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Chapter Four

Authoritarian Rule

Suharto, an army general, took power amid chaos and killing. For a generation, he crushed dissent and pursued political stability and economic growth.

Gestapu (acronym) GErakan September TigA PUluh

The September 30th Movement.

In the mid-1960s, Indonesia was in turmoil. Prices soared. Students and militias demonstrated. Tension between the military and the communist movement was high. In the midst of it all, President Sukarno tried to balance competing factions, but his power was waning. He was known casually as Bung Karno (Brother Sukarno), yet he had declared himself president for life in 1963.

Early on the morning of Oct. 1, 1965, junior army officers rounded up and killed six senior military generals and one lieutenant in an apparent coup attempt. A seventh general escaped by jumping over the wall of his house and hiding in the bushes.

In a radio broadcast, the rebels called themselves Gerakan September Tiga Puluh, but the military referred to them by the acronym Gestapu. The analogy with the Nazi secret police added notoriety to the plotters.

Maj. Gen. Suharto became the most senior figure in the military after its senior leadership was wiped out. He blamed the uprising on the Indonesian Communist Party. The military instigated a bloody campaign against the communists and their sympathizers, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed in nationwide purges. In some cases, mobs took advantage of the chaos to settle scores, and the ethnic Chinese minority was also targeted.

Decades later, the alleged coup attempt remains a mystery. Who were the ringleaders and who knew what, and when? Was the uprising the work of disgruntled army officers, or were communist political leaders involved? Did they plan to overthrow the president? Did Suharto know about the plot? An independent investigation was never conducted, and Suharto banned publications about the incident. Many of those involved in the events of 1965 have died.

Suharto’s version of those events is enshrined in school history books, as well as films that were shown on television throughout his rule. Some Indonesians say the account should be reassessed. Even after the death of Suharto in 2008 at the age of 66, it remains a sensitive subject.

Cukil mata

Poke out eye.

Reports in military-run newspapers after the alleged coup attempt in 1965 vilified the perpetrators. The papers published photographs of cukil mata, a device that communists allegedly used to wrench victims’ eyeballs from their sockets. The contraption was originally designed to slice open the bark of a rubber tree and obtain the sap. Media also published photos of an electric chair—allegedly used for torture—that was found at the home of Dipa Nusantara Aidit, head of the Indonesian Communist Party. Aidit was later executed.

Many historians believe the military planted the devices to portray the communists as depraved and sadistic.

Supersemar (acronym) SUrat PERintah SEbelas MARet

Letter of Order of March 11.

In early 1966, Sukarno’s power was evaporating. Led by Suharto, the military backed anti-government demonstrations by students. On the night of March 11, Sukarno signed a document called Supersemar that authorized Suharto to restore order.

Suharto said the document gave him broad powers, but mystery shrouds the contents of Supersemar because the original document disappeared. Copies were released, but opponents of Suharto speculated that they were fake.

Armed with Supersemar, Suharto banned the Indonesian Communist Party, instituted economic reforms and ended conflict with neighboring Malaysia. Indonesia, which had pulled out of the United Nations under Sukarno, rejoined the organization.

The acronym Supersemar alludes to Semar, a character from Mahabharata, a story from India that was written in Sanskrit. The tale about a dynastic struggle and war inspired Javanese folklore and traditional shadow puppetry. Semar is a comical figure, but is viewed as a deity of Java and the redeemer of its people. The allusion to Suharto’s legitimacy as a leader was clear.

On March 21, 1968, the People’s Consultative Assembly—the nation’s highest legislative body—elected Suharto as president. Sukarno died under house arrest in 1970.

Dinusakambangankan

To be exiled to Nusakambangan.

Nusakambangan is a maximum-security prison on an island of the same name south of Java. Jagged rocks jut from treacherous waters that ring its shores. Dutch authorities jailed dissidents on the island, and Suharto sent suspected communists to its cells. Indonesia’s most famous writer, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, did time there in 1969 because of his links to communists.

Today, dinusakambangankan also refers to being sent to a nasty place, or receiving an unwanted job transfer.

In 2004, separatist rebels from Aceh province with jail sentences of at least seven years were transferred to Nusakam bangan, a long way from home. Officials wanted to prevent them from spreading separatist ideas in the prisons in Aceh. The government began releasing rebels under a 2005 peace deal.

