ABRI to support torture convention

ABRI to support torture convention

JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces has vowed to support the
international convention against torture should the government
and the House of Representatives decide to adopt it into law.

Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung yesterday
expressed ABRI's readiness to stand behind the government and the
House in their stance on the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture
or Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

"No problem for us. We will support it if the government
ratifies it," he said according to Antara reports from Jambi.
Asked whether the forces, in particular the National Police
force, will be ready to implement the convention, Feisal said
yes.

"If the UN convention is ratified, our investigators will work
in accordance with the rules," he said.

Feisal was the second to come out in support of recent calls
for Indonesia to ratify the convention. The first to come out in
support were members of the Golkar dominant faction at the House
of Representatives.

The calls, from observers and scholars, to ratify the
convention have emerged following the widely reported violent
death of Tjetje Tadjudin, a robbery suspect, allegedly at the
hands of police investigators in Bogor, West Java.

The government has promised Indonesia would soon ratify the
convention to put and end to the practice of using violence
during criminal investigations.

Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman said the government was
willing to ratify the document but needed to address "some
technicalities" first. One of the "technicalities" impeding the
government was that many agencies and personnel are not yet ready
to implement the convention.

Oetojo had argued that although Indonesia has yet to ratify
the convention, the Criminal Code already contains provisions for
the protection of suspects' rights.

The National Commission on Human Rights have sent an
investigation team to probe allegations of Tjetje's torture
following growing criticism that many incidents of security
forces torturing suspects have gone unheeded because the
government has yet to ratify the UN Convention.

Yesterday, Feisal said ABRI respected the rights commission
for also sending a team to investigate the death of Yogyakarta-
based journalist Fuad Muhammad Syafruddin and the allegedly
arbitrary arrest of his suspected killer.

"The commission can join (in the investigation). But, we are
still the institution authorized to solve the case," he said when
asked whether the commission was intruding in police affairs.

Feisal said he hoped the commission would be as objective as
possible, and that it consider the case in its general context.
He did not elaborate. (swe)