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ABSTRACT
This article examines the first two Indonesians to live in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) after the Korean War (1950–53), using their experiences (including as political exiles after 1965) to explore Indonesia’s bilateral relations with this most secretive of states. Their lives reveal much of the untold story of Indonesia’s unfolding relationship with the Kims’ dynastic state from Sukarno’s initial attraction until the return to democracy after his successor’s fall. Despite recent interest in the fate of Indonesian political exiles in Western Europe, USSR and China after 1965, relatively little critical analysis has appeared regarding those exiles in republics across the former Eastern Bloc (such as Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia), or elsewhere in Asia. Similarly, there is little attention given in Indonesia’s scholarly literature to bilateral relations with North Korea. This article attempts to address these lacunae by focusing on Indonesian political exiles in North Korea, analysing the factors which determined the options available to them during, and following, the Cold War, and their place in the bilateral relationship. In the nature of biographical studies, the article relies heavily on material provided by the individuals concerned and privileges their perspectives.
Acknowledgements
While this article focuses on North Korea, during the course of my broader research on Indonesian political exiles I have interviewed more than 50 exiles in seven countries, plus several who had returned to Indonesia. Interviews, commonly lasting for about three hours, were usually recorded (with permission) with anonymity occasionally requested. I would like to thank sincerely all those who granted interviews (particularly Waloejo Sedjati and Gatot Wilotikto) or assisted with advice or offered suggestions. I particularly appreciate the help given by Ibarruri Putri Alam who introduced me to Waloejo Sedjati (then using the names Samiaji and Valery Selancy) in Paris for an interview on 18 June 2009, and by Yusi Avianto Pareanom who arranged for me to interview Gatot Wilotikto in Jakarta on 11 August 2012.
Preliminary research from which this article draws was funded in 2008–2010 by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP0881132). The bulk of research for this article was undertaken after the conclusion of that grant.
Notes
1 Young (Citation2021: 11) provides a comprehensive analysis of North Korea’s relations with the Third World, noting that North Korean archives remain closed to foreigners.
2 In addition to special issues of the Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 44 (1) in 2010 on Indonesian exiles, and Indonesia and the Malay World 40 (117) in 2012 on Indonesians overseas, there have been studies by Allen (Citation2015), Jappie (Citation2011), Martínez and Vickers (Citation2015) and Reeve (Citation2018). Parallel to this academic interest has been the formalisation of a global Indonesian Diaspora Network (IDN), established as an international umbrella organisation in Los Angeles in 2012, at the instigation of the then Indonesian ambassador to the United States, Dino Patti Djalal <http://www.diasporaindonesia.org/pages/congress>.
3 E.g. Dragojlovic (Citation2010, Citation2016: 68–72); Hill (Citation2014, Citation2020); Theo (Citation2018); Zhou (Citation2019a, Citation2019b).
4 E.g. Aleida (Citation2017). Chambert-Loir (Citation2016: 126) calculates Indonesian exile authors have produced 133 books (11 still unpublished), including 42 autobiographical texts.
5 While fictional, the film includes appearances by several Indonesian political exiles in Prague, and incorporates aspects of their life stories.
6 Manurung (Citation2020) is one of very few academic articles on the bilateral relationship. Pareanom (Citation2012) is the most detailed discussion of the North Korea-Indonesia relationship (with the imprimatur of the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism). I could identify no book-length scholarly works.
7 To avoid the possibility of including material which might compromise individuals’ safety or wellbeing, a preliminary draft of this article was provided to some sources for verification and vetting.
8 In Adam (Citation2009), a major historian in this pelurusan sejarah (straightening out of history) movement presents a rationale for and discussion of critical revisions of Indonesian history.
9 Examples of such scholarship include Isabella (Citation2018); Lindsay and Liem (Citation2012); McGregor (Citation2012, Citation2013); McGregor and Hearman (Citation2017), Schaefer and Wardaya (Citation2013); Soyomukti (Citation2012); and Wardaya (Citation2007).
10 Hill (Citation2010: 53–54 and note 116).
11 ‘Note about a Meeting on 29 November 1957 between Deputy Foreign Minister Pak Seong-cheol with GDR ambassador Comrade Fischer and Comrade Behrens’, 10 December 1957, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, SAPMO-BA. Translated for NKIDP by Bernd Schaefer <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110011> cited in Young (Citation2018: 33).
