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Govt, student body deny students were warned off people's tribunal
Jakarta Post - November 6, 2015
The Indonesian Embassy in The Hague was reported to have warned the Indonesian Students Association (PPI) in Leiden, the Netherlands, not to attend the tribunal.
The embassy issued a statement on Thursday, denying the report by quoting the conversation between PPI Leiden head Ghamal Satya Mohammad and the embassy's cultural attache, Bambang Hari Wibisono regarding the matter. "So here's the deal Pak Hari, this morning there are reports circulating that the embassy warned the PPI not to attend the tribunal. I deeply apologize for this," Ghamal said in the statement released by the embassy.
According to Ghamal, the report did not originate from him or the PPI. "Indeed, I am fully aware that I made suggestions to my friends who are participating as volunteers [for the tribunal] to reconsider their participation in the tribunal, but not with the statement that the embassy was threatening us," he said. "The reports have deviated from the truth."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Armanatha Nasir said on Thursday that none of the allegations were true. "What happened was that the head of the PPI got a message from the organizer of the tribunal who was asking for Indonesian students to help," he said.
"The PPI head asked the cultural attache, to which the latter responded by saying that the Republic of Indonesia was a democracy and thus could not interfere with any public participation, so go ahead and weigh the positive and the negative aspects of participating in the event."
The head of the tribunal's organizing committee, human rights lawyer Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, previously said that she had received a letter informing her that the embassy had threatened the PPI.
"I received a letter that says 'our Indonesian students were called to the Indonesian Embassy in The Hague and told they will lose their scholarships if they join us. The embassy itself has decided it is a form of resurrecting communism'," she said on Wednesday.
Fifty years ago, following the events of Oct. 1, 1965, an estimated 500,000 Indonesians accused of being members or supporters of the PKI were murdered, and many hundreds of thousands of people were detained without trial or exiled. The mass killings have long been enveloped in social and political amnesia.
Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Panjaitan has maintained that the government will not resort to any judicial mechanism to resolve past human rights abuse cases, including the purge.
Luhut said the government was still exploring what he called "a format that fit the Indonesian way" to deal with past rights abuse cases.
Since there has been no official attempt to find out who was behind the killings, who the victims were exactly and where they are buried, several Indonesian and local researchers, activists and 1965 victims at home and in various countries in Europe have taken the initiative to hold a people's tribunal called "the International People's Tribunal for the 1965 crimes against humanity" (IPT).
"The tribunal's mission is to examine the evidence for these crimes against humanity, develop an accurate historical and scientific record and apply principles of international law to the collected evidence. Testimonies will be given by a selected number of victims and survivors both from Indonesia and political exiles currently living elsewhere," a press statement from the organizing committee said.
However, since the IPT is not a criminal court, it does not have the mandate to ensure justice and compensation for the victims.
"But it will endeavor to push the state to accept its responsibility for the victims and their families, and toward Indonesian society as a whole. The proceedings will address several counts of gross human rights violations, e.g. mass murder, enslavement and torture," the organizing committee said.
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