Abuse of rights a problem in power structure
Abuse of rights a problem in power structure
JAKARTA (JP): An outspoken human rights activist deplored the
country's poor human rights record in the past year, citing
yesterday the violations occurring in the top layers of the power
structure.
Brig. Gen. (ret.) Roekmini Koesoemoastoeti Soedjono of the
National Commission for Human Rights said in a discussion here
yesterday that 1994 saw rife violations of human rights.
"These violations were often attached to the power structure,
so that the people who became its victims were helpless," she
said.
Among the strategies the commission has employed in dealing
with the poor human rights record is "establishing contacts with
various parties, and building networks, including with
institutions which we know are potential rights abusers," she
said.
Roekmini, a former legislator from the Armed Forces faction,
said her colleagues at the commission blamed the condition on
society's poor "legal awareness and humanity".
"I see something even worse than that ... and that is (the
abusers') lack of political awareness, which causes them to fail
to realize that their conduct will eventually destroy the
political system from within," Roekmini said.
"Such a condition is brought about not only by lack of
awareness of legal rights in the society's lower layers, but also
because of the weakness of civil society," she said.
The discussion meant to evaluate the country's record on human
rights in 1994 and to forecast its condition this year was held
by the Indonesian Student Association for International Studies
in cooperation with the MASIKA student group within the
Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals.
The other speakers in the discussion were social scientist Eep
Saifulloh Fattah of the University of Indonesia and Let. Gen.
Moetojib, governor of the National Defense Institute.
The discussion listed off numerous "human rights violations"
in the country last year, including the revocation of the
publication licenses of three major news weeklies--Tempo, Editor
and DeTik, and poor treatment of workers.
Eep named the controversial Supreme Court ruling on a dispute
concerning land appropriation for the World Bank-funded Kedung
Ombo dam construction, and a lower court's judgments in the case
of slain labor activist Marsinah, as among proofs of human rights
abuse.
"There are farmers whose land was appropriated for some
development projects at Rp 50 per square meter ... and there are
high-ranking officials who were exonerated from involvement in a
bank scandal over billions of rupiah ... the past year was no
spring of democracy and human rights protection," Eep said.
The discussion also pointed out that it is the feeling of
helplessness, pervasively reigning over the lower layers of
society, which drives a growing number of people to lodge their
complaints with the commission, despite the public's initial
doubts about the objectivity of the government-sponsored body.
"People now bring their grievances to the commission, instead
of to the House of Representatives," a participant said.
Roekmini acknowledged the trend, but rejected that it
indicated the commission's wish to eclipse the roles of other
bodies.
"The commission does not want to shove the House out of the
way," she said. "But maybe this trend emerges because the public
hopes that the commission will be able to solve its problems ...
the public is probably frustrated because complaining to House
and provincial legislative councils has gotten them nowhere."
In the past year alone, the commission received 2,276 reports
and complaints of human rights violations, and handled 334 of
them, including those concerning land disputes and labor
disputes.
"This commission is not a super body which acts as if it can
solve all problems," Roekmini said.
Instead, she said, the commission has prepared a series of
strategies to help it deal with the growing caseload, including
by establishing networks with other, policy-making institutions.
"We have been trying to establish common perceptions on many
things and establish contacts with the lower layers of society,
because we know that the real problems reside in the upper level
of society," she said.
"Don't say this commission has no strategies," she said.
She identified at least three issues which became the root of
human rights violations in the country, including flaws in the
"application of the political system".
If the superstructure in the system allows its "lack of
political awareness" to go unchecked, "what will happen is a
process of deterioration, of decaying, within the system," she
said. (swe)