UNDER THE MILITARY HEEL IN INDONESIA
{The following letter from Java, dated January 14, 1967, has been translated from the February 27 issue of the Suara _Pemuda Indonesia, the bulletin of the Indonesian Students Association published in China.
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Although the present regime consists of civilian and military personnel, basically it is a military dictatorship of the rightist army generals headed by Nasution and Suharto. It manifests itself in all walks of life. In the provinces rule is exercised by the KODAM [provincial military command]; in the Kabupatens [districts], by the KODIM [district military command]; in the Ketjamatans [counties], by the KORAMIL [county military command]; and most of the village heads have been replaced by military men, particularly from the army. The political parties play no role and what they say is completely ignored.
The military dictatorship loudly declares that it is “defending democracy." In reality they are destroying democracy. Anyone whom the Nasution-Suharto fascist regime suspects, or whom they consider unwilling to cooperate in selling Indonesia to the inperialist dogs and converting Indonesia into a neocolonial territory of U.S. imperialism, is treated as an outlaw under the pretext, "suspected of having been involved directly or indirectly in the Sptember 30 Movement." Utilizing such excuses, the regime fires government officials, herds them into concentration camps without trial and there beats them to death.
A few, found not guilty, are released. But they can be arrested again and again. Many have been arrested repeatedly. A person might be arrested seven times, might be released by a unit of the armed forces, only on the following day to be arrested by a different unit, etc., etc., and wind up still in prison.
No law protects the prisoners. They can be killed at any time and by any method. For example it is now common practice in the government apparatus to "bond" (or "borrow") prisoners under the pretext: "to be employed in this or that project," or "to be sent as voluntary workers." The prisoners are then brought out, taken to a spot and shot. This is occurring in Pekalongan, Solo and other places. Outside the island of Java the situation is worse.
Another method is to sell the prisoners. The enemies of the people, especially the counterrevolutionary gangs of the MASJUMI, NU, GPII, HMI, Ansor; i.e., the gangster organizations of the landlords, compradors, bureaucratic bourgeoisie, corruptors; and the counterrevolutionary gangs of the DI-TII, PRRI-Permesta, etc., are buying prisoners (after haggling over the price for them), then they take them away and massacre then. Whatever the method used to kill the prisoners, the executioners are the same -- the "official" apparatus. Prisoners have been sold this way in Pekalongan.
In September 1966, 265 prisoners in the district of Solo were massacred in cold blood in Tawangmangu (the exact place being Tjemoro Sewu). This kind of massacre has also occurred in Pekalongan and Pratjimantoro. The executions were carried out by the "Brigade Mobil Angkatan Kepolisian" tthe Mobile Brigade of the Police Forces], which is notorious for its brutality and cruelty.
Prisoners from the city of Jogjakarta (the big prison camp of Wirogunan) were taken in a fleet of trucks to Wonosari (in the southern mountain range of Central Java) and all were killed. In Tepu in the same area there is a pit 25 meters across which slopes steeply down, for 100 meters and in which a poisonous underground gas collects. Anyone falling into this pit dies quickly. At midnight, trucks of prisoners are driven to this place and thrown into the pit. This is always done at night, never in the day. The sculptor Trubus and the painter Djoni Sutrisno and Suprano (the vice-chairman of Jogjakarta's Committee of the Indonesian Journalists Association and editor of both the daily Ari Warti and the magazine Waspada in Jogjakarta) were all murdered in this pit.
No attention is paid to the health of the prisoners. They are not given enough food; they suffer from malnutrition, dysentery or beriberi. Many have died from these causes. For example in Tangerang (Jakarta), in Jogjakarta and other cities; also, and to a still worse degree, in Sumatra and other islands.
Some prisoners are fed only once a day, being given maize, for instance in the city of Semarang (Central Java). There are also prisoners who are given no food at all. They have to depend on food packages sent by relatives. But the prisoners' families are becoming poorer and poorer because previously they were dependent on the prisoners for
their livelihood. A prisoner who gets sick is left to die. Letting prisoners die from hunger or sickness is a policy with the military dictatorship; it lightens their heavy "burden" of having to provide for the maintenance of hundreds of thousands of prisoners.
Prisoners suspected of being cadres or committee members of the PKI [Indonesian Communist party] or of revolutionary mass organizations (but for which proof is lacking for submission to a military court) are killed by various ways and means, as in Lamongan (Eastern Java). The military dictatorship decided to kill all the cadres and leaders of the PKI and the revolutionary mass organizations from the Central Committee on down to the branch level. The regime thinks that the PKI can thereby be smashed and Communism eliminated from Indonesia. Members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PKI, like D.N. Aidit, M.H. Iukman, Njoto, and cadres in the provinces and villages have been murdered. Ir. Sakirman (who is also a member of the Political Bureau), who was caught in Solo on October 1, 1966 will possibly be killed like the others.
Families of the prisoners, and others who escaped arrest, are being ousted from their homes which are taken over by military personnel. The homes of many prisoners have been burned down, or their personal belongings ransacked or seized, so that their families are left destitute. Many killings and arrests are not political, being motivated by personal hatred.
In some cases prisoners have been released if their relatives could raise sufficient money to pay the regime or the prison guards. In Jakarta the price for an ordinary prisoner (not a party cadre) is 15,000 rupiahs* (in October 1966), and more if the prisoner is of Chinese descent. However there is no guarantee that a prisoner released in this way will not be arrested again. There are even cases in which the money was paid put the prisoner was not released. This has happened in Solo, Jogjakarta, etc. Agents of the regime are not ashamed to openly ask for money to release prisoners.
Since the September 30 affair, the landlords have been exploiting the peasants in the villages more intensively. For example in Klaten (Central Java), land distributed to the peasants before the September 30 affair (in line with the law on land reform) has now been taken back by the landlords. The peasant's share of the crop has been drastically reduced. In Ambarawa, for instance, before the September 30 affair, the division was 1 to 6 [one part for the peasants and six for the landlord], or at worst, 1 to 8. Now it has been changed 1 to 15 or 1 to 20. In villages where it was previously 5 to 5, it is now 1 to 15. And taxes have been steeply boosted.
In some provinces, people have been forced to labor in projects run by the army without pay or very low pay. For example in Puwakarta (Western Java). In Pati (Eastern Java), when the sugar factory "Pakispaju" (run by military personnel) needed workers to cut sugarcane, the local military command forced all heads of peasant families to work three days a week from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. at a wage of two rupiahs a day and one-eighth of a kilo [4.4 ounces] of sugar a week. But the lowest wage in these villages is 10 rupiahs a day. This work is compulsory. If a peasant family cannot provide a worker to cut cane, then the family must hire someone from another family, paying a wage of 10 rupiahs because that is the minimum wage in the village.
*(The official rate for the rupiah is 500 for $1 but this exchange is rather meaningless due to the continuing extreme inflation. -- W.0.]
SCIENCE