Human rights still poor in 2004: PBHI
Human rights still poor in 2004: PBHI
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The country's human rights record remained poor in 2004, with
state-sponsored violence and the cycle of impunity still
persisting, a rights group says.
The Indonesian Legal Aid Institute Foundation (PBHI) said in
its annual report released on Tuesday that in most human rights
abuse cases, the state could be blamed for abetting if not
actually committing the crimes, and for failing to take enough
action to prevent them.
In the report, the PBHI found that human rights abuses
committed against civilians by state institutions were widespread
in conflict zones.
"In 2004, we found 111 cases of human rights abuses in
Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD), ranging from arbitrary arrest and
seizure to torture and kidnapping," the report said.
It registered four incidences of rights abuses in Papua, where
the Free Papua Organization (OPM) had been seeking independence
from Indonesia since the late 1960s.
The rights group based its figures on cases of human rights
violations in which the PBHI was involved in providing advocacy
and legal aid on behalf of the victims.
The report also highlighted the fact that despite the
establishment of a high-profile human rights tribunal, almost all
of the defendants walked free.
"The state has not done enough to seek legal redress against
the perpetrators of human rights violations and this has resulted
in impunity. It is very strange that there are so many victims of
rights abuses but no one is held accountable for them," the
report said.
The report highlighted the fact that most of the military
personnel who were implicated in human rights abuses during the
mayhem that followed a United Nations-sponsored ballot in East
Timor in 1999 were acquitted by an the rights tribunal.
The PBHI said that these acquittals were the result of
political intervention involving high-profile state officials.
Besides being responsible for human rights abuses, the PBHI
also found that the state was guilty of violating the basic
economic rights of its citizens.
It said that the use of eviction by administrations as a tool
to achieve quick and arbitrary solutions to land disputes was
widespread in 2004.
"The eviction of the students of SMP 56 in South Jakarta is
one among many immediate examples of the widespread use of
eviction. This case shows us that the government backed business
interests at the expense of the public interest," the report
said.
PBHI executive director Johnson Panjaitan also criticized the
country's current leadership.
"Respect for human rights was the main campaign theme of
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf
Kalla, but after almost three months in office we can see that
nothing has been done," Johnson said, adding that both figures
were partly responsible for human rights in the previous
administration. Susilo was coordinating minister for security and
political affairs while Kalla was involved in handling communal
conflicts around the country.
He said that neither Susilo nor Kalla had achieved anything of
note in their previous posts, and that nothing much in the way of
improvement could be expected from them.