Fretting over freedom of national rights body

Fretting over freedom of national rights body

Ati Nurbaiti, Staff Writer, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

While the public frets about the future effectiveness of the
National Commission on Human Rights, the few members regarded as
the more committed ones will have to keep the Commission an
independent body that can effectively combat human rights abuses.

The Commission was seen as a beacon for human rights in the
earlier period of its existence from 1993 to 1997, but now the
signs are that it is expected to make compromises with alleged
masterminds behind various human rights violations including
respected figures in the civilian and military establishment.

One reason for the rejection of popular figures -- notably
Wardah Hafidz of the Urban Poor Consortium and renowned lawyer
Todung Mulya Lubis -- was that they were "too stubborn in their
advocacy of human rights" said a legislator on the selection team
for new Commission members.

The 23 new members of the rights body, who will soon be
installed, will start their terms amid controversy over their
recruitment process by legislators.

The desperate attempts made to turn the human rights body
around from what it used to be -- a surprisingly effective and
independent advocate for human rights -- were apparent in the
violation on the law on the Commission itself -- a 1999 law that
states that members can only serve two terms. The House of
Representatives selection committee chose five members who have
served two terms.

While some suggest a judicial review to overturn this
decision, a number of human rights workers are keeping their
fingers crossed.

"We'll give them six months," said Asmara Nababan, an
outspoken Commission member. New member Zumrotin K. Susilo, a
former chairperson of the Indonesian Consumers' Foundation,
already knows the challenges ahead.

She is one of five members known for their work in advocating
people's rights; the 23 members include a number of others with
no experience in such work. "We didn't really have a standard
criteria," one legislator admitted.

At last week's launching of a book on the Commission, Zumrotin
shared her experience in two investigation teams the Commission
had set up for the cases of the students shot in the Semanggi and
Trisakti incidents in Jakarta.

The Commission was clearly "half hearted", "as if they didn't
want us to succeed" in revealing who was behind the shootings,
Zumrotin said. Only low ranking soldiers have been tried in the
cases.

Set up under a decree of then president Soeharto in 1993, the
Commission at first defied all expectations that it would merely
be a showcase for the government.

The Commission, until 1997, proved its capacity in "adopting
collective energy" of the public which yearned for changes under
an authoritarian government, said Cornelis Lay, who conducted a
joint study on the Commission with his colleague Pratikno of the
Gadjah Mada University. The book by the professors of politics
compares the Commission in its first period, 1993 to 1997, to the
second period from 1998 to 2001.

In the first period the Commission investigated, among other
notable cases, the murder of labor activist Marsinah and the July
27, 1996 PDI incident. Its surprising degree of independence
indeed had some support from the government, mainly the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in which current Minister Hassan Wirayuda was
among the initiators of the Commission.

Hassan cited how then minister Ali Alatas questioned why the
Commission was set up by a presidential decree, which of course
would not help the government's effort to improve its image.

The independence of the Commission was not quite the issue; at
that time, Hassan said, "a presidential decree was the most
realistic" in a situation where a human rights discourse was not
quite welcome, and was better compared to the red tape that
similar bodies in other countries had gone through.

Hassan said Soeharto only asked that Marzuki Darusman, a
Golkar executive, be named head of the Commission. Marzuki rose
to popularity, which quickly faded only after he became attorney
general under the next president B.J. Habibie.

Rather than independence, the more important thing for the
Commission was the integrity of its members, Hassan said, its
transparency and the public support it enjoyed.

In Southeast Asia, other countries followed suit wih similar
national bodies for human rights. But as many have said, in 1998
it was only Soeharto, and not the New Order regime as a whole,
that had exited public life.

Earlier, members had initially upheld ethics to avoid
conflicts of interests, but from 1998 to 2001 Commission members
resorted to fighting over their own interests, the researchers
said. The investigation teams for various cases continued to be
set up but progress was slower than before. Members have also
been spread thinly with only a few active, elderly members
becoming members of at least two teams.

The Commission had become a microcosm of the general political
fragmentation in society since 1998, Cornelis and Pratikno said.
The gaping divisions among members was evident when the team set
up to investigate the atrocities in East Timor sharply differed
over the definition of "gross human rights violations".

Let alone high profile human rights violations, "The
Commission will not be able to settle prolonged conflicts," said
Ikhsan Malik, a conflict resolution facilitator who has worked in
Maluku and Aceh. He cited the Commission's Bambang Soeharto, a
Golkar executive, who visited the conflict area of Ambon, talked
to military and civilian officials, and had left the following
day following the signing of an agreement.

Since 1998, the researchers said, the Commission went into a
"self destruction" mode, despite seemingly greater acceptance of
human rights issues by the government.

The 1999 law was issued to strengthen the authority of the
Commission by giving it certain powers. It had previously only
been able to make non-binding recommendations to the government.

All the hard work that had gone into the investigation team
looking into the May 1998 riots, including rapes of Chinese-
Indonesians, ended at the Commission's recommendations, mainly
for further investigation into an organized scheme.

But as the new 1999 law also gave authority to the legislature
to select members, rather than the President, legislators found
another new toy -- just as in the case of the selection of
ambassadors -- hence the controversial result.

Human rights workers say that from outside, they will continue
to support the earlier spirit of the Commission, through the few
members expected to strive to at least retain what Komnas HAM
once achieved. In Minister Hassan's words, this achievement was
the "erosion of a monopoly of truth" with regard to violations of
human rights, a monopoly once only enjoyed by the military and
other state institutions.