Human Rights must be made official policy of RI govt

Indonesia is preparing for its first truth and reconciliation commission. Last week, an international conference on the subject included a speaker from Argentina, renowned for its "Nunca Mas" (Never Again) human rights movement. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Federico Villegas Beltran, the Director of Human Rights under Argentina's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who talked to The Jakarta Post and Suara Pembaruan daily.

Question: Speakers in the conference warned against high expectations of a truth and reconciliation commission. What's a feasible target for the commission?

Answer: Each country has its own way of dealing with its history, including past violations of human rights. The moment that Indonesia has now is an important democratic movement with a government that is willing to establish a truth commission. It's a momentum that needs to be considered a great dimension in Indonesia's history.

And it will be very important that civil society and the government work together in order to make the most out of the truth commission. One of the main things is to elect 21 members who are fully respected; by society and by the victims. So that whatever comes out of the report of the commission is credible and has a sound base, for learning about the history in order not to repeat it in the future.

How important is solving the past for a country?

I think it is essential. A famous thinker, Winston Churchill, said "The further you look in the past, the more you can see in the future."

That is probably easy to say, but there is no country that can build up the future without knowing where it is coming from. And that has been the case at least in Argentina. (Indonesia is) a very important country, the fourth most populous in the world; one of the main countries in Southeast Asia, with great cultural and religious diversity. So the meaning of Indonesia's process of democracy and human rights is something that will have an impact in the world in general.

What is Argentina's contribution to the human rights movement?

I think Argentina is a unique case because in the past, unfortunately, we were a country that was internationally famous and known for human rights but for bad reasons. Because under the last dictatorship the forced disappearances was the characteristic for which we were known. Actually, the working group of United Nations for disappearances was based on the Argentine case. After democracy was restored, the civil society was able to found the human rights movement with the judiciary and many politicians, that allowed us now to be well known in the world because of the good reason of human rights.

For example, the right to the truth, which is a separate human right, is now recognized internationally; it started with the work of the judges in Argentina trying to find out the truth.

How would you prevent such a thing from happening again?

There are three things; first, the example of the truth and reconciliation commission. Its work must be good, transparent, and it must be independent, in order to set an example. Second, the dissemination of its conclusion. If the work is good, and its people are respected, dissemination is important and each Indonesian should have that report at home.

Today, the report of the truth and reconciliation commission of Argentina is still regularly published and sold in bookstores, even though it was first published 20 years ago.

The third is education. Because the basis of systematic and massive violations of human rights is discrimination -- people violate others' rights because they decide there is something they don't like about the others. So the basic thing is how to promote the fight against discrimination for any reason, and against intolerance.

Argentina established its commission two years after the fall of its dictatorship; Indonesia will do it seven years after the end of the New Order. Have we lost the momentum?

If it took too long it was because the situation was complex and not that easy to establish. In Argentina, after we had democracy, the people were tired and ashamed of having a bad world image. After the commission was formed it published its report nine months later.

The impact from our bad image was a promotion to respect human rights, which then became a trademark of our country, thanks to the human rights movement and families of victims, who for 20 years pressured governments to respect human rights as a state policy -- which became one of the few policies in Argentina that have overcome all crises, either political or economic. What is most important is that governments may change, but they all know there is a solid basis that they must respect.

This is what you must realize in Indonesia, that with the commission you will have built a foundation and pillar for a human rights movement that will last long enough to make it a state policy. At least for Argentina that was most important.

And now you have good momentum in Indonesia. In practical terms, all obstacles will have to be resolved.