`RI fails to tackle prime rights issues'

`RI fails to tackle prime rights issues'

Agence France-Presse, Jakarta

The Indonesian government of President Megawati Soekarnoputri has restored some political stability but failed to address human rights abuses by the military and endemic corruption, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday in its annual report.

HRW also said human rights campaigners faced increased persecution especially in the rebellious provinces of Aceh and Papua.

"Despite restoring some political stability to Indonesia during its year and a half in office, the administration of President Megawati Soekarnoputri failed to deal with several major human rights challenges," the group said.

"These included continued violations of international human rights law by the country's military forces, pervasive corruption, separatist conflict in Aceh and Papua, religious violence in Maluku and Poso, and attacks on human rights defenders," it said.

The government made only half-hearted attempts to hold the military accountable for human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, the rights watchdog said.

So far only one army officer and two East Timorese civilians have been sentenced to jail while 10 members of the Indonesian security forces were acquitted by the court over the army-backed militia bloodshed before and after the territory broke away from Indonesia.

A civilian has also been acquitted.

"Most significantly, the prosecutors failed to reveal in court the role of the military and Indonesian officials in organizing and arming militia groups and in orchestrating the violence," the report said.

"The prosecutors' indictments were weak. They charged defendants with failure to act, rather than organizing and perpetrating atrocities."

Human Rights Watch said Indonesian courts and prosecutors showed little willingness to take on major corruption cases, citing the overturning of a three-year jail term for Central Bank governor Syahril Sabirin by the Supreme Court.

Sabirin was accused of misusing US$80 million of state funds in what was dubbed the Baligate scandal.

In September parliamentary speaker Akbar Tandjung was sentenced to three years in prison for misusing roughly $4 million in state funds but he has continued to hold his position while appealing.

Human Rights Watch said rights activists in Aceh and Papua faced increased violence and arrest.

It cited the sentencing of Aceh activist Faisal Saifuddin to one year in prison in January on charges of "spreading hatred." The charges were previously used by the autocratic Suharto government against critics and activists before his resignation in 1998.

"Indonesia continued to be a dangerous and difficult place for human rights defenders," it said.

Violence has continued in Poso and Ambon, the scene of fighting between Muslims and Christians, despite government- sponsored peace pacts in December 2001 and February last year.