Where my husband?

A yellow rice field covers the village of Puuk, which is in Aceh Besar district. Shady trees. The houses on stilts are visible on either side of the road. But the entrance to the village is far from comfortable. Gravel stones sprinkled on it.

Here she lives with her two children, Farhan Zuhana and Dara Dinanti. The eldest is 8.5 years old, while the youngest is six years old. In this house also lived his father and mother. The father, Abdul Wahab, is already 80 years old, had a stroke three months ago, so he could not get out of bed.

Everyday she grows celery, a plant known as “sop leaves”, to support her family and pay for her children's school fees. By gardening, he can also entertain himself.

Farhan his eldest son, a smart boy. He always won first rank, from grade one to grade three at Lamrot Elementary School (SD). While Dara is still studying in first grade.

Dara entered SD at the age of five years and four months, because she no longer wanted to study in kindergarten. He tried hard so that Dara could enter elementary school at that time, including crying in front of the principal to beg his child to be accepted. This is because the virgin age is not sufficient to enter SD. Finally, the principal's day broke. Dara was accepted as a student at the same elementary school as Farhan. Dara was a smart student. He was ranked II in his class.

However, her happiness at remembering the achievements of her children was suddenly empty every time she remembered her husband.

However, her happiness at remembering the achievements of her children was suddenly empty every time she remembered her husband.

Her daughter's name, Dara Dinanti, was influenced to some extent by the disappearance of Muhammad. When her husband disappeared, Dara was only 80 days old. Because of that, he named his daughter Dara Dinanti.

"I don't know how long he has to wait for his father," he said.

One day Dara asked why she was given the name Dara Dinanti. This question had shocked him. He then asked why his daughter wanted to know. According to Dara, a friend at school asked.

“When I explained why her name was Dara Dinanti, she spontaneously didn't want to be called Dara Dinanti. Just change my name to Dara Dzikra, Mak, he said. I couldn't answer either and didn't dare anymore to ask why he wanted to change his name, ”he said, again.

Once Farhan had told his grandmother that he had been told by people about his father. The man said, “Farhan, all the people on the mountain have come down. Why isn't your dad coming down? Your father has been killed. "

He was shocked. He then told his mother that the person who spoke like that to Farhan had no brain, because he had explained the nonsense.

“Even my husband's whereabouts are still a mystery. Questions of whether my father was alive or dead still filled our minds. Even Dara, my youngest child, once asked me where her father's grave was, ”he said.

"Mak, if a person dies there must be a grave. Why doesn't my father have a grave? " said Dara once.

She wanted to cry at her daughter's question. He could only ask Dara to pray, "Later ayahanda will be waiting for us at the door of heaven." Another time he told Dara that their father disappeared while working in the office.

Dara, who was smart, made him unable to say anything else, "If my father lost his statement at the office, let's ... we'll see his grave in the office."

Muhammad was tall and strapping. Thick mustache, black skin, curly wavy hair. She still remembered how handsome her husband was. The man was only 36 years old when he went missing. He is 35 years old now.

During the household, she never saw her husband angry. Muhammad works as a Civil Servant (PNS) in a government office in charge of maritime affairs and fisheries. Sometimes Muhammad would also have shifts to guard the office at night. The office shift is usually twice a week. If he was on guard duty, he left home at six in the afternoon and returned home the next day, at six in the morning.

Muhammad spent his spare time raising cattle. Every day, after returning from work, he took the time to visit the oxen. Before raising cows, he even planted behering grass (a type of sugarcane) for the animals' food. Her husband did aspire to have an ox.

In the afternoon, June 9, 2003, Muhammad went to the office to watch the night. Her heart is worried, because it has been a week that her husband has been on duty at night. However, her husband said that it was his duty and he could not refuse.

The next day, June 10, 2003, her husband had not yet returned home, even though it was 4:00 p.m.

I began to wonder where my husband was. My thoughts began to wander everywhere. Starting from the father who had not returned home, to the cattle that had not been fed in the stable, ”he recalled.

