Former PKI prisoners to get compensation

Former PKI prisoners to get compensation

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has moved to restore the rights of and provide
compensation for former political prisoners exiled on Buru Island
in Maluku between 1969 and 1979.

Most were accused of having links to the outlawed Indonesian
Communist Party (PKI).

Chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights Abdul
Hakim Garuda Nusantara said on Wednesday that President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono had agreed that the forcible incarceration of
the people had to be settled.

"This government is willing to settle it. Whether it would be
resolved through a presidential decree or other official forms,
remains undecided," Abdul Hakim said after a meeting with the
President.

Garuda said the state would restore the former prisoners'
civil and legal rights, which had been taken away by special laws
targeting PKI members.

It remains unclear whether the President will officially
declare that the state is responsible for rights abuses against
the nearly 10,000 political prisoners and ensuing discriminatory
treatment against them and their families.

During the tenure of former president B.J. Habibie, the House
of Representatives passed a law that allowed former political
prisoners to vote, but retained the ban on their legislative
membership.

In 2001, then president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid made an
official apology for the discrimination against former members of
the PKI, its affiliates and their families. He took a further
step by his call for the revocation of a Provisional People's
Consultative Assembly decree that bans Marxism/Leninism, a move
which eventually failed.

The Constitutional Court annulled last year the law that
banned former political prisoners from running as legislative
candidates, but the ruling will not be effective until the 2009
polls.

Abdul Hakim said the rights body suggested that Susilo
immediately approve the establishment of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission (KKR), whose main task would be to
settle past human rights abuses committed by state institutions.

The law, which was passed by the House last year, mandated the
establishment of the truth and reconciliation commission by April
at the latest.

Despite the nearing deadline, the government has not started
the selection of members for the 21-strong commission.

Human rights groups have alleged that the government was
uninterested in the KKR because many government officials could
be implicated for past abuses.

Historian Asvi Marwan Adam has said the state, through the so-
called Buru Island Resettlement Executor Body, was responsible
for the arbitrary imprisonment of suspected PKI members. The body
was set up by the Attorney General's Office at the request of the
now-defunct Internal Security Agency, which was directly under
former president Soeharto.

The government banished most of the prisoners to the island
after the 1965 coup, which was blamed on the PKI. Later, the
government also imprisoned and exiled children and wives of
political prisoners to the remote island, which was not designed
to house a prison.

Many of them died of malaria and malnutrition.

All of the prisoners have been released, but the state has
never admitted to any mistakes.