Human rights group demands military personnel face trial
Human rights group demands military personnel face trial
JAKARTA (JP): A leading human rights group demanded on
Wednesday that military personnel allegedly involved in
atrocities in Aceh be tried in a human rights tribunal.
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence
(Kontras) said experience had proven that a court martial was not
independent and was used as a means to protect the military as an
institution.
"Court martials here have been the biggest obstacle to a
thorough investigation into human rights abuses, and so far it
has only been accentuating the impunity of military members,"
Kontras coordinator Munir told a media conference.
"We therefore call on the government to accelerate the
establishment of a human rights tribunal," Munir said.
Munir was responding on Tuesday to a recommendation from a
government-funded inquiry on Aceh that military personnel who
were found to be involved in violence in the troubled province
should be brought to a court martial.
Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen.
Wiranto proposed separately on Wednesday that the guilty military
personnel face a court martial.
Human rights activists have said that court martials had
portrayed charges against military personnel as mere procedural
mistakes.
They also said court martials were reluctant to point to a
hierarchy of command.
Munir said there should be no "political compromises" in
resolving past human rights abuses in troubled Aceh.
"The court must point to a hierarchy of command and disclose
who should be held responsible for giving the order for the
atrocities," Munir said.
He added that "any attempt to limit the responsibility by
scapegoating low- and middle-level officers" must be rejected.
"A series of military atrocities in Aceh were the result of a
political decision and they were not mere procedural errors.
Those who made this decision must be held accountable also,"
Munir said.
The establishment of a human rights tribunal is in accordance
with Article 104 of the Law on Human Rights, which was enacted in
September.
The article stipulates that a human rights tribunal should be
established to prosecute gross violations of human rights, which
include genocide, extrajudicial killings, torture, involuntarily
disappearances, slavery and systematic discrimination.
Minister of Law and Legislation Yusril Ihza Mahendra, however,
said on Wednesday that establishing a human rights tribunal would
still take some time.
He therefore said that it would be faster if the alleged
perpetrators were prosecuted in existing courts.
The inquiry commission, set up in June by the previous
government of B.J. Habibie, said on Tuesday it had uncovered
evidence that senior military officers, some of whom are still
serving, ordered many of the atrocities in Aceh.
The inquiry commission has completed dossiers on five major
cases of abuse dating back to 1996.
Munir criticized the commission's work, saying that its probe
should go back as far as 1989 and that senior figures in the
military should also be brought to court.
He cited Gen. Wiranto and three other military chiefs before
him, including former vice president Try Sutrisno.
The Indonesian Military has been accused of serious human
rights abuses during a decade of long military operations to
quell separatist movements in the province, which were lifted
last year.
Despite the end of the operations, the province has seen
continuous violence with more than 250 people killed since May.
Resentment against Jakarta and the military has been fueled by
dissatisfaction over the plundering of Aceh's rich natural
resources. (byg/04)