One year on: Who poisoned Munir?
Harry Bhaskara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
One of life's ironies is the incongruity between what a man works for and what he gets. Munir fought for justice throughout his life, yet, almost a year after his death, his killers have not been found.
As the news spotlight turns to Aceh with its renewed hope for peace after three decades of violence, one great friend of the Acehnese has long gone. Munir Thalib Said, who was poisoned aboard an airplane on his way to Amsterdam on Sept. 7, 2004, had been a source of strength for many victims of human rights abuses during their times of difficulty.
"I am very sad. Nobody like Munir will fight for the fate of the Acehnese anymore," an Acehnese villager told The Jakarta Post two days after Munir's death.
Netherlands authorities found over 460 milligrams of arsenic or more than twice the lethal dose in his body.
"Even though he was Javanese, his fight for justice in Aceh far surpassed the efforts of most Achenese," said Syarifah Nurhayati.
It is commonly known that the Acehnese have a grudge against the Javanese whom they believe siphoned off the wealth of the resource-rich province.
A landmark peace deal was signed in Helsinki on Aug. 15 between representatives of the Indonesian government and members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). Even if peace materializes in Aceh, Munir will remain in the hearts of many Acehnese.
Munir, who died at the young age of 38, was the foremost, and most outspoken human rights campaigner of Aceh and many other hot spots in the country as well.
At the time of his death, people never imagined that one year later, barely any light would be shed on the case.
The murder has added to the list of unresolved cases of human rights abuses in the country, including the 1984 Tanjung Priok incident in Jakarta, the 1993 murder of labor activist Marsinah, the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, the Trisakti and the Semanggi student shootings in Jakarta in 1998 and 1999, and the mysterious death in 2001 of former chief justice Baharuddin Lopa as he disembarked from a plane in Saudi Arabia.
Munir not only fought against impunity for human rights abuses in Aceh, but also in East Timor -- until it seceded from Indonesia in 1999 -- and Papua in the easternmost part of the country.
His work embraced virtually the full spectrum of human rights concerns in Indonesia, from abuses by the military and police to attacks on labor activists. During the final months of Soeharto's reign in 1998 he took up the cause of 24 activists who had disappeared in suspicious circumstances. Eleven of them were later released, the rest have not been accounted for until this day.
Munir was also active in seeking a solution to the sectarian conflicts in Maluku. In 1999 he became a key member of the Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations (KPP-HAM) whose initial findings made it possible for Indonesia to defer international pressure to face the international tribunal for its human rights abuses in East Timor.
Weeks before he left for the Netherlands, he confided to a friend that he had been exhausted by the endless demands on his energy that came with endless rights violations and that he was looking forward to a rest in the Netherlands.
With a scholarship under his belt, Munir had wanted to continue his human rights studies at Utrecht University. On that fateful day Munir boarded a Garuda Indonesia airplane bound for Amsterdam from Jakarta with a stopover in Singapore.
He fell sick three hours after the plane left Singapore and vomited violently. He was then asked to move to a seat besides a medical doctor. Munir died in agony in his final moments two hours before he landed in Amsterdam. Munir is survived by his wife Suciwati and his two school-age children.
This month, a Jakarta district court is trying a Garuda pilot charged with the murder but the pilot's lawyer says he believes Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto did not work alone. A government- sanctioned fact finding team found that Pollycarpus had made several phone calls to officials from the state intelligence agency (BIN) prior to the murder. The team submitted its final report to the government in June but it has not been made public.
His family terrorized
Two days after Munir's death, his family in Malang received a disturbing letter "congratulating" them for Munir's death, branding him a traitor and hoping that the spirits of national heroes would pardon him.
It is a sad episode when a defender of violence becomes a victim of violence but sadder still is to learn that instead of finding justice, the surviving members of his family have been threatened.
Two months later, Suciwati received a package of mutilated chicken carcasses with a note saying: "Don't link Munir's death with the TNI. Want to end up like this?" TNI is the acronym for the Indonesian Military. The military has denied sending the package.
"Who in Indonesia can feel safe? We can be hurt anywhere and by any means without the state protecting us at all," she told the Post when asked whether or not she lived in fear following the threat on her life in November.
Facing threats and intimidation is nothing new for Suciwati. Since the beginning of her activities as a labor and women's rights activist until the death of her husband, she has confronted violence and continues to do so.
Her attempt to uphold justice brought her to all corners, including a meeting with the President. It is heartbreaking to listen to her regular pleas on the radio for justice.
