| Home > South-East Asia >> Indonesia | |
Johannes Nugroho: Indonesia can learn from Timor Leste on human rights
Jakarta Globe - July 21, 2015
A committee only needs a presidential decree to be established, but is constitutionally inferior to a legislature-approved commission. As Haris Azhar, the coordinator of human rights organization Kontras, has pointed out, the efficacy of such a committee is highly dubious.
Attorney-General M. Prasetyo said that the committee would seek to resolve human rights violations through "non-judicial means" in the spirit of reconciliation. Haris, however, considered this tantamount to an attempt to absolve perpetrators of their guilt.
To make matters worse, the attorney general also suggested that thorough investigation into each individual case might not be possible owing to the lack of evidence and witnesses after such a long time. But Haris also rebutted this, saying: "The argument that it is difficult to find evidence is specious, considering the Attorney-General's Office has never acted upon the dossiers submitted by the National Commission on Human Rights [Komnas HAM]."
In eliminating the word "Truth" from the committee's name, the Indonesian government seemingly wants to leapfrog towards reconciliation, thereby dispensing with the laborious process of fact-finding and accepting the truth. However, history has proved this to be an implausible feat.
In the aftermath of its independence from Indonesia in 2002, Timor-Leste created an independent body to start investigations into past human rights abuses taking place there during the Indonesian occupation (1974-99). Its name was the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). The CAVR presented its final report to the Timor-Leste parliament in 2005, a document more than 2,000 pages in full, all of which has now been published as a five-volume edition in both Indonesian and English, titled Chega! (No More! in Portuguese).
In the words of Aniceto Guterres Lopes, chair of the CAVR: "Why did Timor-Leste choose to address its difficult past?... Timor-Leste could have done nothing or opted to forgive and forget. Instead our nation chose to pursue accountability for past human rights violations, to do this comprehensively for both serious and less serious crimes... to demonstrate the immense damage done to individuals and communities when power is used with impunity."
Only after having recorded the statements of 7,669 victims, carried out 1,048 interviews with key perpetrators and witnesses, and submitted its findings to its government, the CAVR deemed itself ready to start the reconciliation process. In other words, the truth-finding part of its work was essential in restoring dignity to the victims, without which reconciliation and forgiveness could only be a charade.
Although CAVR's Community Reconciliation Process (CRP) was similar to the "non-judicial means of reconciliation" currently espoused by the Indonesian attorney-general, it never sought to bypass the judiciary altogether. Before a particular case could be resolved through CRP, the Office of the General Prosecutor's agreement and subsequently a court order had to be obtained first.
Eventually, 1,371 perpetrators of human rights abuse were cleared for CRP. But even then it wasn't a case of "forgive and forget." The violators were required to face their victims and confess their crimes. The victims in turn responded to the confessions. What is noteworthy, this entire process was conducted in public hearings at national, subdistrict and village levels, attended by many and often televised.
In the process, rather than feeling shamed, the victims recovered their dignity because their communities acknowledged and honored their testimonies. The public hearings also saw some of Timor-Leste's society taboos broken for the common good. For example, many victims of sexual violence throughout Indonesia's occupation – the CAVR managed to track down 800 individual victims or witnesses to rape, sexual torture and sexual slavery – bravely spoke about their ordeals on national television.
In light of the scale of Timor-Leste's CAVR successful undertaking, Attorney-General M. Prasetyo's claim that cases which occurred well in the past may be difficult to uncover seems lame at best. Out of the six cases he told the press the government would tackle, the Communist Purge of 1965-66 is the oldest. It is undeniably older than the 1975 Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste, but it has been subject to many academic works and even documentary films. No doubt there is plenty of historical material to work with for the committee should it wish to unearth the truth.
Timor-Leste's CAVR report says that "a minimum of 102,800 civilians died during the 1974-99 period," while during the 1965-66 Communist Purge alone around half a million Indonesian civilians ere estimated to have been massacred throughout the country. The fact that it remains unresolved after 50 years can only point to Indonesia's unwillingness to come to terms with `its past.
Just last week a German court sentenced nonagenarian Oskar Groening to four years' imprisonment for being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people more than 70 years ago at the Auschwitz death camp. While the strictly judicial German model of resolving crimes against human rights may not be palatable to most Indonesians, the Timor-Leste experience will perhaps be more suitable. To turn a well-known Indonesian phrase, "A great nation is one brave enough to own up to its misdeeds."
[Johannes Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya – He can be contacted at johannes@nonacris.com.]
See also:
 |