Oei Tjoe Tat
Author profile
born
April 26, 1922
in Indonesia
died
January 01, 1996
gender
male
About this author
Oei Tjoe Tat was born in Solo, Central Java, in 1922 to a Catholic Chinese Indonesian family. He studied at university and held senior positions in a number of organisations. These included Vice-Chairman of the Indonesian Chinese Democracy Party, legal adviser to the Greater Jakarta Military Command, General Manager of Partindo, and Chairman of the Marhaen Farmers Movement. He also held senior posts with Baperki (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia), a left-wing Chinese political organisation banned after the coup for its links with the PKI. He became Vice-Chairman of Baperki before taking on the job of State Minister at Sukarno's request.
At the time of the coup Oei had just returned from a visit to Thailand and Hong Kong. He re...more
Oei Tjoe Tat was born in Solo, Central Java, in 1922 to a Catholic Chinese Indonesian family. He studied at university and held senior positions in a number of organisations. These included Vice-Chairman of the Indonesian Chinese Democracy Party, legal adviser to the Greater Jakarta Military Command, General Manager of Partindo, and Chairman of the Marhaen Farmers Movement. He also held senior posts with Baperki (Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia), a left-wing Chinese political organisation banned after the coup for its links with the PKI. He became Vice-Chairman of Baperki before taking on the job of State Minister at Sukarno's request.
At the time of the coup Oei had just returned from a visit to Thailand and Hong Kong. He relates in detail his activities on his return and in the aftermath of the coup, including his own confusion, conversations with those he met as well as their reactions to the events.
Other controversial recollections include a reference to anti- Old Order protests by organisations such as KAMI, KASI and KAPPI as being military-backed, and to the military's deliberate fudging of the official death toll in the killings that followed the coup. Oei participated in a fact-finding mission for President Sukarno to establish the extent of the blood-letting in the post-coup period. Also of interest is his retelling of conversations with fellow political detainees and their fate during the years he spent in prison.
Oei was 'placed in protective custody' by the New Order government in March 1966, and not released till December 1977. He was finally charged in 1976 with involvement in G30S. The evidence was, however, rather tenuous, based largely on a public statement from Partindo to which Oei claims he had not been a party, and on several events difficult to substantiate in detail.(less)
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