Indonesia told to promote reconciliation

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A local human rights activist and legal expert said during a seminar on Monday the government should emulate South Africa's experience in promoting reconciliation to enable Indonesia to emerge from its prolonged crisis.

Speakers at the seminar said neither government officials or politicians had yet taken the initiative to help solve the country's multidimensional crisis.

In a seminar titled Human Rights for Indonesia -- The South African Experience, activists and experts asserted the importance of establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, similar to the commission that became a pillar for upholding human rights in South Africa.

The commission, once established, would play a major role as an extra-judicial body with the task of uncovering the truth of past abuses of power and human rights violations.

"Reconciliation always begins with the confession of sins. After the confessions there must be forgiveness," Kusparmono Irsan, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights, said, adding that such a Truth and Reconciliation Commission must be established by law.

Sunaryati Hartono, a legal expert from the Office of the Ombudsman, said reconciliation was needed for the survival of the nation after years of conflict. She said people had become exhausted with arguing, fighting and being forced from their homes, and longed for peace and prosperity.

"It is unfortunate that the democratic successes of the reform movement have not ended peacefully.

"We must take the lead in steering us to reconciliation and peace," she said.

The question, however, is whether Indonesians are wiling to forgive past abuses for the greater cause? And should the perpetrators of human rights abuses be allowed to roam free?

In the experience of South Africa, the people had to pardon the past rights abusers in order to give the new democratic nation a chance for survival, Zonke Majodina of the South African Human Rights Protection Commission said.

This was made possible through the promotion of the goals of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and by the figures who led the reconciliation process.

"Of course there are people who just got away, such as the army generals and other top-ranking officials who committed brutal human rights violations .... Answers could not be found for everybody," Zonke Majodina told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the seminar.