Diselongkan (to be exiled to Ceylon) was a fate of exiles under the Dutch. The colonial authorities banished troublesome Javanese princes to Ceylon, a Dutch colony at the time. The British took over Ceylon, which was renamed Sri Lanka after independence.

Buru

Dutch colonizers also shipped troublemakers to Buru Island in the Banda Sea.

Most of the mosquito-infested island, dominated by two mountains, was covered in dense jungle. In the late 1960s, Suharto sent communists to do hard labor at the notorious site.

Writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer spent 14 years on Buru, where he was denied access to pen and paper for much of the time. He composed the Buru Quartet, works about a leader of the revolution against the Dutch, by telling stories to prisoners who helped him remember and write them down later. Pramoedya was released in 1979.

Pramoedya’s 34 books and essays were translated into several dozen languages, and he inspired pro-democracy activists. In 2004, he was trying to compile an encyclopedia of Indonesia, but he hadn’t written anything in a while. He was weak and his hearing and eyesight were fading. He had difficulty climbing to his third-floor study, which was stacked with books and clippings. Still, he called himself a “fighter.”

He died in 2006 at the age of 81.

In the old days, Buru housed as many as 12,000 prisoners. Hersri Setiawan, a former political prisoner, wrote a book called Kamus Gestok that contains prison slang:

Ingus gajah

“Elephant’s snot” = Tapioca pudding, or fried dough bread.

The dish earned its name because of its gooey consistency and greenish color. The prisoners also called it umbel (snot, in Javanese).

Sayur kepala

“Head Soup” = Prison gruel.

Inmates joked that you could spin the ladle around in the pot all you wanted, but you’d only hook one or two limp spinach leaves at best. The most likely outcome, they said, was seeing the reflection of your face in the broth.

Sayur usually means vegetable, but in this case it means soup or broth.

Sayur plastik

Plastic soup.

For prisoners on Buru, soup made of young leaves of papaya fruit was sayur plastik because the stalks were so thinly cut that they were almost transparent, like some plastics.

Naik Honda

“Ride a Honda” = Suffer from malaria.

The spasms of convicts with malarial fever resembled the bouncing motion of a ride on a Honda motorbike. During the crack-down on communists in the 1960s, Honda bikes from Japan were all the rage in Indonesia.

Inmates improvised treatments for the symptoms of malaria. They made medicine out of boiled roots and leaves, and administered a mix containing a soybean cake called tempe bosok.

Tempe is soybean cake, which is fermented. Bosok is Javanese for rotten. So tempe bosok is doubly rotten. Javanese eat tempe after letting it sit for one or two days, a process they say makes it tastier. They grind it up with chili or add it to vegetable soup.

Sabun londo (Javanese)

Dutch soap.

Convicts described soap as Dutch, or foreign soap. The sweet smell of soap was a rarity in the filthy prison, and inmates thought only people as wealthy and privileged as the Dutch had the privilege of washing with it. Many inmates scrubbed away grime with sand or dried grass.

Laler ijo (Javanese)

“Green fly” = Prison guard.

Prisoners yelled the codewords laler (fly) or laler ijo (a bigger, green variety of fly) to warn comrades in other cells that guards were in the vicinity. The Indonesian word for green is hijau.

The term was a potent insult because laler settled on human excrement.

Pickpockets in Jakarta used laler as a codeword for police. The term faded in the 1980s.

Ali-ali (Javanese)

“Ring” = A torture weapon on Buru.

Guards attached bronze rings to the fingers, nipples or penis of a victim. They hooked the rings with wires to a generator, and cranked it up by hand to deliver electric shocks. Ali-ali was an effective way to extract confessions, true or false, from antekantek PKI (Indonesian Communist Party cadres). PKI was the Indonesian acronym of the party: Partai Komunis Indonesia.

Another torture weapon was ikan pari, a whip made from the dried tail fin of a sting-ray. Guards fixed a wooden handle onto the tail, which was covered with poisoned spikes.

“Give him the ring!” wardens yelled. Kasih dia ali-ali!

“Give him the tail!” they said. Kasih dia pecut!

