Andrew Hickman’s obituary of Carmel Budiardjo, the campaigner for human rights and justice in Indonesia, refers to the political effects of the cold war in south-east Asia. One consequence was that the west turned a blind eye to the 1965 massacre in Indonesia and to the anti-left purge under General Suharto.
Carmel’s organisation Tapol was a lonely voice in exposing the plight of tens of thousands of political prisoners and their families. She was wonderfully forthright and focused on the cause. In 1990 when I visited Indonesia for the Guardian to cover the – largely ignored – 25th anniversary of the massacre, her help with contacts included the great novelist and ex-prisoner Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and proved to be invaluable.
