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.