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Attempts at formal reconciliation 'will reopen old wounds'
Jakarta Post - June 3, 2016
A number of retired military generals organized the symposium titled "Protecting Pancasila from the threat of the Indonesian Communist Party [PKI] and other ideologies" in Jakarta on Wednesday and Thursday.
The event was set up to challenge the previous symposium in April titled "Dissecting the 1965 Tragedy", which brought together victims and families of the 1965 communist purge, human rights activists, academics and state officials to discuss how to settle the dark chapter in Indonesian history.
On the last day of the symposium, it issued a list of recommendations that would be submitted immediately to the government.
"We are calling on the government, NGOs and the public not to bring up past cases anymore, as it could open old wounds, disrupt the nation's unity, or even encourage prolonged horizontal conflicts," said Indra Bambang Utoyo of the Communication Forum of Indonesian Veterans' Children (FKPPI).
The kidnapping and murder of six Army generals on Sept. 30, 1965, led to the purge of PKI members, sympathizers and their families, resulting in hundreds of thousands of victims killed across the country during the massacres in 1965 and 1966. However, Indra said there were several indications of the revival of the PKI in the country.
"Since the beginning of the reform era [in 1998], the PKI has been trying to keep its existence by holding three congresses, managing to reverse the historical facts, spreading videos and films consisting of agitation and defamation, and blaming its own faults on others such as the New Order government, the Indonesian Military [TNI] and Muslims," he said.
Furthermore, he urged the government to ban the PKI and all of its activities, corresponding with several regulations, including the 1966 Provisional People's Consultative Assembly (MPRS) law that banned the dissemination of "communism, Leninism and Marxism" in Indonesia.
Besides, the government needs to deepen lessons about the national ideology Pancasila in schools, as well as in non-formal and informal education, he added.
Coordinating Political Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said on Monday that the government would include the input from the counter-symposium, combining it with the previous symposium's recommendations.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) historian Asvi Warman Adam said on Wednesday that the counter-symposium could be ineffective as communism had been long dead worldwide.
"It's going to be ineffective if its only message is just about the revival of the PKI, because the PKI has been dissolved. However, stigma about communism was always present during the 30-year regime of New Order," he said, as reported by Kompas.com. (vps/bbn)
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