House gives no impunity to rights criminals

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung said on Wednesday that the legislative body would not allow any suspected perpetrators of crimes against humanity to escape prosecution.

"We have proven our stance by recommending the establishment of a human rights tribunal for the East Timor cases in 1999 and the Tanjung Priok incident in 1984," Akbar said during the opening speech of a discussion here.

Akbar was responding to people's doubts of the House legislators' commitment to promote human rights because, as members of political parties, they are subject to political deals with those held responsible for past human rights abuses.

According to Article 43 of Law No. 26/2000 on the human rights court, the House has the right to recommend the establishment of an ad hoc rights trial to hear past cases.

"To avoid such impunity, the community can exercise full control so as to warn legislators against ignoring gross human rights violations in the past, which may hurt people's sense of justice," Akbar said.

The House, however, failed to live up to people's expectation when it announced that it could not find any human rights violations during the incident at Trisakti University in May 1998 and the two others near Semanggi in November 1998 and September 1999. Dozens were killed in the violence which involved security troops shooting unarmed students.

The House recommended that the cases be brought to military court instead.

The House's recommendation, however, is not a dead end for the ongoing inquiry held by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) because the House's special committee investigating the cases was established before the 2000 Human Rights Law took effect.

The discussion, held by the National Executive Board of Pemuda Pancasila, was attended by military officers, including former Armed Forces chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto and the new Indonesian Military (TNI) spokesman Maj. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin.

Also in the day, the National Police announced that it, like the TNI, rejected the inquiry and asserted that it would not allow its officers to appear for questioning in connection with the incidents.

The inquiry's secretary, Usman Hamid, deplored the resistance of both the military and police, saying it would discourage efforts to unravel the cases and provide justice for the people.

"All this debate on the articles of the law and the weaknesses of the existing laws should not delay this process, because it means a betrayal of justice," he remarked.

Lawyers representing retired and active military officers have ordered the House to move against the Komnas HAM to stop an inquiry into the three high-profile incidents.

Head of the Indonesian Military's legal affairs department, Maj. Gen. Timor Manurung said his team would file a complaint with the House for all steps taken by the inquiry against his clients, which he described as an "assault".

"We call on the House as the controlling body of all state apparatuses, including Komnas HAM, to put a halt to the inquiry," Timor said on the sidelines of a seminar on the human rights tribunal.

The letter would be sent next week, Timor said, in which TNI would request the House to grill Komnas HAM members in connection with the inquiry into the three incidents.

The inquiry has summoned dozens of police and military officers who were in charge when the shootings took place for questioning, but only one of them turned up.

Timor said TNI took issue with the legal authority of some Komnas Ham members, saying not all of them were chosen by the House of Representatives -- which has a large Military faction within the body -- as stipulated by Law No. 39/1999 on Komnas HAM.

"For that reason, Komnas HAM should not be doing any of this, especially issuing subpoenas," he said.

Last month, the Central Jakarta District Court seemingly put to an end the controversy over the legitimacy of the rights commission, claiming that KPP indeed had legal authority, including subpoena powers. But the military remains defiant.

Rallies for and against the inquiry have taken place recently.