Megawati advised to 'avoid' rights trials
Megawati advised to 'avoid' rights trials
JAKARTA (JP): Observers have suggested that President Megawati
Soekarnoputri had better avoid efforts to bring to court past
human rights violation cases if she wants to stay in power until
2004.
Munir, from the National Commission for Missing Persons and
Victims of Violence (Kontras), said on Wednesday that efforts to
reopen such rights cases would only result in a confrontation
with the military, which had made a comeback into the political
arena.
"Analyzing what's happened in the past two years, it will not
be profitable for Megawati to bring up rights cases, especially
when there is fierce competition among politicians to gain the
military's support in maintaining their power.
"Any conflicts with the military will be a stumbling block for
a political party," he told a discussion of a book titled The
Military and the New Order Violence Politics, written by a team
of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), coordinated by
Ikrar Nusa Bakti.
Rights cases that should be left untouched or dropped
altogether include the attack against the headquarters of then
Megawati-led PDI (the Indonesian Democratic Party) in Central
Jakarta on July 27, 1996, and the Sept. 12, 1984 shooting
incident in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta.
Both incidents were blamed on the military that was believed
to have taken its orders from the past regime to intimidate
political opponents.
Megawati's think-tank expert Cornelis Lay, also a panelist in
the discussion, revealed that there was an impression that
Megawati's PDI Perjuangan (the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle) would not place a high priority on resolving the July
27 incident.
"The party has tended to partly come to terms with the past
cases," he said.
Munir added that should Megawati bring up the case while in
power, other political parties would accuse her of seizing the
opportunity to exact revenge.
Megawati has held power since being elected as Vice President
in 1999, as her party held the largest number of seats in the
legislature after the general election.
The police launched an investigation against the forced
takeover of the PDI headquarters that claimed at least five
lives, but it seems that the investigation got nowhere.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General's Office has also launched an
investigation into the 1984 clash at the Tanjung Priok Rawa Badak
Mosque, based on the inquiry by the National Commission on Human
Rights. No suspects have yet been named in the case. (bby)