EU-RI rights seminar adopts 16 recommendations

JAKARTA (JP): A milestone human rights workshop organized by Indonesia and the European Union closed here on Thursday with the adoption of 16 recommendations. Prominent among these are suggestions on the role of the judiciary, police and army in rights protection.

The two-day workshop witnessed "a valuable exchange of views," said Marzuki Darusman, one of the event's cochairmen.

"The recommendations were made for action at the national level to improve the protection of human rights in Indonesia," said Marzuki, who is also deputy chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights.

The recommendations were adopted by the 150 participants, comprising human rights activists -- Indonesian and European -- government officials and members of the diplomatic corps.

Without setting any timetable for their implementation, the recommendations include the need to separate the police from the military, to ensure the independence of the judiciary and to boost the nation's network of non-governmental organizations.

Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto has said that, as from 1999, the police will be progressively separated from the military and placed under the authority of the Ministry of Defense and Security.

The seminar's working group on the police and judiciary -- which was one of four -- however, said that placing the police under the ministry would not convince the public that there had been any real change.

"Separation has to be a reality, not just a formal change," the group said, adding the supreme authority over the police should be the president rather than the ministry of defense.

It added that the police should be allocated its own separate budget by the House of Representatives (DPR).

It said the police training curriculum should also be fully adapted to policing methodologies and not retain any military practices.

The working group also said Supreme Court judges should be appointed by the House, on the basis of presidential nomination.

"So, the DPR should make the final appointment," the group said.

It said that the salaries of all judges should be approved by the House, on the basis of a proposal by the Ministry of Finance and the National Development Planning Board.

The group added that judges should also never be appointed from the military.

"The chief justice of the Supreme Court should not be recruited from the military," Marzuki said.

Sarwata, the current chief justice, is a retired air force commodore.

The other three working groups were on women's and children's rights; education, awareness and institution building; and labor rights.

The working group on labor rights brought up issues such as the need to restrict the role of the military in resolving labor disputes.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook stressed in a message read out at the opening of the seminar that "the fact that (the workshop) is taking place at all symbolizes the new era of change in Indonesia." He added that he felt a "new sense of liberty" existed in Indonesia.

"There is a lively debate about human rights looking not only at the excesses of the past but also at ways in which respect for human rights can be enshrined in society for the future," he said.

European Union Ambassador Klauspeter Schmallenbach also hailed the seminar, saying that "a co-operative human rights workshop could hardly have been envisaged only a few years ago.

"There is clearly a new dimension to the human rights discussion especially here in Indonesia."

The seminar "is a living proof that we have passed from declarations of intention to concrete discussion between experts on how to promote and protect human rights," he said. (byg)