Commission could be 'whitewash machine'

Commission could be 'whitewash machine'

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Attempts to heal the wounds of those victimized by large scale
human rights violations in the past should be the priority of the
truth and reconciliation commission, which is due to be set up
next year, activists said.

Number one on the list of such cases should be the bloodbath
of 1965 following the foiled coup d'etat blamed on the Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI), the Institute for Policy Research and
Advocacy (ELSAM) suggested.

This case should be the most urgent and the most feasible to
be handled by the commission, said Ifdhal Kasim, who leads the
institute, given the many living survivors and documents.

"Most importantly, it claimed millions of victims, some of
whom are still seeking clarification about what happened to
them," he told The Jakarta Post after a media briefing on
Wednesday.

Ifdhal was commenting further on Tuesday's endorsement by the
House of Representatives on the bill for the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission.

Activists fear the sidetracking of the 1965 case, given the
bill's mandate for the commission to work on cases "before the
enactment of Law No. 26/2000 on the rights tribunal" -- meaning
any case between 1945 and 2000.

Following the fall of president Soeharto in 1998, many spoke
of a need for a South Africa-style reconciliation mechanism
regarding cases which caused enmity through generations. Former
president Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur) gave the green light to
such a mechanism, apologizing in public for the participation of
Muslim activists in the slaughtering of anyone suspected to have
ties to communists.

There was essentially a civil war following the Sept. 30, 1965
coup attempt, pitting the "communists" and the "religious
nationalists". Estimates of those killed range from 500,000 to a
few million; many more were jailed without trial for years,
leaving their families with no source of income and a stigma of
being associated with the PKI.

The truth and reconciliation commission is set to be formed no
later than six months after the bill is signed into law or after
being approved by the House, if the president refuses to sign it.

Regarding the vague time limit implying that the commission
could work on cases that were over 50 years old, Ifdhal said,
"There is no other truth and reconciliation in the world tasked
to settle cases with such a long time frame, creating
difficulties to trace documents, witnesses, victims and alleged
perpetrators."

Given the "weak political commitment" from the current
government for the establishment of the commission -- initiated
by Gus Dur in 2000, but not submitted by the current government
until 2002 -- Ifhdal warned that the government must not turn the
commission into "a whitewash machine" for the alleged
perpetrators.

Separately, deputy chairwoman of the National Commission on
Human Rights (Komnas HAM) Zoemrotin K. Soesilo agreed, saying
that the commission should not be "an institution for impunity".

"The performance and credibility of the commission rely on its
members. The recruitment must be conducted transparently," she
said.

According to the bill, there will be 21 members on the
commission. Earlier, it was expected that the commission would
be manned by just 15 members.

Zoemrotin said that rights violations cases must still be
settled in a court of law, even if it has been settled through
the commission.