Lawyers comission seeks to help victims

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Muhajir, 55, was busily sewing a green flag with a star in the middle for the local United Development Party (PPP) branch last week when dozens of young, yellow-clad Golkar supporters entered his yard.

Without warning, they began beating and kicking Muhajir and his son, David, before disappearing just as quickly as they had come.

Muhajir and David are the first clients of the Commission for Legal and Human Rights for Victims of the Election 97, which was set up by local lawyers two days before campaigning began on April 27. After just five days of campaigning, seven people had lodged complaints with the commission.

"We are actively seeking victims of campaign violence," said commission member Budi Hartono. "We're not sitting down and waiting for reports to come in. We go out there and seek those whose rights have been violated in this year's campaign and election."

The commission, funded by Yogyakarta Legal Aid, is open 24 hours a day. It has about 100 lawyers, volunteers and assistants in 18 regencies and municipalities in Yogyakarta and southern Central Java,

"The volunteers and paralegals have been trained to identify various forms of rights violations in the election. They have been briefed on issues of politics, law and human rights," Budi Hartono said. "They will feed the commission with information on the election."

Yogyakarta Legal Aid director Budi Santoso said the commission would use the Criminal Code to protect people against violations of their freedom in the election.

It will also fight cases using electoral law, including the law prohibiting threats, violence and bribes to stop people voting freely.

Besides fighting civil and criminal cases, the commission will publicize violations of people's political rights in the election.

"We are taking a legal course to seek a fair general election," he said.

The commission will also provide legal assistance to those accused of obstructing the campaign and election. "We also want them to have access to justice," Budi Santoso said.

The commission has four sections, dealing with complaints, investigations, litigation, and social, political and legal case studies. The sections are led by senior lawyers.

The commission is manned by top academics, including sociologist Loekman Soetrisno and political scientist Amien Rais.

"No matter who is hurt by the campaign, we'll give them legal assistance," Budi Santoso recently said.

Another group of senior lawyers in Yogyakarta have also started working for the campaign victims in the Advocacy Team for Victims of the Election (TAKEP).

Darwis Purba, who founded the organization, and his colleagues have promised that legal action will be taken against security personnel who treat supporters with undue violence.

The legal aid office has helped several snake-fruit farmers in Turi and Salam subdistricts collect on promises made by Golkar campaigners in the 1992 general election.

"Golkar promised to give them seedlings if they voted for Golkar. They did, and Golkar won in their areas, but the seedlings never appeared," Budi said.

The farmers lodged a complaint with the legal aid office. After six months, the office managed to get the farmers their seedlings.

But is the commission an ideal body to handle the adverse effects of campaigning and the election?

The commission was established partly because the controversial Independent Election Monitoring Committee has been ineffective. Its recent work includes an announcement of minor violations in the first weeks of campaigning.

The monitoring committee has not been able to help people whose political rights have been violated. Its Yogyakarta branch is manned by students who have been ineffective because of a lack of funding.

The branch held a training session for its volunteers recently, but only with the help of the PPP's and the Indonesian Democratic Party's (PDI) local branches.

"The training was held too late," said Suwandi Danusubroto, the secretary of local branch of PPP. Besides, several of the KIPP training sessions were forcibly dispersed by the security personnel.

It seems that without government support the monitoring committee won't be able to help supervise the election, especially because its activists lack experience.

Among the monitoring committee's patrons are senior journalist Goenawan Mohamad, Moslem scholar Nurcholish Madjid, political scientists Arbi Sanit and Arief Budiman. But only its secretary- general, Mulyana W. Kusumah, has vast legal experience after working for years at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation.

Unfortunately, Mulyana has been accused of having past communist links. This adds to the problems plaguing the committee as it struggles to find a role in election supervision.

But the monitoring committee has made great strides in educating the public about politics. And as Nurcholish Madjid once said, the monitoring committee and the commission are "an experiment in democracy". (38)