Political Activist Remembers the Soeharto Era
Jakarta, Indonesia--At first glance, the painting on the wall showed the feet
of what must be a sick man, covered by a blanket, beside a small
basket of corn grains, next to what could be a bowl of soup. ButTedjabayu Sudjojono,
70, son of Indonesia’s renowned painter, shook his head and said
this was not what the painting is all about.
The
man whose feet were shown sticking out of the striped blanket was not
just any other sick man. He was a political prisoner, jailed for his
political beliefs under the Soeharto regime. He was probably ill but the
bowl of soup next to his feet did not contain nourishment to eat.
Sudjojono,
who spent 14 years of his life in prison under the regime of former
Indonesian president Soeharto, said the painting depicted a political
prisoner imprisoned on Buru island, a large prison camp used to house
12,000 political prisoners after Soeharto came to power. Beside the
prisoner’s feet, the small basket contained 120 pieces of boiled
corn grains, the only food the prisoners were made to eat the entire
day, every day during their stay in prison.
Instead
of a delicious soup, the bowl contained stewed pieces of slippers and
shards of broken glass that the prisoners were made to eat or sip.
He
said they had to endure this ration day after day, throughout their
stay, so bad many of their friends died and only a few of them survived.
Of course, he said by way of explaining it, who would sip or drink the water that had pieces of dirty slipper parts and shards of glass floating in it? But after long hours staying handcuffed and all, they became so thirsty that they began sorting and taking out the shards of glass from the water in their desperation to drink--and that was how slowly, they began to die.
Tedjabayu,
who took us to his house in the outskirts of Jakarta two days after
the April 9 general elections, said a former political detainee gave
the painting to him as a gift on the day of his son’s circumcision
in Java, long after they were released from prison. “About 2,000
of them came, I was so surprised,” he said.
The
painting reminded them of theordeal they once shared: how, in their
hunger, they had to sort out and take away the shards of glass and
the slippers, hoping to drink from a bowl of soup. “We used to joke
about it, because without the joke, we only had death and the grave,”
he said.
An
estimated 1 million people died, most of them suspected Communists
and their sympathizers, when Soeharto assumed power in 1965,
overthrowing the Soekarno regime.
Still
a student activist when he was picked up and brought to prison,
Tedjabayu had endured Buru island for four months before he was moved
on to Nusa Kambangan, a maximum security prison off the southern
coast of Java island and then, on to a series of other prisons and
finally to the military prison camp called Ambarawa until his release
in 1979.
As
Indonesians trooped to the polls on April 9 this year for the general
elections, the outcome of which would determine Indonesia’s
presidential polls in July, Tedjabayu expressed concern over the
prospect that personalities associated with the old Soeharto regime
would usher in the military’s return to power.
At
least two of the top three contending parties in Indonesia are
fielding personalities with links to the previous regime; namely:
Soeharto’s former political party Golkar; and its breakaway, the
Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), which will be fielding
PrabowoSubianto, a former special
forces commander and former son-in-law of Soeharto,
as its political bet for president in the July elections.
Indonesia’s
election law only allows political parties which win 25 per cent of
the votes in the national elections, or 20 per cent of the total
seats in the House of Representatives (HR), to field their
presidential candidates for the presidential elections.
“This
election is important for us,” said Tedjabayu, who admitted he did
not vote in Indonesia’s previous three elections, disappointed by
the failure of the reformasi to usher meaningful change to the lives
of Indonesian people. “I did not vote because in doing so, I would
only support a government that is not pro-democracy and leaders whose
commitment to the people was not clear,” he said.
But
this time, he said, not to vote would be a sin.
“This
election will decide the future of Indonesia. We don’t want to give
the presidency back to the military and to the corrupt generation,”
he said.
A
popular uprising may have ended Soeharto’s 30-year-old rule in
1998, propping up a popular presidency that ushered in Indonesia’s
reformasi, or the era of openness and reform.
But
the failure of the reformasi era to institute meaningful change to
the lives of average Indonesians, and allegations of corruption that
followed the succeeding regimes, eroded people’s confidence and
estranged them from taking part actively in the country’s
elections.
In
Indonesia, the people’s disillusionment has given rise to the
phenomenon known as “golput,” short for “golonganputih (white
group),” a group of Indonesian voters who refused to vote, as a way
to keep themselves clean from the stain of politics they already
perceived as dirty.
Reports
by the civil monitoring election network JRRP, a multi sectoral
interfaith nongovernment organization, showed an increasing
percentage of Indonesia’s voting population have stopped
participating in the polls. “We want everyone to participate in
the elections,” says Afif, the group’s national coordinator, as
he urged citizens to take active part in the polls. “This is our
challenge because in the last three elections, we’ve been having a
decreasing participation rate.”
While
voters’ turnout registered a high of 92 per cent in the elections
of 1999, or the year after Soeharto’s overthrow, the numbers
plummeted to 84 per cent in 2004 and plunged further to 71 per cent
in the 2009 elections.
Reports
said voters’ turnout was back again to 75 per cent during the April
9 polls this year, thanks to the campaign to encourage people to
vote. “Many people are discouraged, because of the bad image and
reports of corruption,” Afif said, “This is a challenge.”
But
among those who refused to vote, journalist AneguraPerkasah,who
covers the business and human rights beat for the Indonesian paper
Bisnis Indonesia, said he is disappointed by the energy policy of the
government, which allowed big business to set up coal mines in his
hometown in Kalimantan, displacing people from their land, polluting
the air and water, and depriving people of their livelihood and
access to drinking water. “I do it as a form of protest,”
saysPerkasah, raising both his hands to show fingers untainted by
indelible ink, on the day of the April 9 general elections.
But
he was equally aghast at the people’s failure to remember the past.
Although
Jakarta Governor JokoWidodo, the presidential bet of the Megawati
Sukarno-led opposition party PDIP, continues to lead popularity
surveys, following behind him is PrabowoSubianto, the commander of
the special commando force under Soeharto.
Prabowo has beenlinked to the abduction of student activists in the time of Indonesian riots in 1998, 13 of those activists remained missing up to this day, their family members holding silent protests every Thursday in front of Indonesia’s state palace, asking for justice for their missing kin.“It seems that people easily forget,” said Perkasah, referring to the relative popularity of Prabowo in the polls.
But Tedjabayu still remembers, and his memories even go three decades further back, when Soeharto just assumed power. He recalls having to bury four of his friends at one time, he had trouble carrying them, one in front, two at his side and another one at his back. “The
first time we heard our friend died, we stood and bowed our head, as
a sign of respect,” he said, “Then, the following day, another
news of another friend came, and we could no longer stand up. We were
so weak and in pain.”“There was a time the death all around us have made us so numb, we could no
longer feel anything.”
Tedjabayu
divided the history of Indonesia into three eras: The first era
belonged to the generation of his father, the 1945 generation who
fought the Dutch and freed Indonesia from foreign power; the second
era, his generation,persecuted bySoeharto’s new order; and the next
generation, whom he said, will be the future of Indonesia. “If I’m
not going to vote it will be a sin for the future,”he said, “I
will vote to save the new generation, to ensure that the next
president will not come either from the military or from the corrupt
politicians.”
As
if recalling the taste of stewed slippers and shards of broken glass,
he says he knows exactly how it feels for the country to lose its
freedom.This year’s election should be no time for golput, he says.
Indonesians should vote to say never again to military rule.
GermelinaLacorte
is a journalist fellow of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa)
sent to observe Indonesia’s general elections on April 9, 2014.
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