in focusing on how Soeharto's New Order was founded – as distinct from the events of the 1965-66 tragedy.

Ben Anderson, an old hand in Indonesian studies, recently in Amsterdam, for example, has pointed out the importance of a number of political networks as financial and intellectual resources supporting the Opsus (Special Operation) campaign to neutralize and remove the old elite. Soeharto's rise to state power, he argued, was critical with "most domestic resources (for the campaign to consolidate changes) coming (only) from the state oil company Pertamina, Frans Seda's Department of Plantation and the C.S.I.S think tank," he told Radio Netherlands in September.

The consequences of this undisclosed legacy were real, Anderson added, pointing to the role of Kompas daily in concealing the reality of East Timor during the occupation.

The transition into the New Order has also been described in a new book - despite its title - by Dutch historian Lambert J. Giebels' "De Stille Genocide" (The Silent Genocide). Using hitherto unknown sources, he featured the central role of the Opsus chief Gen. Ali Moertopo and the Dutch priest P. Beek, which has been a public secret for sometime.

Of this trend, quite independently, the latest is a study Indonesian researchers in the Netherlands have embarked on Kopkamtib's collaboration with foreign and local scientists, which started as early as 1971 as part of efforts to consolidate the new regime.

Kopkamtib's project only came to the surface as its chief, the security tsar Admiral Soedomo seven years later proudly announced "now scientifically we can measure the state of political prisoners' ideology … with the help of Dutch psychologists." (The New York Times, 12 Apr. 1978). The admiral referred to the questionnaire designed "to check them for the state of their communist ideology", which by 1976 had been used to examine 29 thousands of political prisoners of the "B Category" on the island of Buru.

Soedomo had earlier asked the C.I.A whether they had "a computer that can be set to human head" (Haagse Post 10 Feb. 1979), but got a negative answer, so he turned to British and Dutch psychologists for advise on the questionnaire method. Four universities – University f Indonesia, Jakarta, University of Pajajaran, Bandung and those of Nijmegen and Groningen in the Netherlands - were involved from 1973 to 1976 in the set-up of a database and supervision of the researches, which was also part of Dutch-Indonesia's Cultural Agreement.

But, Soedomo claimed, the questionnaire was made by members of the Indonesian Committee of National Security, Dr. Fuad Hasan (later Ambassador and Minister of Education) and Mrs. Saparinah Sadli, who took her PhD on the subject at the University of Nijmegen.

The issue had ignited student protests in the Netherlands in the late-1970s, but then University of Nijmegen Council and Dutch Institute of Psychologists NIP denied any ethical wrongdoing, rejecting the accusation of being "an instrument of Indonesia's security apparatuses".

There have been since no public response, though, from the Indonesian academics, and the new research team on Kopkamtib's project is now planning an inquiry.

In fact, the political prisoners had been subjected to a test that served the aim of the Kopkamtib. Former Buru prisoners have confirmed of being exposed to the questionnaire and had feared their answers might influence their predicament, Hilmar Farid, a member of the research team, told Radio Netherlands. Some were indeed released later than others.

Soedomo himself admitted the method had been used to select those who had to be scrutinized after being released. Indonesian psychologists were even active on the ground, reportedly traveling to Buru and questioning prisoners the admiral called "criminal elements".

The psychologists' role has thus critically shaped Kopkamtib's approach to the political prisoners.

The fact that the Kopkamtib decades ago sought and acquired scientific legitimacy for repression is a good lesson even today. It reminds the civil society the need to watch some state apparatuses even more critically as they now seek more power – just as the active role of many intellectuals and Western governments during Soeharto's transition to state power helps explain the sustainability of his three decades-long New Order regime.