Indonesia's Mass Rape Victims Are Waiting for Justice That May Never Come
Illustration by Ilham Kurniawan

FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Identity

Indonesia's Mass Rape Victims Are Waiting for Justice That May Never Come

In 1998, hundreds of Chinese-Indonesian women were raped and sexually assaulted as riots gripped the country. Will the perpetrators ever end up behind bars?

This article originally appeared on VICE Indonesia.

All it takes is a trip past an overpass in Slipi, West Jakarta, to leave Siska* shaking with terror. Nineteen years ago, then medical student Siska was waiting for a bus under that same overpass with a friend when a gang of men forced both women into a black Toyota Kijang SUV and sped off.

The women were thrown out of the SUV in the nearby suburb of Kebon Jeruk. Both had been sexually assaulted. One man slashed Siska's breasts; she had fainted the minute his blade touched her skin. When she came to, she was bleeding heavily and had been abandoned on a street far from her home. The men had fled the scene. As far as Siska knows, they have never been prosecuted for their crimes.

Advertisement

"In the past, whenever I was reminded of that incident, my entire body would shudder and break out in a cold sweat," she recalls. "I would suddenly have this utter revulsion toward my breasts. At first, I would scream out, crying hysterically whenever I passed this area."

Siska told her story to a researcher from the National Commission on Violence Against Women ("Komnas Perempuan" in Indonesian) for a report on the mass rape of Chinese-Indonesian women that occurred during the May 1998 riots. Her story was included in a 2003 report titled In Denial!.

Read more: What It's Really Like to Live in the 'Rape** Capital' of India**

The riots were one of the darkest periods in Indonesian history. Street violence broke out throughout the country as President Suharto's New Order government failed to curb the effects of a regional economic crisis. Indonesia lost 13.5 percent of its GDP in a single year; the rupiah was in free-fall; the government tried to raise the price of gasoline by 70 percent, and the price of electricity tripled. Students took to the streets, protesting on campuses in most major cities to demand that Suharto step down.

But officials within the New Order regime were pointing their fingers at the country's ethnic Chinese minority, a group that those in power have long used as a scapegoat.


Watch: Amy Ziering On Campus Rape and Why No One Believes Women


Indonesia had seen a rise in sporadic anti-Chinese riots throughout much of that year, but tensions boiled over in May. In 1998, riots broke out on May 4in the country's third-largest city—Medan in North Sumatra—after a student was allegedly killed with a tear gas canister. By May 12, the violence had hit the capital after security forces opened fire on a crowd of student protestors at Trisakti University in west Jakarta. In a wave of violence that lasted for days, angry mobs took over the streets, looting and setting fire to Chinese-Indonesian-owned shops, and targeting ethnic Chinese communities.

Advertisement

More than 1,000 people were killed in Jakarta alone, many of them were looters who died in a series of large fires. Initial estimates uncovered evidence of at least 168 rapes in the Indonesian capital city, and there were an additional 300 reported in other parts of the nation. Most of the victims were Chinese-Indonesian women.

Most of the rape victims during the May 1998 riots were Chinese-Indonesian women. Photo by Bo Bo via Stocksy.

On July 15, 1998, then president BJ Habibie condemned the violence against women in a formal government apology. His new Reformasi government established a fact-finding committee to investigate the riots shortly after Suharto's fall. The National Commission on Violence Against Women, established in October 1998 by presidential decree, was tasked with investigating the allegations of mass rape.

The two fact-finding teams—the Joint Fact Finding Team (TGPF) and the Volunteers Team for Humanity (TRuK)—soon found compelling evidence that the rapes had indeed occurred. They submitted their reports to the central government within a month and waited for a response.

But by 2003, the commission's follow-up investigation reached a damning conclusion: The government had failed to take the investigation any further. The victims, many of them members of the country's ethnic Chinese minority, were instead forced to live in a society that denied that the rapes had ever happened. Five years later, the report concluded, survivors still hadn't found justice:

"Such circumstances unfolded in the midst of denials about the tragedy that persist to this day. Refutations were made by the state, which until today has still failed to execute any follow-up measures on the outcomes of the investigation into the May 1998 riots. Accountability for the gross human rights violations that occurred in the incident have never been brought to bear. This state of denial is also manifest in the attitude of broader society, which refuses to acknowledge that the rapes and sexual assaults actually occurred."

Advertisement

That report came out in May 2003. But when I met with Mariana Amiruddin, a commissioner at the National Commission on Violence Against Women, she told me that little had changed in the 14 years that followed.

