Antigraft drive first priority: Watchdogs<\/p>\n
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Non-governmental organizations demanded on Thursday that the new
\ngovernment make corruption eradication and human rights promotion
\nits priorities.<\/p>\n
Rights watchdog the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims
\nof Violence (Kontras) and corruption watchdog the Indonesian
\nCorruption Watch (ICW) said in a joint statement that as Susilo
\nBambang Yudhoyono had accepted the mandate of the people, the new
\nPresident should not shy away from punishing the human rights
\nabusers of previous regimes and scores of corruptors who were
\nvindicated by the previous government.<\/p>\n
\"Human rights abuse and corruption are intertwined and their
\nperpetrators are often from the same groups. We suspect that some
\nof these groups are now rallying behind Susilo and contributed to
\nhis rise to power. We urge the Susilo administration not to bend
\nunder their pressure and uphold justice,\" the statement said.<\/p>\n
Kontras, in its report, recorded numerous cases of human
\nrights abuses: The military's purge in the wake of an aborted
\ncoup blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) --which
\nallegedly killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in the latter
\nhalf of the 1960s -- a series of mysterious shootings in the
\nearly 1980s, the Semanggi incident, in which scores of students
\nwere killed in 1998, and the abduction and murder of labor
\nactivist Marsinah.<\/p>\n
Press reports suggested that elements in the military had a
\nhand in all of the aforementioned cases.<\/p>\n
The ICW said that Megawati's administration had failed to
\nprosecute businesspeople who swindled state money, which was
\ninjected to bail them out of the financial crisis at the height
\nof the late 1990s economic crisis.<\/p>\n
\"Instead, the administration issued release-and-discharge
\norders for fraudulent businessmen, which absolved them of any
\nwrongdoing,\" Luky Djani of the ICW said.<\/p>\n
Fellow activist Usman Hamid of Kontras said that the first
\nstep the Susilo administration should take was to rid the
\nAttorney General's Office of corruption.<\/p>\n
\"We are glad that Susilo appointed Abdul Rahman Saleh as
\nAttorney General. However, the appointment alone is not enough,
\nthere has to be thorough reform in the Attorney General's Office,
\nwhich has been corrupt to the core,\" Usmand said.<\/p>\n
He urged the new attorney general to replace scores of
\nattorneys and prosecutors whose litigation in numerous cases of
\ncorruption and rights abuses had stalled.<\/p>\n
Usman said that the new Attorney General's Office could
\ninclude ad hoc prosecutors, consisting of non-officials and local
\nprosecutors.<\/p>\n
Aside from reforming the AGO, the NGOs demanded that the
\nSusilo administration unveil the blueprint for its national
\nanticorruption program.<\/p>\n
The NGOs called for the swift reopening of cases that concern
\nthe public at large.<\/p>\n
\"The responsibility of resolving cases of graft and rights
\nabuses does not go away with the changing of administrations,\"
\nthey said.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/antigraft-drive-first-priority-watchdogs-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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