Since 1965 a new word has been added to the Indonesian language — Tapol. Today, seven years after the establishment of President Suharto's New Order, the arrest of political suspects remains a continuing feature of the Indonesian scene. After years of consolidation and a general election (1971) which provided it with powerful Parliamentary support, the Indonesian Government still sees those in detention as a serious threat to its stability. The prisoners number remains in excess of 50,000. Up to the end of 1972 only about three hundred political prisoners had been brought to court; the vast majority have never been tried and the Government has itself admitted that it has no intention of trying them.

In the first years after independence, Indonesia was virtually free front political imprisonment. Then in the late 1950s, after regional rebellions had taken place in several parts of the Republic, several thousand political arrests were made; by the early 1960s, most were released under a general amnesty.

During the 1960s Indonesian politics underwent an increasing polarisation between left and right; in October 1965 this came to a head with the army defeating a left-wing coup attempt, the gradual replacement of Sukarno's Cabinet by a military administration, and the onset of a massive and violent anti-communist purge in which more than 300,000 died and 250,000 were arrested. Under General Suharto the army moved rapidly to crush the coup attempt, claiming that the entire communist and left-wing movement had been implicated in it. Army raids and mass assaults were launched on communist party (PKI) and left-wing organisation offices which retaliated only in isolated areas, and arrests of their leaders were soon under way.

During the course of 1966, some of those who had been arrested were released but the numbers under detention still remained very high. In March 1966 President Sukarno, who had tried to stem the tide of persecution and who had began an investigation into the massacres, was forced to sign over his powers — though not yet his position — to General Suharto. A day after the order was signed, 13 of Sukarno's Cabinet Ministers were placed under arrest and a new cabinet was formed.

Death Sentences

During the first months of 1966 a communist leader, Njoto, was brought for trial and accused among other things of having organised the recruitment of members of pro-PKI mass organisations to support the coup at Halim. He denied the charges but was found guilty and sentenced to death. Later that year, other trials took place, notably that of Dr Subandrio who had been President Sukarno's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. He, too, was sentenced to death.

Meanwhile, the PKI and all its mass organisations had been declared illegal and those of its leaders who had escaped attest went underground. During the last months of 1966 and the first months of 1967, a new wave of arrests was launched against PKI members who were working to revive the party. When the underground movement in Jakarta was effectively crushed, efforts were made to create a PKI base in Blitar, East Java This, too, was suppressed, and in 1968 there followed yet another wave of arrests.

While some of those arrested are alleged to have broken the law, a large number were detained simply because of their past association with the PKI or its mass organisations at a time when these organisations were still legal. Prisoners are classified into three main categories: the 'A' group, against whom there is enough evidence, in the Government's view, to warrant their being charged and brought to trial; the 'B' group, firmly believed by the Government to have been PKI leaders or activists and therefore 'traitors' but against whom no charges can be laid because of lack of evidence, and who are to be detained indefinitely without trial; and the 'C' group, composed of followers of the PKI and who, according to the Government, are scheduled for release. In addition, there is an 'X' category, consisting of those who have not yet been classified as 'A', 'B' or 'C' or whose former classification is up for reconsideration.

Prisoners of circumstance

Thus, the prisons and detention camps are filled not only with communists but also with leaders and rank-and-file members of the host of mass organisations connected in some way with, or generally giving support to, the Communist Party. Many such people have been arrested merely because they had left their houses during the massacres that swept the country during the last months of 1965. Added to these, there are numerous prisoners who were attested merely because of extremely tenuous or purely social relationships with persons who were thought to be communists. Others were arrested merely because they happened to be in a particular house when someone there was arrested. Persons who insisted on accompanying an arrested relative simply to know where they were being taken often found that they too were placed under arrest arrest.

One extraordinary case is that of the youngest prisoner known to Amnesty on Bum Island. When he was 11 his mother and father were both arrested. Too young to survive alone, he accompanied his mother to prison. She died some time later and the boy was taken to the father in detention at Nusakambangan, the prison island in Central Java. The father was scheduled for transfer to Buru, but died before this happened. Nevertheless, the boy was sent to Bum camp where he is now held as a 'B' prisoner, the category reserved for committed Marxists and traitors'.

How the prisoners live

The welfare of the prisoners is at the discretion of local military commanders and the officer in charge of a prison or detention centre can regulate things very much as he likes and determine how much of any official allocation for prisoners is actually spent on them.

In the prisons, accommodation is grossly overcrowded, unhygienic and forbidding. In Tanggerang Prison on the outskirts of Jakarta, three prisoners are confined to a cell 14 metres by 2 metres. In Padang Military Prison, Central Sumatra, cells built for four persons are used for between eight and 12 prisoners.

Accommodation at detention and interrogation centres is generally worse than at prisons. These units operate in converted old houses, and prisoners sleep in tiny, unventilated rooms or along half-exposed corridors.

The standard diet for political prisoners consists of two plates of rice a day, but this can vary in quantity. At the Padang Prison, the prisoners get only two handfuls of rice for each meal. With the rice the prisoners receive a small dish of watery vegetables, one minute piece of soybean cake and occasionally a small piece of salted dried fish.

Medical facilities are seriously lacking in all places of detention. There are no visits by doctors and no medicines are available at detention and interrogation centres. In cases of sickness the prisoners must rely on what they themselves or colleagues receive from outside, and if a visit to a clinic or hospital is required, this must be paid for by the detainee who has to pay transport expenses and give his military escort a good tip. Some prisons have a rudimentary medical service and some an ill-equipped hospital block, but doctor's visits are rare and medicines are scare and difficult to obtain. When prescriptions are issued by the doctor they must be bought and paid for by the relatives. Prisoners who have no relatives to visit them must rely on the prison stock of medicine for an occasional dose.

Release

In a memorandum to President Suharto and the Government of Indonesia submitted by Amnesty International, it was noted that 'the continued detention of vast numbers of persons who are uncharged and untried clearly contravenes the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the norms of the Rule of Law'. The Government is urged to reassess the cases of the 5,000 prisoners in the 'A' category, with a view to the release of those against whom there is no evidence and of those who, even if guilty of some offence, could be regarded as having purged their offence by the five years they have already spent in prison. Similarly, the Government is urged to release all the Category 'B' and Category 'C' prisoners who have not been tried.

The Kelburn Group. Amnesty International, is petitioning the Indonesian Government on the basis of the memorandum. The petition calls on the Government of Indonesia to grant the release of all untried political prisoners.

Support the campaign for the release of Indonesian political prisoners — sign the Amnesty petition.

An 11-year-old "political prisoner."