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Government may avoid trials for past human rights abuses
Jakarta Post - January 23, 2015
In a seminar discussing challenges to law enforcement in Indonesia held at the House of Representatives on Thursday, Attorney General HM Prasetyo suggested that the government might rule out using a judicial process in its attempt to resolve past abuses, explaining that "reconciliation is the best option".
Addressing an audience that consisted of lawmakers and law enforcers, Prasetyo, a former NasDem politician, cited the often prolonged length of time that had passed since the occurrences as the most challenging factor in any attempt to reopen investigations.
"Reconciliation is the best solution to settle [cases of rights violations that occurred in the past]," Prasetyo said, without elaborating. He was reluctant to further discuss the matter and avoided more queries from the press regarding the issue.
Prasetyo made his remarks on the same day that human rights abuse victims and their relatives, as well as rights activists, entered the eighth year of the weekly Kamisan (Thursday) rally across from the Presidential Palace.
His statement during the discussion at the House backed up Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly, who on the previous day had said that the government would focus on a bill to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR), since attempts to establish a rights tribunal had faced political stumbling blocks.
"The problems include whether [the investigations] will encompass cases that took place since the Dutch colonial period, or since the 1965 communist purge," Yasonna said on the sidelines of a meeting with lawmakers from the House's Commission III overseeing legal affairs, human rights and security on Wednesday.
"Focusing on this KKR bill is the best option," he said, adding that his ministry had already prepared a draft.
The National Commission on Human Rights has cited seven cases of past rights violations that it declared "gross violations" after conducting years of investigations.
The unresolved cases consist of the 1989 Talangsari massacre, the forced disappearance of anti-Soeharto activists in 1997 and 1998, the Trisakti University shootings, the Semanggi I and Semanggi II student shootings in 1998 and 1999, the mysterious killing of alleged criminals in the 1980s, the anti-communist massacres of 1965 and various abuses that took place in Wasior and Wamena in Papua in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
Komnas HAM has submitted the results of its investigations to the Attorney General's Office for further investigation, but to no avail until today since both institutions have been bogged down in years of back-and-forth debate over technicalities.
Despite his recent statement, Yasonna announced in December last year, in the midst of criticisms concerning the paroling of Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, the convicted murderer of prominent human rights defender Munir Said Thalib, that the Jokowi administration was determined to establish an ad hoc human rights tribunal.
The government's latest proposal for a non-judicial mechanism to solve the cases has raised doubts among human rights campaigners.
Haris Azhar from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said that "reconciliation is a situation, not a mechanism [to solve the problem]".
"Reconciliation can only be achieved if the government has fulfilled the principles of truth, justice and recovery of the rights of the victims. And the [rights] tribunal is the most fruitful way to do so," Haris said.
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