Review on Indonesia's human rights record (1)
Review on Indonesia's human rights record (1)
Indonesia has come under heavy international fire lately over its
human rights record. Columnist Irawan Abidin takes a look at the
issue. This is the first of two articles.
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's human rights record has come under
heavy fire from Amnesty International in recent weeks. In a report
entitled "Power and Impunity," the London-based human rights
organization levels some shocking charges at the Indonesian
government.
Amnesty accuses Indonesia of condoning "systematic barbarities on
a staggering scale," of being ready to "murder, torture and jail
its people at the slightest provocation" and of killing "hundreds
of thousands of civilians." It also admonishes certain Western
governments for the cooperative rather than confrontational stance
they have taken towards Indonesia.
These are serious allegations. And while Indonesia's human rights
record is far from perfect, anyone familiar with the country can
tell you that to stereotype the Indonesian government as
"criminal," the sum of the Amnesty report according to one
journalist, is more a case of hyperbole and politicking than an
objective appraisal of the actual situation.
To be sure, there is a tendency, particularly in politics, to
cast issues in stark black and white terms. But Amnesty's wholesale
"demonization" of Indonesia's political system -- indeed any such
indictment of a nation's institutions and officials -- should be
viewed with a critical eye and skepticism.
On the Amnesty International report, Australian Foreign Minister
Gareth Evans recently told parliament that, "it's not an objective
or measured or balanced analysis of the situation, either in
Indonesia overall or in East Timor in particular.
It is also the case that the report wholly obscures the
improvements which have unquestionably taken place in economic and
social rights -- whatever may be the case and whatever your
assessment may have been when you focus solely on civil and
political rights." Evans further stated that Amnesty's report was
essentially a campaign document, and that its treatment of the
facts produced very "misleading results".
There are two reasons why it is reasonable to believe that
Amnesty is merely waging a political campaign against Indonesia and
not really concerned about promoting human rights in the country.
The first is the timing of the reports release and the fanfare
that attended it. The releases were timed to coincide with the
final stages of Indonesia's preparations to host the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings last November. Like the APEC
meetings that took place in Seattle and on Blake Island the year
before, the APEC meetings in Indonesia last November were important
building blocks for a stronger multilateral trading system in the
region. Approximately 2,500 foreign journalists were on hand to
cover the event. At about the same time, Amnesty's chief spokesman
traveled to Bangkok, Wellington, Sydney and Tokyo to launch a
massive publicity campaign against Indonesia.
The second indication is that the Amnesty report runs counter to
the present approach of many Western countries to human rights
issues in Asia. In line with the United Nations Charter, the United
States and others have placed the promotion and protection of human
rights within the context of international cooperation.
Amnesty's defamatory report on Indonesia is clearly out of step
with this thinking. In many cases, such as the APEC meeting in
Indonesia, questions of human rights have been separated from
issues of economic and development cooperation. And there are good
reasons why a policy of cooperation, rather than one of
confrontation, is likely to be successful in improving human rights
in Asia.
Asian countries, too, recognize the universal validity of basic
human rights and fundamental freedoms. In Indonesia, as is the case
in many developing countries, the rights of the individual are
balanced by the rights of the community -- in fact the welfare of
the community often takes precedence over the desires of any single
individual or group.
We also share a strong belief that the most fundamental of human
rights -- the right to be free, includes not only the right to
political freedom but also the right to be free from want,
ignorance, social injustice and economic backwardness. There are
cultural, historical and practical reasons why the concepts of
basic freedoms have evolved differently in Asia than in the West,
a fact which, although little appreciated in the past, is today
gaining broader recognition.
In this context, Amnesty's use of high-profile publicity tactics
to promote human rights in Indonesia seems all the more anomalous
and puzzling. As recent history clearly shows, such efforts
actually ill-serve the cause of human rights in Asia.
The brunt of the Amnesty campaign targets Indonesia's policies
towards East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, now the 27th
province in Indonesia. In 1975, in the midst of the colony's bloody
civil war, Portugal abandoned East Timor, leaving it in what many
experts have called a pitiful state. A year later, the people of
the East Timor, in their first exercise of democratic rights and
self-determination, duly elected a representative assembly and
chose integration into Indonesia. Although it has been the subject
of some international debate, the province's status as part of
Indonesia is today recognized as a matter of fact by many
countries.
Integration with Indonesia has restored order and stability to
the region and enabled the benefits of development to vastly
improve the quality of life for thousands of East Timorese
citizens. To provide not only for basic human needs but also to lay
a foundation for future development, Indonesia has invested six
times as many resources on a per capita basis in East Timor than in
any of its other provinces. The result has been increasing social
progress and growth: whereas 10 percent of the population was
literate at the end of Portuguese rule, 70 percent of East Timorese
can read today; since 1990, the province has boasted one of the
highest average regional gross domestic products (GDP) growth rates
-- 9.8 percent.
Despite this large measure of peace and progress, some bitter
divisions remain: a small fraction of East Timor's population
remains opposed to Indonesian rule; a dwindling band of guerrillas
continues to create disturbances in the province; and occasional
public demonstrations staged by small groups advocating separatism
have been carried out in Dili, the capital, and other parts of the
region.
At times this has led to confrontations with military and police
units. There have been cases where the response has been excessive.
Certainly, the killing of demonstrators in Dili in November 1991
was regrettable and tragic. The highest levels of government,
including President Soeharto, promptly condemned the bloodshed and,
after due process, those responsible for it, including military
officers and enlisted men, were severely punished. The government
has taken strict measures to ensure that such an incident does not
happen again. A case in point is the recent discharge and jailing
of two Indonesian soldiers found guilty by a military court of
improper conduct in East Timor. They were sentenced to serve terms
of two and two-and-a-half years respectively.