Jakarta Globe, Ari Susanto, Mar 15, 2015
Yogyakarta/Solo. The national commission for women’s protection has called on the government to acknowledge as a national tragedy the mass rape of ethnic Chinese women during the May 1998 riots that preceded the downfall of the late strongman Suharto.
Families of victims scatter flower petals on Monday at a mall in Klender, East Jakarta, that was burned down on May 13, 1998. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya). |
Yogyakarta/Solo. The national commission for women’s protection has called on the government to acknowledge as a national tragedy the mass rape of ethnic Chinese women during the May 1998 riots that preceded the downfall of the late strongman Suharto.
“The
victims and families just need the government’s affirmation that rape and
violence against women on a massive scale occurred 17 years ago, and that most
of the victims never got justice,” Yuniyanti Chuzaifah, the chairwoman of the
National Commission on Violence Against Women, or Komnas Perempuan, told the
Jakarta Globe in Yogyakarta over the weekend.
“Let the
people today know and recognize it. Never conceal or forget, as we need to
learn from the past.”
Yuniyanti
said she supported Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama’s plan to build a
memorial in the Pondok Rangon cemetery, as well as a move by Mayor F.X. Hadi
Rudyatmo of Solo, Central Java, to conserve Purwoloyo cemetery. Both sites are
the final resting places of victims of the outbreak of violence that tore
mainly through Jakarta, Solo and Medan, North Sumatra, in early and mid-May
1998 and that targeted primarily Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community.
The rights
commissioner said she was worried that this dark chapter in the country’s part
would eventually be glossed over as part of the price that had to be paid to
force Suharto from power, and not as a series of serious human rights
violations that warranted its own investigation.
A
fact-finding team set up by the government later recorded at least 85 instances
of sexual violence targeting ethnic Chinese women during the episode, although
independent observers have put the true figure at closer to 500.
The mobs
responsible also looted and torched ethnic-Chinese-owned businesses and homes.
Thousands
of Chinese-Indonesians fled the country in the wake of the violence, and while
many returned, it was to a life that was markedly subdued than before.
Sumartono
Hadinoto, a prominent Solo resident and community organizer whose businesses
were targeted in the rioting, said that he and other families preferred to
forget the tragedy, but acknowledged the need to recognize what happened.
“I and most
of the other victims wish we could erase our memory of the tragedy. Remembering
the rape and violence will mire the families in misery and despair, and won’t
give them back their previous lives,” he said.
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