Indonesia ratifies antibias convention

JAKARTA (JP): After 34 years of negligence, Indonesia ratified on Tuesday the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

In a plenary session here, the House of Representatives unanimously endorsed the bill on the ratification of the convention for President B.J. Habibie to sign into a new law.

The ratification requires the government to, among other things, scrap all its racial discriminatory policies, which mostly target Indonesian-Chinese rather than descents of other migrant groups.

To follow up on its implementation, Minister of Justice Muladi said a team would soon be assigned to evaluate all laws that might be affected by the ratification.

The team will comprise representatives of the justice ministry, foreign affairs ministry, Attorney General's Office, National Police, National Commission on Human Rights, NGOs and experts from universities, according to Muladi.

Laws to be evaluated by the team are the criminal laws, civil laws and administrative laws.

Muladi said all existing laws that went against the ratified convention would be abolished and new ones would be made accordingly.

"(Thus) the law (on the convention ratification) needs to be spelled out through several other laws," he said in his statement welcoming the ratification.

"So, it's not an exaggeration to say that here we state that the government is ready and remains committed to accountably enforce the (new) law," he added.

In his statement, Muladi highlighted how the House had critically made a "reservation" -- as allowed by Article 20 of the convention -- in its ratification of Article 22.

The latter article regulates settlement of disputes on the convention's interpretation and implementation through the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Muladi said the stance was taken simply because Indonesia has not yet recognized ICJ's "compulsory jurisdiction".

Also in his statement, Muladi said that besides being binding to the government, the ratification also would bind all members of the public to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

"It (the new law) upholds our positive law which, among other things, is accentuated in the Criminal Code's Article 156, 156a," he said.

The articles threaten anyone publicly spreading "enmity, hatred, derogatory remarks" against any Indonesian ethnic group with five years imprisonment.

All four factions of the House -- the United Development Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party, Golkar and the Armed Forces -- shared a common view on the criminal nature of all forms of racial discrimination in the country.

Chinese-Indonesians have repeatedly complained about rampant discriminatory practices that systematically treat them as second-class citizens.

Their identity cards (KTP) bear special codes, and careers in the military and bureaucracy are virtually closed to them.

The House factions were all united in hoping that the ratification would lay the foundation for promotion of equality for all. (aan)