Politicizing human rights

From Forum Keadilan

Amnesty International's letter in Forum Keadilan No.12/IV/1995 needs to be commented on as its contents show Amnesty's arrogant and one-sided stance with regard to the anti-Indonesian- government demonstration, both in Hanover and Dresden. According to Amnesty, the demonstration "was not intended to insult President Soeharto personally but had the objective of voicing human rights issues in Indonesia including East Timor."

From the statement it is very clear that Amnesty still separates East Timor from Indonesia. This is clearly a statement to sow seeds of division. We also know from the statement that the various human rights violations are seen by Amnesty from the political angle and not based on the pure values of human rights.

If not on account of "weighing the advantages against the drawbacks", why should Amnesty take so much pain to distinguish whether or not Sri Bintang participated in the demonstrations, whether or not he insulted the President, and whether there were other Indonesians present or only Germans.

Moreover, in responding to human rights violations, why did it take half a year? The preparation included providing funds for beer, of course. Amnesty need not be startled by Mr. Habibie's statement on the payment of DM 50 plus beer to the demonstrators who have no idea at all where Indonesia is, nor where East Timor is. Is it not a political engineering of human rights? Is this the trend nowadays?

If we were to justify the Amnesty-style human rights political engineering, why does Amnesty, in particular the Amnesty secretariat for Germany in Bonn, close its eyes and not take any action on the human rights violations that take place nearly every day, as they have for decades, against the Palestinian people by Israel's occupation? Does the Amnesty branch in Bonn still suffer from the historical trauma of being considered guilty if it does not defend the Jews? Again, is this the current trend?

We feel that Amnesty acted as if it knew everything, apart from whether or not Sri Bintang insulted President Soeharto in his lecture at the Technische Universitaet in Berlin (the lecture was made an issue of by the Indonesian authorities). We did not see any German nor Amnesty International present at the lecture. Or was there a German with brown skin?

ANZIKRIADI and

A. UWAIS M. ALATAS

Berlin, Germany