The Ideal Way for Indonesia to Resolve Historical Serious Human Rights Abuses
Tempo.co, Nov 17, 2024
Indonesia can learn from other countries about resolving historical serious human rights violations. In Guatemala, one perpetrator was sentenced to 5,130 years in prison.
GATHERING at the office of civil rights non-government organization Imparsial in Tebet, South Jakarta, a number of human rights activists discuss the fate of proposed efforts to resolve historical serious human rights violations under the newly-sworn in government of President Prabowo Subianto. At the meeting in early November 2024, they also discuss measures aimed at reconciliation that have already been implemented by past governments.
The reconciliation process began after the Non-Judicial Human Rights Violation Resolution Team handed eleven recommendations to former President Joko Widodo in January 2023. They included acknowledgement of and official expression of regret for past serious human rights violations, and the restoration of the rights of victims of past human rights violations.
“The government wants reconciliation, but it doesn’t resolve the cases,” said Imparsial Deputy Director Ardi Manto when contacted November 13, 2024. The discussion was also attended by representatives of the Institute for Community Advocacy and Research (Elsam), the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, and the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association.
Elsam Director Wahyudi Djafar said the government should commence a reconciliation process by measures to establish the facts and truth of the incidents, uncover details of the cases, identify perpetrators, and satisfy the rights of the victims. “Currently, there is a pseudo-reconciliation process that is preoccupied with providing assistance to the victims,” he said.
According to Wahyudi, Indonesia can emulate the resolution of human rights abuses in several countries, such as South Africa with the case of apartheid, Chile, and Guatemala. These countries are considered successful in conducting reconciliation processes for gross human rights abuses.
Amnesty International’s document, “Guatemala: All the Truth, Justice for All”, refers to one of the serious human rights abuse. In 1982, there was a massacre of 350 residents of Las Dos Erres Village, La Libertad City, by a military group. The army raided the village, suspected of being a hiding place for communist guerrillas. The government regarded the communist group as rebels.
The victims’ families took the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission is responsible for protecting human rights in the Americas. Documents on the human rights violations were submitted to the Inter-American Human Rights Court in 2008.
A year later, the court ruled that the Guatemalan government had violated human rights by massacring its citizens. According to the news.un.org website, the court convicted five former soldiers who carried out the massacre in Las Dos Erres Village. One of them was Santos Lopez Alonso, who was sentenced to 5,130 years in prison.
Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid said there are similarities between the human rights violations that occurred in Indonesia and in Guatemala. The perpetrators were both military. According to Usman, the government should investigate the perpetrators of human rights violations to uncover the truth. “If you are to forgive, you have to know who the perpetrators are,” he said.
Usman said the most ideal case for reconciliation was in relation to the human rights violations in the 1990s. Among these are the tragic shooting of Trisakti University students in 1998 and the kidnapping of activists in 1997-1998. “Most of the perpetrators are still alive,” said Usman.
Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission Atnike Nova Sigiro said that the resolution of human rights violations must be able to satisfy the rights of the victims. He gave the example of the case of human rights violations in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, which occurred in 1984. The perpetrators, Atnike continued, went through a court process. But the court failed to prove that a crime had been committed.
As a result, the victims of these serious human rights violations did not receive their rights. The case was also not included in the purview of the Non-Judicial Resolution of Human Rights Violations Team. “It’s a shame they didn’t get justice,” he said, November 14, 2024. (Egi Adyatama contributed to the writing of the original article. In the print edition, this article was published under the title “No Forgiveness without a Perpetrator”.)
This post is based on https://www.tempo.co/politik/rekonsiliasi-pelanggaran-ham-berat-1169334
In earlier news…
How Prabowo’s New Government is Burying Historical Serious Human Rights Abuses
From TV Tempo’s “Bocor Alus Politik” Podcast, November 16, 2024
TEMPO.CO – Indonesia’s newly-inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto has prepared a special speech for the commemoration of Indonesia’s national Human Rights Day on 10 December. However, his government is tending to work to resolve long-outstanding historical cases of serious human rights abuses through non-judicial channels.
Having tapped former 1998 pro-democracy activists who were themselves victims of kidnapping to become cabinet ministers in his new government, Prabowo and his supporters have also prepared a white paper that denies the involvement of the former Indonesian army special forces commander in historical human rights violations. Watch the full podcast. (https://youtu.be/TZoeTjf6j5g?feature=shared)
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