Paiso (born 1894, date of death unknown) was an Indonesian communist activist and political prisoner who was imprisoned by the Dutch in the

Boven-Digoel concentration camp Boven-Digoel, often simply called Digoel, was a Dutch concentration camp for political detainees operated in the Dutch East Indies from 1927 to 1947. The Dutch used it to detain thousands of Indonesians, most of whom were members of the Communist ...

from 1927 to 1932. His son-in-law Manai Sophiaan (1915-2003) was an Indonesian diplomat and politician and his grandson

Sophan Sophiaan Sophan Sophiaan (26 April 1944 – 17 May 2008) was an Indonesian film actor and politician. He was a member of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). Early life Sophiaan was born in the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, on 26 April ...

(1944-2008) was an actor and politician.

Biography

Little is known of Paiso's early life. He was Javanese and was born in 1894 in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

; he probably had a basic Dutch-language education. COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM De Monstraat te Makassar

He worked as a civil servant in

Merauke Merauke is a large town (''kelurahan'') and an administrative district (''distrik'') in Merauke Regency of South Papua Province, Indonesia. It is also the administrative centre of Merauke Regency, and is considered to be the easternmost city in I ...

, as a writer for the Assistant

Resident Resident may refer to: People and functions * Resident minister, a representative of a government in a foreign country * Resident (medicine), a stage of postgraduate medical training * Resident (pharmacy), a stage of postgraduate pharmaceut ...

and later clerk for the Magistrate. By the mid-1920s, he was active in communist politics in

Makassar Makassar ( ), formerly Ujung Pandang ( ), is the capital of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of South Sulawesi. It is the largest city in the region of Eastern Indonesia and the country's fifth-largest urban center after Jakarta, ...

, which at that time was in the Celebes and Dependencies Residency (today in

South Sulawesi South Sulawesi () is a Provinces of Indonesia, province in the South Peninsula, Sulawesi, southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest ci ...

, Indonesia). In February 1924 he became secretary of a new branch of the People's Union () in Makassar, an organization affiliated with the

Communist Party of Indonesia The Communist Party of Indonesia (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Partai Komunis Indonesia'', PKI) was a communist party in the Dutch East Indies and later Indonesia. It was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world before its Indo ...

(PKI). In 1924 his daughter Moenasiah was born. By 1925 he was also chairman of the local PKI branch, and also led a branch of the Islamic Communist Association (). These activities soon led him to be targeted by authorities. The police arrested him at a ceremony marking the death of

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-senUsually known as Sun Zhongshan () in Chinese; also known by Names of Sun Yat-sen, several other names. (; 12 November 186612 March 1925) was a Chinese physician, revolutionary, statesman, and political philosopher who founded the Republ ...

in March 1925. The next year he was arrested under the Indies' strict censorship laws; in January 1926 he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for speech infractions (). He was initially sent to the capital Batavia. Before he finished his sentence, in October 1927, authorities decided to exile him to

along with hundreds of other Communist Party members. While interned in the camp, Paiso lived in

Kampong A kampong (this term is in Za'aba Spelling, ''kampung'' in both modern Malay and Indonesian) is a term for a type of village in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and a "dock" in Cambodia. The term applies to traditional villages, especi ...

C and was said to have supported himself by baking and selling bread. By the early 1930s, Digoel internees who were well-behaved and considered rehabilitated started to be released in large numbers. Paiso was allowed to return home with a group of 157, including

Lie Eng Hok Lie Eng Hok (1893-1961) was an Indonesian independence activist and Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) supporter in the Dutch East Indies. He was also a journalist for the popular Chinese Indonesian newspaper '' Sin Po''. The Dutch government accuse ...

, in March 1932. He returned to Makassar and to politics after his release, although he was careful not to be re-arrested. During the

Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies The Empire of Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II from March 1942 until after the end of the war in September 1945. In May 1940, Germany German invasion of the Netherlands, occupied the Netherlands, and ma ...

his daughter Moenasiah married a teacher named Manai Sophiaan, who would later become an

Indonesian National Party The Indonesian National Party (, PNI) was the name used by several nationalist political parties in Indonesia from 1927 until 1973. The first PNI was established by future President Sukarno. After independence, the new PNI supplied a number of pri ...

politician. After Indonesia became independent, the Communist Party was legalized and Paiso was able to operate more openly with the party once again. By the 1950s he was a key figure in the PKI's activities in South Sulawesi. He was involved in the

Permesta Permesta was a rebel movement in Indonesia that was declared on 2 March 1957 by civil and military leaders in Eastern Indonesia. Initially the center of the movement was in Makassar, which at that time was the capital of the province of Sulawe ...

rebellion, a cross-party regional movement centered in Makassar, for a time in early 1957 but formally withdrew his participation when it became increasingly anti-communist and anti-

Sukarno Sukarno (6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of the Indonesian struggle for independenc ...

. He was still alive at the time of the banning of the PKI in 1965 and the

Transition to the New Order Transition or transitional may refer to: Mathematics, science, and technology Biology * Transition (genetics), a point mutation that changes a purine nucleotide to another purine (A ↔ G) or a pyrimidine nucleotide to another pyrimidine (C ↔ ...

, but it is unknown what happened to him.

References

{{Reflist 1894 births Date of death unknown Javanese people People from Makassar Indonesian communists Boven-Digoel concentration camp detainees 20th-century Dutch East Indies people