Kontras objects to military courts

JAKARTA (JP): Military personnel allegedly involved in the bloody Trisakti and Semanggi incidents should be tried by ad hoc judges rather than a military tribunal, activists said on Friday.

The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) and the Humanitarian Volunteer Team said a military tribunal could not be expected to be objective, as military tribunals tended to protect defendants.

They were commenting on Air Rear Marshal Graito Husodo's statement that a military court would begin hearing the Trisakti case on June 18. The same court will hear the Semanggi case later in the month.

The House of Representatives' special commission for the Trisakti and Semanggi cases held an internal meeting to discuss the issue on June 6. Only three of the 10 factions represented on the commission stated that right abuses had occurred during the incidents, according to Kontras secretary Usman Hamid.

The three factions were the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle faction, the National Awakening Party faction and the Love the Nation Democratic faction.

"We suspect that there must be a conspiracy between the House and the TNI (Indonesian Military) not to try the Trisakti and Semanggi cases through an ad hoc trial because the House will need the TNI's to support for its proposal for a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly," he said.

Usman also said Kontras doubted the Commission for Human Rights' independence to investigate violations during the Trisakti and Semanggi incidents. He said the investigation had remained stagnant since the rights body said it needed approval from the House to began the probe.

He said Law No. 26/2000 on human rights did not stipulate that an investigation of past rights abuses required the approval of the House.

Four students from Trisakti University were killed during a rally in May 1998 to demand then president Soeharto's resignation. Five people died in the Semanggi incident in September 1999, when security officers opened fire to disperse a demonstration over a security bill. (01)