Media
A hidden past
Ken Setiawan
Inside Indonesia | Published : 2016
Abstract
It is 4 am in the morning when the ferry arrives in Namlea, the capital of Buru. The darkness is, I think, fitting for an island with a history as a prison camp. I have come to Buru to trace my father’s footsteps on the island. A former general secretary of the left wing cultural organisation Lekra in Central Java and representative of the Indonesian National Committee for the Asia-Africa bureau of writers in Colombo, my father, Hersri Setiawan, was arrested in 1969. After being held at various prisons in Jakarta, he was sent to Buru in 1971 alongside 12,000 others.