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)