Buru: My Prison, My Home

December 11, 2000

"In action in the service to the purity and sanctity of Pancasila (state guidelines)," reads the text on the pedestal of the bust of a soldier located in the middle of a rice field on Buru island in the Moluccas. The sculpture is a monument to Asst. Second Lt. Panita Umar, who was killed while trying to quell an uprising of political detainees on October 6, 1972. The noncommissioned officer (NCO) was a guard at Unit V of the detention camp on the i

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