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1965 tribunal hears woman's tale of sexual abuse
Jakarta Post - November 12, 2015
Witness Tintin Rahayu (not her real name), who was a member of student group in Yogyakarta in the wake of the so-called Sept. 30, 1965 coup, testified behind a black curtain to having been incarcerated for 11 years by government forces on allegations of insurgency.
Tintin said she was tortured, sexually abused and detained at Wirogunan Prison in Yogyakarta and at Plantungan, a camp for female political prisoners in a remote part of Central Java.
She told the Indonesian People's Tribunal 1965 that she was beaten with a bicycle and her body burned, and that she was also stripped naked and subjected to sexual abuse.
"When I was moved to Wirogunan after [the sexual abuse] happened, I could not eat or sleep. I couldn't even speak to anyone, I was so ashamed," she said as recorded on youtube.com. At several points she broke down in tears.
She was detained at Wirogunan Prison and Plantungan camp, where she and her fellow detainees were forced to work the land with their bare hands.
Tintin said she was baffled by the charges of insurgency and had had no links to the (banned) Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) or the affiliated Indonesian Women's Movement (Gerwani), but she was repeatedly forced to admit to know a man accused of the same crime. "[The interrogators] did not listen to me," she said.
The tribunal is intended to publicize allegations that the Indonesian authorities were responsible for killing up to one million people regarded as communists in 1965 and 1966. The government faces a nine-count indictment of crimes including mass murder, torture and sexual abuse. No government representatives have appeared at the tribunal.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has concluded that the 1965 event was a crime against humanity, but no further government action has been pursued.
The government has refused to acknowledge the tribunal, and Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan has questioned the event, calling it unjust.
The tribunal holds no legal powers, but aims to expose the truth behind what organizers have called one of the darkest moments in Indonesia's post-colonial history.
Hendardi from the Setara Institute for Democracy Peace said that while it had no legal significance, the tribunal was doing important work to uncover the truth behind the allegations.
"The overreaction from Indonesian government officials over the International People's Tribunal is an indicator of the tribunal's success. Now the government must quickly realize steps to reveal the truth and heal the nation," Hendardi said on Thursday.
The PKI was held responsible for the murder of a number of military generals on Sept. 30, 1965, in a supposed attempted coup against then president Sukarno. PKI members and their associates were labeled traitors and brutally persecuted in the aftermath of the event.
Lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis, who is acting as a prosecutor in the tribunal, noted in his opening statement on Tuesday that the stigma attached to all relatives, spouses and children of the alleged communists had not been lifted.
"No words can explain the magnitude of physical and mental suffering experienced by people at that time, suffering that continues to this day."
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