Obstacles to the investigation have been apparent from the start. Dutch prosecutors said they did not have the jurisdiction to investigate a crime committed aboard an Indonesian airplane. At times, the obstacles edged on absurdity, such as when a team of police was sent to the Netherlands after the murder but none of the team members could speak Dutch or English.
The team was sent to obtain the original copy of Munir's autopsy results, which is a requirement under Indonesian law for any investigation. When the results were finally obtained, the police announced that they wanted to perform another autopsy on Munir. This did not materialize but Suciwati only received the autopsy report two months later.
In November, the House of Representatives appeared reluctant to lend its support to a thorough probe of the murder of Munir. When it was at last ready to support it, the President issued decree no. 11 in December for the establishment of a government- sanctioned fact-finding team. But the decree did not include a mandate to force anyone implicated in wrongdoings to appear for questioning.
The most substantial revelation came in June 2005 when the fact-finding team announced that it had found documents setting out methods and plans to kill Munir.
The first method was to kill Munir while in a car, presumably through a road accident. The second method was through black magic by employing the services of a witch doctor or dukun. The third plan was to poison Munir in his office through his food. All three plans failed.
"Let the public conclude for themselves who should be held responsible for the murder of Munir because law enforcers appear unable to bring untouchables from a feared intelligence agency to justice," a member of the team, Asmara Nababan, told the Post in July.
The team said it had been denied access to BIN despite a presidential order to the agency and the National Police to cooperate with them.
Pollycarpus was the initial and main suspect in the case and officials from Garuda Indonesia or BIN appeared to be inaccessible. The team's summonses to BIN officials were ignored.
Instead of answering the summonses, former BIN chief A.M. Hendropriyono, who headed BIN at the time of Munir's murder, invited the team members to his office. The members turned down the invitation.
In May 2005, the four-star Army general reported two of the team members to the police for alleged defamation.
The police did succeed in questioning Hendropriyono on June 11 but there was no official announcement made about the questioning. Only three suspects were named by the police, Pollycarpus and two Garuda flight attendants.
"I never ordered the murder. If it is the work of the institution, I should know. (But) if it is the work of individuals at BIN, then let the legal process proceed," Hendropriyono told the Post in June.
Munir Courage Award
Munir was not only known in Indonesia. His bravery and persistency gained him international recognition in his short life time.
This year, a new award will be established in honor of Munir's work. Called the Munir Courage Award it is offered to a human rights activists who is exemplary in fighting against government abuses of human rights. The award will be presented in December.
Suciwati said, the end of the struggle in defending human rights was not when an award was presented, but when freedom from abuse and violations was finally achieved.
"Some people may not see the purpose of what we're fighting for now, but I truly believe that they will see it one day. This is all for our children, who will live in a civilization where human rights are respected," she said during the promulgation of the award in December.
Munir's murder came only a month before Army General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was installed as the sixth Indonesian President and the first to be directly elected. Although authoritarianism gave way to democracy in 1998, the habit of stifling critics seems to have stayed.
The mystery surrounding Munir's death is not a good omen for the new government, which has vowed to uphold the rule of law.
Part of the stumbling block may lie in culture. Both the police and even the President appear reluctant to face the kind of resistance posed by their seniors at BIN, although unveiling the mystery will work in favor of the credibility of Susilo's government.
Munir closely personified those freedom fighters who preceded him by 60 years. They fought with equal bravery and honesty. The freedom fighters certainly did not envisage a time when one of the nation's finest sons would be murdered aboard a flight of the country's national flag carrier. What they and Munir fought for was to bring this nation closer to the civilized world.
As Suciwati once told the Post: "Human rights is not something from the West, it is attached to every individual. I can't express much about these things but surely a nation that wants to progress should be one that respects the rights of its citizens."
Who is Munir?
1989 Worked with the Legal Aid Institute in Surabaya 1996 Moved to the Legal Aid Institute in Jakarta 1998 Co-founded the Commission for Missing Persons and
Victims of Violence (Kontras) 1999 Member of the Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights
Violations in East Timor (KPP-HAM) set up by the
National Human Rights Commission 2002 Co-founded human rights group Imparsial
Awards won by Munir
1998 The Yap Thiam Hien human-rights prize. 1998 Man of the Year by the leading Indonesian Muslim periodical
Ummat. 2000 Named one of "20 young Asian leaders for the new
millennium" by Asia Week 2000 The Right Livelihood Award