Carmel Budiardjo

Carmel Budiardjo (née Brickman; 18 June 1925 – 10 July 2021) was an English human rights activist, lecturer, and author. She was the founder of the non-governmental organisation Tapol. Budiardjo was known for campaigning for the awareness of war crimes and human rights abuses in Indonesia and East Timor. For her activism, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1995.

Early life She came from a Jewish family in London, whose anti-fascist beliefs influenced her left-wing politics. She received a bachelor's degree in Economics in 1946 from the London School of Economics , where she became active in the National Union of Students. While working in Prague for the International Union of Students, she met Suwondo 'Bud' Budiardjo, an Indonesian government official whom she married in 1950. The couple moved to Indonesia in 1951, and she became an Indonesian citizen in 1954.

Early career Budiardjo worked first as a translator for Antara, the Indonesian news agency, then in economic research for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later studying at the University of Indonesia's School of Economics and then lecturing at Padjadjaran University in Bandung and Res Publica (now Trisakti) University in Jakarta.

Prior her arrest, Carmel lived a comfortable life with her husband and two children in Teuku Umar street, an elite area in Central Jakarta. and later imprisoned in 1968 after her colleague leaked her sympathetic view toward the communists. invaded and occupied by Indonesia in 1975, as well as West Papua and Aceh.

In 1978, Budiardjo's advocacy managed to free her husband Suwondo Budiardjo. He came to England and supported her wife's activism for some time, however they later divorced. Suwondo died in London in 1996 and he was buried in his hometown, Purworkerto.

In 1995, Budiardjo was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for her work, being nominated by the International Federation for East Timor. In England, Budiardjo was also a staunch supporter of the NHS. On 6 August 2021 Budiardjo was featured in the BBC Radio 4 obituary programme Last Word.

Works

Budiardjo, Carmel and Liem Soei Liong. The War Against East Timor. London: Zed Books, 1984. .

Budiardjo, Carmel. Surviving Indonesia's Gulag: A Western Woman Tells Her Story. London: Cassell, 1996. .