I met Kristianto Budi (pseudonym) via a mutual friend of ours, Dede Oetomo, the most prominent gay activist in Indonesia. It turned out that we had been friends on Facebook for a few years, and he lives in my hometown, Surabaya. Because of his present post as a lecturer, he is still worried about revealing his real identity. We started chatting on Facebook, followed by meeting in Surabaya several times. He was one of the speakers when I held the public screening of The Act of Killing at the beginning of August 2014.

When I had just begun my study at university, I was searching for my belongings in several cupboards and found my father's dismissal letter. A dismissal letter? What happened to my father, actually? No one had told me about this. No one had ever said that my father was sacked from the army.

Bapak's dismissal is still a taboo in my family, especially for ibu. They have been hiding this from me even now, so that I can only sum up what happened to my father by remembering their past conversations or what others had said, by recalling several incidents when I was young and by looking at documents related to my father. There are many things I still do not understand, or cannot explain about my father.

Bapak was born in 1925 and was an Indonesian National Army officer. He had been sent to deal with several rebellions, such as Permesta in the eastern part of Indonesia and the Islamic rebellion (DI/TII), which aimed at establishing an Islamic state. My father used to be the vice-commandant of Battalion 521 in Kediri [East Java], one of the battalions that were loyal to Sukarno. However, they did not fight against Soeharto's coup in 1965. Why?

Before the murder of the generals in Jakarta in 1965, my father already knew about the formation of the Council of Generals, that is, the group of subversive army generals which was plotting against Sukarno. Although he did not know exactly who the founders or the members were, my father heard that this council intended to get rid of Sukarno. After G30S happened, there was huge confusion amongst the officers.