Munir: Vanguard of reform

Munir: Vanguard of reform

Sidney Jones, Singapore

When I think of the people who had the most impact in bringing
about a democratic Indonesia, Munir would be up there near the
top. He was everything a human rights champion should be:
principled, tough, smart, funny, and fearless. He stood up to
people in power, he made them angry, he got threat after threat
after threat, and he never gave up.

Some accused Munir of blackening Indonesia's image abroad. But
he didn't -- he enhanced it. In the dying days of the Soeharto
government and the traumatic first years of the transition, a
common Western perception of Indonesia was of an authoritarian
state, riddled with corruption and plagued by violence, that
wasn't going to change.

But Munir personified a new generation, born in 1965, not
mired in the mindset of the 1970s. He had a clear vision of what
Indonesia should and could become, and no one was going to stop
him or anyone else from getting there.

Anyone who met Munir knew reform was possible. Not just
possible, that's too weak -- inevitable. There would be rule of
law. There would be accountability. There would be justice. Just
as he was convinced, when he cofounded the Commission for Missing
Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), that the activists who
disappeared would be found alive, and most were, he was also
convinced that the ordinary Indonesians deserved and could get a
much better government than they had. When you met Munir, any
negative stereotypes of Indonesia crumbled -- there was hope for
real change.

After the devastating violence in East Timor in 1999, the
Indonesian government at the time argued that it could do its own
investigation; there was no need for an international commission.

The world was skeptical, until the Commission of Inquiry into
Human Rights Violations (KPP-HAM), of which Munir was a key
member, produced a thorough, impartial report, far better and
more detailed than the UN's own effort -- then all the doubters
began to believe.

That the subsequent prosecutions didn't match the quality of
that report was no fault of Munir's. Whenever he was involved,
Indonesia's image abroad was positive, of a country that had
turned a corner and could try dispassionately to right past
wrongs.

I could never understand how someone so relentlessly subjected
to attacks, verbal and physical, could remain such an optimist.
He shrugged off the insinuations, innuendo, and downright lies
that were hurled at him. He was an activist in the best sense of
the word, doing things when other people just talked.

He got human rights monitoring posts set up in Aceh, he got
people on the ground in Maluku as soon as the violence broke out,
and he never forgot the families of the disappeared whose agony
never ends as long as the fate of their relatives remains
unknown.

Some people might have rested on their laurels, or moved into
a less stressful job after winning an honor as prestigious as the
Right Livelihood Award or being named Man of the Year by Ummat or
being cited as a "Young Leader for the Millennium in Asia" by
Asia Week magazine.

But Munir continued to argue for military reform and human
rights protections with passion, humor, and an absolute
conviction that he was right. The bombs in Malang, the attacks in
2002 and 2003 on the Kontras office didn't stop him in the
slightest, nor did his serious health problems. I wish we'd all
told him to slow down, but he wouldn't have paid attention
anyway.

Munir was a very close friend, someone with whom I worked
closely over the last six years. I can't imagine a world without
him. My heart goes out to his family -- and to Indonesia.

The writer is Director of the Southeast Asia Project of
International Crisis Group, Jakarta