Iskandar* wasn't interested in politics. He was living in Sweden in 1963, studying electrical engineering in university on a scholarship awarded by the government of Indonesia's then-President Sukarno. But two years later, everything changed. He started to read stories of a coup attempt at the hands of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in the newspapers. Six generals were killed. Then came the dark years as an estimated half-million Indonesians were killed in a wave of violence targeting anyone suspected of being an leftist.

Iskandar's face looked the same too. Today he's 77 years old, but he always looks about 15 years younger than that to me. We sat at the opposite ends of a table with some es kelapa muda—a coconut desert—between us.

Last Saturday afternoon I arrived at Iskandar's home. He lived in a residential complex outside the capital. The house was painted green, but little else had changed since the last time I was there two years ago. The decoration and furniture looked the same.

Iskandar made his choice. Suharto ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for 32 years. And that's how long Iskandar stayed away. He left home as a young man, a college student, and returned a middle aged one—a stranger in a country that had just ousted Suharto and toppled his regime amid waves of popular protest and violent riots.

Suddenly, Iskandar's home was a dangerous place for an intellectual, especially one with ties to Sukarno's regime. Sukarno was tossed from office and placed under house arrest. Members of his administration who refused to denounce him and pledge allegiance to the Suharto's New Order regime were fired. Ambassadors lost their jobs. And the scores of Indonesian students studying abroad, most of them on scholarships secured by the Sukarno administration, were given a choice: condemn Sukarno as a communist or never return home again.

"We students were sent by Sukarno's government to serve the country, to build Indonesia," he told me. "That was the deal. So why were we asked to condemn him? Where's the logic in it? We're not politicians. We were intellectuals studying abroad. That's why we signed a paper at Perguruan Tinggi Ilmu Pengetahuan (PTIP) before we left, stating we would take no part in politics."

Iskandar's nervousness was justified. He was used to be vilified because of what happened a long time ago. I asked him about his time in university. Why was he willing to live in exile for so long? Why not just denounce Sukarno like the New Order asked and return home?

The activists had gathered at the office to discuss efforts to address the post-coup killings, but it was deemed an "unlicensed event" by police who were wary of any discussions about 1965. Then the event the following night that was meant to protest the police crackdown ended when a mob gathered outside as rumors spread online that there was a secret PKI meeting taking place inside.

It's been more than a half-century since 1965, but the topic is still pretty controversial in Indonesia—especially around the anniversary of the 30 September coup attempt. A few weeks before we met, an angry mob gathered outside the office of a Jakarta legal aid foundation that was holding a performing arts event to protest the police shutting down a meeting of human rights activists the night before.

"The failure of Indonesia in the 60s was its refusal to bring home all these students who were studying abroad. They were afraid of students whom they considered 'Bung Karno's people,'" Iskandar said, using a popular nickname for Sukarno. "They were afraid intellectuals would just pave the foundation for another government in the style of Bung Karno's."

Then, in 1967, Iskandar received a second letter. This one told the 23 year old that he was no longer an Indonesian citizen. The embassy revoked his passport and he was suddenly stateless. It was the last thing Iskandar expected to happen.

Iskandar and his friend suggested that last sentence to be omitted since they felt gratitude for Sukarno's administration for sending them abroad. The embassy official refused.

"From what I remember, the letter basically stated that President Sukarno was working together with the PKI and that he had been overthrown," Iskandar told me. "And that the current government had officially named Suharto as the new president. But under that there was this sentence that said I was 'willing to condemn Sukarno's pro-communist administration'."

Iskandar told me that he felt safe for about a year. The New Order didn't seem to have much interest in academics and intellectuals studying abroad—at least it didn't for its first year in power. Then, one year later, Iskandar received a letter instructing him to come to the Indonesian embassy in Stockholm and sign a document. He told me that he knew something was wrong the minute he read the letter.

The embassy was trying to weed-out PKI sympathizers and since Soejono was a member of the Indonesian Students Association—which was suspicious of the embassy and its actions during the tumultuous time back home—he found his name on a list.

Soejono's story starts out the same as Iskandar's. He also received a scholarship from Sukarno's government, this one to study education and psychology at Charles University, in Prague, Czech Republic. But their stories start to diverge around 1965. Soejono never received a letter asking him to renounce Sukarno. Instead he was called down to the embassy shortly after the coup attempt and questioned about his political views.

Iskandar returned. But countless others didn't. Soegeng Soejono lives more than 10,000 kilometers away in the Czech Republic. Soejono first met Iskandar when they were both students. His voice perked up when I mentioned that I knew him over the phone.

Iskandar told me that he still has the letter revoking his citizenship somewhere in his house. He was eventually able to return home, but only after Suharto was forced to step down from power. He had left Indonesia to return with knowledge to make it better, but, instead, Iskandar was forced to spend half his life overseas.

"That's a political excuse," Soejono told me over the phone. "The regime had a doctrine: 'anyone defying us is an enemy.' There was no democracy. No arguments. I'm not a communist, but a lot of the people who proclaim themselves as 'anti-communist' don't even know what communism actually is."

Soejono was called into a "screening room" at the embassy and asked what he thought of the New Order. Soejono told me that he wasn't a fan of Suharto's government and he made no efforts to hide his views from the embassy staff. He told them that the New Order wasn't upholding human rights. The staff immediately accused him of being a communist.

But while Iskandar was rendered stateless and banned from returning to Indonesia, Soejono was asked to come back. He quickly realized that his life might be in danger if he returned, so he decided that it was safer to remain abroad. The New Order responded by revoking Soejono's citizenship, leaving him too without a home.

"I'm not a communist, but a lot of the people who proclaim themselves as 'anti-communist' don't even know what communism actually is."—Soegeng Soejono

Eventually Soejono returned to Indonesia as well. In 1998, as protests to oust Suharto were building steam at Central Jakarta's Trisakti University, Soejono was there. He was nearby when Suharto's soldiers opened fire on the protestors. "I was following the reformation," he told me.

Soejono has returned about five or six times since then. But he's also made up his mind: Indonesia is not a place for him. He's spent half his life in the Czech Republic—a country that offered him protection when Indonesia wouldn't.

"I still feel indebted to Indonesia," Soejono said. "The country put me through school, gave me knowledge, life experience, and work experience. I would love to use all of this for the good of the Indonesian people, but I never had a chance to."

Iskandar and Soejono are just two of the so-called "exiles" who suddenly found themselves victims of a hostile country after Sukarno was ousted from power. In his book Knowing Indonesia From Afar: Indonesian Exiles and Australian Academic, David T. Hill wrote that the the New Order's suspicions created an entire generation of exiles—most of them students, ambassadors, and foreign officials who were caught off-guard by the coup.