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Government rubbishes independent Hague tribunal on 1965 massacres
Jakarta Globe - November 10, 2015
The tribunal, to run from Wednesday until Friday, is organized by Indonesian human rights activists, academics and journalists, gathered under the International People's Tribunal.
Their attempt to shine a light on arguably the darkest chapter in Indonesia's history as an independent nation has met with derision from government officials such as Luhut Pandjaitan, the chief security minister, who questioned the fairness of such a tribunal.
"Who will be indicted? How come they decide something for us?" he responded when asked to comment on the upcoming event.
Separately, Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo, who has repeatedly refused to launch an inquiry into findings of gross violations of human rights in the 1965 purge as detailed by the government-funded rights watchdog, bristled at the fact that the tribunal was taking place outside the country.
"These are our own problems and we well solve them ourselves. There's no need for involvement from other parties," he said as quoted by Kompas.
He did not say when his office would, if ever, start looking seriously into the anti-communist massacre or the other military-led purges in the decades since that were highlighted by the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in a groundbreaking 2012 report.
The tribunal at The Hague will attempt to prove that genocide and crimes against humanity had in fact been committed during the 1965-66 affair, although the Indonesian government continuously to make an official statement on the matter.
Valentina Sagala, a commissioner at the NGO Women's Institute and a member of the group behind the tribunal, stressed that it was not an attempt to indict anyone on criminal charges.
She said the tribunal's outcome, expected to be presented next year at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, would not be legally binding, but would instead serve as a "moral verdict" so that the Indonesian government could formulate its own policies on addressing the massacres of half a century ago.
In Jakarta, State Secretary Pratikno said on Tuesday that President Joko Widodo had already instructed officials to come up with ways to resolve the thorny issue. "The government is working very hard to prepare a systematic solution," he said as quoted by Kompas.
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