Generals in the dock?

Perhaps it is the novelty of the phenomenon. Or it could be the expectation that with such highly placed officials as former military commanders testifying before the country's judicial and law enforcement authorities, Indonesians will finally learn what crimes were committed by the state or its instruments in the name of national stability during the 32 years of the New Order.

Whatever the case, the intense interest with which the public is following the latest developments is justified: Indonesians are totally unaccustomed to seeing top ranking officials, much less generals of the once all-powerful Army, being summoned by law enforcement officers to answer questions about their role in past violence and atrocities or, in official parlance, the excessive use of force. After all, it was not so long ago that the country's high and mighty could kill, or cause people to disappear, with impunity.

It is true that in a couple of cases military tribunals were set up to try police and military personnel involved in some of the worst instances of violence that occurred in the recent past. The fatal shooting of four Trisakti University students in May 1997, which sparked social unrest that forced president Soeharto to step down, for example, is a case in point. Another involved what has since become known as the Semanggi incident, in which about a dozen people died.

None of those trials, however, satisfied the public's sense of justice. Both failed to expose the person or persons responsible for ordering the shooting or even for actually having fired the fatal shots. Instead, the fatalities were judged mere results of "errors in procedure". Both trials left the public still none the wiser about what actually happened and who was responsible for the deaths. No serious attempt was made in either case to take the investigation to a higher level.

At this point in the reform movement's development, although at what many activists consider a snail's pace, signs are emerging, and with them hope, that investigators are finally ready to be more serious in looking for the real causes and perpetrators responsible for atrocities committed in the past. Hence the summoning of officers whose onetime positions warrant investigators' suspicions that they were either responsible or knew about what happened at the time the violence occurred.

Cases in point are the 1984 Tanjung Priok incident in which at least 40 people died, and the 1996 unrest following the forcible takeover of the Indonesian Democratic Party headquarters from one faction by another government-supported rival faction of the party. Apart from lives lost, dozens of people were declared missing after both incidents. In both cases, the official announcements on the number of dead and missing were unsatisfying.

Given all this it is not surprising that hopes are high that the truth will finally emerge. At this point, though, it is appropriate to caution the public against overoptimism which might only lead to further frustration.

The public is correct to believe that those who can clear up the doubt cloaking past atrocities are the people near the top of the New Order's power pyramid at the time the events occurred. So far, though, none of the top Army officers questioned -- with one exception -- has shown the chivalry, courage or magnanimity to acknowledge responsibility. Instead, they have shifted blame to their subordinates or superiors, or even the system.

The one exception is Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto, former commander of the Army's Special Force (Kopassus). Although denying having ordered or taken part in the kidnapping and torture of reform activists in 1997 and early 1998, Prabowo accepted responsibility for the incidents due to his position. Indonesians can only hope that the time will come soon when chivalry becomes an integral part of the spirit of service of the country's military officers.