SINGAPORE — Every Thursday for Maria Catarina Sumarsih begins the same: make breakfast for her husband and daughter, pray the Rosary, prepare the placards, grab her umbrella and head toward the palace, where for the last 15 years she has camped in the tropical heat, protesting the death of her son.
His name was Wawan. A 20-year-old university student who loved his mother’s cooking, especially her nasi goreng and satay, he was killed in 1998 when Indonesian soldiers fired on young protesters demanding political reforms. She didn’t know at first how to channel her grief other than to visit his grave in the capital city, Jakarta.
But as the years passed, Sumarsih turned despair into anger — at times throwing eggs at members of parliament who had absolved the army of wrongdoing — to become a relentless symbol of a woman seeking justice. Her frail frame and shock of white hair arrive every week at the park in front of the president’s colonial-era palace, a reminder that a simple act of defiance carries indelible power in holding a nation accountable for its past sins.
