In December, JILL HICKSON visited Indonesia with a video camera to document the situation there since the government crackdown in July on the People's Democratic Party (PRD). As a guest of the underground, she travelled extensively around the country interviewing workers, student activists and human rights defenders.
The PRD arranged the visit, keen to assist with the video project, which is sponsored by ASIET (Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor) and Actively Radical TV, which provided equipment.
I was met at the airport by my PRD guide, Cokro, who organised a full program of interviews and filming. In two weeks I travelled around Java, visiting Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, where Dita Sari was in prison. I met with underground leaders of the PRD, conducted interviews with students from SMID (Student Solidarity for Indonesian Democracy), workers from PPBI (Centre for Labour Struggles), peasants from STN (National Peasants Union), artists and musicians from JAKAR.
It was clear that the PRD is still operating among the population. We were rarely left waiting, as everyone was keen to discuss the situation in Indonesia.
A highlight of the trip was an interview with Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia's foremost novelist, who stated that he would join the PRD if he was a young man.
Before I left, I was handed a remarkable piece of videotape from the PRD. It contained an interview with Dita Sari, obtained when PRD activists smuggled a video camera into the jail. In the interview Dita calls on her comrades to use the freedom they still have and not to hold back on any actions.
Cokro always had an explanation — true or otherwise — for those wanting to know where I was from and why I was filming. To the ferry operator who was taking us across the canal to a poor kampung, Cokro explained I was making a film on the living conditions of Indonesians.
The ferry driver pointed out a man using the canal for a toilet while three women were using the canal as a bathtub, another washed her clothes and yet another washed her baby amid piles of rubbish floating along. He told Cokro that it was good for foreigners to see the real living conditions of the workers and urban poor because it was important that people overseas knew that Suharto was a liar.
I came across many such examples of resentment among the urban poor for Suharto and his ruling clique. Those I talked too were full of stories of the heroic actions taken by the urban poor, the street vendors, the paper sellers and the beggars. During the military crackdown and the riot on July 27, there were many examples of the urban poor whisking people away from danger into the safe recesses of the poor kampungs.
The underground meetings I attended were held in safe houses all across the country. A PPBI organiser in Surabaya told me that he no longer had a legal existence, that he could not apply for work because he would be arrested immediately, but it did not stop him from organising
Everywhere I went I was impressed by the level of organisation of the PRD despite the repression and arrests. The PRD still has a very high level of contact with the people on the streets, in the factories, in the countryside and on campuses.
The first issue of its publication, Liberation, is circulating underground. Everyone I met was optimistic for the future though very aware of the dangers in continuing to struggle for democracy.
Many people in both Indonesia and Australia worked hard to make the video a reality. Normally impossible to make without hundreds of thousands of dollars, this documentary was made with no money but lots of voluntary organisational and political support and hard work.
The result is a 30-minute documentary explaining the events leading up to the military crackdown in July. It provides the background on why the Suharto government is targeting the PRD and looks at its program and work among the workers, students, peasants and the urban poor.
Titled There is only one word, RESIST, the video will be launched in March by ASIET groups around the country.