AGO slammed for its view on May 1998 riots

AGO slammed for its view on May 1998 riots

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam) slammed
the Attorney General's Office on Friday for declaring that there
were no serious human rights violations in the 1998 May riots.

"The AGO actually does not have the authority to conclude
whether a case is a common crime or crime against humanity. Only
the ad hoc human rights tribunal can make such a decision. The
state prosecutors' duty is to investigate and prosecute the
suspects," Ifdhal Kasim of Elsam said.

During a hearing with the House of Representatives' Commission
II on legal and domestic affairs on Thursday, the AGO's human
rights task force head B.R. Pangaribuan said there was no
evidence of human rights violations in the May 1998 bloodbath.

He also claimed that the case could not be put before an ad
hoc human rights tribunal because several low-ranking military
officers had already been tried in a military tribunal over the
case.

However, Ifhal insisted that the prosecutors should present
their findings to the human rights tribunal and let the latter
decide whether to proceed with the prosecution.

"The office has once again disappointed the families of the
victims and indeed the whole nation. If they do not have enough
evidence, then they must officially halt the investigation," he
said.

The Attorney General's Office has sent back the case reports
to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which
has already concluded that there was ample evidence of major
state-sponsored human rights violations on May 13 and May 14,
1998.

Solahuddin Wahid, the rights body's deputy chief who led the
inquiry into the carnage, which mostly victimized pro-democracy
activists and Chinese-Indonesian women, questioned on Friday the
AGO's conclusion, saying the prosecutors had only asked for more
evidence.

"They have returned our documents, not because they dropped
the case, but because they want more evidence. And, we have been
officially given one more month to complete the documents," he
explained.

Solahuddin also made it clear that the AGO had no authority to
determine whether the case was a rights violation or not.

"It is the House who is supposed to decide. We will fulfill
their demand to gather more evidence because it is our
obligation," he said.

Komnas HAM has concluded that the riots met the major criteria
for a crime against humanity, because they were widespread and
systematic, with at least 20 high-ranking military officers
implicated.

The AGO is supposed to set up a team to build the
prosecution's case, based on the Komnas HAM report, according to
the country's human rights law.

Instead of following the proper legal procedures, the state's
rosecutors have merely been satisfied to go along with the
recommendation issued by a House committee, which concluded in
2000 that no human rights violations occurred.

However, legislator Panda Nababan of the Indonesia Democratic
Party for Struggle (PDI-P) said on Friday that that 2000
recommendation was only based on informal sources as legislators
had never properly investigated the case.

"We shouldn't read too much into that recommendation," he
said.

Hundreds of shops, shopping centers and homes were looted and
set ablaze during the riots that followed the fatal shooting of
four Trisakti University students who took part in a rally
demanding the resignation of Soeharto in Jakarta.

State security officers did nothing to prevent the riots that
swept through Jakarta and other cities. The upheaval and chaos
soon turned into a Chinese-Indonesian pogrom that included mass
rape, and when it was all over 1,217 people were dead, according
to several non-governmental organizations.

No serious action has ever been taken against the
perpetrators, despite the fact that the country has since seen
three different administrations since Soeharto.