Political trials acquire new meaning

Political trials acquire new meaning

The Indonesian public is in for a treat as the mass media
prepares to cover a series of prolonged political trials T. Mulya
Lubis says the trials are to serve as political education as
well.

JAKARTA (JP): The hearing of a lawsuit pitting Megawati
Soekarnoputri, the ousted leader of the tiny Indonesian
Democratic Party (PDI), against a number of top government
officials is now on.

Before long, we will also be watching a parade of trials of
the leaders of the unrecognized Indonesian Prosperous Labor Union
and the Democratic People's Party.

The government brought the leaders of these two organizations
to court based on the belief that they were the instigators
behind the July 27 riot. The riot, which took at least four
lives, was sparked by the forced takeover of the PDI headquarters
on the same day.

For at least one year, the mass media are expected to cover
the sessions. People from all walks of life -- civil and
military, old and young, including housewives -- will follow the
trials through newspapers and magazines.

In our plural society, the readership of printed media varies
strongly. For each one who criticizes a situation, there is
another who is in sympathy. For each one who is angered by
certain happenings, there is another who is only sad.

We do not know what impact a political trial has on the
defendants or on the society. What matters here is whether the
trial is fair and just, whether all articles on the due process
of law are respected or not, or whether the trial is only a
formality.

The public's attitude will largely be determined by how the
court proceeds with each trial, which basically should be free,
independent, impartial and law-and-justice oriented.

Also, it remains to be seen whether presumption of innocence
is being observed or not. The reason is that it seems almost all
political cases have ignored this principle, because nearly all
these cases have ended with penalties, while what are called
"political trials" are often no more than trying "differences of
opinion".

Do differences in opinion constitute a criminal violation
which could be threatened with subversion?

The terms "political case", "political trial", "political
crime" and "political detainee" are not known in the legal world.
Some judges have openly rejected the use of these terms. However,
because the cases are political in nature, the terms stick.

These political cases are usually connected with the
stipulations of the subversion law and those of the penal code
connected with violations of public order and defamation of the
President.

These court debates often constitute a political process which
can be seen as a process of political education, especially if
all documents of the case are collected, bound and studied. The
case will at least serve as footnotes in history. Sometime in the
future, the documentation will be read and reviewed, and because
political cases are also the domain of historians, the evaluation
of historians will give a meaning to these cases.

It is not our business now to deal with them, and it is indeed
not the time yet. History must be viewed through a clear glass
and without bias. It means that contemporary history is business
of the future because it is not possible for the actors of
history to write their own histories.

Consequently, each political case has a value of its own
because it will allow the historian to evaluate the course of
history. However, we need to realize that the political function
of each political case is its political education value.

On one side, a political case is a tool of legitimation of the
government policy. On the other, it amounts to a political
opposition or dissension, or at least it becomes part of the
efforts toward political correction or reform.

A good example is the trial of Sukarno at the colonial court
in Bandung in 1930, in which he pronounced his famous defense
statement "Indonesia accuses", which eventually became an
important political reference in the independence movement. From
the aspect of human rights, we noted that rhetoric on human
rights began to find expression in this country and contributed
to a great extent to the discourse of human rights.

Turning to the Tempo magazine case, in which a High Court
decision in its disfavor was handed down recently, a similar
analysis can be made. The authorities' view of the jurisprudence
of the case is proof that the existence of the SIUPP (press
publication license) is legal, but the press community saw the
case as an effort to question the legality of the license. The
case undoubtedly has an important meaning in Indonesia's press
history.

This article does not attempt to equate the political cases
now being heard with that of Sukarno in 1930. But the potential
for political education is present in every political case in
each period of time. Especially in this telecommunications era,
because our media are not limited any longer to newspapers,
magazines, radio and television. News may now pop up from e-mail
and without any censorship.

The authorities, however powerful, will not be able to handle
the ingenuity of technology, which will make censorship and
repression not very useful. In this case, political cases will
apparently have a new tool which will expand the scope of the
objectives of political education. That is today's reality.

The writer is chairman of the Manila-based Regional Council of
Human Rights in Asia.