TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's instruction to track and locate mass graves belonging to victims of the 1965 massacre receive positive response from former National Communist Party (PKI) members in South Blitar. The former PKI members claimed ready to reveal locations where the massacre had taken place and locations of mass graves.

Sukiman, a former activist of the Lekra (Public Culture Institution), an art organization with affiliations to the PKI, said that there are at least three mass grave locations in South Blitar. "I can show [you] the place," Sukiman said to Tempo on Thursday, April 28, 2016.

Sukiman, who now works as a farmer in Blitar Regency, revealed that the first mass grave is located in Kembangan Village in Lodoyo District. The second mass grave, according to Sukiman, is located in Dukuh Sidorejo, in Tambakrejo Village, Wonotirto District. The third location, Sukiman said, is an underground tunnel in Dukuh Bokolan in Lorejo Vilge, Bakung District.

Local residents claimed that there are more than a hundred skeletons in the tunnel, known by the locals as luweng tikus (the Rat Hole).

Sukiman hoped that President Jokowi's instruction to track down the mass graves will be taken seriously by respective parties.

On the contrary, Imron Rosadi, Chief o the Ansor Front in Blitar, expressed his discontent towards the instruction. Imron asserted that tracking the mass graves will resulted in new problems. "It's like entering a new chapter of the PKI polemic," Imron said.

HARI TRI WASONO