12 Pareanom (Citation2012: 7–8) gives the date of the youth delegation’s visit as 1958, but it seems more likely to have been in late 1957, after the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students held in Moscow from 28 July 1957, as noted in Sedjati (Citation2013: 161).
13 ‘Journal of Soviet ambassador to the DPRK A.M. Puzanov for 15 March 1958’, 15 March 1958, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, AVPRF F. 0102, Op. 14, Delo 6, Listy 61–70. Translated for NKIDP by Gary Goldberg, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115973> cited in Young (Citation2018: 33).
14 An outline of Indonesia-North Korea relations is provided on the official website of the Indonesian embassy, Pyongyang (Indonesia [Citation2020]). The representation was upgraded to a Consulate-General in February 1964 and an Embassy in December 1965.
15 Waloejo wrote: ‘I left my homeland for Pyongyang … to study medicine and witness how the people of that country build a “socialist society”. With the desire that, after finishing, I return to the land of my birth, my nation, my village, and also to you my loved ones’ (Sedjati Citation2013: 3).
16 Interview with Waloejo Sedjati in Paris, 18 June 2009.
17 Sedjati (Citation2013: 32–33) provides a detailed account of his time in North Korea.
18 While Gatot had not been active in any student organisations, Waloejo was a member of the left-leaning IPPI (Ikatan Pemuda Pelajar Indonesia/ League of Indonesian High School Youth), though not of the Communist Party, with the IPPI playing a major role in their farewell ceremonies (author interviews with Gatot Wilotikto in Jakarta, 11 August 2012, and Waloejo Sedjati in Paris, 18 June 2009). On IPPI, see Hindley (Citation1964: 195–96).
19 ‘Journal of Soviet ambassador in the DPRK A.M. Puzanov for 16 April 1960’, 16 April 1960, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, AVPRF fond 0102, opis 16, delo 6, pp.147–163. Translated for NKIDP by Gary Goldberg, <http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116162> cited in Young (Citation2018: 175).
20 Airgram, From AmEmbassy, Jakarta to SecState, Washington, No. A-368, 6 February 1962. Folder 695.00/3-1361. Box 1402. RG 59: General Records of the Department of State, Central Decimal File 1960- 63. NARA II, cited in Young (Citation2018: 34).
21 Indonesia had been formally expelled from the Olympic movement for having excluded Taiwan and Israel from the Asian Games in Jakarta in 1962 for political reasons, which were deemed in breach of the spirit of the Olympic movement. Sukarno retaliated by organising GANEFO as an alternative to the Olympics, but by 1964 Indonesia had been ‘reinstated by the Olympic Committee at the urging of Japan, which wanted as many Eastern countries as possible to participate in Asia’s first Olympic Games’ in Tokyo that year (see New York Times Citation1964).
22 For details, see Sedjati Citation2013: 160 (particularly regarding the centrality of Indonesian students in Indonesia’s diplomatic activities) and Indonesia [Citation2020].
23 For details of countries with diplomatic relations with North Korea, see East-West Center Citation2021, specifically Diplomatic Relations and Embassies.xlsx downloadable from <https://www.northkoreaintheworld.org/diplomatic/countries-have-established-diplomatic-relations-dprk>. Countries preceding Indonesia were USSR, Mongolia, Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, China, East Germany, Vietnam, Algeria, Guinea, Cuba, Mali, Yemen, and Egypt.
24 Young (Citation2021: 23), notes that, while it is unlikely two military divisions were actually being readied, the rhetorical support ‘implies that the DPRK government saw Indonesia as a trustworthy and dignified ally that was worth some degree of self-sacrifice and heroism’.
25 Pareanom (Citation2012: 13–30) gives a vivid description of the ceremonial aspects of this visit, noting ‘the consulate-general only had one staff member … ; a clerk; and one local staff member’; Franciska and Lestari (Citation2015).
26 Kook-Chin Kim, ‘An overview of North Korean-Southeast Asian relations,’ in Jae-Kyu Park, B.C Koh and Tae-hwan Kwak (eds), The foreign relations of North Korea: new perspectives (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1987), p. 364, cited in Young (Citation2018: 33).
27 Young (Citation2021: 15) states that ‘In his worldwide anti-imperialist struggle, Kim Il Sung initially found no better friends than Indonesia’s … Sukarno and Cuba’s Fidel Castro’, with Kim and Sukarno both championing self-reliance and ‘indigenous versions of national autonomy’.