He could not feed the ox, because he had just given birth to Dara. After a while he tried to contact his uncle who was a police officer. She asked the uncle to call her husband's office. But suddenly the electricity goes out. His uncle could not immediately call. The electricity comes back on at night. At eight o'clock, her uncle called her husband's office. However, the answers at the office were confusing and made him even more nervous. Her husband had been back since six in the morning. His uncle tried to contact the police station and find information. At one o'clock in the morning, the uncle told her that her husband was not at the Mobile Brigade or Brimob office, one of the places where people were detained at the time.

He never gave up. He asked his father to go see people from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). His father went to the commander of Sagoe (at the sub-district level) and told him that his son-in-law had not returned home. GAM said that they did not know anything about this. 

His mind continued to be shrouded in question marks. Where is father now? How is the condition? If he was kidnapped, who did? Why should he be kidnapped? Every time those questions entered his mind, he always cried.

Three days after her husband disappeared, she had a dream. She saw her husband being escorted by three GAM members to the house. In the dream they said they wanted to return her husband and the motorbike. But he refused. With that reason, he had already shed a lot of tears. Dreams are only sleeping flowers. She was not sure whether it was GAM who brought her husband or someone else.

Several days later, the Raider army arrived. They set up a post near his village, in Cepres-Jomblang. Their post is one sub-district with their village. At that time, every villager had to wave the red and white flag in front of the house. He obeyed the army request.

He planted the percis flagpole in front of Balee's house, the soldiers then approached him. One of them put a rifle in the head and asked where her husband was. Her brother who witnessed the incident was very scared.

They shouted at him, then said, "Husband brother to the mountain, yeah!"

She replied that her husband was missing, not to the mountains. They still don't believe it. She then showed a letter from the police stating that her husband was missing. The soldiers immediately apologized.

They yelled at him, because he planted the flagpole in Balee's house. "This is inappropriate. Don't you want to live in Indonesia anymore? ” they said. He asked in return, where was a suitable place to put up the flagpole. Then they moved the flagpole to the front fence of his house. "This is an appropriate place to erect a flagpole," said the soldiers.

The commander of the troops approached her and said, "Brother whose name is Fatmawati, yeah, the one who lost her husband."

He wondered how the soldier knew his name.

Without explaining how to know his name, the commander asked again, "Know who kidnapped your husband?"

The soldier said four names. He was asked to memorize their names, but now he had forgotten. "Those who killed their brother's husband," he said. She asked how the commander knew that the four people had killed her husband. The troop commander replied that some time ago they arrested a GAM person who told him that GAM had kidnapped her husband. Whether true, or not. He didn't believe it right away.

A month later, her husband's family received an anonymous letter. The anonymous letter was sent to her brother-in-law's house.

“My brother-in-law also came to our house and called us all. The contents of the anonymous letter were, "Don't tell me if GAM was kidnapped or the same!". Hearing the contents of the anonymous letter, my sister almost fainted. I only think about the fate of my children if there is something wrong, ”he said.

Peace in Aceh will bring change for the better for the Acehnese. The belief was present in his mind. She has already forgiven them for kidnapping her husband, although she will not forget the incident.

She just wanted to know where her husband's grave was. Her feelings told her that her husband was no longer there. She did not want to demand anything from those who lost her husband, other than to show the graves of the man she loved so much and the father to her children.

After the death of her husband, she relied on a celery garden and a small pension from her husband to support the family. Sometimes, he participated in planting rice in other people's fields. The ox, which her husband had kept for two years, was sold to her brother-in-law to cover the family's needs.

He had received business capital assistance from the regent. The amount of assistance was Rp. 3 million and was given in three stages. The final stage of assistance he has not taken.

He started his celery farming business in 2006. The money he earned from selling this plant was quite large. From the proceeds from selling celery, he also saved up for the pilgrimage to Mecca. She wanted to ask Allah for help in the holy land, to show her where her husband's grave was.

Her family life is not lacking, but much different from when her husband was around. Farhan, the eldest, protested when he bought oranges, "Madame, if there is a father, we never buy small oranges, always large ones." He then explained to his children that the old habits had to change now. There were many other expressions of Farhan's protest that made him sad. However, it indicates that there have been drastic changes in her family's life since her husband went missing.