Living with a spectre of the past: "Traumatic Experiences among Wives of Former Political Prisoners of the ‘1965 Event’ in Indonesia Budiawan SanataDharmaUniversity Introduction Like the end of most authoritarian rulers elsewhere, the fall of Suharto in Indonesia has opened an opportunity for the survivors of the past political violence to break their silence publicly. Of those who have taken the chance to articulate their sense of self are former political prisoners of the ‘1965 Event’ (or eks-tapol in the popular Indonesian term). They have expressed their claim as victims, instead of perpetrators, of the past tragedy. Such an expression appears in memoirs, autobiographies or other forms of self-narrative booming since several months after Suharto stepped down in May 1998, [1] and the formation of some organizations among them. [2] The primary objective of these self-articulations is to seek a public recognition of their truth claims of the past, in order to release their burden of the past."