Komnas HAM sluggish in responding to major cases

Komnas HAM sluggish in responding to major cases

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Efforts to break the circle of impunity in the country hit a
snag on Thursday as the National Commission on Human Rights
(Komnas HAM) further delayed the announcement of its response to
an inquiry of three high profile violent incidents in Jakarta a
few years ago.

During a plenary meeting presided over by chairman Djoko
Soegianto, the commission decided to postpone the hearing until
April 22 to assess the results of the inquiry.

"We need extra time to determine whether the report is
substantial enough to prove that gross human rights violations
took place in the 1998 and 1999 incidents," Komnas HAM secretary-
general Asmara Nababan said.

The commission also decided to set up an internal team to
follow up the inquiry should the upcoming meeting find that the
inquiry's report is inconclusive or incomplete.

Asmara said the team would be mandated to exercise Komnas
HAM's subpoena rights to resummon a number of military and police
officers, including former Indonesia Military chief Gen. (ret)
Wiranto, who has rejected the existence of the inquiry saying
that both Komnas HAM and its inquiry team are unlawful.

The military and police institutions have affirmed that they
will file an objection with the court should the commission
enforce the subpoena, which obviously will delay the
investigation.

Asmara said the commission members expected that the inquiry
would succeed in providing evidence that the killing of dozens of
people, including protesting students, could be categorized as a
crime against humanity.

"We have to make sure that the report's conclusion clearly
shows that there were systematic and widespread policies taken by
the government to harm the people and that there were attacks
against the masses before bringing the case to the state
investigators," he explained.

The absence of inquiry team leader Albert Hasibuan, who is
overseas, was another underlying cause of the delay, said Asmara.

The assessment of the report was initially scheduled to take
place on Tuesday but was then aborted because Djoko was sick,
although the regular meeting could still proceed since the floor
had reached the quorum.

Amid the controversy raised by the military and police
institutions over the tenure of the members of Komnas HAM which
should have expired last September according to a 1999 law on the
rights commission, the inquiry completed its report last month.
It recommends that the Attorney General's Office name 50 security
officers as suspects on charges of crimes against humanity.

The inquiry team found that "the killings took place with the
full involvement of the security officers who used their power,
as well as their weapons, in an excessive way for the sake of
certain political interests".

Many human rights activists said they believed the delay would
only pave the way for bargaining between related parties to stop
the legal process of the alleged human rights abuses.