RI breakup 'inevitable' if rights ignored

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The chances of Indonesia disintegrating will remain as long as the government does not develop a mechanism to fix the human rights violations of the past, a non-governmental organization (NGO) warned on Friday.

The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) said it was essential for the draft of the planned Commission on Truth and Reconciliation to become a bill if the government wanted to make progress recognizing human rights.

"When the draft was submitted to the House of Representatives, the government said it was important for national unity and would help the relatives of the victims (of human rights violations) to get compensation," Amiruddin from the institute said on Friday.

He said the lack of political will on the part of the government to improve human rights could provoke victims, who felt their rights continued to be ignored, to fight for separation from Indonesia.

The proposed Commission on Truth and Reconciliation would offer out-of-court settlements for human rights abuses that took place before 2000 -- the year Law No.26/2000 on the human rights tribunal was passed.

Ideas about the establishment of a commission surfaced in 1999. The House started discussing the draft in August last year and has established a special committee to deliberate it.

"The legislators (on the committee) postpone it all the time, sometimes only few (House members) show up in meetings about it. Now they're using the excuses of recess and general elections for not discussing the draft," Amiruddin said.

He said the delay would only burden the new legislature, creating a chance the draft would be put aside.

"The new legislature will have to start from zero and deliberating the bill will take longer time. They will have different views, orientations, and priorities.

"In addition to that, the delay will only make the early efforts by many people to push the draft into discussion become useless. These (submissions) will just end up as files in the House," he said.

Various NGOs, victims and their relatives, academics, politicians, and even military figures attended several hearings in the House about the issue from September to December last year.

No parties nor legislative candidates had brought up the issue of human rights on their campaigns, Amiruddin said.

"Even those, who are now involved in the discussion of the draft of the commission, don't touch the issue. This adds to our certainty that the current legislature is not going to pass it into a bill," Amiruddin said.

Their excuse the compensation would drain the state's budget were lame arguments, he said.

"The government has trillions of funds for the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency. They even issued release and discharge letters. Why didn't they insist on getting the money back? These legislators are basically just lazy and unsupportive," he said.