Several children put a letter in a sock at Christmas, hoping that Santa Claus would grant their wishes. A prisoner on Buru Island also put a letter in a sock, but it was not addressed to Santa, for Santa could certainly not be generous enough to come with his reindeer to make a miracle happen on Buru.

The letter in the sock was a cry for help from the prisoners to foreigners. The control of the New Order government was so powerful that the only hope these prisoners had was the foreigner. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. Foreigners often have more freedom to express their opinions about a country without being threatened by the government of that country. Of course, governments are aware of this and for this reason the appeal to nationalism is a weapon governments use to shield themselves from the criticism of ‘outsiders’.

That was what the New Order government had done: it indoctrinated the people with the necessity to pledge loyalty to the nation and the government, while at the same time manipulating the foreign media about the treatment of Indonesian political prisoners. The government gave the impression that the prisoners were treated well and cleaned up the prison only when there were international delegates around. When these visitors left, the prison was returned to its horrible condition. However, one of the prisoners managed to reveal the poor conditions though a letter sneaked into a sock.

The memoirs of the three prisoners – Antonius Pudji Rahardjo, Leo Mulyono and Oei Hiem Hwie – are united by this letter. The three of them were imprisoned in the same unit and they had all been punished because this letter was discovered by one of the guards. No one knows who had written it. I heard about it for the first time from Leo Mulyono, who told me that Oei Hiem Hwie might have been the writer. Oei Hiem Hwie, who was in the same unit as Leo, did tell me that he remembered this letter, although his story is slightly different from Leo’s. Then I tried to find out about other prisoners from the same unit, who must have known about this letter. This brought me in touch with Antonius Pudji Rahardjo.