Tapol (acronym) TAhanan POLitik

Political prisoners.

The tens of thousands of people arrested for alleged links with the communist movement.

Tapol fell into three categories. Golongan A (Category A) were high-level communist planners suspected of plotting against the government. They were prosecuted. Golongan B were mid-level suspects, many of whom were jailed without trial. Golongan C were accused of sympathizing with the communists, but were not considered a serious threat. Thousands of civil servants fell into Golongan C, and were fired, passed over for promotions and transfers, or were docked pay. They were Tapol kelas teri (small fry political prisoners).

Accused communist supporters who were released from jail carried national identity cards that read ET, or Ex-Tapol. Those with an ET stamp had trouble getting jobs or bank loans.

After Suharto was ousted, successor B.J. Habibie released many tapol. The president who followed him, Abdurrahman Wahid, freed the rest.

The communist party remains banned in Indonesia, and former political prisoners still face discrimination. The Supreme Court ruled that former communists can run for office beginning in 2009.

Orde Baru

New Order.

Indonesia’s experiment with parliamentary democracy in the 1950s was chaotic. The country entered a new period of stability after the tumult of the mid-1960s. President Suharto developed strong ties with the West, and the economy improved. The military was heavily involved in all aspects of government. This was Orde Baru, also known by its acronym Orba. Orde refers to a system, or set of rules. Suharto’s government disparaged the years under his predecessor, Sukarno, as the Old Order (Orde Lama).

Orde Baru lasted until Suharto was toppled in a 1998 upheaval reminiscent of the one that brought down Sukarno. By that time, state corruption and repression had tainted the New Order label.

Pembangunan

“Development” = A slogan of the New Order government.

Suharto attracted foreign capital and steered Indonesia’s economic growth rate into double digits. Resource-rich Indonesia profited from rising oil prices, and achieved self-sufficiency in rice production in 1984, though it later resumed imports.

Posters carried the slogan along with an image of a smiling Suharto as Bapak Pembangunan (Father of Development). He was usually clad in a farmer’s caping (a coned, straw hat), holding aloft an ear of rice.

Suharto mentioned Pembangunan in speeches and orchestrated chats in public. The slogan showed up in schoolbooks and cinema advertisements before the showing of feature films. Development was also a theme under Sukarno, who sought to lift Indonesia out of its colonial-era poverty.

Tinggal landas

“Take off” = A New Order slogan.

Suharto wanted Indonesia to ascend to the ranks of developed countries like an airplane taking off from a runway. The term was listed in the 1989 Gramedia Indonesian–English dictionary, one of the most widely available dictionaries in Indonesia. The dictionary describes how the 6th five-year economic development plan will enable Indonesia to “take off” and attain the status of an industrialized nation. The end of that plan coincided with the beginning of the economic crisis that helped end Suharto’s rule.

A third, unrevised edition of the Gramedia dictionary came out in 2004, long after the demise of five-year plans. It included Tinggal landas, which is still used by local authorities in speeches and development plans.

Semut hitam

“Black ants” = Hard workers.

Manpower Minister Sudomo promoted the black ant as a symbol of productivity in the 1980s. A huge drawing of a grinning black ant in a hard hat once stood in front of the Department of Manpower. The industriousness of the ant matched the government’s creed of fast economic development. The rights of workers got short shrift. The government banned independent labor unions, and jailed many labor activists.

Pahlawan devisa

Foreign exchange hero.

The New Order government said Indonesian migrant workers were heroes because they funneled revenue back into their country. Indonesia’s leaders still use the term.

Hundreds of thousands of people leave Indonesia annually to seek work elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and in the Middle East.

Working abroad can be perilous for Indonesians who don’t know foreign languages and cultures. Many are illegal immigrants, and don’t have the resources to defend themselves if trouble looms. Most get menial work for little pay. Indonesian men work as plantation or construction workers, and women work as maids. Indonesians usually earn half the wages made by Filipino workers, who are better educated and skilled, and speak better English. Indonesian migrant workers still make three times more than what they would earn in Indonesia.

These expatriate workers are usually called TKI (Tenaga kerja Indonesia; Indonesian workers), or TKW (Tenaga Kerja Wanita; women workers) because most of them are women.