May riot victims yearn for justice after five years

May riot victims yearn for justice after five years

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Five years is not enough to heal the wounds of the victims of the
May 13 and May 14 riots, which paralyzed the capital and other
cities and took more than 1,200 lives across the country, as no
one has been named a suspect nor has anyone been held responsible
for the tragedy.

Although the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM)
has investigated into the tragedy, has concluded that the state
had violated the people's rights and has declared that it would
bring the perpetrators to court, the victims are skeptical.

Santi Parhusip, who was sexually assaulted by a group of men
wearing long-sleeved shirts while trying to save her father's
shop in Perniagaan market, West Jakarta, from looters and fire,
said she was not optimistic that there would ever be a trial.

"We've seen three presidents in the last five years, but we
have never heard a formal apology made to the victims. Without
the political will of the government, Komnas HAM's work would
come to nothing," she said on Monday.

Santi, who now works for the Indonesian Justice Fellowship
(JFI), which advocates for the victims of violations by the
state, including the 1965 massacres, spoke at a discussion on
seeking justice for victims of the May riots.

The skepticism is not without reason. Although Komnas HAM has
yet to summon military officers in charge of security at that
time, the military's legal officials have already declared that
none of the officers would appear.

In the two-day nightmare -- which followed the shooting of
four Trisakti University students who were taking part in a
nationwide rally to demand the resignation of authoritarian ruler
Soeharto -- hundreds of shops, shopping centers and homes were
looted and set ablaze.

No state security officers were around to prevent the crimes,
except for those hired by business owners to guard their assets
before the rampage even started. This peculiar fact strengthened
the suspicions of many that the riots were part of a conspiracy
among those in power to quash the people's movement.

Soeharto eventually resigned on May 21 and was succeeded by
his vice president, B.J. Habibie.

The riots, which were fueled by anti-Chinese sentiment,
claimed a total of 1,217 lives, according to the Volunteer Team
for Humanity.

The tally was confirmed by a fact-finding team led by former
Komnas HAM deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman. The team also
discovered that at least 66 women, mostly of Chinese ethnicity,
were raped.

Although the team submitted the findings to Habibie's
administration, no measures were taken.

It was during the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in
South Africa that Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril
Ihza Mahendra admitted that the May riots was a violation of
human rights.

The same year, the House of Representatives halted its inquiry
into who should be held responsible in the Trisakti shootings,
arguing that the riots that ensued -- which also took place in
Medan and Surakarta -- were not connected to the incident.

The House later concluded that there was no case of human
rights violations in the Trisakti shootings or in two similar
incidents involving security forces shooting at student
demonstrators and civilians near the Semanggi cloverleaf on Nov.
13, 1998 and Sept. 24, 1999.