House slammed over selection of rights commission members

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja and Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Human rights activists have accused the House of Representatives of making political deals during the selection of members of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

The selections have raised fresh fears that only the perpetrators of human rights violations will be protected.

Ifdhal Kasim, from the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), said many of the newly elected members had neither the integrity nor the credibility to unravel rights abuses blamed on the Indonesian Military (TNI).

"The rights commission may turn into a more useless commission as some of the new members have bad track records in the investigation on rights abuses allegedly committed by the TNI in numerous regions in the past," he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

On Monday, the House of Representatives' Commission II on legal affairs picked 23 of 41 candidates proposed by an independent team to sit on the rights commission. The 1999 Law on the rights commission orders the House select 35 members.

Most of those selected are either little known or doubtful as they failed to deliver their mission and vision before the House's commission II which conducted the fit and proper test.

Hugely experienced and respected candidates, such as the coordinator of the Foundation of the Center for the Study of Human Rights (Yapusham), Todung Mulya Lubis, and humanist and agricultural expert H.S. Dillion, lost their places on the commission.

Many people believe that the two were scrapped because of their involvement in the Komnas HAM fact-finding team investigating the violence surrounding East Timor's vote for independence in 1999. The team listed a number of military officials who are currently being tried at the ad hoc Human Rights Tribunal in Jakarta.

Ifdhal said the military and the government were afraid the rights commission would backfire on them since it had the authority to investigate, a law-given privilege unique in the world.

"I suspect there is a 'political deal' to maintain the commission as a toothless body," he said.

Asked whether the new composition of Komnas HAM would be beneficial to the TNI, People's Consultative Assembly deputy speaker Lt. Gen. Agus Widjojo said: "The TNI never impedes the legal process conducted by the rights body's personnel."

He was speaking on Wednesday after a discussion following the launch of the translated version of Geoffrey Robertson QC's Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, published by the Norwegian Embassy, Komnas HAM and Solidamor.

Law expert Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, who led the independent team to select candidates proposed for Komnas HAM members, pointed out that the new composition had yet to represent the country's pluralism.

Elsam co-founder Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, an elected Komnas HAM members, told the discussion that the rights commission had lost its strength after the completion of their masterpiece inquiry on East Timor.

"Please, don't put high expectation on Komnas HAM. It was formed by the House and the government, and cannot be separated from political interests.

"The rights commission also depends on how well its partner is functioning, for example, the state prosecutors who follow up Komnas HAM inquiries. I cannot promise much, but I will do my best," Abdul Hakim told the discussion.

Many of the rights commission's inquiries have been abandoned or are yet to be prosecuted, including the shootings of East Jakarta's Tanjung Priok residents in Sept. 12, 1984 and the series of shootings of Jakarta students known as the Trisakti, Semanggi I and Semanggi II incidents in 1998 and 1999.