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)