Indictment weak: Experts

Indictment weak: Experts

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The failure of the human rights tribunal to bring justice to the
families of those killed in the 1984 Tanjung Priok incident and
the 1999 mayhem in East Timor is likely to affect the credibility
of the court, experts and activists say.

They also blamed on Sunday state prosecutors for failing to
press appropriate indictments against military personnel accused
of gross human rights violations in the two incidents.

"We can't deny the fact that the court is being used to serve
the interest of the military. This will more or less discourage
people to bring their cases to the court," Hikmahanto Juwana,
dean of the School of Law at the University of Indonesia, told
The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Enny Soeprapto, a member of the National Commission on Human
Rights (Komnas HAM), agreed with Hikmahanto and urged the public
to support the court, arguing the tribunal was the last resort
for human rights victims to seek justice.

Hikmahanto said the court must be maintained because its
failure to convict defendants in one or two cases wasn't enough
to justify the argument the court was no longer needed.

"It is a process of learning. We will ultimately achieve a
healthy process after several (more) cases are handled,"
Hikmahanto said.

While the Tanjung Priok rights tribunal sent to jail 12 low-
ranking military personnel implicated in the incident, it
acquitted two officers -- Maj. Gen. (ret) Pranowo and Maj. Gen.
Sriyanto, the current commander of the Army's Special Forces
(Kopassus).

In the East Timor trial, judges freed virtually all military
and police personnel implicated in the bloody violence
surrounding the independence referendum in August 1999 in East
Timor, which drove hundreds of thousands of East Timorese to flee
to West Timor.

The failures to punish officers implicated in the incidents
have raised fears the trials were used to whitewash high-ranking
military officers implicated in the incidents.

Hikmahanto and Enny blamed the prosecutors' unwillingness to
press appropriate indictments as the main reason why high-ranking
military officers walked free.

Hikmahanto said the prosecutors had wrongly applied the chain
of command principle to indict generals implicated in gross human
rights abuses.

"They used Article No. 42 of Law No. 26/2000 on responsibility
of command. Usually this article is the last one used to indict
human rights perpetrators because prosecutors have to prove the
generals held effective control of their subordinates,"
Hikmahanto said.

He said in the absence of effective control, which is often
the case in Indonesia, generals could only be linked
administratively to their subordinates.

Enny said Komnas HAM had done all it could to assemble
convincing evidence against the generals.

"We couldn't do anything after we submitted the case file to
the prosecutors. If the generals are free then there is something
wrong with the prosecutors' indictments," said Enny.

Attorney General's Office Human Rights Department director
Ketut Murtika, however, denied accusations prosecutors had made
mistakes indicting the generals.

Ketut said prosecutors had managed to punish one general, Maj.
Gen. (ret) Rudolf Butar Butar, the former North Jakarta Military
Commander, who received a 10-year jail sentence, along with many
of his subordinates.
Butar Butar was the only general indicted who was not
physically present at the time of the incident. He remains free
pending an appeal.

"We have proven that we can make the judges punish a general
in Butar Butar's case. It's just a matter of different
perceptions, between us and the judges, that allows other
generals to walk free, as we have the same evidence and witnesses
(in each case)," Ketut said.