Of course, that was an idealistic thought.  But it long stayed with me in my mind.  Later, I mentioned this to Willy van Royen.  Willy van Royen is a journalist with "Onze Wereld," a magazine of a big Dutch NGO, NOVIB, which has quite a bit of money.  And so I told her of this idea.  She approved of my plan and assisted in finding funds to bring the idealistic thought to reality.  Perhaps I thought that if it could be filmed, it would become the setting for a film about political prisoners.  

The remnants of the old unit buildings still stood, some ruins still remained - the field where we were made to gather to pass muster, the arts building where the tapols were made to stage performances.  That was all as it was back then.

But I was not sure whether Buru was safe, whether or not there were soldiers, or at least to what extent there would be security guards. This I did not know, I had no material, no reference on this situation.  The only available material was the experience of a Kompas journalist.  About a year before I decided to go, the Kompas reporter came to Buru to write a report.  In my opinion, the report was biased, only writing about positive things, promoting the region  for transmigration.  As thought it had been purpose built for transmigration.  Forgetting completely that the transmigrants were actually only continuing the work we had left behind.  The rice fields were completed, the gardens finished.  None of that was mentioned.  And so, the twelve thousand tapol who sweated there in the fields of Buru were forgotten.  I did not like it.  You may not approve of the tapols, but you should recognize that the soil of Buru became productive because of the tapols.  When we arrived in 1971, for example there was only one Jeep in Buru. And even that was a military vehicle.  When we left Buru, there were vehicles for public transportation.  People called them what is it ... a Japanese brand, Suzuki, or something.  I asked the chauffeur of the public transportation, "How many vehicles like this are there now, Pak?" he answered "Two hundred, at least."

The small town of Namlea, now has 200 motorcars and there are rows of shops, offering goods that are not inferior to those found in Java.  None of this would have been possible if it weren’t for the economic foundation and infrastructure laid down by the tapols.  But the Kompas reporter negated all that.  I did not like it.  I didn't like it at all.  I wanted fairness.  So that became a reason to encourage me to return to Buru.

I called my travel a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage to a holy land.  Yes, I often tell people, my holy land is Buru. Not Mekah, not Rome, because people come back from Mekah or go to Mekah carrying goods for sale now. They don't carry something holy but they engage in trade there.  But when they return, because they have followed the ritual, they wear the white hats and take the title of haji when in reality they were trading there.  Of course not all of them, but many are like that.  But when I went to Buru, it really was intended as a pilgrimage.

Why was it when I arrived, the first place I visited was the home of the extapol from Yogya, by the name of Parimin, if I am not mistaken.  Parimin? Yes, Parimin.  He was with his wife and had one daughter.  For a few minutes we sat there, old friends and former tapols had all come together. One was called Pak Muid, a man from Madura. Another was Taruna Ngantung, he came from Cirebon, has was a student in the faculty of law but was arrested in his last year before his graduation and exiled to Buru.

So, when we met, we embraced, we wept, of course because we had not seen each other in so long.  Then Pak Muid greeted me, kissed my hand as though I were a sayid who had come from the holy land.  I was startled. "Don't do that, Pak Muid! We were together.  We are still together."  And they knew that I had been living in Holland, and so they said, "Pak Hersri, why have you come so far from Holland, to come to us, to visit us? We who are corpses." I said, "Why do you say you are corpses, Pak?  In reality...I always think of you, my friends. Because I still remember myself. The things I experienced in Buru so many years ago are still as though they happened just yesterday.  I still remember the first day I landed, how everything turned out ... returning home.  So Buru is a part of my life that cannot be taken from me.  Also you, my friends, I cannot forget you nor be separated from you, my friends." Then I said, in jest, "The ones who have become corpses are not you, my friends who have stayed, but we who went away.  We look as though we are alive, but in reality we are dead and submerged in the living stream.  While you, friends in Buru, you are still alive and struggling to remain alive."

When I went home in 1978, there were about 224 families, if I remember correctly, 224 families who did not want to go home.  Of course they had a variety of reasons. But perhaps I need to tell how these families came to Buru in the first place.

In 1974 they brought the wives who wanted to follow their husbands to Buru.  It had been propagandized in Jakarta or in Surabaya, basically in Java, that if they were willing to follow, their husbands would be freed there and they would be allowed to live as ordinary members of society.  That was why many of the wives came.  The member of tapol unit IV, Unit IV Savanajaya, were all moved, and it became Savanajaya Village.  This was the first village of tapol families.  The families who came first in 1974, I remember because I lived in Unit XIV, next to Savanajaya Village.  That first year there were 62 families, and year-by-year they kept coming.  In 1978, the year I went home, there were 224 families who did not want to go home - for a variety of reasons.  Some were afraid, most were afraid.  Afraid of being able to live safely back home, afraid of being terrorized.  They were deeply traumatized. And they were afraid because they did not know how they would be able to live back there anymore.  "How will we live?  We have no land anymore, no house.  Even our families may not want us back."  Some wives came with children. When they were left behind after their husbands were arrested, they became pregnant.  They became pregnant because of the military.  When they followed their husbands, they brought with them the children of those soldiers.

So if the father were to go home this would lead to problems with the family.  Some were afraid because of the perception that they would have no life, but live in fear of terror, and some were afraid because their families would reject them, and some felt old and no longer competitive in making a living.

So that is why many did not go home.  But, why did I, for example, go home?  I went home because for me, freedom was more than anything else.  But the abstract concept of freedom is not always held on to by ordinary people!  People who only know physical labor.

So the tapols or friends who were former tapols, who only knew physical labour, how would they, with their aging hands, be able to compete?  In my case, I was able to compete using my brain.  They felt they had no ability.  So they were afraid to go home.  So that is why they did not want to go home to Java.  Besides, those who were willing to stay were ‘looked after’ -- the government was not stupid -- most of those who stayed were happy.  Buru had to be sustained as a productive island.  It could not be neglected when everyone left.  So, those tapols who chose to stay were given land, a half-hectare of paddy field and a quarter hectare of dry fields.  Then they were provided a pair of cows to be shared amongst several families.  For example, every ten families would get a pair of cattle to work the paddies and fields.  Houses they already had.  Even though the roof was of thatch and the floor of dirt.  The house may have had wooden walls and a tin roof.  But it was a home.  There was the land to rely on.  In Java, all that would not necessarily be within reach.  And that is why they stayed.  I too, if I could be satisfied living as a farmer, would not have gone home.  This is not because I consider farming a low occupation but only because I saw and felt that Buru was not my place.  Buru was the symbol of slavery, the symbol that I was not free.  But I wanted to be free. Whatever might happen on my return to Java.