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Komnas HAM criticized for support of reconciliation commission

Jakarta Post - May 27, 2015

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Jakarta – A number of NGOs and families of victims of gross human rights violations have criticized the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which is supporting and promoting the establishment of a reconciliation commission that they deem will be unaccountable.

Speaking in a joint press statement in Jakarta on Wednesday, they say Komnas HAM has a mandate to investigate rights violations instead of actively supporting and promoting the establishment of a reconciliation commission.

"The reconciliation commission is no more than an effort to preserve impunity as such a commission has no clear legal basis. Its work targets and position in Indonesian jurisprudence are not clear either," said the NGOs and the victim families who were united in a number of groups.

They include the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and the Association of May 1998, the Murder Victims' Research Foundation (YPKP 65), the Struggle for Rehabilitation of New Order Regime Victims Association (LPR-KROB), the Association of Families of Talangsari Lampung Victims. Other associations include the Union of the Tanjung Priok Victims' Families (Ikkapri), the Families of 1997/1998 Forced Dissappearance Victims, the Families of Semanggi II Victims and the Families of 1965/1966 Tragedies.

They condemned both the actions and stance of Komnas HAM commissioners for the period of 2012-2017, who they said have been actively involved in the establishment of the reconciliation commission President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's administration has initiated.

They said such support was a proof that Komnas HAM had participated in attempts to simplify the settlement of gross human rights violations in Indonesia, namely through reconciliation, in which the state and victims were pushed to forgive each other, without anyone being held accountable.

The NGOs said the investigation mandate stipulated in Law No.26/2000 on human rights tribunals had been manipulated for the sake of political compromise.

Therefore, the NGOs said, they strongly rejected Komnas HAM's stance and statement, which supported the establishment of a reconciliation committee under the Attorney General's Office.

"It's just a form of Komnas HAM's escape from its inability to defend the work of its commissioners in the previous periods," they said. (ebf)

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/27/komnas-ham-criticized-support-reconciliation-commission.html.