"There wasn't any development on the rape cases because there were a lot of denials," Amiruddin says. "[The rape cases] were denied and considered lies. It's as if they never happened."

Amiruddin has spent the last two years pushing for renewed interest in the cases, arguing that the victims deserve justice. When we met, she had just finished meeting with several victims' families. She would later hold a memorial and condemn the government's inaction on the matter.

The memorial was held amid the nameless tombs of East Jakarta's Pondok Ranggon public cemetery. Former president BJ Habibie was there. He promised to personally deliver all the fact-finding committees' reports to current President Joko Widodo, and urge him to look into why the investigation never progressed any further.

The former president was mobbed by reporters after the event. They wanted to know, had he changed his mind in the 19 years since his apology? No, he said. When pressed as to why the rape cases remained unsolved, he said that the Reformasi government was, at the time, focused on the very real concerns that the country was about to fall apart.

I can't believe it's been almost 20 years. I am still so angry.

Advertisement

"Yes, [the rapes] happened," Habibie said. "They happened. I don't know what is being done at the moment or what obstacles [the current administration faces]. But there was no use in focusing on certain problems if the consequence was letting our nation divide into several countries, like what happened to Russia. We could've split up into 20 to 30 countries. But we stayed united and there was no civil war."

Amiruddin also said that the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) also seemed far more interested in investigating the disappearance of 23 pro-democracy activists during the twilight of Suharto's regime and the shootings at Trisakti University that started the riots.

"Komnas HAM was in charge, and it seemed to me that they focused more on the shootings and kidnappings," she told me. "There haven't been any follow ups regarding the rapes. Back then, Habibie formed the TGPF to investigate the rapes, but the victims were already too traumatized. One victim who agreed to testify at the UN, Ita Martadinata [Haryono], was murdered. The only institution that could prove the incidents occurred is Komnas Perempuan."

The United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women made a visit to Indonesia in November 1998 and determined that Chinese-Indonesian women were the primary target in the mass rapes. But many victims were reluctant to come forward. Nearly all of them had received anonymous death threats in the mail, which showed that their assailants knew their names and where they lived. Many didn't want to report the rapes to the police because they were afraid of being forced to take the stand in court. And no one wanted to talk publicly and risk facing public stigma or possible reprisals from rapists who were still at large.

Advertisement

For More Stories Like This, Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Sandyawan Sumardi, a reverend who investigated the rapes as part of the Joint Fact Finding Team, reached a similar conclusion and received similar death threats. His team met with many of the victims personally, interviewing the women, as well as the doctors, nurses, and those who rushed to the victims' aid. One woman was raped in a taxi for nine hours before she was dumped unconscious on the street, he said. Another was violated with a curtain rod by men who forced their way into her apartment. The city's hospitals were overflowing with victims, but amidst all the chaos and suffering, these two women struck up a friendship.

"At that time I was thinking, maybe as fellow victims, they could comfort each other," he told me. "So that's why I took her to visit the second victim. I only introduced them, and then they just held each other's hands and supported each other. Both of them survived."

Today, the memories of May 1998 still fill Sumardi with emotion.

"I can't believe it's been almost 20 years," he told me." I am still so angry."

Siska spent a year recovering in Singapore after an airline, shocked at her terrible state, let her board a flight out of Jakarta without a ticket or a passport. She underwent plastic surgery to repair the damage to her breasts, but it took much longer to repair the psychological damage

"I had panic attacks five to six times a day," she says. "I would claw at my hair, face, and stomach like a lunatic. Each day I would stare at my breasts for hours in front of the bathroom mirror. While pointing to my breasts, I would curse loudly, 'Because of you, I have been reduced to this. You were the ones severed, but I am the one to suffer the pain. I am the one in pain… not you. Do you understand?'"

Advertisement

Because I am Chinese, wherever I go I feel like I'm being followed. I feel like I can easily be attacked at any time…

She returned to Jakarta and changed her name. She'd gained some weight while abroad, and she felt like her new body, as well as her new name and haircut, protected her. It made her anonymous—someone different from the woman who was sexually assaulted during the riots. As long as no one recognized her, she felt safe.

But she plans to continue her studies abroad in the United States, and then return to Singapore to live full-time and work at a plastic surgery center to help women like her. Siska says she always felt uneasy back home, like a defenceless deer wandering through a forest of tigers.

"I don't know, because I am Chinese, wherever I go I feel like I'm being followed," she says. "I feel like I can easily be attacked at any time… I feel safer in Singapore because not many people know about my background."

* Name has been changed