Politics turns people into mere pawns<\/p>\n
Harry Bhaskara, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post<\/p>\n
Human rights violators might have nodded with approval as the
\nyear 2001 drew to a close. They can look ahead convinced that
\ntheir impunity will remain in their pockets.<\/p>\n
Those who hope to bring them to justice had better known that
\nit is an illusion. Like fireflies at night, their hope only lit
\nintermittently in the dark.<\/p>\n
The vanguard of human rights protection in the country is the
\nNational Commission on Human Rights, set up by the Soeharto
\ngovernment in 1993. Throughout 2001, however, the commission was
\nengaged in an internal squabbling over trivial matters like how
\nmany members should it have and whether its secretary general
\nshould be a civil servant.<\/p>\n
When will they start working? No body knows.<\/p>\n
As time went by, new violations were being committed pushing
\npast violations into the back of the public's mind.<\/p>\n
Behind the quarrel over whether the commission should have 25
\nor 35 members was a resolute determination to protect the wrongs.
\nEarly this year there was a need to recruit seven new members to
\nfill in the vacant seats left out by those who went into the
\ngovernment. They were to be selected by a team out of 14 names.
\nWhen the final selection came the worms in the can burst out.<\/p>\n
Overnight the public learned that the commission was plagued
\nwith internal rift. The status quo camp in the commission
\nrejected the proposed names citing as irrational a reason as that
\nthe candidates were mostly NGO activists. They came up with a
\ndemand to increase the total member to 35.<\/p>\n
In neighboring countries, such a commission has 15 members at
\nmost with hundreds of staff. They work full time on the policy
\nlevel. In Indonesia, many of the members work part time and it
\nonly has about two dozens staff.<\/p>\n
Assessment to seriousness to address human rights issues can
\nstart here.<\/p>\n
Analysts said they believed the status quo forces closed to
\nthe repressive New Order regime in the commission had been
\ndefensive because it could be instrumental in deciding the fate
\nof a perpetrator.<\/p>\n
They remembered that Gen. Wiranto was forced to resign as
\nsenior security minister by then president Abdurrahman Wahid
\nafter the commission asked the Attorney General in February 2000
\nto question Wiranto over his role in 1999 East Timor post-
\nelection riots.<\/p>\n
And as unscrupulous military members were believed to be
\nbehind numerous cases of human rights violations, analysts
\nreasoned that bad elements in the military were behind the
\nintervention into the commission membership.<\/p>\n
The oldest human rights organization, the Legal Aid Institute,
\nsaid in its year-end report that there had been a systematic
\neffort by the power holder to dump true human rights defenders
\nfrom the commission and to let in people with questionable tract
\nrecord especially after Megawati Soekarnoputri became president
\nin July.<\/p>\n
The institute itself was not immuned to such an intervention,
\nit said, citing persistent character assassination war against
\nits many activists as well as terror and intimidation.<\/p>\n
The death of Papuan independent fighter Theys Hiyo Eluay in
\nNovember was one the most spectacular, brutal and blatant
\nkillings peaking a systematic cleansing of human rights
\ndefenders.<\/p>\n
As with other cases, Theys' case would likely to remain in
\nmystery in the coming months, of course after the usual lip
\nserving attempts to investigate it.<\/p>\n
The usual pattern of perpetrators protect fellow perpetrators
\nwill come into play with network and money becoming pertinent
\nfactors.<\/p>\n
Many high profile human rights cases this year were carryovers
\nfrom the past such as violations accrued from the ten-year period
\nof military operation in Aceh ending in 1999, the brutal fight
\nagainst separatist elements in Papua, ethnic conflicts in Sampit,
\nkillings in Trisakti University (1998), the first (1998) and
\nsecond Semanggi shootings (1999).<\/p>\n
Others were forced disappearances of more than 1,000 people
\nmissing during the Soeharto 30-year rule throughout the country
\nin cases related to land, religion and separatism.<\/p>\n
Secretary to Commissions for Missing Persons and Anti Violence
\n(Kontras) Usman Hamid said in August that he had not much hope
\nthat Megawati would like to address the issue as many of those
\nguilty of committing the crime were included in her government.<\/p>\n
Megawati showed reluctancy even to probe forced disappearance
\ncases linked to an attack to the headquarters of her party, the
\nPDI Perjuangan, in Jakarta on July 27, 1996.<\/p>\n
During the May 1998 riot in Jakarta, 14 people were missing.
