City officials do not care about people: Analyst

T. Sima Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Human rights violations are rampant in the city as many officials do not care about the people but focus merely on the effort to realize projects and targets.

This was stated by Saparinah Sadli, the chairwoman of the National Commission on Violence Against Women, during a discussion on human rights in Jakarta.

Another speaker at the event, organized by the city administration, was Indonesianist Daniel S. Lev from the University of Washington, who also criticized the administration for the poor regard in which it held human rights.

Sadli said the situation would only improve if city officials changed their orientation from individual achievement to caring about the public.

"This would also change the image of an authoritarian city administration to one that cares about the people, including the squatters," she said.

The rampant disregard for human rights was especially reflected in the forced evictions frequently conducted by the Jakarta Public Order Office against street vendors, squatters and other poor people, who make up 40 percent of the city's inhabitants.

Sadli even went so far as to say that the city administration was guilty of severe human rights violations as it abrogated the rights of poor people by commission -- through the legalization of such acts as provided for in controversial Bylaw No. 11/1988, and by omission -- through allowing evictions to go ahead.

The National Commission on Human Rights and the city administration in late 2001 attempted to resolve the eviction problem by agreeing to a 100-day moratorium on new evictions. This failed as city officials insisted on continuing the evictions, arguing that they had already been planned and that the funds allocated had to be spent, Sadli said.

A huge budget is normally allocated to the Public Order Office. This year, the city has set aside Rp 136 billion out of its Rp 10.98 trillion budget for the funding of the office.

Sadli's allegation that the city administration did not really care seemed to be borne out by City Secretary Ritola Tasmaya.

"He left after opening the event. This is not fair. He should have stayed until it was over so that he knows what we are talking about," complained one of the attendants, Kencana from the Coalition of Indonesian Women.

According to Lev, human rights violations occurred due to weak law enforcement. The legal system here did not work as many police officers, prosecutors and judges were corrupt, he said.

He also underlined the need for strong organizations and institutions that could bridge the gap between the government and the people.

Earlier in the discussion, Sadli specifically pointed to the 1998 May riots and the first and second Trisakti-Semanggi incidents, which happened later the same year. A member of the joint fact-finding committee that investigated the May riots, she reminded the audience that the committee had found that 1,000 people had been killed and 100 women raped during the riots. To date, however, this case, as well as the Trisakti-Semanggi cases, which also resulted in the deaths of a number of people, remained unresolved.

She said that besides poor law enforcement and the lack of awareness of government officials, the culture of denial made things worse.

Regarding the May riots, because no victim dared to appear in public, the rapes were considered to never have happened or were conveniently forgotten, she said, adding that the same applied to cases of human trafficking in many areas of the country.