28 Editor-in-Chief of Warta Berita’s Sunday edition, Junus Lubis, was jailed in February 1970 for violating the Press Law and for ‘involvement in a subversive movement’ after publishing the speech in the 14 August 1969 edition (Thoolen Citation1987: 104).
29 Telegram, From AmEmbassy, Jakarta to SecState, Subject: DPRK Embassy Activity, 14 October 1971. Folder POL, Kor N, 1/1/70. Box 2420. RG 59: General Records of the Department of State, Subject Numeric Files 1970–73, Political and Defense, Pol 32-4 KOR to POL 16 KOR N. NARA II, cited in Young (Citation2018: 99).
30 For example, even according to 2021 data, Indonesia was still one of only 25 countries with embassies in Pyongyang, while North Korea maintained embassies in only 47 of the 163 countries with which it had diplomatic relations (statistics taken from various tables on East-West Center website Citation2021).
31 In Pareanom (Citation2012), for example, published by the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Kimilisungia flower features prominently throughout, both in imagery and text.
32 On the situation for Indonesian exiles in China, see Hill (Citation2020). According to Gatot, at least three of these individuals have now died (pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger, 18 September 2020).
33 Chairul Saleh was on his way to Beijing for the 1 October anniversary celebrations of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. He was detained by the Suharto regime on 18 March 1966 on the assumption he supported Sukarno’s leftist policies. He died in detention in February 1967.
34 While Sedjati (Citation2013: 173) does not name the Central Committee member, it would likely have been Jusuf Adjitorop, the most senior member of the PKI abroad, and head of the so-called ‘Delegation’ of the Central Committee, based in Beijing, which oversaw the broader Indonesian exile community in China and in other pro-Beijing states (see Hill Citation2020).
35 Ambassador Erningpradja, a supporter of Sukarno, returned to Jakarta in 1968 and was replaced by Navy Lieutenant-General Hartono, a New Order appointee though regarded as loyal to Sukarno (Adam Citation2013: xii).
36 Interview with Wilotikto in Jakarta, 11 August 2012.
37 Even in 2019, there were only 20 Indonesians residing in North Korea and a market survey found that while approximately 300 Indonesian products were available in North Korea, all entered the market via China. See Indonesia [Citation2020].
38 Pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger, 4 March 2021.
39 Quotation from Mukthi (Citation2015) which provides a valuable biography of Gatot Wilotikto. Also author’s interview with Gatot Wilotikto in Jakarta, 11 August 2012.
40 Pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger, 18 September 2020 and 24 February 2021.
41 According to Sedjati (Citation2013: 119), none of the African students, for example, who commenced study in Pyongyang around the time he did, remained in North Korea long enough to complete their courses.
42 In addition to Gatot and Waloejo, the other Indonesian students in North Korea included Sugih, Seno (pseudonym), Parlin, and Batara (pseudonym), the last of whom now lives in Germany (Ibarruri Putri Alam, pers. comm. by email, 27 November 2020). It was common for Indonesians in exile to adopt pseudonyms – some used more than a dozen! – for various reasons, including to protect their relatives in Indonesia from victimisation by the Suharto regime.
43 Ibarruri Putri Alam (pers. comm. email, 27 November 2020), provided details of this media contingent which was led by Selo (also known as Bantolo) and included Titut along with several others. With the exception of Titut (who, aged 94, declined to be interviewed for this article), the others are deceased.
44 Anonymous, pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger, 2 February 2021.
45 Pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger with Gatot Wilotikto, 21 February 2021.
46 Pers. comm. via Facebook Messenger with Gatot Wilotikto, 16 December 2020.
47 Waloejo Sedjati (Citation2013: 332–336) recounts his conversation with the ambassador, whom he knew previously as the cultural attaché in Beijing prior to the 30 September Movement.
48 Adam (Citation2013) provides an excellent account of Waloejo Sedjati’s life.
49 Berlin et al. (Citation1997) examines specifically medical professionals seeking refuge in the United Kingdom but makes general comments regarding the disadvantage of professional refugees.
50 Years later Indonesia still had less than 0.2 physicians (of any kind) per 1,000 population, well under the OECD’s 3:1,000. See Mahendradhata et al. (Citation2017: 120, Table 4.7), and OECD (Citation2021).
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David T. Hill
David T. Hill is Emeritus Professor of Southeast Asian Studies, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. where he taught for 25 years until his retirement in 2015. His research covers media, politics, culture, biography, and literature in contemporary Indonesia. Email: [email protected]