Lack of funds hampers Aceh rights abuse trial

JAKARTA (JP): The government said the repeated delay of the trial of a massacre in West Aceh last year was not only caused by procedural snafus but also by a lack of funds.

"Everybody is complaining about the lack of funds (to finance the trial)," State Minister of Human Rights Affairs Hasballah M. Saad told House of Representatives Commission I for defense, foreign and political affairs here on Monday.

"The Attorney General's Office said they needed some Rp 250 million excluding expenses to present witnesses and suspects in court, while the police said they needed at least two companies (of men) to safeguard the court, including the judges.

"So maybe we would need about Rp 400 million to Rp 500 million to open the Tengku Bantaqiah trial," Hasballah said, referring to the Islamic boarding school teacher who was killed along with his first wife and dozens of his students during an Army raid in the remote Beutong area, some 100 kilometers south of the North Aceh capital of Lhokseumawe, on July 23.

Local military officers maintain Bantaqiah and his students, believed to be allies of the separatist Free Aceh Movement, were killed in an exchange of gunfire.

Witnesses and a government-sanctioned inquiry said, however, the victims were executed by Army soldiers.

Hasballah said his ministry was asked to finance the trial, but the request was rejected because the ministry had "nothing" to give.

"Everyone submitted a proposal to the ministry and I eventually had to decide that we had to share the burden together. I also have appealed to the local government to partly finance the trial," Hasballah said.

"We all now realize how crucial the protection of human rights is, but it is highly ironic that the funds to protect and uphold human rights here are very limited," Hasballah said.

The trial was originally scheduled for January but has been rescheduled several times, partly due to the disappearance of key suspect Lt. Col. Sudjono.

Sudjono is one of 20 military personnel due to stand trial for the incident.

Hasballah said last week the trial, which was then scheduled to be held in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh in early March, would have to be postponed by at least another month due to incomplete dossiers on the suspects.

The dossiers were submitted to the Attorney General's Office on Feb. 22, but they were found to be incomplete and were returned to military investigators.

"The dossiers are now still in the hands of the (military) investigators and as soon as the documents are handed back to the Attorney General's Office, the case will be filed with the Banda Aceh District Court," Hasballah said.

When asked if the incomplete dossiers were a deliberate attempt to thwart the trial, Hasballah said: "I think the investigators have been working earnestly, but as human beings, there may be flaws. I don't want to speculate about whether the mistakes were intentional or not."

Human rights activists have expressed doubt about whether the trial will be able to unveil the mystery behind the killings because Sudjono, who was an intelligence chief at the Lhokseumawe-based Lilawangsa Military Command, has been missing since November last year.

Meanwhile in Banda Aceh, Muchlis Muchtar, a provincial councilor, doubted that the trial would have any positive results for Aceh.

"If Sudjono is not involved, there is no use holding a trial here as it will only sacrifice the lower ranking officers and we will never catch the big fish responsible," Muchlis said.

In another development, military and police personnel, in a joint operation in West Aceh on Sunday, captured four suspected rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).

The four, identified as Hamdan Sari 36, Kamidi 25, Hasan Basri 31, and M. Adnan 33, are being held at a local military office, West Aceh Military chief Lt. Col. Widhagdo S.W. said in Meulaboh on Monday.

Widhagdo also said two military personnel who were injured in a separate incident with GAM rebels on Sunday afternoon died in the hospital on Sunday evening.

The two soldiers, Pvt. Tapianus Napitupulu and Pvt. Ismail Sitepu, were attacked by rebels in Cot Pradi village, Jeuram subdistrict, West Aceh, Widhagdo said.

"The attackers escaped," he said. (50/edt/byg)