Two graves were dug up and their bodies relocated in the Indonesian province of Gorontalo on Saturday, an incident that, if the family’s account of what happened is true, highlights the rising political tensions in the country in the lead up to this year’s elections.
As reported by Kompas, the two graves were located in a backyard belonging to a man named Awano, a resident of Toto Selatan Village. One grave contained the body of Awano’s uncle, Masri Dunggio, who was buried there in 2015. The other grave contained the body of Siti Aisya Hamzah, Masri’s granddaughter, who was buried there last year.
Masri’s widow, 68-year-old Sarce Pomontolo, said Awano recently demanded that Masri and Siti’s graves be relocated if she did not support his preferred candidate in the region’s legislative election in April.
“I was asked to vote for a nominee in the regional council election, if not my husband and granddaughter’s graves would have to be dug up from the family’s private cemetery,” Sarce said.
Village officials reportedly tried to mediate the two parties, but Sarce said she was so hurt by the demand that she decided to move the graves to an undisclosed cemetery.
“I said at the time that everybody has the right to vote for whoever they want, and it can’t be forced. The relationship between the landowner and the deceased’s family was good until this happened,” Village Chief Taufik Baladraf told Detik, adding that the feud between them first arose in December 2018.
That said, Gorontalo Governor Rusli Habibie played down the political aspect of the feud, saying the graves were actually relocated because of other problems within the family that may have become tied up with their political preferences.
But this wouldn’t be the first time that politics (and, by extension, religion) in Indonesia has dug its way into matters related to the burial of the dead. In December, a Catholic family in Jogyakarta was told to saw off a wooden cross grave marker because the cemetery predominantly held Muslim graves.
In 2017, at the height of political and religious tensions in the country as a result of former Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s highly controversial blasphemy trial, several mosques reportedly denied funeral rites for those who voted for him while banners were put up in several cemeteries, including at least one in Jakarta, denying burial for Ahok’s supporters.
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