Today marks the 10th commemoration of May 1998's riot in Jakarta. I would like to take this opportunity to pass on a few message. On May 13th and 14th, 1998, 10 years ago, a riot broke out in Jakarta and several other cities in Indonesia, following the incident of shooting that took the lives of four students in a protest againts the government. It resulted in lootings, property damagings, physical and sexual assaults primarily targeted at the Chinese descendants. This event later dubbed as "May Tragedy". (please refer to Wikipedia.org for more information) My family and i were fortunate to survived without any harms. But the fear of losing your lives and people you love on those ill-fated days still echoes until today. However, some were not so lucky as they had to suffered through all the unimaginable pains and horrors. Some who survived opted to fled and sought sanctuary to other countries. It is widely believed the whole event was orchestrated. Despite some genuine efforts and goodwill by certain people and groups, the government, as usual, never really showed interest to investigate further into this event. We were since left in the dark of what really happened on those days, no one was held responsible for the actions and ironically there were denials toward certain accounts, mostly regarding the sexual assaults and the number of deaths. Today, we remember the tragedy and prevent it from being erased from our collective memories...with hope that someday a light will be shed upon this event and those involved will be held responsible. We will never forget. Thank you for taking your time to read this message.
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