Govt accused of poor human rights development
Govt accused of poor human rights development
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI)
accused the government and the Armed Forces of poorly supporting
the advancement and development of human rights.
The respected legal aid body said in its 1997 evaluation
Wednesday that the government had failed to accommodate the
universality of human rights as stipulated in the 1948 Universal
Declaration on Human Rights.
The foundation's 29-page evaluation, Negara Makin Kuat, Rakyat
Makin Lemah (The State Becomes Stronger, the People Become
Weaker), claimed the government and the military had persistently
demanded public obedience.
Chairman Bambang Widjojanto said the Armed Forces (ABRI), as
one of Indonesia's major political players, had objected to the
universality of human rights. He cited a number of public
statements made over the year by high ranking ABRI officials.
ABRI Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung, for instance, had once said
that human rights should be implemented in ways which were in
line with national interests. Former ABRI chief of sociopolitical
affairs, Lt. Gen. Syarwan Hamid, had also said that human rights
should conform to Indonesia's perception of it, Bambang said.
Even members of the National Commission on Human Rights have
yet to agree whether human rights is a universal concept or
particular to different societies in nature, Bambang said.
Baharuddin Lopa, Marzuki Darusman, Miriam Budiardjo and
Nurcholish Madjid were among the commission's members who
believed in the universality of the concept, while Muladi was one
who considered that a country's social and cultural interests
should precede human rights implementation, Bambang claimed.
The House of Representatives had also tended to refuse the
universality concept of human rights, he said.
The body, however, lauded active support from a number of non-
governmental organizations, scholars and activists in promoting
human rights in 1997.
Bambang also claimed that most of the country's legislation
produced in 1997 was repressive and created greater openings for
human rights violations to occur.
Law No. 28/1997 on Police and Law No. 25/1997 on Manpower were
among such laws, Bambang said. The latter, for instance, did not
provide adequate protection of workers' rights and only served
employers' interests, according to YLBHI head of labor division
Teten Masduki.
Students
Separately, in Bogor, West Java, some 200 students of the
Bogor Institute of Agriculture held a gathering on Wednesday to
mark the end of 1997.
The students demanded that the 1998/2003 president launch a
campaign to cure social ills and moral degradation which were the
roots of various crises. The National Moral Awakening Movement
should be treated first and foremost in the next president's
agenda, the students said.
Organizers Agus Purwoko, Heri Ardin and M. Najib said the
various crises befalling Indonesia over recent months were the
consequence of the nation's depravity.
Agus cited practices of corruption for which Indonesia was
infamous. "Illegal levies and other collections by bureaucrats
are the cause of our high-cost economy and the low efficiency in
our production," Agus said.
The students deplored private businesspeople who had access to
vast amounts of foreign loans while millions of farmers could not
even obtain small capital for their own ventures. "The economic
crisis preys on the weak," Agus said.
In the face of the ongoing monetary crisis, capital owners
fled with their assets in the hope of seeking even greater
profits from the suffering of other people, he said.
"The declining public trust in the currency was not merely an
economic factor, but was brought about by businesspeople's poor
nationalism and morality," he said. (24/10)