Heroine of the Indonesian labour movement
One of the great heroines of the world labour movement, Dita Sari, visited Australia in August this year. In July an international campaign had finally won her release from jail in Indonesia. She had been imprisoned since July 1996 on charges of "disturbing public order and security" because of her activities as president of the illegal independent trade union centre PPBI and a leader of Indonesia's main socialist opposition group, the People's Democratic Party.
When jailed Dita was only 23 years old. She had been politically active for a bit over three years, abandoning the comfortable future which had been open to her as a 19 year old law student in order to champion the cause of the working class.