\nAceh recorded 486 people missing, the highest number throughout
\nthe country, during the ten-year of military operations there.<\/p>\n
None of these cases has been thoroughly processed.<\/p>\n
A parent whose son, Petrus Bimo Anugrah, was missing in the
\nMay 1998 riots said in August that he had been tracing for his
\nson for three and a-half-years without a success. He said the
\ngovernment had no attention at all to his cause.<\/p>\n
The fight to uphold justice was further frustrated by the
\ncontroversial House of Representatives' rejection in July to set
\nup an ad hoc human rights tribunal for those responsible for the
\nkilling of 14 students during the Trisakti, Semanggi I and
\nSemanggi II incidents.<\/p>\n
This people's representation body believed that the killings
\nwere not a crime against humanity but a common crime. The House
\nreasoned, therefore, the crime were to be tried in either
\nmilitary or civil courts.<\/p>\n
This whole episode only showed the strength of remnants of the
\nNew Order elements in the House and boiled down to the 1945
\nConstitution's shortcomings that gives much power to the House.
\nAt times the House could behave as if it was the Supreme Court
\noffice.<\/p>\n
The then President Wahid openly showed his disagreement to the
\nHouse's decision over the killings taken by a House special
\ncommittee.<\/p>\n
Adding insult to injury, the Commission only set up a fact-
\nfinding team on the killings in August, two years after the
\nsecond Semanggi killings.<\/p>\n
Alas, an ad hoc tribunal for these cases was scheduled early
\nnext year after several postponement with unclear reasons.<\/p>\n
Sincerity to follow due process of law seems to be a crucial
\nelement in the probe into human rights violation cases.
\nUnfortunately, the government seems to be suffering from the lack
\nof it.<\/p>\n
The government has guaranteed the freedom of workers to unite
\nunder Law No. 21 enacted in 2000 but there were 22 violations to
\nthe law in Jakarta alone this year with the Shangri-La hotel's
\nworkers-management dispute featuring prominently, so much so that
\nit drew the attention of the International Labor Organization.<\/p>\n
Various violations have been committed by the state against
\ncivilians this year, most of them went unpunished despite the
\nfact that the country has been a signatory to International
\nConvention Against Torture since 1998 and has enacted Law No. 39
\non human rights in 1999.<\/p>\n
In Jakarta those violations included violence acts
\naccompanying efforts to force poor people out of their homes,
\ndrive out becak drivers, street-side vendors, street children,
\nworkers, and pacify student protests.<\/p>\n
The police and education institutions are not exempted from
\nabuses. When eight police officers presented their ideas on how
\nto turn the police into a civilian and professional force
\nfollowing its dissection from the military in 2000, the national
\npolice chief brought them into the military court.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the University of Indonesia unheeded the Higher
\nState Administration Court decision which favored several
\nstudents who protested a hike of 2000 education fee at their
\nuniversity. The punishment, a six-month to a year suspension from
\nstudy, sticked.<\/p>\n
It is no doubting that bad elements in the government along
\nwithin the military, the legislative and the judicative branches
\nas well as in business sectors are good team playmates in the
\nprotection of human rights violators.<\/p>\n
They played total football so beautifully at times edging to
\ntheatrical dexterity as some trials in military courts for
\noffending state apparatuses showed.<\/p>\n
The hours of the trials were never fixed in these courts, some
\nof which started late at night ending at midnights with a clear
\npurpose to avoid public scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Whether or not all these institutions want to give dignity and
\nrespect to this nation among the international community of
\nnations by defending human rights will depend entirely on
\nthemselves.<\/p>\n
The people, for the time being, are mostly reduced to pawns in
\nthe prolonged power struggle equation starting with the fall of
\nSoeharto in 1998. It was a Goliath versus David fight, with David
\nbeing a mere spectator.<\/p>",
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