One year on: Who poisoned Munir?

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