Mass rape

Mass rape

It was reported that the National Commission on Human Rights
has proposed the establishment of a "truth and reconciliation
commission to look into the Tanjung Priok riot..." (The Jakarta
Post, June 20). While any effort to correct past injustices
should be commended, in this case it only serves to highlight the
absolute failure of the commission to take any meaningful action
on behalf of the victims of rape and other forms of sexual abuse
which occurred during the riots of May 12-15.

Why the inaction? How is it possible that in the midst of the
reform fever which is sweeping the nation that possibly hundreds
of victims of brutal racially motivated rape are forced to cower
in their homes while their assailants are still free? Any talk of
human rights and democracy is nothing but sheer hypocrisy as long
as the gross injustices suffered by these women goes uncorrected.

Many have advanced the argument of "economic disparity" to
explain the targeting of the ethnic Chinese. Clearly the victims
of the riots were not conglomerates. In general, they were middle
class shopkeepers and any woman of Chinese descent unfortunate
enough to be out on the street at the time. Businessmen of all
nationalities and ethnic backgrounds know that under the former
regime, to do business was to inevitably be stained by collusion,
corruption, and nepotism, but how many government officials who
ran and profited from the system were targeted by rioters? How
many of the women and girls including school age children
inhumanly brutalized can be said to be responsible for the system
which has discriminated against them since birth?

There is only one word to describe the motivation of the
rioters in targeting the ethnic Chinese: racism. Suffering under
an unjust system does not give license for injustices to be
inflicted upon others because of the color of their skin and the
slant of their eyes. Rioters were reported to have said that they
were raping their victims because they were Chinese and non-
Moslem and none were reported to have said it was because of
economic disparity.

Mass rape was a weapon used in the former Yugoslavia as a
weapon of "ethnic cleansing" by all sides. Here, fortunately the
majority of the population doesn't have to worry about their home
being broken into, their wives, daughters, mothers or girlfriends
being gang raped before their eyes. But that shouldn't stop them
from condemning this heinous crime and urging that the National
Commission on Human Rights take immediate action to find those
responsible for the rapes. Mass rape which is sensationalized,
rationalized, belittled and finally forgotten makes a mockery of
human rights and any organization which claims to struggle for
its advancement.

JIWAY FRANCIS TUNG

Jakarta