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Update from Rachel Sutton, Peace Brigades International Volunteer
Jakarta, Indonesia
April, 2004

Dear Supporters,

To start with, I apologize for the overall lack of updates. My work with PBI in Indonesia has been quite different from what I thought it would be, with less individual stories to tell, and hence harder to write about. But I will do my best-in almost six months of work I must have collected some stories!

Story one: An extra special airport pick-up One regular duty of the PBI Jakarta sub-team is to pick up new volunteers at the airport when they first arrive in Indonesia. An enjoyable while not particularly exciting task. However, our experience in airport pickups came in handy when we accompanied a client from the airport to her location in Jakarta.

PBI has rarely done physical accompaniment in Jakarta. For a long time, activists considered themselves safe in Jakarta and had no need for accompaniment. However, some Acehnese activists have received threats in Jakarta and don’t consider it completely safe anymore. One day, the team got a phone call from one of our clients in Aceh, a lawyer. She requested that we accompany her from the Jakarta airport to a safe location in Jakarta, later that same day. This was very unusual-both the request, and the short notice. She explained that it was an emergency situation. She was accompanying several of her clients to Jakarta, Acehnese student activists recently arrested then suddenly released, because they feared being rearrested. This was a high-profile case and she was afraid of recriminations against herself for representing the students. After some intensive conversations within the team, with our teammates in other locations, and some committee members, we decided to offer protective accompaniment to our client.

As part of the back-up team, I notified contacts at embassies, NGOs, and other key members of our network that a protective accompaniment would occur in Jakarta. While doing this, the accompaniment team prepared their “kits”: Lovely PBI t-shirts, passports, dictionary, cell phone, list of contacts, dictionary, and letters of support. We together prepared a schedule for check-in times and a response plan should anything go wrong.

Thankfully, everything went smoothly. The accompaniment team met our client at the airport and safely accompanied her, along with her clients, to their location. The back-up team was clear on all plans and maintained good communication with the accompaniment team. Our client visited the next day for an evaluation of the accompaniment and to have a rare and valuable face to face visit. Several days later, she returned to Aceh alone and continued with her work there.

Story two: Our client is searched for

PBI currently has several clients who live in Jakarta-all were PBI clients in Aceh, but moved to Jakarta when the most recent military operation began. Many activists left Aceh at that time, fearful that activists would be targeted and the process of law would break down under military authority. Most feel quite safe in Jakarta, but there are a few who request that PBI keep regular contact with them so that someone should know if they are ever arrested.

One of our clients has received various types of threats and intimidation even while living in Jakarta. When asked why he in particular is targeted, he said it is because of his history. In addition to being a human rights activist, he himself was a victim of arbitrary detention and torture, and witnessed many human rights violations during his time in detention. He said this combination is very threatening to those who don’t want human rights violations exposed.

In addition to the threats he’s received in Jakarta, his family home in Aceh has been visited by soldiers numerous times. They always search his home and the village, and ask his family for information on where he is. The latest time, they were very intimidating and his family gave our client’s Jakarta address. After that, unidentified men showed up at his home in Jakarta multiple times. He predicted this, and hence had already left Jakarta. If possible, he would like to leave Indonesia.

To watch someone continue to work in these kind of circumstances is an amazing but also a very hard thing. He goes through periods of constant fear, of worry for his family, and of anger. When new events occur, he doesn’t sleep or eat much. He often considers stopping his work, but says it’s not possible-the only way he can live with what was done to him and some of his family members (killed, disappeared) is to continue to struggle. Since he doesn’t want physical accompaniment from PBI at this time, all we can do is keep in regular contact with him. By sharing his experiences with us, it gives him some moral support. Also, he wants stories of human rights violations to be spread as far and wide as possible in the world, increasing the chance that they won’t happen again.

For the moment, he feels safe in his location and has not received threats for several days.

General update

I am still working in Jakarta. We do provide some client services here, but our main focus in on maintaining PBI’s presence in Indonesia, and on networking. We go to many meetings with embassy representatives, government officials, and other NGOs (local and international). The work is interesting, but rarely involves accompaniment in the field, the aspect of PBI I was most excited to experience. However, I will be joining the Papua sub-team in July, after I get back from my two week holiday in Canada. I am very excited for this opportunity. The Papua sub-team is newly established. My work there will involve building up a security network, accepting new clients, and doing assessments into new areas so we can do accompaniment there.

I hope it won’t be another 5 months until I send another update, but when I do it will definitely be from Papua, so hopefully I will have some very interesting stories to relate. Thanks again for your support of my work here-I would not be doing this if it wasn’t for all of you.

Yours sincerely, Rachel